yup, it would serve me right.

On our way to a friend's house yesterday, M and I passed a little girl in the sunday class D and I teach. We stopped to say hi (and wave excitedly...she's 4), exchanged "happy new year" with her dad, then went along our way. M mentioned that she'd seen the pair in the courtyard before, and each time, the girl was always babbling along, with the Dad patiently going "uh-huh" every 15 seconds or so. this is also the state of things in class...she's our master tangent-er. she's adorable, don't get me wrong, but requires a lot of attention and must take an infinite amount of patience at home.

C: [laughing] "watch, this is what my daughter will be like..."
M: ["hehe"-ing mischievously] "it would serve you right :p...that was what you were like when you were a baby huh."
C: "mmm...yeah. i talked before i walked. or crawled. i think i was pretty much an immobile blabbing blob."

Oh dear. Hopefully, D's genes will help ameliorate some of this.

(p.s. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!)

charlie brown in chinar christmas tree

lacking the delicious piney smell, but thankful to have found our little tree.

david's in the background downloading christmas music (and whitney houston (?) and maxwell...i think he got sidetracked in the search for pop christmas albums...)

missing home a bit more than usual this week. happy thanksgiving!!

sickie face in chinar

the two of us are down for the count. i'm running a temp and hacking a lung, although slightly more conscious than D. D's got enough yellow mucous to be bottled. wondering if the pollution's getting to us. air qual hasn't been all that great lately...

the sky at 2pm. you'd think it'd be a lot brighter.

fish poop air and a new appreciation for trunk space

today, we decided to brave the weekend crowds and scooter to the local wal-mart (wo er ma). we were in need of some household necessities...and also curious as to whether they might have christmas stuff.

we also wanted to get a humidifier, because it's so ridiculously dry here in the winter (seriously...you forget to moisturize one time and you're sorry).
D got to the display first and yelled over the sea of carts and heads..."you want one with a fish in it?" 80% of the humidifiers on display either had some type of Disney/princess/little bear theme, or was in the shape of a cute animal with bear ears. and they had fish swimming around in the water. at first, the novelty was fun (and as a marketing gimmick, it works...people were buying them left and right)...until i started thinking about the fact that fish have to go poo. and the poo gets in the water. and then the water is spewed into the air of your home. so if you keep a fish in your humidifier, you're breathing fish poop air. ick. and the fact that, by design, the water in humidifiers gets used up (example below...the water's really low in this humidifier, so the fish has to stick to the bottom of the tank to stay alive). with so many humidifiers on display and only one salesperson, i'm sure more than one fish has met its death by humidifier-water-shortage. poor fishies.

anyways, turns out they did have christmas stuff (yay!)...albeit fake and slightly gaudy (boo). but we settled on a baby fake tree, ornaments and two stockings for our first christmas in chinar. doesn't compare to our real, delicious-smelling pine from home despot last year, but it'll do.

and then we realized that we had a lot of stuff...a baby tree, a bunch of new guest towels, a humidifier, paper towels and TP, assorted miscellaneous household goods, groceries...and a scooter in a pear tree. we debated for a few minutes whether i should just taxi home with most of it while david scootered, but then we got determined.

somehow, i'm not really sure how, the two of us got all THIS...

home on THIS...

good little scooter. needless to say, we have a new appreciation for cars with trunk space.

playing with our food...

we made a friend...well two...here that like to say "deeleecioursh" for fun when something is, you know, delicious. i've subconsciously picked it up as i tend to absorb random words other people use, and decided to dedicate a post to stuff here that we find deeleecioursh. this is also to remedy earlier posts in which we may have alluded to the fact that we're not loving the food...still true about northern chinese food (at least for me), but there's plenty of other good things here, and even better that we are learning we can (try to) make.

the top 5 things we would encourage you to eat should you come visit us...
(we reserve the right to alter this list as the seasons change and/or write new posts on this as we discover new things that are yummy)

