A Picture is Worth 17,000 Words

Barb has this tree out in front of her living room that is always full of small birds such as finch, cactus wren, and doves. Unfortunately the local well fed hawk also knows that this is where he can feast on his next meal. Hence the name- Hawk Bait Birds. But Barb keeps on putting the birdseed out – question is for whom is she putting it out for - the small birds or for the hawk?

Barb also has lots of hummingbird feeders here. Hummingbirds are sort of aggressive little birds. They look so dainty and fragile but if you ever catch them fighting it will change your mind.

It is so quiet here sitting on Barb’s back covered porch. Amazing! Just the sound of the wind chimes, her little rock water fall and the birds. The view of the mountains at sunset reminds me of a watermelon with its pretty pink color.

Hawk Bait Birds

Barb has this tree out in front of her living room that is always full of small birds such as finch, cactus wren, and doves. Unfortunately the local well fed hawk also knows that this is where he can feast on his next meal. Hence the name- Hawk Bait Birds. But Barb keeps on putting the birdseed out – question is for whom is she putting it out for - the small birds or for the hawk?

Barb also has lots of hummingbird feeders here. Hummingbirds are sort of aggressive little birds. They look so dainty and fragile but if you ever catch them fighting it will change your mind.

It is so quiet here sitting on Barb’s back covered porch. Amazing! Just the sound of the wind chimes, her little rock water fall and the birds. The view of the mountains at sunset reminds me of a watermelon with its pretty pink color. Photo is July Folder!

Barb's Fashion Accessory

I was waiting for Ric to pick me up at the Albuquerque airport in his white truck. but instead this really hot looking sports car stops and my sister climbs out. It is a Mercedes SLK hard-top convertible. She calls it her ‘fashion accessory’. It is really nice looking but has a real small trunk. We could not fit my 2 suitcases and 1 backpack into the trunk I ended up sitting in the front seat with my carry on suitcase in between my legs. Both my legs were asleep when we got to her house. She had to help me out.

I have already gotten to drive it and it handles great. Barb always seems to buy hot looking cars – she has owned a 300 ZX Twin Turbo Nissan, Corvette, Audi, BMW, and assorted British sport cars. She really does and did look good in all of them. I may have to put a little thought about getting a fashion accessory type of car when I get back in January instead of just a ole boring reliable car.

Paula & 'Sparky'

Paula had been complaining about her shoulder for the last couple of trips and she finally gave in and got the recommended rotator cuff surgery. She now has a weird sling contraption that she has to wear 24-7 and a torture chair that she calls “Sparky”. She straps her arm into it and the arm of the chair moves her arm up and down so many degrees for 3 hours a day. Worse part of the recovery is that she can’t drive for 6 weeks, so I have been attempting to get her out of the house between the scheduled ‘Sparky’ tortures. The rest of you reading this have to take over- don’t let her go ‘stir-crazy’.

Since Paula works for Georgia Virtual School she spends a large amount of her day emailing and on the computer. Because of this surgery she can’t type so she had the perfect excuse to buy the new Mac speech to type software program. The first couple of times she used it was rather entertaining. It was like a puzzle trying to figure out what she was trying to write. The first message that Harriet received, she called Paula immediately on the phone cause she was worried Paula had had a stroke. She has finally gotten much better using it.

Because of not being able to use her dominate hand she can’t clip or polish her nails so got me to drive her to get a manicure and pedicure. Since I was already there I decided to indulge and get my first pedicure ever and I am already hooked. Good luck on your recovery Paula! PS – Bob is being a great caregiver!

Mr. Mao

I am not sure if that is his real name or a name he made up because he knew we could remember and pronounce it. This is one of the front views of him. I only saw the back of his head most of the time because he was our driver and more important a really safe driver, which is a rarity here. He did not use the horn more than necessary he only passed one car at a time and he generally stayed in one lane. He bribed us with water and gum to keep us happy. He was even willing to travel with us alone when Tom, our LiJiang guide, finished his part of the tour in the next town. We were not going to meet up with Marching, our Shangri-La guide, until we reached another town 2 hours further up the road. Leaving tourists alone without a guide is usually a no no – but we felt totally safe and obviously Mr. Mao felt safe with us too. This saved Tom from having to go those extra couple of hours to the next town and then having to wait and take a long bus ride back to LiJiang.

