Goodbye, February!

It's official, we are at the end of Joel's 4 week Chinese New Year break. (And the end of the nightly firework displays! Hallelujah! Now we can finally get some decent sleep around here.)

I think we made the most of our time together. Even though it was cold outside and the air was icky a lot of the time, we still stayed busy and had a lot of fun.

My handsome boys!

They have a game that they play here that's a lot like hackey sack (sp?) only it's a feathery thingy that they kick around. Joel saw this game going and happily joined in!

We also took 6 days and went to Xi'an, an ancient capital of China where the Terracotta warriors were found.

We stayed in this great little hostel just inside the city wall. It was small, but clean and nice (and cheap!). When we first got to our room, it was FREEZING! It was snowing outside and the only heat was a little space heater (I wish they would have turned that on before we got in so that our room would have been warm when we arrived but oh well. We survived) and the door had an inch gap underneath that had a frigid draft blowing in (because our room opened to an outdoor courtyard). But, we turned the heater on and stuffed Joel's coat under the door to staunch the flow of air and our room eventually got warm. That first night I wondered what in the world we had done by bringing our 10 month old on this little adventure but every day got better and better. We went with our friend Jen who used to live there and so she was a great tour guide and she was so patient and understanding of the special needs that come when traveling with a baby!

Right in front of our hostel was the city wall, woohoo!

This awesome little market was right behind our hostel. They had so many cool things for sale and everything was so much cheaper than in Beijing.

Muslim street- we tried some delicious treats here! They had these peanut butter finger-like things  that were so yummy and a sticky, sweet rice treat dunked in a chocolate sauce.

There were SO many of these cute little birds in cages down Muslim street and of course, we had to stop so Will could see them.

Shop on Muslim street

Probably my favorite part of the whole trip was biking the city wall. Xi'an's city wall is the best preserved of most any city wall in China because of a water drainage system that was installed after it was built. Jen stayed with Will in the hostel while we rented bikes and rode the entire 8.5 miles of uneven, old bricks. We had some sore bums afterwards, but it was well worth the trip!

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned split bottom pants before, but I'm going to revisit the topic. Once kids here can walk, they no longer wear diapers. They just squat whenever they get the urge to go (regardless of where they are at the time!) and the easiest way to facilitate that is to just have crotchless pants for the kids to wear. What makes me laugh about these pictures is the fact that Chinese ladies are always yelling at me because I never bundle Will enough (which is totally not the case, he is usually sweaty whenever I take him out of all his layers) but somehow having a hole in the seat of a kids pants for the cold breeze to blow through is ok. I will never understand. 
Will is currently in the biggest size of diapers that my Chinese grocery store carries. Once he grows out of those, I'll probably have to buy diapers at the import store to get a bigger size.
 Or we could just buy some split bottom pants and fit right in! (Not really)

Joel is laughing at me while I'm uploading those pictures. He says that all the Chinese people take pictures of Will's face and we're taking pictures of their kids' bums!

And speaking of taking pictures of Will, this trip was no exception! We put Will down on this cool tile for a photo op and before we could even snap a single picture, other babies were photo-bombing our picture with their parents taking pictures.

This is right after that little girl hugged him (which was so cute!). He was ok until then. He must have felt accosted by a strange baby and all the people staring and taking pictures.

This is our cute friend Jen who came with us.

Yes, this is in fact, a tower made out of plates.

And the food.The food! Ah. It was so good in Xi'an.

Beijing Duck- ironically much better in Xi'an than any I've tried in Beijing!

 They roast the duck whole in a wood fire oven all day and they bring it to your table and carve it up for you right there. You then take a crepe-like pancake and put julienned spring onion and sauce inside and top it with pieces of duck. It was delicious!

Carving our bird

Brunch at the Shangri La hotel.

 We woke up early and headed to Shangri La for brunch and it was one of the most fabulous meals I've ever had. I couldn't believe the choices! It was buffet style and we had homemade yogurt, salads, sandwiches, cheeses, french toast, eggs, fresh squeezed juices, chocolate fountains with fruit, sushi, and Japanese soups. It was well worth the trip (and the money!).

 This is Korean BBQ. There is this dish in your table for hot coals and an oiled skillet goes on top. They bring you marinated meats and seasoned vegetables that you cook to your liking right at your table. The eggplant and mushrooms were probably my favorite.

This soup was one of Joel's favorite meals. It had lots of lamb, noodles and these yummy bread dumplings.

Cute, huh?

When we were walking around the park, we saw another foreign couple. It's funny how foreigners are drawn to each other here, probably because we stick out so badly!We made eye contact across the park and chatted for a while and came to find out that they were LDS, too. It was really cool. The only other foreigners we saw on our whole trip were Mormons. Small world!