• hot pot (huo guo) -- the split pot kind, half clear broth, half spicy. this is most definitely worth it, esp when the weather outside is shivery. meat, veggies, tofu, fresh shrimp balls...all piping hot and so yum it makes us hungry just thinking about it. you can have it healthy, or not so healthy, but all of it is cooked to order with as much sauce as you personally like. just don't go too crazy on the spicy side or you may regret it later

• korean bbq -- oh my, it's ridiculously cheap, and ridiculously good. you can pay well under ten bucks a person at a relatively "nice" place for so much food there isn't enough room on the table. i don't even eat that much meat, so if i'm raving you can only imagine. it comes with all different kinds of soup and bibimbap and side dishes...all the side dishes you want (as long as you're willing to keep asking the fu yu yuan for them)
  

• kao yu (baked fish...if you translate it directly...but that SO understates its deliciousness) at the xiao chir (little eats place) -- our friends took us to this place down the street where appearances are deceiving...it's that place that had the fake flowers in the pringle/lays can vases. but if you order right, it's so worth it. for kao yu, you get this large buffet-sized pan of whole fish roasted with hot spicy peppers and green onions and ginger and veggies. kept hot at your table with a little flame under the pan. yum.
  

• peking duck (beijing kao ya) -- this isn't my favorite, but it's a must eat in BJ. D likes it, but is waiting for visitors to eat it as he can get sick of it with too much frequency. i'd go along too, for fun. i like the yellow ducky outside..

• take out / delivery -- okay, this isn't just one thing, but a lot of little dinky places deliver here (as long as they're in the mood or not too busy...nothing's standard). we often order from a place called moonhouse that makes yummy sammiches and salad with a korean tinge. also this korean place where you can get a yummy beef rice dish and spicy hot yummy soup for 20-25 kuai apiece (like 3 bucks). even mcDonald's will deliver although i can't figure out why you would want them to. D disagrees on this one.
  

we've also been experimenting more in the kitchen, spurred on by necessity (having people over, cooking for small group, etc.) and with encouragement from our more experienced friends. by experimenting, it's really like...this doesn't exist/requires a really far trip to an import store/is really expensive in chinar...what do we substitute it with? or even better...how do you make it? it's kind of fun to learn that a cup of heavy whipping cream combined with 1-2 tbsp of vinegar turns into sour cream. or that it's possible to "make" onion soup mix. or that salad dressing requires pretty near perfect proportions to get it tasty (i crave Brianna's blush wine vinaigrette every other day, D misses his Hidden Valley Ranch). last week, M&J bought little pumpkins and experimented (successfully) with roasting them for punkin soup and punkin pancakes, both of which we got to enjoy as well. the things you'd never learn at home...

one of our friends here has been learning to make granola, and generously shared a baggie with me. hearing that it's possible to make with find-in-chinar ingredients, i started experimenting. burned the first batch, but here's the second...not something i'd sell, or that could even be labeled deeleecioursh...but just decent enough that D and M and J are willing to eat it...if only to be kind :p it's not bad if you have it with yogurt.

baby, it's cold outside...

on Sunday, after a relatively nice (yet cold) Saturday that ended in gross amounts of rain, we woke up to THIS outside our bedroom window...

helloooooo November 1st. we'd been told by friends that October and May are the best months in Beijing, weather-wise, and that typically things get cold pretty fast. we just weren't expecting it to be THIS fast. after getting over the fact that it was, in fact, snow...and sending a few AHHH IT'S SNOWING WE CAN'T SCOOTER IN THIS texts to J&M...we finally started getting ready to venture out. you'd think after growing up in Rochester I'd be used to this, but it's been awhile. California makes you soft.

the snow's now melted, but it's still pretty cold...and the heat doesn't come on in our apartments until nov 15. as with many things here, heat for the entire city is govt-controlled. so we've been bundled like crazy. we didn't buy our tin of hot chocolate a day too soon...

