Recent Trip to Pagoda Park

For the most part, the weather has been pretty cold recently. We have not been making it out as much, especially because we have been working on getting the new apartment up to speed. We now have telephone and internet, and we are borrowing our friend's laptop until break. So we are up and running with new commentary and pictures.

We got a break from the cold weather the other day, which we used to go down to pagoda park. It was a great day, nice and cool in the morning and even slightly warm in the sun. Here are a few pictures from that day.

At the entrance of the park, there was a large bed of red and yellow flowers. It matched Dan's yellow sweatshirt, so we grabbed this pic. Dan still has some sweet potato on his face, as we ate sweet potatoes made in a trash can before entering the park. The highlight of the park, for the kids especially, was the playground. Here is Evie preparing the climb the ladder which accesses the slide. She went up and down the same place roughly 600 times.

Here is a shot into one of the tubes on the playground. Evelyn and Dan are on the other side, but all that you can probably notice is the slit in this kids pants. This is how children are potty-trained here, or, put another way, it is how they are not potty trained. Almost all of the young children have these slits in their pants. Sometimes, you will see a diaper on the baby, but the diaper is simply a pad, it does not wrap around and tie to the child's waist. Jane and I found this out when we tried to buy discount Chinese diapers. What we thought were full-blown diapers were simply these pads. We used them for Evelyn, putting them on the inside of underwear. She is so close to being potty-trained, she tells us when she needs to go, but she refuses to go on her training potty.

Diapers here are extremely expensive, as are all childrens' items. Jane wanted to buy a sippy-cup the other day, but they cost about $10-12. Our hope is to potty-train Evelyn, and soon thereafter hope that Etain will follow suit. Maybe Jiu Jie will help in this crusade as well.

Here is a good picture of Evelyn, Dan and Jane in front of the pagoda. For the most part, the air has been very hazy. However, on our one day off, it was very clear. There were tons of Chinese families touting their children around the park, taking semi-professional pictures of the little ones.

Here is Evie smelling some flowers in the park, and ripping a handful of them out of the ground.

Dan and Evelyn in front of the pagoda.

Evie in front of the pagoda:

A good shot of the pagoda alone:

At the park, there is one section where there are about 7 or so fish tanks full of different types of goldfish.

Sorry Etain fans. She slept the entire time that we were at the park. We did not want to wake her, so we tried to keep her completely secluded in the stroller. Otherwise, there would be tons of people trying to peek into the stroller to see her, eventually waking her up. As a result, we could not get a single picture of her.

Across the street from our new apartment complex is another complex in which many foreigners live. In that complex is a kindergarten, conducted fully in Chinese. It is very nicely run, with many of the teachers speaking conversational English. Two of Dan's friends go there, so we enrolled him there as well. Below is a picture of him on his first day of school at the new place. So far, he really enjoys it.

Sorry for the short and succinct writings. Tomorrow we hop on a night bus to Chingdao for a 4 day vacation. We will be sure to take plenty of pictures, and we will keep everyone informed.

Quick notes

Just a quick post while I am at work. I am looking out the window and I see 18 construction cranes. New stuff is going up everywhere. Entire buildings seem to get put up in a few months. The quality of construction does not quite compare to back home. On a walk near our house the other day, we walked next to a building that is just being finished. As we were walking by, the fencing that keeps people out of the site blew down. Inside were women in their 60s or so, hauling off the large construction waste. They hauled it off in wheelbarrows, which were then dumped into a cart which was pulled by a bicycle to the dump. This doesn't seem like the most efficient way to do it, but I guess there are enough people to do it, who will work around the clock for low pay, and so it is the preferred method. I may be wrong, but I think that the small waste, such as paper, nails, wood shavings, etc., just gets left behind and planted or paved over.

Also, on the construction site were clotheslines with the womens' clothes drying. Though there are plenty of washing machines, there are very few dryers; everyone hangs their clothes to dry. It takes quite a while now that the weather is getting colder. It is quite common to walk down the sidewalk or go into a restaurant, and right out front hanging will be the shop owner's underwear.

The weather is beginning to change, and it is starting to get a bit colder. Yesterday, our day off, was a great day though for jeans and a sweatshirt. It seems like the weather pretty much is the exact same, with the same seasons and all, as in St. Louis. I did not bring my winter coat, thinking I could make it through the semester. It appears that I will have to buy one here though to tide me over.

