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.