My Birthday

cc went a little nuts. Ok, she went a lot nuts... The day of we went bowling with J&M in the morning. Paid something like 3-4 USD for shoes and 3 games!

cc was throwing so many Strikes it was suprising she'd get so excited with each one. ;)

At night cc took me to "arguably the best steak house in Beijing." I blew it and forgot to take pics! sorry. It was tasty!! :)

That was Thursday. On Saturday, cc had organized flag-football and made dinner for friends.

Here's our friends' daughter with my sunglasses. pretty cute.

cc let her take some pics. (Note the height difference in the angle of the photo :)

J made a bacon-cake: pancakes with bacon, covered in homemade frosting with bacon bits sprinkled on top. :) Thanks J!

Here's cc's 4-layered cake with homemade frosting. This was probably the best cake I've ever had. There are oreos sprinkled on top.

An impromptu game of Loaded Questions

Thanks to all of you who sent b-day wishes! It was really fun hearing from you!

Conclusions: We're really blessed, and really thankful for the friends we have. And I have a good wifey. :)

dc

sports, puppies and IKEA

sorry, we've been lagging on the blogging. it's been a fast couple of weeks and we suddenly realized we'd broken our post-even-if-random rule. i was in HK for work, D had a bigger lecture to give, and we just finished a few days of raucous birthday celebrating for D.

some randomness since our last post...

last sunday, on our way out in the morning, we realized it might take us a bit longer than usual. because the beijing marathon was going past our apartment. literally. here's a shot of the runners. there were a bunch of dudes doublefisting it with chinese flags. pretty impressive. we had to do some circuitous maneuvering with the scooter (over pedestrian bridges, etc.) to get to service on time...sort of.

we finally got our passports back, with residence permits, after six weeks. after all the drama and delays -- including multiple visits to the entry exit bureau and having to have our real marriage license fedexed from the states -- we just walked in, paid, and picked them up. we were very very very thankful. literally just in time, as i was going to HK in two days.

J&M beijingdou organized a bunch of us to go watch the China Open...they strategically bought Men's Quarterfinals tix and we ended up getting to watch Nadal play Safin!! whoohooooooo. it was really fun, especially the random tennis ball dude and guys on stilts. buy one get one papa john's pizza slices. oh and the chinese cheerleaders performing near the entrance (oh mickey you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind...)

been making friends with the old homeless man with the puppies. he told me their names are doudou. both of them. i asked him how he tells them apart and he said they don't mind being the same...or something like that, i wasn't totally sure. they're such good puppies...they just sit under a tree and chill with him all day. i wonder what will happen when they get bigger.

with the weather getting colder, we made a trip to the local IKEA to get a comforter and other assorted necessities. D hates IKEA...not even the ice cream and hot dog (that is strangely white and gross-looking) at the end make it better. i think it's partly because local people treat it like an amusement park ("what do you want to do this saturday? let's go to IKEA and get some foreign food and hang out!!") so it's always ridiculously crowded. here are some folks chilling in a living room display

miss you guys. more later...

weekly roundup: the good, the bad, the confusing

it's been a pretty good week -- most of the country is on vacation through tomorrow (have been since the big national day celebration last thursday). there are mooncakes everywhere for mid-autumn festival (more later) and most people are hanging out. D is actually at a rock music festival with a friend as i type. i've had to work which has tethered me a bit more, but it hasn't been super intense, so good amount of play too.

THE GOOD...