By the end of our trip, the weather was gorgeous! It was 60 degrees and the air was clear and beautiful. We made the trek out  to the Terracotta warriors with little Willie in tow. It was an hour bus ride out of the city and we'd had a few people tell us that the soldiers were a let down and to not expect too much but we loved it!! I thought they were so cool. They've had to glue most of them together because they were found in pieces. They're like life-size puzzles.

These are the works in progress.

I wouldn't even know where to start putting these together! They all look so similar but every soldier is unique, they each have different uniforms and even different hairstyles.

Yep, that is Bill Clinton's face on a Terracotta warrior!

The gorgeous city wall at night

Things in Beijing are really great, the first tendrils of warmth have finally started to creep into the city and it's a good reminder that winter doesn't last forever.

 Will and I are getting antsy to be able to go play outside, hopefully spring makes an appearance soon!

Xīnnián hǎo!

Xīnnián hǎo - Happy New Year! Chinese New Year is in full swing here in Beijing. On New Year's  Eve, there were literally fireworks exploding all night long. Everyone buys tons of fireworks and everyone stays up all night lighting them. And they're not our wimpy Utah fireworks, these are big and loud. So imagine a city's display of fireworks on the fourth of July but going off up and down every street. From our apartment window on the 11th floor, we had a great view because all of the fireworks were exploding right at the level of our windows. Miraculously, Will slept through the chaos even though it felt like our apartment was shaking from all of the explosions. And apparently, we have that to look forward to every night this week. Lucky us!

There is a Taoist temple near our building and they host a fair every year for Chinese New Year. We went yesterday and saw some pretty cool stuff- for instance, this man swallowing a sword....

After that neat trick, he swallowed a 2 inch steel ball and regurgitated it. 

There were all kinds of foods, some yummy looking, others not so much. Like the baby birds on a kebab stick or the mini squids or various other mystery meats.

Steamed dumplings = good

Squid = Not good

It's been so nice having Joel home on his 4 week break! We've had plenty to do to keep us busy.

I know I don't look it in this picture, but I'm actually really excited about my new vacuum, it keeps our house so much cleaner than just sweeping the floors! Thank you, Amazon China!

This is how bundled up Will has to be to stay warm. It's been so cold! We bought an insert for our stroller that is essentially a sleeping bag that we zip him into.

In the lobby of our building, getting ready to brave the cold and head to the temple fair.

 We also made a cool trip to the Lama temple. The best part was a 90 ft Buddha statue that was carved from one tree, but we weren't allowed to take pictures of it.

Since it was so close to the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), people were burning tons of incense as offerings. The smoke looked so cool billowing between all of the old buildings but it took two showers to get the incense smell out of our hair.

 

 

This is all incense for sale at a little shop  just outside the gate

Thanks for reading!

Through the polluted haze

Whew, I am really missing Utah this week. I have always taken for granted the fact that we have clean air to breathe almost all of the time. Even when we have an inversion and the air is polluted, it's cleaner air than we have most days in Beijing. I have been doing some research and air pollution is nasty stuff. Chronic, long term exposure to air this bad can cause respiratory infections, lung disease and these pollution particles are so small that they penetrate deep into your lungs and can even get into your blood stream. The US embassy has an air quality monitor and they publish it's data frequently throughout the day. A good day with no visible pollution has an Air Quality Index of 0-100 and there is no risk in being outside. 100-150 is slightly polluted and you may experience a slight irritation in your throat or lungs. 150-200 is where it starts to be visible as a haze and 200-250 is moderately polluted and you should stay indoors at this point because even healthy people be noticeably affected. An index of 250-300 is heavily polluted and 300-500 is severely polluted with strong throat and lung irritations and it can start to trigger illness at this point. On Saturday, our index was 742 which is basically toxic. Everything was gray and it was like a heavy fog of grime had settled over the city. That is 25 times the allowed amount of pollution in the US. And China is so funny about this data, they have gotten after the US embassy a few times for reporting these index numbers and on the Chinese news station (we were watching the English subtitled channel), they reported the haze merely as fog not as the hazardous pollution that it really was.

We live right in the center of this huge city and you can't even see the enormous buildings that are more than a block away.

Everything is so gray and dreary.

Ick. Needless to say, we have been staying inside as much as possible this weekend! When we move back to the states, I will have so much more appreciation for clean, safe air to breathe.

It's already January?!

Wow. I can't believe the holidays are already over and we are into January of 2013 already. Time has just flown by for us since we've been here!! 

