Is a Blog (or Facebook) Just a Modern Version Of the Christmas Newsletter?

I got a couple of them this Christmas – the “catch-everybody-up” Christmas Newsletter. I have mixed feelings about them – some of them I look forward to reading because they are family or really interesting but some others can be rather tedious. Now I am questioning my blog. Don’t blogs fall into the Christmas Newsletter category – a really long, unending, irrelevant, pseudo Christmas Newsletter? Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your opinion, I don’t plan on stopping my blog. For me my blog is a nice way to journal my journey thru retirement. It helps me remember (you know…. that age thing) what I done and felt while traveling and it is way easier than a diary. I really dread having to write anything by hand, it just doesn’t feel natural to me anymore plus the paper doesn’t have a spell checker and editing a paper diary is a much harder.

Side Note: Zac (who is visiting for the holidays) just announced that my blog was worse than the Christmas letter cause the Christmas Newsletter only comes once a year. I guess that means my own son doesn’t read my blog…. Nicole says that reading them is like homework. That’s OK, remember I do it for myself. Don’t forget..you can always dump my blog into your spam box if I fall into the tedious reading category. I think I would rather be ignored than thought as tedious – No hard feelings though …. honest!

Holiday Costumes

During my 10 months in China I never saw the Chinese dress in “costume” for their holidays, I think it might be an American thing or maybe a teacher thing but we definitely like our costumes. When I retired I also retired all my Halloween and Christmas t-shirts, vests and sweaters. Now that I am teaching youngsters again, I had to buy a new batch of holiday costumes. I did so that last night I was appropriately dressed for the Frederica Academy’s tree lighting ceremony with my new Wal-Mart Christmas vest (which was Made in China).

Oh and as you can see, my Christmas lights are up. I know it is early – but I am one of those people that like to put them up right after Thanksgiving and take them down a couple of days after Christmas. Yep my house is also in costume and probably all the decorations were made in China too….. I am almost all ready for my favorite holiday of the year, just a lot of cooking and a little more online shopping to do.

Thanksgiving 2007

The day started out rainy so we moved our planned outside Thanksgiving meal to Reed and Sara's home. By meal time the sun had come out and it ended up being a beautiful day for the 20 of the Wilsons and friends.

The rest of this blog is basically just for my Chinese students and friends – because if you still feel bloated and stuffed like me –the last thing that we want to look at is a picture and description of all the food we ate. The NBC Today Show estimated that the average Thanksgiving meal was 5000 calories. They either UNDERestimated or they were calculating the calories of a Non-Southern Thanksgiving dinner. Above is pictured a typical plate piled high with some of the dishes listed below and was consumed by one of the 20 Wilson family and friends. (And some of us went back for seconds)

Deep Fried Turkey
Smoked Ham
Sausage stuffing
Oyster Stuffing
Creamed corn
Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
Deviled eggs
Artichoke, Broccoli, Tomato salad
Sweet Potato Casserole
Green Bean Casserole
Oatmeal Rolls
Cranberry/apple/nut jello salad
Asparagus Casserole
Macaroni and Cheese
Beer, wine, sodas or sweet tea
And of course cupcakes and a pumpkin pie and pecan pie for dessert.

The dishes that lured me back for seconds were the fried turkey, mashed potatoes, sausage stuffing, oatmeal rolls and cranberry salad. As I wrote this I was still stuffed and hurting, but boy will I miss the food and friendship next November when I am in China. Thanks again to the Wilsons for including me in your family dinner. I live in a great neighborhood!

Deep Fried Turkey

I had never heard of a Fried Turkey until I moved down south. Larry my neighbor has perfected the timing and art-form of deep frying the bird. His skills produce a crispy skin and moist but ungreasy meat. Larry usually will deep fry birds for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. Yum!

Ocean Front Massage

We had a nice massage in the tents right by the ocean. Strange with a very exposed feeling but still very relaxing.

I fed a wild iguana today – I fed it a couple of the green leafs from under the bridge and some hibiscus flowers. It even jumped into the pool water to get to the other side. Besides the Iguanas at this hotel/timeshare compound there are lots of cats, 2 peacocks and at least 1 peahen roaming around. And boy are the birds noisy in the morning!

Click Here for my Puerto Vallarta Photos

Dolphin Swim

So Cool! I am not sure if I can describe it but was not scary at all, even though you are in the water with two very powerful and large mammals. First interesting thing happened was when I dropped my sunglasses as I was jumping in. I had sort of given them up as being lost forever but Cathy told the trainer what I had done and the trainer had the dolphins go to the bottom and return them to her. After the sunglasses rescue we engaged in some heavy petting. Get your minds out of the gutter… We got to spend a lot of time petting, kissing, feeding and riding the dolphins. At the end of the hour, we even got kissed by a whiskery seal. The cost was reasonable but we decided that the company made their real money in photos and I contributed to their coffers and bought a CD & DVD.