- scooter: we finally caved and got an electric scooter on saturday. i was totally against it when we first came, convinced it was an accident on wheels. until we realized how useful they are, because it's totally annoying to have to walk/take a taxi/bus everywhere, especially just to get to the subway. not to mention the fact that it really doesn't go much faster than a normal bike (M pointed this out early on and I think it swayed me). we debated the merits of getting two bikes vs. a scooter, and realized that it was far more likely for bruise-prone me to get into an accident on my own riding a bike, vs. riding on the back of a scooter that D is driving. so we went with the scooter. it's navy blue. it looks kind of small when D is riding.

gotta admit...the scooter formations we can now do with other scooter people are pretty fun

- dumplings: we went over to our chinese friends' house for dumplings on monday. D is not a picky eater at all, but for some reason dumplings have always made him want to gag. so we were slightly nervous, but didn't want to say anything because they were really excited about sharing culture with us by teaching us to make dumplings. D warned me before we left that i might have to eat more than my usual share. so what's the good in all this? turns out D doesn't hate all dumplings. he actually liked these guys -- the filling was milder than usual, and they cooked them really well. i never knew this trick (or maybe some aunt told me about it when i was little and i forgot), but apparently you're supposed to boil water, then throw the dumplings in and let them come to a boil, then add a cup of cold water and let it come to a boil, then repeat with 2 more cups of water. this way the skin's texture is really good and they don't break. anyways, we had a good time and D ate a lot of dumplings.

- lots of game nites / hanging out - we're really enjoying people here

THE BAD...

- sad scooter rabbit: a mere three days into owning our scooter, someone jacked up the rearview mirrors while it was parked. one is missing and the other is hanging like a sad rabbit ear now. oh well...

- dtrain: i had massive stummick issues again last week...didn't leave the house for 3 days, was pretty much tethered to the bathroom. still don't know what it was, but am slowly realizing it's par for the course with living here, even having always been immune before. go figure. (totally fine now)

THE CONFUSING...

- mooncakes up the wazoo: as far as i can tell, no one really likes EATING these, especially the kind they make here (super dense) yet they sell in huge boxes and we've been given about a bajillion of them from friends, the university, the voiceover people. we have no idea what to do with them...a few of them are particularly hard and dense. some potential solutions: (1) give them to the old homeless man with the two puppies...maybe puppies like them, (2) play jenga, (3) prop up something, (4) feed the chick and the duck

- the one-sided gate monster: we have a double door to our apartment...one regular door, and a metal gate. we discovered this week that if you lock the metal gate from the outside, you can't get out from inside, even if you have a key to it. what the...??

if you can explain this, i'll be really impressed.

Today's Forecast: Rockets and Blue Skies

Yesterday was National Day for China. Sort of like our 4th of July, they celebrate the founding of the CPC with a big parade and firework shows here in Beijing. Yesterday was also the most beautiful weather we've had. Pretty crazy since the days leading up to the celebration were miserable. There was even lightning the night before - the only time cc and I have experienced it here. But like I said, the day itself was gorgeous.

Why? Because they "seeded" the weather! Check out the following article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/world/asia/01rain.html?scp=1&sq=weather%20Beijing&st=cse

Before the Olympics they seeded the clouds by shooting rockets.

This time around they used planes and lasers. They even had a contingency plan for fog.

I don't know what to make of it. :) Josh was telling me how Beijing had a 6-month drought following the Olympics.

the chick and the duck have a boyfriend!

i went out to pay for our internet and electricity at the bank today and found these guys playing in the side grass of our apartment complex on the way back. was surprised to find the chick and the duck have a male companion. in this shot, they don't seem so enamored by him, but you never know.

here's a close-up of the boy. rooster is quite pretty, actually. maybe even a little fat.

p.s. in case you missed it, a few posts ago, we introduced the chick and the duck that randomly hang out around our high-rise apartment building. we like them. i go looking for them on my way home sometimes...but then i found them eating garbage one day and was sad. i still haven't figured out where they live. what will happen to them when it gets cold? this is the first time i've seen them with food tupperwares. so i'm hopeful they have owners and don't eat garbage all the time. what do chicks and ducks eat? should i bring them bread?

