Our YaYa Annual Conference (OYAC)

here are less than 10 members but every year we gather together for an annual “conference “. The location of the conference involves a little off road sliding and driving but the end destination is Margie’s quiet, relaxing, comfortable, perfect river front home. Registration fees include – preparing one of the weekend meals and bringing your drinks and snacks of choice. As with any conference there were many interesting sessions.

The 2009 sessions included:
Basics of Crocheting
Remedial Crocheting
Beginning Gardening (Except for Parsley)
Wine Tasting
Chinese Facial Masks & Their Application
Dressing for Success (at a slumber party)
Emotion Cleansing & Replenishing

Attendance at the sessions was very good with only a few drop-outs. We all left with a couple of new skills along with the realization that each of us will always have this great support group that will celebrate, console, and sustain us.

Happy Chinese New Year

Today, January 26, 2009, is the first day of the Chinese Lunar Calendar. So Happy New Year to all my Chinese friends. I miss so many of you and think of you often. Spring Festival lasts 15 days and ends at the Lantern Festival. I took pictures of last years lantern festival and they are somewhere in my blog photos. The lanterns are so colorful and could definitely compete with some of our “over the top” Christmas decorations.

We Take So Much For Granted

Things are so easy in the United States. It is 10 am and I am already on my third and last load of laundry. The amount of clothes I am washing would be at least 6 loads of laundry in the typical tiny Chinese washing machine - a full day to do plus 2 days to dry. (Longer for some people who do not even have a clothes washer) I am about to hop in my car and drive down to Harris Teeter grocery store 5 miles away (8 km) and I am fairly sure I will be back in 40 minutes.

In Xiasha it was usually a 3 hour chore and you can only bring home what you can hand carry. To get to WuMei you would have to walk to the bus, taxi or van stop, which was about a ¾ mile away from the apartment. If you were lucky you could catch a taxi and not have to wait for a van or bus to get you close to the store. There is one thing I miss from my China grocery store trips… the massage place that was right down the block from WuMei. Every chance I got I would add an extra hour to my shopping trip to get either a foot or back massage.

Would China’s inconveniences and inefficiencies keep me from going back? No, but it definitely reminds me not to take everything for granted. So the next time you load up your washing machine or trunk of your car - appreciate what we have here.

Picture is of Nicole & Zac's house in Wells Vermont. Renovation still taking place.

Home Once Again

Well I am back on the east coast of the United States. Plane ride from Shanghai to Atlanta was a good as a 13 hour plane trip can be. We arrived an hour early but the plane from Atlanta to Jacksonville (where Gail was patiently waiting for me) was 4 hours late. Jet lag has provided lots of mentally fuzzy days and strange sleeping habits but I seem to be back to a fairly normal schedule.

I quickly flew up to visit Zac & Nicole in Vermont. So I ended up going from snow in Hangzhou the morning of my departure to LOTS of snow in Vermont. We went sledding a couple of times. I figure if I was sitting on a sled I would have less distance to fall. I forgot about how hard it is to climb up the hill and the bumps that launch you when you're flying downhill. I escaped without any bruises but my throat was raw from screaming.

I uploaded a video that Zac took http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2196109459136925989&hl=en it is a rather big file so if you have a slow connection – skip it. It generally just provides lots of laughs for me but it might not be “bandwidth worthy” for you.

Snow In Hangzhou

Literally it was my last few hours in China and I got to see snow for only the second time. It was sort of symbolic because when I arrived in China in 2006 - I saw it for the first and only other time. The snow was gone by the time I left the campus for my car ride to the Shanghai airport.

Last Trip to Shanghai

I had to make one more trip to Shanghai for a couple of reasons. To show Rachel and JP around and to make one more stop at Lisa Pearls and the knock off market. Rachel took on the hardest part of purchasing the train tickets to Shanghai in Xiasha then they quickly figured out the Shanghai Metro system and train system so they will be good to go the next time. Shanghai is one of the easiest cities to get around and has some fast-food western restaurants like Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, Coldstone, Taco Bell, and a great Tex-Mex restaurant which are not available in Hangzhou. Even though Chinese food is great, sometimes you just need some American food.