Adver-Sailing

Since it is sort of hard to just pop home for those special occasions, we are substituting a few dates. I am sadly going to miss Christmas, Thanksgiving, and of course Zac’s and my birthday. Thank goodness for Amazon and online stores cause I plan on ordering from there and having them deliver directly to my friends and family. Since my 58th birthday will fall when I am with Barb in New Mexico, Zac & I decided to celebrate my birthday early.

For my pre-Birthday present Zac made me pancakes for breakfast and then took me sailing. Rather he called it adver-sailing – because we were advertising Barry’s Beach Service rentable Hobie Cats. Nice wind and fast sail, and one person rented a boat after seeing our adver-sail-ment. Nicole’s pre-Birthday present was a free hair cut and color job. NO MORE GRAY! Because I really miss Italian food, for my last night in Georgia, Nicole (of Italian decent) made a great Lasagna. “The Court” neighbors Larry and Rosie joined us. Zac, who makes the best chocolate chip cookies EVER, made a batch for us. It was topped off with an Ice cream birthday cake and a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday to you. I am so lucky to have these people in my life.

We are eating out most nights so I can get my fill of Georgia cooking. One night we went to the 4th of May a local down-home southern cooking restaurant. In lieu of Thanksgiving I had turkey and cornbread stuffing with cranberry dressing and mash potatoes. (But it still wasn’t the same as Larry’s deep fried Turkey)

Yunnan Province Trip

I was so worried about being able to catch a taxi out from our campus out in the ‘Xiasha boonies’ that we started our Yunnan trip an hour earlier than necessary. After much crazy jestering to my hotel/apartment desk people we were able to get them to call a taxi for us. It came quickly so we got to the airport very early. So early that we were first in line and were ‘?lucky?’ enough to get the exit row seat with lots of leg room. Unfortunately, before take off the Chinese gentlemen behind us talked to the flight attendants and right after that we were told that foreigners couldn’t sit in the exit rows. We were made to trade with the gentlemen behind us. It seems strange that Cathy who has literally traveled around the world and myself with many, many air miles were deemed too ignorant to figure out the PICTURED directions of how to take off the exit door. It was real obvious that most of the passengers were first timers- cause they actually cheered when the plane got off the ground.

Side Note- Chinese flights actually feed you a meal – remember when American flights did that?

Home -Sweet Georgia Tea- Home

Above is what GEORGIA Tea looks like. BIG, ICED, AND SWEET!

I was so excited to be in a place where I can drink the water straight out of the tap, the first thing I had this morning when I got up after crashing from my looooonnnngg plane trip home was a big glass of ice water straight from the tap. BIG MISTAKE! My digestive system was not ready for non- bottled water after an abstainer of 6 months. I paid for my mistake for the next couple of days. And I had left my Pepto-Bismol tablets in China…. Don’t worry that still didn’t stop me from eating at Willies Weenee Wagon the same day.

I was wondering what it would be like driving again, especially since I was using Zac’s stick shift truck. No problem there - only change in my driving was that I probably was more attentive to traffic. I think it was due to the fact that I have had to become more attentive to all my surroundings in China. Driving I was reminded many times that I was not in China when people were not pulling out in front of me and they were staying on their side of the road.

Monday I went for a job interview at a local private school Frederica Academy. I NOW have a part time job teaching computers in their lower school when I get back in February. Best part is that I will still be working but it won’t interfere with my public school retirement. I’m gonna love that double dipping. I am not sure how long this job will last, so keep your ears for a job for next year that will keep me out of trouble.

I went to the dentist for my semi-annual cleaning and an old filling replacement. I am sort of leery about using a dentist in China because I am not sure what quality of care I would receive. A lot of Chinese have bad teeth, dirty teeth, missing teeth and crooked teeth. Dental hygiene doesn’t seem to be their priority but I have noticed that they are starting to advertise toothpaste on TV so maybe that will encourage the Chinese to at least brush their teeth daily. Hopefully, their dental hygiene will improve in the future.

I have been walking Sadie, my boxer, and Mack Truck, Zac’s Walker hunting dog, on the beach every morning with my neighbor Rosie. That is a great way to start the day –a little exercise, good company and nice scenery.