The Great Hall

Cc and I got to go to the Great Hall of the People last night for a Foreign Experts Reception celebrating the 60th anniversary of the PRC. When I first got the text from my boss inviting us to go I totally dismissed it. I had been pinged to do a bunch of random things that week (without pay) and figured this was another thing like that. When I told cc about it, she felt the same. But when we told our friends, they were like "You don't get invited to go the Great Hall and NOT go!!" They said it's where the Chinese government welcomes high officials. (President Nixon, too). I had already missed the deadline to tell my boss we would like to go, but she called me again anyway.

It was pretty fun, and definitely the real deal! We heard the vice-premier of China speak, who - if everything happens as it should - will be the next president of China. After he finished (in Chinese) I leaned over and asked my boss how she liked it and she said not at all, that it was 'too political.'

It was good spending time bonding with my boss. She's a little older than we are, and cc and she are starting to gel. During dinner she was surprised that I knew the name for Kungpao Chicken in Chinese (which, btw, sounds basically the same as it does in English). I didn't bother to tell her it's everywhere in the Bay Area. ;)

The one really funny thing of the night was that I wasn't supposed to take pictures. Apparently I didn't get the memo that cameras aren't allowed in the hall. But the security guards didn't take it away when I passed through the check station - and yet they took cc's knitting needles! ...? :) I was taking pictures in the first main hallway when my boss came over and told me to put it away quickly, that I would get into real trouble. I did what I was told, but soon saw some other westerners taking pics. My boss gave in and the next thing I knew the dean and vice dean of my school were asking to "take advantage of my 'mistake.'" I just got done emailing them their pictures. :) Several minutes into the vice-premier's speech cc tapped my leg and told me not to "push my luck." I then realized how awkward it must have been that my arm had been raised like a periscope as I was video-taping.

Now the goods...

This is the main entrance to the hall.

This is a famous Chinese painting of mountains. Mao wrote the characters in the upper left.

illiterate and need to find the amazing hover tool

right about now, i'm kicking myself for not taking more than one year of simplified chinese in college. why...why?

on shorter trips, i used to kind of just force myself to ask for help reading stuff everywhere. it was a matter of saving time, and not too bad, because you were going home in a few weeks. but trying to live life here and having to ask people day after day gets tiring, especially when oh, 75% of the people you ask to help you read something look at you like you're stupid (or maybe kind of cute, in a dumb way) because you can speak perfectly fine, but are pretty much illiterate. if i'm trying to meet people, this is okay, but if i'm exhausted and just trying to find the right thing to order or buy or how to get home, it is not so fun. trying to decipher stuff at the grocery store generally means a shopping trip that takes 5 times as long as it normally should. forget doing it for everything on the restaurant menu.

it's also humbling (although kind of fun) to read with little ones who can read better than you. going with M to a nearby migrant community to hang out with the kids, I find that although i'm supposed to be reading to them, if the book is chinese, it's more likely that they are reading to me.

i know the long-term solution is just to learn more characters, and i'm trying (got a Chinese version of InStyle to learn characters from). but in the near-term i am on a quest to find a pinyin (romanization) hover tool. i did a minor editing job the other day, and their computer had this amazing tool where if you hover over the characters in a doc or online, it gives you the pinyin. it was so great. but being a little muddleheaded, i didn't look to see what program it was and have been googling to try and find one. does anyone have any idea where i can get a tool like this?

P.S. as a non-sequitor update, D's stomach is actually doing relatively okay (most days), but he is rapidly losing weight. he can't seem to get full here. feel free to throw bulking-up ideas our way.

little delights in a fend-for-yourself society

yesterday marked the beginning of our fourth week "living" here. overall, we're really thankful that we have quickly started to feel settled and at home in our place. we've met some great people and are living close to good friends. pretty close to the university where D teaches too.