Very Popular Russian Bread in Harbin

These are Chinese waiting in line (literally for hours – we watched) for the “big bread” that is made by the Russian Restaurant where we ate. I would have figured that by now, some enterprising Chinese person would have figured out how to make a “knock off” of this “big bread” and made lots of dough (snicker)….

Harbin & The Russians

The Russians got a contract to build a railroad to Harbin back in the late 1800’s so there was a very large Russian population that had a lot of influence here until the Japanese took over prior to WWII. But the Russians are back! Most of the tourist shops in Harbin sold Russian souvenirs and Russian sausage and most of the tourists were Russian. During the Cultural Revolution most of the Russian Churches were destroyed but this one remained. Inside were more Russian souvenirs and the walls were covered with many old photographs that showed how it was during the early 1900’s.

Harbin Mode of Travel

Mostly for me it was slipping, sliding and falling a lot. But Cynthia and I took their cable car across the frozen river and their horse drawn carriage back across the ice. There were many ice sculptures that included free ice slides but the majority of them were too narrow for my big laowei butt. So I couldn’t travel that way. As the students say here “It’s a Pity”.

Harbin Food

Food was good. The people in the north part of China eat a lot of dumplings while the people in the south of China eat a lot of rice. So we ate a lot of different types of dumplings. The things pictured above are called “haw” They are frozen (in the winter) fruit on a stick dipped in a hard sugar coating. I tried the grape, pineapple and banana ones. The grape one was my favorite. (And I like Hangzhou’s food better)

Temples, Palaces, A Chess Set, A Harbin Beer Bottle, and Churches

There didn’t seem to be any real theme here except to impress you with their life-like size and ever changing lights. This was the biggest ice sculpture park with tons of ice (they cut the ice blocks from the river. We saw many truckloads of the huge blocks of ice still being taken to other parts of the city to make more objects.

Snow Sculptures

The pictures of the snow sculptures were the hardest to take because it was just white on white on a gray sky. So I had to fiddle around a little with them using my iPhoto effects and therefore you aren’t seeing the blinding, dazzling white snow that was the real artist’s medium. The tools they used to sculpt with were very interesting too. They looked like giant pieces of sandpaper with different size and spaced nails used for the different grades of the "sandpaper".

Harbin Snow & Ice Festival

Yes that is all made of Ice!

I guess when you have that many months of winter you just gotta figure out how to make money from using the cold stuff that goes with it. So for the last 10 years Harbin, China has had a Ice and Snow Festival. It doesn’t officially start till the 5th of January, but they usually have the majority of the sculptures done before Christmas. Anyway it is really neat to see them still working on their remaining pieces. There are a couple of parks where the majority of sculptures are located (so they can charge you a fee to get into it) but there are also many sculptures just lining the walking/shopping streets.

No Soup Nazi Here.....

My new favorite place to eat is the soup place (Wenzhou Small Food) on the second floor in the student dorm area. You grab a plastic basket and pick from a variety of foods on sticks. They have everything from meat, squid, seafood balls, small eggs, regular eggs, mushrooms, tofu, Chinese style tortellini, and vegetables. Then you go to another counter and pick the type of noodle you want: thick of thin, rice, sticky rice, wheat, sweet potato, and/or other ones I can’t describe. The lady counts up the items puts a numbered clip on your basket and slides it to the two guys hanging over a huge steaming pot of soup where they attach the clip and put your ingredients into one of six net containers till perfect. They yell out your number and then slide it back to another lady who asks you if you want it spicy (la) or not (bu la) – I say “yi-dian la” which means a little spicy. YUM - it is so good on a cold day and less than a dollar. And it’s also right across the street from the bakery that has a great sunflower seed cookie that I love. I will definitely miss the food.