Jane and I went out the other night with a couple from Italy and a guy from Germany. We went to a Thai restaurant, where we had a private room. The food was good, but at one point, I ate something which I thought was a carrot shaving. It turns out that it was a pepper that was ridiculously hot; my mouth was numb for about 5 minutes. After I cooled off, we went to a dance club, where the most popular song was a very techno-dancy version of "Take Me Home, Country Roads", sung in English by a Chinese singer. It was pretty cool.

These are just a few random thoughts, I know.

Halloween

It has been extremely busy around here over the past few days. As I said earlier, we have been moving into a new apartment about 12 blocks away. All of our stuff is now in that apartment, and we are quite comfortable there. Except for a few trips using a car, I pretty much carried all of our stuff to the new place on my back. On one trip, I had a comforter and two pillows on my back sandwiched between me and an enormous backpack full of clothes. I was also pushing our double stroller, but inside the seats were our water cooler, water tank, and plastic bags full of food. Needless to say, I got a lot of stares from the locals. But it was all worth it. There are just a few more kinks to work through. First, we had to fix the hot water, but hopefully now we have that working. The new place also does not have a phone hooked up, but we have informed the landlord and we think she is taking care of this. We will provide the new phone number (via email) once it exists. Lastly, our new place does not have a computer or internet hookup. [I am actually sitting at the old apartment now working on the old computer]. Rather than lug the computer to the new place, we decided that we will just buy a laptop when we come home in January (electronics are actually cheaper in the U.S.). I will still try to get to posting as soon and as much as possible, though.

Here are some pictures from the past week or two. First, next weekend is when we have our traditional 3 day weekend. Our schedules have been changed a bit, and now I do not work on that last afternoon, so I actually have a 3.5 day weekend. Jane and I also heard through the grapevine that we will not have to teach on the following Monday or Tuesday, so we are going to basically have 5 days off. Resultantly, we are going to take a trip. There are two front runner locations, right now. One is Chingdao, a small beachfront town that use to be a German Colony (and the place where Tsing-Tao Beer is made); or Daishan, a beachy island that is scenic and laid back, accessible by an overnight ferryboat. We have heard good things about each, we now just need to make up our minds. Here is Evelyn (the true author of this blog), doing some research as to where we should go. Here are Evelyn and Dan in the old apartment, most likely watching Annie. I remembered my younger sister Kathleen liking Annie as a kid, so I got it at a local dvd store. In the past two weeks, we have probably watched it 75 times. The songs are, regrettably, permanently etched in my brain. (It actually is a good movie, though). Evelyn does a hilarious impression of Annie when she is going to fight some boys for tying cans on her dog's tail. Our family must remember to ask her to do it when we come home to visit.

We headed downtown the other week with our day off. Here is Dan, waiting for the bus, practicing some tai-chi moves.

Here is Dan later that day climbing one of the statues in the park. As you can see, he has taken off all of his winter gear that he was wearing earlier. The mornings are nice and cool, but mid-day the temperature has been perfect. I would be happy with this temperature all year long, but I do not think it will last more than a few more weeks. (I may be wrong, but I always thought that I heard people say that "Indian Summers" would be followed by harsh winters. Here, they do not have Indian Summers, but they did have a "Tiger Autumn", which means winter will be bad. It should be no surprise to us Missourians, though, who are use to seeing the weather at its worst.)

Here is a shot of Etain after a bath. Jane thought she was looking especially angelic, so she decided to take a photo. Unfortunately, she says, I had to be in the frame as well.

A big event over the past few days was Halloween. The Chinese do not celebrate this holiday, so it was up to the foreigners to coordinate any activities. Whenever activity coordination comes up, especially if dealing with kids, Jane jumps up and takes charge. She played a huge role in our school's Halloween celebration, and she also planned with another mother/teacher a party amongst all of the foreigners who had children. Here are Dan and Evelyn dancing at the foreigners' party (most foreigners are from Europe, and specifically France, just in case you were curious).

Here is Etain, caught red-handed trying to "pick out" a Halloween treat.

Here she is in a more flattering pose.

Here are the sanga (three) kids at the party. It was held in a ping-pong room in a complex across the street from us. There were three ping-pong tables, covered so that we would not destroy them. We had to be out promptly at 6:30, because that is when the games began.
Another picture of the kids at the party, showing off the decorations that Jane played a major role in making.