Side Note: One of my students emailed me and asked if I did anything here besides eat in Georgia. Not much. Besides the beach/bike riding/sailing/movies – eating is about it. So I decided to tally how many times I have made it to my favorite restaurants
Willies Weenee Wagon – 5 -Bulldog no pickle, fries and a diet coke
Crab Trap -2 – Yummy fried shrimp
Sweet Mamas for their blueberry muffins – 3
Dunker Donuts – 2 – donut holes
Mexican – 2 and counting – cause I am heading to my sisters in New Mexico and she LOVES Mexican food.
Outback -2 – Chicken Caesar salad & Steak House Salad
Applebee’s –1- Philly Cheese Steak
Larry’ Sub Shop- 2
Arby’s 1 - BLT
McDonalds -0
KFC- 0
Any Chinese restaurant – 0 – but believe it or not I do miss it – but I figure I will get 6 months worth real soon.

Fast - Really, Really Fast

My plane home to Georgia left from Shanghai so it gave me a perfect excuse to spend a couple of days in Shanghai and take the Mag-Lev train to the airport. I took Maggie with me and we did a couple more touristy things before I departed for home. We did a harbor boat tour, walked thru the different food markets and shopped for souvenirs in Yuyuan garden. The day of my departure we took the Mag-Lev to the airport. It starts out very smooth but once you get past 350 km/hour it sort of shutters a lot so my last good picture was at 323 but the top speed really was 431 km/hour. China has plans to extend the Mag-Lev to Hangzhou, but that won’t be till 2010 so I will probably miss that really, really fast ride.

Maggie's Hometown & Family

Next day after visiting the local historical sites – we went shopping. With the help of Aunt Zhou I went on a pearl buying spree. Aunt Zhou knew one of the pearl merchants and we got a great deal! I bought 6 strands of shell pink colored pearls and 2 light lavender strands. They raise pearls locally but unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of the pearl ponds. If you are ever in China and see a pond with a bunch of floating soda bottles, that is a fresh water pearl farm. We took a taxi to Maggie’s parents house for dinner. Photo above is the Maggie’s Mom, Dad and Nan Nan.

This house was similar to the Aunt and Uncles house in that it was built for the entire family. There was a floor for the grandparents a floor for Maggie and a floor for Maggie’s bother Cai and his wife Xia and their son Nan Nan. Her brother and wife work in HangZhou and Maggie’s mother watches the son Nan Nan during the week. This is fairly common in china where the grand parents are the main caregivers. The parents work in the city where they can make more money then they come back and see him on the weekend. When I asked my students about day care centers in China. I got that “blank look” from the majority of my kids. After a little investigation we figured that a lot of the students were raised by grandparents.

We walk around Maggie’s neighborhood which is a small village. There were rice patties outside of her house along with a duck farm. There were a couple of people taking clumps of young rice and separating them and replanting them into rows by hand. Maggie said that there are machines that do this now but most people with small plots still do it by hand.

Round 2 of the Aunt VS Mom Cook-off

Her Mom’s kitchen (pictured above) had a large ceramic tiled stove with 2 very large woks set down into it. It was heated by fire that the husband stoked from behind as the wife cooked. There was a 2-burner gas hot plate set up but I didn’t see an oven. How do they make birthday cakes or cookies? Chinese Cakes are another blog. They are very different from American Cakes. I didn’t see a microwave either. How do they cook their Healthy Choice dinners or warm up the leftover pizza? Again Maggie’s mother prepared a great variety of food. Some of the dishes were similar to the ones I had had the night before at the Aunts house. Including lots of beer – but at this meal I was much better at snatching my glass up before they could refill it.

I think this is where I am suppose to declare a winner, but I can’t. Both dinners were great!. Especially when I learned to spit the skin of the beans out. I know - a little explanation is needed here. A lot of Chinese food needs a little more preparation before chewing and swallowing. Most American food you bite, chew and swallow. But most Chinese food still have bones or skin that needs to be removed before you chew and swallow. They do this with their teeth and spit out the inedible parts. There were some beans on the table that I put in my mouth, chewed, and swallowed like any good American would do. Skin was a little fuzzy but I didn’t think anything about it until I noticed all the rest of the family had little piles of bean skin next to their plates. They had a good laugh and they really did taste better after being ‘shelled’. I just wasn’t used to doing it in my mouth.