We went to town that evening to pick up a couple of shirts and necklaces that had caught our eye a couple of days before. Night IS when Puerto Vallarta comes alive. There was much more activity, music, food and handicrafts set up.

Weird Sculptures on the Malecon

It sort of looked like the artist got his ideas from the Star Wars bar scene, but most of the sculptures on the boardwalk (really cement) were very strange and alien-like. We were told to go in to Puerto Vallarta in the evening to see the activity but we were too tired the first day so we hit the town in the late afternoon. Tables were just being put up so I am sure we missed a lot of artists so we will have to go back another time. Our hotel is about 30 minutes from downtown, so we chose the bus as our transportation into town. It was very rough, hot, and had really small, hard seats, but it was cheap. On the way to town and in town, we noticed how much US commerce has extended into this area. We saw WalMart, Sams, Home Depot, Outback, Carl Jrs, Pizza Hut, Dominos, Office Depot, Hard Rock Cafe, and of course the always pervasive KFC and McDonalds.

Snorkeling & Boat Trip

We took a day long boat trip - one of our freebies for surviving the hard sell. This is where we snorkeled. They fed the fish bananas to entice them to the boat. Water was way clearer than St Simons but not as pretty as I have seen in other places.

One of the Three Pools

Notice the convenient bar with underwater bar stools.

Puerto Vallarta & the Hard Sell

I feel like I am back in Shanghai’s Knock off Market- with everybody scurrying to get your money before anyone else does. Maybe it was the time change or the jet lag or the 6 hours waiting at DFW or 6 hours in planes – but it seems like a real hard sell here. We are doing a little tour this morning so we can get something “free”. I guess I will figure out what the free thing is later – probably too tired last night. This morning, I am boiling my water for my tea. I am sitting on our 3rd floor small room’s terrace and it seems weird that the sun is NOT coming up over the ocean – not used to that.

The Really Hard Sell

Sunday morning we tried to sneak out of our Velas Vallarta hotel before one of our hotels sales lady stopped us. She was desperately (and rudely) trying to make us not go on our timeshare presentation appointment at Paradise Village. She threatened us with the possibility of the tour taking 5 hours and being stranded over there with no way to get back. (it only took 3 hours and they did pay for our taxi back) After seeing Paradise Village we know why she tried to stop us. It was way better than this place. Anyway, this was my first time attending a timeshare sales pitch. Martine was our first salesman, free breakfast, tours of the condos, a lot of talking about “points” and a lot of numbers being thrown around. He even sic’d the manager, Clay, on us. After not seeing a “sale” in his future - he handed us off to Mike to give us some more numbers and different options. When the second guy didn’t close the deal – another guy came over with enticing discounts to offer. They worked really hard and wrote a lot of numbers but alas they didn’t get anywhere with us….. Three salesmen! What a pain and a waste of good pool time. We are expected to do another Monday morning. I may try to play sick and see if I can get out of it but I probably won’t cause Cathy would kill me and we are supposed to get a free massage for attending.

Monday - I didn’t play sick, we both went and this time we got 6 different salesmen/women at this presentation but we never got to see the rooms – just a lot of table switching. Hopefully all the rooms don’t look like what we are staying in - small and with a really uncomfortable couch. Definitely not a selling point. We made it out of there with our almost free 2 massage certificates just in time for the water aerobics. The Water aerobics were Fun but the workout was sort of defeated by an in-pool bar being just 5 feet away with great tasting strawberry marguerites.

Went to the outside restaurant for lunch and I had another great bowl of black bean soup. Unfortunately, I don’t think Cathy will let me have another…… remember our room is very small.

It's for Sure

I got my teaching contract emailed to me the other day from Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics so mid February 2008 it’s ‘for sure’ that I am going back to Hangzhou, China for another years adventure.

This time I will take fewer clothes and a few more American luxuries such as a 4 inch mattress pad (to counter-act the board-hard Chinese mattress), a fitted bed sheet, a few spices and a big box of peppermint patties. I am trying to be better and learn a little more Chinese before I go but it sure is frustrating and humbling. Learning a language has always been hard for me. One, because I am a visual learner and two, I am dyslexic. I am getting Dottie, the media specialist at Frederica, to call out Chinese flash cards during lunch. I listen to 30 minutes of Chinese language podcasts before I fall to sleep and I try to get in at least 5 hours a week on the Rosetta Stone Chinese CD. I still don’t think I will be able to speak more fluently than before but I should be able to understand a lot more.

People have asked me why I am going back - mostly it's because I feel that I am not done with seeing and experiencing China. I was very timid the first 4 or 5 months in that I didn't make good use of my free time in seeing more and going to more places. There is just so much to see in China. I hope I will be braver this time.