Here is Evie eating her popcorn. I am excited to visit in January so that family can see all of the kids, and especially Evelyn. She seems to have changed the most since leaving. She talks constantly, and is a total performer. Other notes on the kids. Etain is doing pretty well, but for the past day she has been feeling somewhat sick. She is not her normal self, which is independent and happy. She walks everywhere, as she did from day one. She climbs everything. One of her favorite things to do is climb onto whatever piece of furniture you are sitting on, climb into your lap and lie down, waiting for you to tickle her belly.

Evelyn is on the brink of being ready for potty-training. She tells us when she does her business, and we bought her a potty seat. She sits on it a lot, but so far with no results. As soon as she is trained, Jane plans on trying to get Etain trained early. In speaking, Evelyn uses both English and Chinese, with plenty of Evelyn-ese mixed in as well.

Dan is doing well. About two weeks ago, we took him out of the school at which Jane was teaching. The days were too long for him, he was too young, and (most importantly) he was learning very little Chinese (the main thing that we wanted). We thought he would benefit being home with Jiu Jie, which he has. He is doing very well with Chinese, and he plans to teach everyone when we come home to visit. The other night, he and I went out for dinner. I ordered jiedan lomien [gee-dahn low-mi-en], which is like home-made chicken noodle soup with a fried egg on top. I could eat it twice a day, seven days a week. Dan had some noodles, and he also had lamb kabobs. The kabobs are prepared on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, so while I sat at our table, he watched the man barbecue. At one point, he jumped up and down, saying, "I did it! I did it!" He then informed me that the cook asked him if he wanted lao jiao (lao-jao [I don't know how to spell it any differently for phonetic purposes]). Lao jiao is hot sauce, and Dan said, "Bu yao," which means, "I don't want it." He was very proud of himself. Tonight, before I left, he counted to 100 in Chinese, without any problems. [He is 4. I saw an old kindergarten report card of mine from when I was five, which said that I could count to 27 without error. He can do four times better, and in a different language. But, to my credit, Chinese counting is much easier. Instead of having confusing terms like twenty, thirty, etc., they just count two-ten, three-ten, so instead of thirty six, they say three-ten-six. Heck, I can even count to 99 (I do not know the word for 100).] Right now, Dan's Chinese vocabulary is probably 5 times what mine is, and I have been studying in my spare time. Also, we plan to enroll him in another Chinese kindergarten. It is on the campus of a housing complex in which many foreigners live (across the street from our place), including some of his friends. Though it is totally in Chinese, it is very well run. We are hoping that it is the best of both worlds: he learns Chinese and has entertaining activities (we suspect he may be getting bored hanging out at home with his two younger sisters). He starts next week.

Back to the pictures. Here is Dan at the school party (he no longer goes to school there, but they had him as a special guest). He is playing pin the nose on the pumpkin, a game that Jane made.

Here are Jane and Dan and the other students of the school (only her primary school took part in the Halloween party, my teenage students are too cool.) As can be seen, Dan was Batman.

Striking a pose:

Here is Dan and his buddy Eric, from his old class. Eric is 6 or 7 and is the top student in the class. Despite the age difference, he and Dan had some sort of special bond, and they both missed each other when Dan left the school. They were happy to see each other.
After the Halloween parties ended, we were exhausted and went to bed. The next day, Saturday, was Jane and my 5th anniversary. We planned on having Jiu Jie come over that evening to watch the kids so that we could go out. At 7:30 a.m., our front door opened and Jiu Jie walked in. We told her she did not have to work for another 10 hours, so she gave us some breakfast that she bought and headed back out. Jane was sure that she told her the right time, and she thinks that she just stopped by because she likes us. She came back later that evening, and Jane and I headed out. First, we went to an Indian restaurant in our new neighborhood. They served, along with the food, large Budweisers, and it was the first time I had this beer in China. It tasted better than Chinese beers, but different from Budwiesers you would get in the States. After dinner, we found a hotel nearby our house, because Jiu Jie was going to stay overnight with the kids. The place was extremely cheap, and quite nice. I would recommend it for any visitors. We then headed out to a dance club, which gave us a free bottle of champagne at midnight. We hung out there for a long time, probably too long, and then crashed back at the hotel. The next day, Sunday, was my birthday. My gift was the greatest gift of all, a day of rest. Jane took the reigns with the kids and let me relax.