After dinner, we took a train back to Hangzhou that night which ended a great weekend. The best part of the trip wasn’t the historical, touristy things but it was the two meals and being included in the Chinese family experience. Thanks a bunch to all of Maggie’s relatives for a great time.

Zhuji & Dali (but not the one in Yunnan)

In Zhuji we checked into the hotel which was not equipped to take credit cards. (I understand that China is a cash society but I assumed that hotels could handle credit cards). And even though they couldn’t take credit cards the town had a McDonalds and a KFC. Go figure. We took a walk around town wandering thru the local indoor market which was like a giant permanent covered flea market selling items such as pearls, toilets, snacks (dried fruit, fish and meat) shoes, clothes, tools and toys. We stopped at her Aunt Zhou and Uncles Yang Nut stall in the local market. Photo is above! I got yummy free samples and a chance to sample all the weird nuts that I had seen in other stores but were too chicken to buy. We visited and then were invited to the Aunt & Uncles for dinner. Little did I know that this was the first round of a friendly cook-off competition between Maggie’s Aunt and Maggie’s Mom.

Her aunt and uncles house was a multistoried building. Generally the buildings will house one extended family, with different generations taking different floors or apartments. The nut business must be a good one because they had a very nicely furnished 2 story apartment/home. Pictures of their living room are in the “Summer in China” photo folder. Their small reading room gratefully had air conditioning, so everybody huddled in there to eat. I have only seen the inside of a couple of homes but none of them have ceiling fans and usually only 1 room has an air conditioning unit. The kitchen was upstairs and living room and reading room were downstairs. Of course they wouldn’t let me help so they left the uncle in the reading room with me. Neither of us were able to communicate with the other so we amused ourselves by me pointing at objects I knew and saying the Chinese word for it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have many things I could point at. Uncle Yang taught me 2 new words Chinese words: Chopsticks and chair.

It was a great meal with lots of different items to try. My beer glass was constantly being refilled so now I guess they will remember me as the American lush that visited them. Strangely I can drink Chinese beer without sneezing or my face itching. I seem to be allergic to something in any American Beer that makes me react, but when I am in foreign countries I can drink their beer. Preservatives? My favorite beer is Xi Hu (West Lake) Pi Jiu (beer). You would pronounce it “She-who Pee-Joe”. We got a ride back into town and walked around the city park with Maggie’s mom, and Nan Nan. Maggie took Nan Nan for one of those round boat rides. Maggie doesn’t have a drivers license and after seeing her try to steer the boat I sincerely hope that the Chinese government will NEVER give her one. Nan Nan was petrified and will probably have an irrational fear of boats for the rest of his life. Her steering was so bad she needed the owner to help her get to the side of the small lake.

Better Than TiVo

One of the standard Chinese things to do is watch American TV shows on your computer. Most of them have Chinese subtitles, which you can’t turn off. I bought a comfortable beach chair from WuMei (not the one you see above) and every lunch (when I am not eating experimental foods with Cynthia or one of the students in the canteen) I have a grilled cheese sandwich or tuna salad sandwich, carrots, Pringles and a Pepsi Lite for lunch and watch one or two episodes of a TV show. I know I am probably violating a bunch of American copyright laws but I am in China and I do as the Chinese do. It is very common for the Chinese to download (VERRRRYYY SLOOOWWLY) whole seasons of a TV series, movies, and of course music. It literally takes 2-3 days to download an hour show. But if you are desperate to see the next episode of Prison Break you will leave the computer on for days at a time and let it download 24-7.

I don’t plan on bringing them back into the US because I am not stuffing my precious Mac with the TV shows. I am filling up a cheap portable 80 gig hard drive that I bought for $ 40, which is running on the university’s Windows computer. I plan on donating it to the next American TV show starved teacher - rather than risk the wrath of the US Customs agents. I watch a complete season series before I switch to a different TV show. I have seen all of Prison Break, Gray’s Anatomy, O.C., Smallville, House, Numbers, and My Name is Earl. I am still downloading 24, Boston Legal, and Lost. Anyone have any suggestions of new shows that I have missed and might like? You can sort of guess my tastes from the above samples. I am tired of all the gore on the CSI shows so don’t suggest any of them. Even though they have Survivor episodes available, they are lacking some of my favorite shows such as Gilmore Girls, and Monk.