but there are admittedly some days when I come home feeling a little bit like Chin(ar) just beat me up. be it the guy whose spit particles accidentally hit my leg as I'm walking along (we've taken to night-showering here), or the person at the copy shop that inexplicably says "nope, we can't do that" to everything I ask about (what kind of copy stuff DO you do then?), or the service person answering the phone at the internet company who pretends she's a machine so she doesn't have to deal with my problems (seriously...I'm not kidding). then there's feeling like I'm going to get run over every time I cross the street. or the weird anthem music that comes on around 3:30 every weekday afternoon and blares in our apartment from who knows where for a good half hour. when getting off the subway, D generally has to steer me from behind so I can actually make it through the throngs of people...it is truly a fend-for-yourself society. takes some getting used to and it's not always so easy to "do everything without complaining or arguing."

i'm realizing how thankful i am for the little delights that seem to come along right when I'm feeling a little weary. it doesn't take much, I'm much like a little kid in that sense. stuff like...

tart yogurt popsicles - just when i was really starting to miss tart froyo, accidentally stumbled upon these in the mart downstairs. not really the same thing, but still a surprising delight. a 2.5 kuai ($0.37) ice cream cone from McD will do the trick in a pinch as well.

beautiful bowls for 24 kuai ($3...total!!) -- we're still in the process of buying kitchen stuff, and our new friend took us to this random dish vendor in a nearby outdoor market. could not believe the prices for the beautiful stuff.

the 7 kuai milk foamer from Ikea - runs on battery. actually makes a decent latte at home considering you're paying maybe 1/20 what you would be paying at starbucks or other knock-off coffee shop

our little sun-balcony - my favorite nook in the apartment. doubles as a place to dry our clothes (no driers!) but D ingeniously put one of our random sofa pieces out there so it's perfect for sitting and having some quiet time away from everything


the chick and the duck - these guys just randomly hang out around our big high rise apartment complex. so weird and so happy all at the same time. they're having a conversation here, amidst the parked cars. i'm tempted to adopt them like Joey and Chandler, except they poop a lot and it would be gross.

Go Bears!!

Our slingbox is finally working. Who knows for how long, but we got to watch tonite! Bye bye Minnesota, it was nice playing with you.

First Days of Classes

I've just finished my first week of teaching. It turns out I'm teaching 425 students! Kind of nuts. I have 9 classes in which I'm teaching 18 hours. But the nice thing is I only have to come up with 2 lesson plans a week. I teach 4 freshmen classes and 5 sophomore classes. The material overlaps.

Hah, but that's just it! I just said "the material." That is a bit misleading. So when they were giving me my schedule (4 days before classes began), I was given these requirements: "teach the freshmen 'survival English' and the sophomores how to express their opinions." ...That's it. No curriculum. no textbook! And what makes it so daunting is that this university is the number one engineering school in China (and overall in the top 5), so no slacking off here. What's more, I've found that the students' English is really stinking good. :) I had no idea going in, but by the end of the first day with the sophomores I was describing the difference between subjectivity and objectivity and they already had the vocabulary for it! Should be an interesting semester... But I'm looking forward to it!

I'm sorry I didn't take any pictures of the first days, but let me just describe some things. I had them play a few games, one was a name game. They got in circles of about 15 and went around sharing their names in counter-clockwise order while repeating the names of those who came before them - a sort of memory game. The twist was, in addition to saying their name, they had to add a silly action. For example, the first person would say something like "Hi, my name is Timmy" then rub his belly and tap his head. The next person would say "This is Timmy (rub his belly and tap his head), my name is Jake" then put out a piece sign, etc down the line. One guy said his name, and for his action turned to face the wall and punched it HARD!! I happened be looking in that direction at the time, and it made a loud noise - had to have hurt! Everyone in his group was like "what the heck?!" and rolling with laughter. The guy's face turned red... I thought it appropriate to change his action to punching into his own hand. Didn't want the rest of his group punching the wall... That dude was hardcore. The other cool thing I discovered is that I can play movies in class pretty easily through a projector. I'm thinking of showing some "Friends" episodes and having them re-enact them. Something tells me this would be very entertaining. I'll try to take videos... :)

dc

a tale of 2 stummicks

we've gotten some emails wondering how D's stomach is doing. most of you know about D's infamously bad innards. on past trips over here, he's been known to carry around packs of pepto, downing them like candy to "coat" his insides against whatever pesky stuff might react and send him running for the bathroom at the most inopportune times.