After that, it was back to work, which has been the situation since. We saw today that Obama is the president-elect. For the most part, American politics are not heavily discussed here; any discussions take place among foreigners, and the opinions are all over the board. Of the Asian people that I have spoke with, they are happy that Obama won, because they are very anti-war (any war, in general). On our one English speaking television channel, though, there is concern that Obama will hinder free trade between China and U.S.A., hurting the Chinese economy (a concern here, and probably a desire for many in the U.S.). I have no intent to discuss our political views (especially since Evelyn, the true writer of this blog cannot vote for another 16 years), and so I will say simply that I hope it all works out.

Thanks for reading.

We are still here

I just wanted to drop a quick note to let people know that we are alive (sorry, no pictures). For the past week, in addition to school, we have been moving into our new apartment. Our new place is about 12 blocks from our old place. We are now completely moved in and are doing well. Our new place is brand new, we are the first people to live there. This means that it is perfectly clean and modern. I will put some pictures up soon enough. Our old place was not appropriate for the kids, in that it was dirtier (to the point of being uncleanable), drafty (bad in the Winter), and it had no play area for the kids (only a parking lot). Our new place solves all of these issues, as there are playgrounds outside, and the place is in much better shape. Jiu Jie is probably the most excited about our move, as she spends more time there than we do.

To move, we borrowed a friends car one night and did a few trips, and I also walked a lot of stuff over the past few days. We are now in and Jane is happy to have a place that we actually will decorate.

We also have had two Halloween parties, at which we took many pictures. Jane and I went out for our anniversary, and we found a very good hotel for any visitors to stay at, costing about $20 per night.

Unfortunately, our new place does not have a computer hook-up yet, so we have not been able to download pictures from our camera. I will try to take the camera to work to get pictures up here, as there are some great pictures of the kids in Halloween costumes. Further, we do not have a landline telephone in our new place. Any attempts by people to call us would, obviously, not have worked.

But we are still here and are doing fine. I will do a new blog in a day or so, with pictures. We will also get things sorted out. Hopefully when people are cruising the Internet to find out about election coverage, they can stop by here to see a new entry.

Lots of Birthdays

Let me get this straight: Philadelphia is playing Tampa Bay in the World Series, the St. Louis Rams have won two in a row, and the Missouri Tigers have lost two in a row? What the heck is going on over there?

Over here, we are in our usual routine. It is Friday night, and we have one more day of work until we get Sunday off. The week has been full of preparing for classes. On Wednesday, I had to participate in a chemistry lab experiment, because a few of my students were taking an examination for Cambridge University. It was a big deal, because, as the teacher, it is assumed that my test results were correct, and their results were graded in comparison with mine. I think everything went well, though. We also just learned that the school decided to give us a housing allowance, which will cover a huge portion of the rent in the new apartment that we are moving into. Our new place is brand new, and furniture is being bought for it (by the landlord) right now. We are excited because it is much more suitable for the kids. We will have some pictures of it in the near future, as we expect to move in next week.

I wanted to deliver a few pictures of the kids from the past few days. Here is the birthday girl, Etain, opening one of her gifts in the living room. (The handgun, not real, was Dan's, not Etain's.)
After opening a few gifts, we headed to the nearby restaurant for brunch. Here are Etain and me. I am sporting my new haircut. I got a haircut from a Chinese barber and I did not like it, so I tried to fix it on my own. Well, I couldn't get it right on the first try, or the second, and so it just kept getting shorter and shorter. But it is a free haircut. I guess you get what you pay for.