Someone asked me if there are American movies here. Yes, in fact most of them are American movies with Chinese subtitles or dubbed in Chinese. I went to see the Di Vinci Code in HangZhou with the Chinese subtitles and it was fine until they started speaking in Latin or French or Spanish. Obviously, I was unable to read the Chinese subtitles to figure out what they were saying. The cost of a big screen movie is very expensive for the Chinese (55 Yuan) which converts to about the same as the US (6-7 dollars) but the snacks were really cheap when compared to US prices. Boo-Hiss, No senior citizen discount. You can also download movies onto your computer for free but it isn’t the same. I like seeing Tom Cruise and Matthew McConaughey on the big screen and I am willing to pay for that.

Shaoxing

Last week after finals, Maggie and I took a trip to Shaoxing. It is an hour away by bus. It was my first experience using the bus station and I was glad Maggie was with me. I learned enough by watching Maggie that I probably could do it by myself if I had to. I can now decipher the tickets, boarding areas and when to get on. The seats on the bus were very comfortable and after a nice nap we arrived in Shaozing. We took a taxi to our 3 star hotel and after settling in we took a taxi to the other bus station to buy a ticket to Zhuji for the next day.

Side Note & Explanation - That is one of the strange things in China, you have to buy the train or bus ticket from the place you are leaving from. You cannot buy all your trip tickets at the same location or time. You cannot buy train tickets more than 5 days in advance. Some things here are so computerized and some things are so archaic. They do have some satellite stores that sell train tickets for an extra fee. This at least saves us an hour trip to the station to purchase tickets. So unless you are using a tour company, part of every trip is spent waiting in line to buy tickets back.

We took a walk thru the older part of town. There were lots of beggars, canals, small streets and small buildings. We had dinner and then a nice night boat ride thru the canals. The canals run around the whole city and they light up the buildings along the water edge. Except for being extremely hot it was a great way to see the city.

Next day we toured East Lake, which was an ancient quarry (some of the rocks were used in the Great Wall) that has been turned into a park. We took a boat ride where the guide paddled with his feet. I decided I needed to buy at least one ‘tourist souvenir” so I got an old retired Calligraphy teacher to paint a rock saying that I had been there. It looked like a better job than being a greeter at Wal-Mart (which they have here – even though I haven’t seen one yet).

After East Lake we stopped by the hotel to cool off then had lunch at a famous restaurant which was conveniently located next door. Ummmm, and with the fragrance of “stinky tofu” filling the air -we had lunch. Maggie sucked snails from the shell. I tried one but they seemed like too much work for such a small piece of meat. We went to some of the houses of some of the famous people that once lived in Shaoxing including a writer Lu Xun and Mr. Cai Yuan Pei, a scholar. (Side note - The late Premier Zhou Enlai is from here). It was interesting but not real memorable because I couldn’t read the descriptions. I just knew that they were a famous writer and a famous educator. The most memorable part of the historical tour were all the beggars that latched on to me. One really mean old lady was the worse. I made the mistake of giving out a few coins on the way up this alley (no escape for the tourist) so going back down the alley was really bad. After we finished our historical/beggar part of the tour we packed up and caught the bus to Zhuji.

Nervous About Coming Home

Weird, but I am. I couldn’t figure out why it was taking me so long to pack and make final arrangements in getting home. And I noticed that I have same funky stomach that I had in February, and I seem to be spending a massive amount of time doing chores that really don’t need to be done. It must be nerves. But why? I am leaving an environment that I have learned to adapt to but it isn’t home. Do I dread the jet lag that much? (Yes) Has this experience changed me so much that my Georgia home feels foreign to me? I guess this is part of what all soldiers feel when coming home, but I would have never guessed it would happen to someone who went away on a purely optional, non-combative, mid-life adventure.