in the past two weeks, D's definitely had a rumble or two and immodium's been called upon. but our new theory is it's not the water, it's not the street food. it's CHEESE. he's minorly lactose in the states, but not usually with cheese. for some reason, cheese in chin(ar) just does not agree with D's insides. his first major rumble was after a lunch at Mickey D's. second major rumble followed a dinner of pizza. the only meals with cheese we'd had since coming. chinese food seems to be fine. korean too. we've been testing the hypothesis by *trying to avoid cheese (D is sad), and making up for it by going for the street food instead (D is happy). seems to be working so far.

we can't figure it out...does anyone with medical knowledge care to weigh in?

in other stomach news, C's normally iron hard insides were shockingly the first to take a major hit. we won't go into the gory details, but she was running for the bathroom every hour on the hour for 36 hours. could have been a stomach bug, but we're wary of the western lunch had the afternoon prior to which the messiness commenced...all the signs of classic food poisoning.

lessons learned:

(1) eating street food is not bad for you. in fact it is quite glorious.

(2) cheese in china = bad news for D

(3) western food, even in a "nice" restaurant, can cause major vomiting

be wary of the western food.*

*note: McDonald's ice cream is an exception to this rule

Week 1: kind of similar, but oh so different

Our first week has been quite the adventure. It takes SO much more time and energy to take care of stuff here. Bank accounts, getting physicals, buying fruit, trying to decide whether to flush your toilet paper....nothing is quite the same.

Sometimes, from far away, americanized things kind of look like how you would expect them to back at home. But then you look a little closer and it's kind of messed up.

The local "Starbuks" was having an "Annivsary"

At a local eatery, nice flowers for the table from far away...are actually fakey flowers in a Lay's potato chip can.

Who needs Kinko's when you can make copies at a little ladder window thingy?

Anyways...

M&J picked us up from the airport. They made a sign, in case we got lost. Good thinking. We stayed with them the first few days and are crazy grateful for their help in getting settled. Also makes it feel a lot more like home.

Turns out M&J live in the same apartment complex we visited briefly when we were here in 2007. Of all the places they could have lived, it was in the 1/2 mile square radius of familiarity we had in the entire city. Crazy.

Street vendors are selling yams everywhere this time of year. On one of our first days, M went with us to help us run errands and picked one up for us to share. Yum.

The same day, we met J at his work to grab lunch together. Sadly the picture didn't come out so well, but it's kind of mysterious.

And a very large snail at a street vendor. That's my finger. and M's. No we didn't eat it.

Say hello when you have a chance, we *should have internet (and skype) up in a few days.

cc

sfo > yvr > pek (tomorrow!!!)

tomorrow at 4:45 am, we leave for sfo...D's parents, S&A, J&I, LZ are all taking us. it should be a fun party, feel free to join

it's been a jampacked few weeks (a serious understatement!!), packing up at our beloved PPP apartment, driving the 16-footer truck down to SD, hanging out with C's parents, hotpot and beach and golf, flying back up to norcal, hanging out with D's parents, sailing and hiking, last dinners and brunches and desserts with friends. all the while, D's been eating as many burritos as he can.

looking fwd to seeing J&M on the other end. we'll update with our new surroundings soon...
lots of love,
d&c

Last Day Top 10

In honor of my last day of work at Piperlime (*sniff*), stuff I will miss at Gap Inc:

10. Coworkers who run search ads against your name to prove that you Google yourself. 

9. You can un-press the elevator buttons at San Francisco HQ.  If you accidentally press 2 when you mean to press 3, just double click and the light goes off.  Genius.  Why are not all elevators like this?