(Long) Side note: At the hotel, they flew in a chef from Mexico to cook Mexican food this past week. It really hit the spot, because nachos, tacos and burritos are otherwise not available here. It is amazing how different the diet here is. For breakfast (at the school) I usually have boudzas [bowd-zuh](steamed doughballs stuffed with sausage and/or spinach) and hard boiled eggs (I gave up the fried eggs, at least during breakfast). Dan has boudzas and rice with milk. For lunch (again at school), I have white rice every day, usually coupled with one or more of the following: scrambled eggs with tomatoes, collared greens, carrots and cabbage, shrimp (head and tail still attached) , curried stew, stir-fried noodles and/or sweet potatoes (I always hated sweet potatoes until we came here; now I like them. I actually eat a lot of foods I would not have eaten previously, with no complaints. Every few days, though, the schools serves this stuff that I can not even go near. It looks like Jello jigglers, only clear and covered with slime. To me it seems like it would taste like gelatinous grease. One guy from Wisconsin eats pounds of it; I can't even look at the stuff.) Some days, though, we get lucky and we get a sliver of pizza or a chicken wing or a meat (I assume?) kabob. For dinner, we often have fried rice. (I estimate that we eat rice at about 10 meals per week). Other days, we will have noodles. There are many Muslim restaurants where fresh noodles are made and cooked after you order. (If you have ever watched the Travel Channel or Cooking Channel, you may have seen restaurants where cooks cut strings of noodles from dough and then throw them across the restaurant into a big pot or wok; that is what happens at Muslim noodle places. The noodles are flash boiled in a hot broth. They taste amazing, and I am getting hooked. ) There are also a few rare days where we will get a small pizza from an restaurant that has Italian food. Also, sometimes, after a few days of nothing but Chinese food (imagine going to a Chinese buffet 10 times per week), sometimes the absolutely greatest thing in the world is a grilled cheese sandwich made in your own kitchen. On the whole, the food has been very good. I am sure that once I am able to actually read menus, it will only get better.

Here is a picture of Etain and Jenny, our supervisor who lives across the hall from us (for now). Etain's birthday was also Jenny's birthday, so Jane and I treated her to brunch at the above hotel. She got Etain a doll and some building blocks, which all of the kids enjoyed.

Last Sunday, Dan and Jane headed out to a birthday party while the girls and I stayed home (the party was in the middle of one of their rare monster 4 hour naps). Here is a picture of Dan and the other party-goers. The birthday boy was Elliot, who you can not really see in the picture (the other blond hair). His mom is right above him, Severin, who is a teacher at the school. They are from France, and they live across the street from the building that we will be moving into.
The other night, a few of the teachers got together in a neighboring apartment for a game night. We brought over the game Balderdash, in which you make up crazy definitions for odd words. Jane and I played with Jenny, from New Zealand, Amy, from China, and Eduardo and Annie, from the Philippines. There was a definite language barrier at first: the girl from China thought that we actually knew and used the words all the time. Her answers for the first few rounds were very simple, such as: A type of bird. However, after she got the hang of it, she and everyone else did quite well, and we had a lot of fun.

Well, that has been what has gone on throughout the week. Next Wednesday, Jane and I are going out to an expat (ex-patriot = foreigner) happy hour/dinner. On Friday, Jane and Severin are planning a Halloween party in a conference (actually a ping-pong) room in Severin's apartment complex (the Chinese do not really celebrate Halloween, but there are plenty of foreigners that live in that specific complex). After Halloween, it is Jane's and my anniversary, and then my birthday. We were considering going to Shanghai to celebrate, because it all goes on during a three day weekend for us.

Below is a video of Etain doing some walking. She took about 15 steps on her birthday and she has never stopped walking since. She walks all over the house. She has also developed a real personality lately, and she is quite funny. Enjoy ! (Assuming it works (I still can't get it vertical)).

Post-Beijing

Sorry about the lack of posts since Beijing. I see that we have had plenty of visitors, so I feel obligated to put up some pictures. In the week back after Beijing, us teachers had to turn in exam forms for periodical exams. This meant that we had to come up with appropriate tests, which was a lot of work. The next week we administered the tests on Monday and Tuesday, and graded them on Wednesday and Thursday. [On a complete tangent, a 23 year old guy from Wisconsin who works in my office asked me how old I was. I told him 30, and he said "huh". When I asked him why he asked, he said that he put together a math problem from one of his exams, and he used what he thought was my age as the answer. The answer, though, was 42! He tried to explain it away by saying that I was a lawyer with three kids, which seemed 'mature' to him. Strangely, I cant get it out of my head that someone thinks I look 42.] Back to the story, there have been few posts because preparing and grading ("marking" as it is called here) tests takes a bit of time, and little else has gone on other than what is shown in the following pictures:

Here is a picture of Dan with a few kids from his school. They went on a school trip to Dinosaur Park, which is an amusement/learning park close to our house. He came back that evening very tired, after having enjoyed himself quite a bit. (He said for lunch he ate crackers and soda, and only ate candy the rest of the day. Kids get away with that here. The adults spoil the kids so much, if they say they want candy instead of a sandwich, they get the candy).
Here are a few shots of Evelyn, who is doing quite well. She acts as if she understands Chinese, and she may very well not be faking it. If Jiu Jie says something to her, she will respond with a yes or a no, making me believe she understands. Every time Evelyn sees a camera now, she immediately goes into a pose, usually with hands on hips and head slightly cocked:

Here is a pose too often used by Etain, lying on the ground at your feet crying. People say she must really be a Chinese child, because she is getting quite spoiled. Every morning, the kids get up about 45 minutes too early. As a result, we just let them do whatever they want while we stay in bed. During those 45 minutes, not a single cry is heard. As soon as we stick our heads out our door though, crying is normal and everyone turns needy. Etain will be fine until she sees someone, and then she starts crying in hopes that she will be picked up. (She is getting better though, as I explain later).

