long-lost post

sorry friends, we have been remiss...more than a month without a post. life has been a bit crazy (and will be for the next two months)...but fun! much has happened since march -- visitors (sophia! leian! vicky!), big decisions, lots of birthdays, transition from freezing to less freezing to slightly warm weather -- i wore flip-flops outside for the first time since last october, total bliss.

have been in tokyo for two days for work (i may also have gone shopping)...it's so interesting, it feels as if there are almost as many people in the center of tokyo as there are in parts of beijing, and yet over here they all wait for stoplights. when it turns green, the enormous mass of people start moving into the intersection, with no cars or scooters or bikes threatening to run you down. by the time it's red, all pedestrians are magically back on the sidewalks and then the cars and scooters and bikes start moving. could not be more different from china. i have no fear of being run over here. or of public bathrooms.

more soon!

their boyfriend's back and they're gonna be in trouble...

for those who've been wondering where the chick and the duck have been...sorry, still don't know. we've been wondering these many wintery months too...whether they've been consumed or are simply resting in comfort in some warm apartment around here.

but a sure sign that spring is around the corner...their boyfriend's back! i started hearing random cockle-doodle-doos yesterday and coming home in the afternoon, ran into this dude. he's gotten quite a bit fatter since i last saw him. gives me hope for the chick and the duck...


i'm personally hoping for some chickies and ducklets to randomly appear sometime soon.

too legit to knit

i've been bopping around the apartment this morning (it's saturday) going "too legit...too legit to knit" he-ey heeeeey. okay, it was the tagline from a DailyCandy email about made-to-order knitwear which promptly got MC Hammer stuck in my head. it also began a very-temporary-oh-we-should-start-a-website thought to a few girls here who help encourage my tendency for sporadic knitting projects. alas these random ideas go as fast as they come, but at least now we're going to try and make legwarmers. i have a pair of purple ones i got at the clothing market here that i wear all the time. i think everyone should wear legwarmers, they're awesome, and not just for keeping out ridiculously cold chinar weather. even the NYTimes says so: Don't Worry, Aerobics Are Optional

happy birthday mama!

today (U.S. time) is mama lo's birthday! D and I caught her before going to bed last nite so we could wish her "shengri kuaile" and she was in a great mood, laughing and laughing...she said it was because she had just woken up and sang "happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to...mee-eeee, happy birthday to me" and it made her very happy. awesome.

she is on her own for her birthday in SD this year...we are in china, r&h working in norcal, and daddy won't be home until friday (he's had to travel a lot since taking the job in rochester, commuting across the country from SD so that mommy can keep living there). but every indication is she's having a rocking birthday...she told us she was going to do whatever she wanted all day, starting by going to a class at the gym, then going shopping and buying herself a cake (whatever kind she likes). again, so awesome.

we all did everything we could...video, gifts, treats...and of course lots of calls and skyping to show our love (daddy also wrote a long lo family email, in a way only he can, in honor of her birthday). but in the end, she was already happy. she doesn't mind being physically alone, because she knows she's really not. her loved ones are happy and healthy, and she is too. selfless mommies are the best. i mean, she's awesome.

since the four of us kids (R, H, D and me) could not be with her on her birthday, we made her a video. props to R&H for the editing...underneath their EECS & finance/accounting veneer, my brother and sisnlaw are budding creative geniuses.

A Nation of Pyros

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

or..."Happy Chinese New Year!"

The other night we went to celebrate at our friend's place on the 27th floor. We had a crazy view of the fireworks in our city district. Think U.S. 4th of July fireworks show times 100! No joke, from about 8pm-4:00am we saw, heard, and felt fireworks! A ton of them exploded yards from the windows we were looking out.

A few days before the 14th, little tents popped up everywhere selling the goods.

I took these pics from my friend's window on the 26th floor!! No zoom used

Naturally, my buddies and I wanted to join the action. Here are a few fireworks we set off. Unfortunately the pics didn't turn out quite as well. At the bottom you can see the building our friends are watching from.

Here's a picture I took before most of the real celebrations began.

The fireworks were so cheap. We bought boxes of 4 rockets for about 12 USD each. And everybody was (still is!) shooting them off. I've seen multiple grandmas showing the 10-year-olds how it's done. It's hilarious! As Cindy and I joke: It's a nation releasing its inner pyro! I guess they did invent gunpowder.

CNY = dirty coats

I took a couple sweaters and our wool coats (smelling of smoke + pollution + miscellaneous unknowns) to the cleaners yesterday, and after going through the marking of extra dirty spots, the taking of my information, and the informing of total price, cleaner guy says:
okay you can come pick them up on the 28th.
me: Um, that's 20 days from now.
guy: Yeah, we go on vacation starting tomorrow.
me (in my head): (Are you kidding me? You're closed for 20 days?)
me: Okay...can I have them back?

The slowdown for Chinese New Year has officially begun. People have been clearing out of our part of Beijing and heading home. The cashier girl at melon mart downstairs has been gone for almost a week, meaning I actually have to look up the weather instead of having her tell me if it's going to snow, or be extra cold. Our favorite fruit & veggie sellers downstairs have gone home meaning we've been banana-less for three days and are quickly running out of apples. Good thing we're going on vacation on Monday, we (okay I) might not survive without fruit. :)

thunder, no lightning...kaboom

just a few minutes ago we heard a thunderous earth-shaking crash. then lots and lots of sirens and alarms going off at once. the most likely conclusion being a really really big car crash in the crazy intersection outside. we can't really see anything from the window, hopefully it's okay...

i "got into" my first real "accident" here last week. i was in the backseat on my way to the airport when the car i was in hit the back of a taxi...lightly, but enough to make both cars stop and pull over. after a quick discussion, driver A pulled out a wallet and paid off driver B with a wad of cash. i didn't even see any damage. i guess it's just easier that way?

we've been surprised that we haven't seen more...other than the occasional bike on bike accident, or bike vs. deathcab (these tiny "taxis" that hold only two people) skirmish. D explains it as an unspoken traffic hierarchy...everyone knows that the bigger guy always wins, so pedestrians yield to bikes who yield to scooters who yield to larger scooters who yield to deathcabs who yield to taxis who yield to trucks who yield to buses...and so on and so forth. our motto is always DBTB (Don't Battle The Bus). it's safer that way...