Top Reason Why You Should Love Your Dryer & Lint Filter

This is my BLACK t-shirt after washing. ‘Nuff said

EUUUUWWWW....Nathan Ate A Bug

And he was not on any reality TV show such as Fear Factor, Amazing Race or Survivor. He decided that he wanted to experience eating a bug. (remember this is the guy that regularly eats the fish eyes) We were in WuShan Square picking up last minute souvenirs and where one of the meat stick restaurants (they call it Bar-B-Que) had a variety of bugs and strange seafood items on sticks. They all had exoskeletons and legs. He narrowed it down to 3 tasty choices: 4 cicadas on a stick, 3 grasshoppers on a stick or 1 tarantula on a stick. He opted for the grasshoppers. He said that it sort of tasted like the scrapings off the bottom of a burnt saucepan but he said the coating tasted pretty good. No, he didn’t finish the 3 grasshoppers.

Side Note: On the same ‘gutsy eating’ subject -- I want to have an ‘ice cream’ party before I leave China. I say ice cream very loosely because some of them are not made using any cream. I propose that a bunch of us buy some of the weird things they have on a stick and in a freezer that resemble an ‘ice cream bar’ and sample each one. There are black ones made from sesame seeds, bean ones, green ones and other very strange concoctions. Remember the descriptions and list of ingredients are in Chinese so it is hard to interpret. I figure out of 10 or so ot the really strange ones, I might find something new and interesting that I like. It might even be healthier than my favorite Magnum bars!

Stella, My Personal Style Consultant

I met Stella at a Sunday English Corner and was complaining that I could only buy men’s’ shoes and clothes here. She said she knew of a place that sells products for overseas. Translate that to “clothes for big people”. We got together last week and went thru hundreds of little stalls inside 2 big buildings. Most of the stuff was small in size but really cute. Nicole would have a ‘field day’ (rather “field week”) here. There were also lots of men’s sports wear, t-shirts such as Quicksilver, Dolce & Gabana and other ‘Name brands’, but most important there were 3 stalls where I actually found 2 FEMALE tops and a vest. I got a taxi card from one of the places so I can return on my own. I will probably do most of my shopping when I am back for my 3 weeks but it is sure nice to know that I can outfit myself if I have to. Oh, I forgot to mention that I didn’t pay more than $2.50 for each item. Female shoes still didn’t look promising. I saw nothing over a 38, (about an 8 ½ ) I wear a 42 (size 10) in European size.

Side Note: - Taxi Card did not work. Yesterday, Nathan and Elizabeth wanted to see these bargain clothes stalls so we rode an hour into HangZhou and gave the taxi driver the card. He just shook his head, but I sort of knew that it was close to the train station, so he left us off there and we found our way on foot.

To All My "Stuffed Monkeys"

After I got off of Skype with Gail this morning, I was thinking how much courage you guys give me from so far away with your Skyping and emails. It made me think back to the old 50’s Harlow Experiment movies they made you watch in the psychology and sociology classes about a live monkey being alone in a large box with a stuffed ‘surrogate’ monkey. Granted his experiments must violate a dozen of today’s animal rights laws but it was different time. Anyway, the monkey would go exploring and then get a little nervous, or scared or lonely and run back to his box and hug the stuffed monkey for a period of time then go off exploring again. You all are my stuffed monkeys. You guys made it possible for me to feel secure enough to leave my normal predictable environment to go adventuring and you guys make it possible for me to remain because I know I can always get comfort and courage whenever needed thru the magic of Skype, iChat and email. Thanks for being my stuffed monkeys!

Tea House

Cynthia is drinking some royal tea (sorry, forgot the type) in a special cup. You use the lid to cool the tea and strain off the tea leaves.

Tea House

A couple of weeks ago Cynthia took me to a tea house. You pay a set price 50-70 RMB (6-9 bucks), pick your specific tea variety and then eat anything you want from their buffet. You can stay for hours. It is a great way to try different Chinese food items. Fruits, snack items, meats, soups, seafood, dried items, vegetables and much more. See that white thing with the black specks in it at the end of the chopsticks. It is a fruit which I would have never had the guts to buy, but I ended up liking it. I also enjoyed a white eyeball textured fruit aptly named ‘dragon eye fruit”. Ditto, on actually buying it before trying it! I still need a little hand holding to venture into deeper waters. Thanks Cynthia.