Last Saturday, Jane and I were invited to the opening ceremonies of the new sports complex in town. It is a very cool dome shaped structure with lavish grounds. Changzhou has no sports teams though. Further, they are building another one right across the street from it, with the full expectation that they will both sit empty. Changzhou is, from what I hear and see, anxious to become a bigger, more important city. It therefore spends money to impress, and it seems to have plenty of money to spend. Everywhere you look there are construction cranes building new structures. Supposedly 40% of the construction cranes in the world are in neighboring Shanghai.

Here is a shot of the entrance, though not a very good one, admittedly.
When we got to the stadium, all foreign teachers and business owners were told to stand in a group because we were going to be in a parade. We all grouped together, making small talk while we waited for the parade to start. Around us were many other groups, from police to sanitary workers to local teachers, etc. They all were in perfect formation, with rows of ten. We were told to get into rows of ten, which never really worked out. When we ended up starting the parade, everyone marched perfectly in step, except for us, who traveled like a big oozing blob.

Here is a picture of me with the nurses, the group that was right in front of us.

Here we are traveling around the inside of the stadium. It was an awesome experience, because the stadium was packed with local citizens. Everybody in the stadium was either given clappers or those inflated thunder-sticks, and they cheered crazily. It was pretty wild to have 40,000 people going wild for some local teachers. In this picture, just under the red banner are the mayor of Changzhou and the Chief of the Southeastern Division of the Chinese Communist Party (I was told).

Here is a picture I took of ourselves on the jumbotron. If you can zoom in (if interested) we are on the far right side of the screen, in white.

The opening ceremonies were pretty incredible. There were tens of thousands of performers, all in elaborate costumes. They danced around in perfect formation. Hot air balloons dropped confetti over the crowd. In one portion of the stands, an entire group of people held up cards the entire time to make large pictures that changed for each act. Here are a few shots of the final few acts.

It turns out that all of the performers were kids from the City of Changzhou. The pride in the city was pretty cool.

After the opening ceremonies, Jane and I and a few other foreign teachers went to the outdoor bar, a popular place among foreigners. They served tiny little meat skewers, along with grilled green beans. Here, I am getting my shoes waxed, for 4 quai, about $.75. We gave him a meat skewer as a tip.

After exams, our school had a sports ceremony as well. Here is the school's performance, out on our track.

After opening ceremonies, the students were involved in numerous athletic competitions. Here are Dan and Ushi in their school track suits. (No matter how many times I tried, I can not get this picture to load correctly).

Here is Dan approaching the start line for his race, the 100 meter.

Judging by the looks of this start, I do not know how well he did (he is much younger then everyone else, though). He had a good time nonetheless.

The biggest news of the week was that Etain's birthday was yesterday; she is now one year old. To celebrate, we had McDonalds and cake (and lollipops for the non-cake eaters). Here is Etain eyeing her cake, which was very elaborate, the only way cakes here are made.

Here she is with mom at the beginning of the sugary meal.

Here are a few shots of her further into the meal.

After she ate and got cleaned up, Etain did the same thing that Dan did on his first birthday: she walked! She has taken a step or two in the past, but this time she really took about 10-15 steps, making it all the way across the room. Even within the past 24 hours, she seems to prefer walking to crying to be held, which is good for us all. Below should be a 8 second video of Etain eating her cake, feeling the effects of her sugar high.

We have a 3 day weekend, which we initially planned on using for a trip to Shanghai, but instead we are going to stick around here. We are going to a birthday party tomorrow for a foreign teacher who has a son Dan's age. Tonight, some teachers are getting together for a game night. Also, today Jane went out and picked out furniture for a new apartment that we are planning on moving into in a few weeks. I will write a bit more about that once it becomes more of a reality. I will try to put up some more posts in the next few days.

Zaijian (tsi-chen), which means goodbye, see you soon.