Our holidays were really nice. Joel got Christmas day off so we helped Will open his presents (which were all from IKEA because a lot of toys from Chinese stores use lead paint. You have to be really careful about buying toys here, especially for babies since EVERYTHING goes in their mouths...) and skyped with our families. It was such a surreal experience. I have never been away for the holidays, I have always been home with my family. It was so strange to see our familiar living room and Christmas tree through a pixelated computer screen and not in person. But I am so grateful for video chatting!! It lets our parents watch Will grow up even though we are living 6,000 miles away and it feels much more personal than a phone call because you can actually see each other's faces. 

For Christmas dinner, we were invited to the home of our branch president. He and his wife cooked an amazing meal. They have a real oven in their apartment so they roasted a turkey, made stuffing, and baked two pies. It was heavenly. Joel and I ate so much food! Will was his usual charming self and had everyone smiling while we sat and chatted. By the time we left, it had gotten so cold outside. We were hoping to catch a taxi home so we wouldn't have to wait for the bus but the few taxis that we saw didn't stop for us. (That happens a lot in Beijing. First of all, taxi drivers don't really like to take foreigners in the first place. And secondly, we have a baby. They don't really like to take people with children. Sometimes, when we're trying to flag one down, I turn around so they can't see that I'm holding Will. That usually helps us catch a taxi much faster.) So, we ended up having to walk to the bus stop and wait for the bus to take us home. It was only three degrees outside and the wind was howling! When it's that cold, it doesn't seem to matter how many layers you're wearing because the icy wind just cuts through them all. 

I am going to complain about our internet for a minute. So, China heavily controls what content is available here. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, Blogger, and a bunch of other websites are all blocked by the government. You have to get something called a VPN to be able to have normal internet access. It's a service that you pay for and it gives you an IP address in the United States even though we're in China. So it looks like we're using the internet in America. That's what is letting me write this blog post right now. But lately, our VPN (and internet in general) hasn't been working very well. Apparently, China just acquired new technology that allows them to disrupt your internet connection even more. Great. Thanks China.

Also, the new year means we now have to start figuring out how to file our taxes this year.... I think we file a normal return for the money that we earned in the States before we moved here but I'm not sure what we do about the money we earned in China. I'm pretty sure that we still have to report our earnings to the government and just show proof that we paid income tax in China. I am just hoping that we won't have to pay taxes twice!!

I had a big moment last week.... I actually craved real Chinese food! When we first moved here and were trying to get a feel for Chinese cuisine, I didn't really like anything that I tried because I was hoping for and expecting it to be like the Chinese food in restaurants back home. And it's not the same! The Chinese food back home is definitely Americanized. But, after trying things a few more times, Joel and I are started to develop a real liking for some authentic Chinese dishes. Our favorite has to be Jiao Zi, they are steamed dumplings that have all kinds of yummy fillings. You can get them at almost any Chinese restaurant in Beijing. My next favorite thing is called Gan Bian Dou Jiao and they are green beans that have been fried with all kinds of spices and seasonings. They sometimes come with these peppercorns that numb your mouth when you eat them and it makes for a strange and surprisingly unpleasant sensation. The first time I ate them, I didn't know they would numb my mouth and I thought I was getting sick because I suddenly couldn't feel my tongue anymore. 

Joel's school had two different staff parties in December: the Christmas party for the international campus and the New Year Party for the whole school which included all of the international teachers and the Chinese teachers from the main campus. The Christmas party was a blast and it was fun to share some American traditions with the Chinese teaching assistants. I think they thought our gift exchange was weird because people were stealing gifts from eachother. 

Will was the most popular guest at the Christmas party!

The Chinese New Year party was definitely different. All of the teachers have to do some kind of performance. Joel ended up having to sing a couple of different songs for the whole school and perform them again for all of the students. I think the students made him more nervous than the teachers did!

Joel also had some time off for the New Year but they do holidays in a strange way. Joel had two days off for the new year holiday and then another two days that they just borrowed from the weekend. So he had Monday - Thursday off but now has to work the weekend to make up for those days. This next week will be long because he's working Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I don't think making kids go to school on a weekend would be very well received in America but that's just how they do things here!

I know I already said this, but I honestly can't believe it's already been four months. Will has spent half of his life here already. Four months in America, four months in China. I was just thinking yesterday about how far we've come since we moved here. When we first got here, I couldn't even walk into the meat section of our market. I was so sure I would hurl. Now I'm able to calmly walk past pig heads, feet and intestines to buy a pork roast that still has all of it's skin, fat and veins, clean it and turn it into Cafe Rio style sweet pork. Who would have thought?

Will loves playing with Joel, they have so much fun together.

We finally got a high chair at IKEA. No more lap sitting for meals!