8. Being surrounded by clothes and shoes all the time. In the hallways, sample closets, everywhere.  

7. The ridiculously hot coffee in the Gapeteria.  So hot that you can put tons of milk in it and it will still steam.  So satisfying.

6. Proximity to the Embarcadero.  The path to walk on.  The ferry building.  The water.  And the big arrow statue thing.  I'll miss that too.

5. Friends and Family (now "Give and Get").  It's so fun to share your employee discount with friends who love to shop.  Now I'll have to hope I can get one.  

4. Going home at a predictable time every day.  After a life of consulting, totally amazing.   

3. The employee discount.  You can't really beat 50% off at Banana Republic and Gap, especially when the merchandise is good.

2. Playing on Facebook was part of my job.  Seriously.

1. The people are fun.  

*****

cc

the countdown begins: stuff to savor before we go

Having been to Chin(ar) a few times before, we have a relatively good idea of what we'll be craving after we've been there for awhile. Here's a random list of stuff we are trying to savor now:

Lines
We totally take waiting in line for granted in the states.
People in Chin(ar) don't really use them. They have more of a push-shove-survival of the fittest tactic. I typically lose these battles. Therefore, I will miss lines.

Burritos (and cheese)

This is for D, as I don't eat too much of either. But he is already sad at the thought of no burritos in Chin(ar). I hope to post an entire blog of his burrito countdown as he eats his last, so this is just a teaser. But yes, D is going to miss burritos terribly.

Fresh Air
Oh, pollution. We've loved living a five minute walk from the water this past year, taking walks and running by it many times a week. I'm scared to think what trying to take a run in polluted air will be like. Good thing D's doctor prescribed him 2 inhalers (and he doesn't even have asthma). Goodbye fresh clean sea air, hellooooo Chin(ar) funk

Berkeley Bowl
Amazing fruit. So clean, so fresh fresh. I love this grocery store. Maybe even more than my first love, Wegmans (I know, Rochester people are falling off their chairs right now).

Tart Froyo

Fully Functioning Stummicks
nuff said

People
In the very specific sense, obviously, since there are 1.2 billion other ones over there that we hope to meet. But it is hard to leave loved ones over here.

***********

There are other, heavier things, that we may miss...significant events in the lives of people we love, our jobs, watching little ones we love grow. But those are too serious to blog about. Don't get us wrong, we're terribly excited, but in counting the costs, you start realizing what you're leaving behind. And how very thankful we are.

cc

Gearing Up for the Storm...Not Really...Sort of

The other day I heard cc saying that Beijing is on the same latitude as North Korea. I couldn't help myself so I Google-searched "Beijing temperature lows"

Here's what I found:

	Maximum	Minimum
Beijing weather in January	1°C / 34°F	-9°C / 16°F
Beijing weather in February	6°C / 43°F	-6°C / 21°

Note the 16 degree F, in January. That's pretty cold for someone who's lived in California all his life. Anyway, I made the mistake of letting cc see the temperatures over my shoulder. Her reaction: "And why again are we leaving the Bay Area for this?!" :)

A few days later Mountain Hardware was having its semi-annual warehouse sale, so we decided to go with a few of our friends to find some winter gear. And yeah... we went a little nuts. Check it out...

Here's the mound we bought:














(that's 2 down jackets, 1 double-layered gore-tex jacket, 2 fleeces, 4 shirts)

Here's the mound on cc:



















Next purchases: long underwear...

dc

We're Moving to China!

The rumors are true, we're leaving at the end of August. dc will be teaching English at a University. cc plans to get on the ground, then figure out what she's meant to do. (suggestions welcome :) The current plan is to stay for a year or two.

Although it's hard to say 'good-bye,' we're both really excited. It's something we've talked about doing since we were dating, but never knew when or how. And now that door after door has been opened for us to go, we feel if ever there was a time in our lives to do this, it's now!

We've set up this blog to chronicle our "adventure" and miscellaneous musings. More to come!

d&c