January 7, 2018

After Kristina's visit and our trips to Hangzhou, Beijing, and Harbin, it was time to focus on finishing our first semester at school.  This week we'll share one quick, fun story and then share pictures of the campus where we teach.

On Friday, January 5th, some of the other BYU China teachers were in town, so the three of us couples who teach in Shanghai met them for dinner at a Thai restaurant. We enjoyed the meal and then a mariachi band came to serenade us.  Well, okay. They came to get us to stand up to sing and dance with them.  So we had a dozen Americans and Canadians, eating at a Thai restaurant in China, singing "La Bamba" with a band from the Philippines!  How's that for diversity?

As promised, here's a look at our campus from pictures we've taken throughout the year:

Tree lined streets, but very few cars.

The building in which we both teach.

One day we found so many rental bicycles
that some were stacked horizontally.
Periodically excess rental bikes get hauled away
in vans or on carts pulled behind... bicycles.

(See earlier blog for discussion of rental bicycles)

This is near the main "canteen" or cafeteria on campus.

A water feature with bridges.

Some pretty fall colors

There are still roses here in January!

Fun zig-zag bridge on this side of campus.

This one is hard to figure.  The bridge is solid stone stepping
 blocks. But lined with rickety 1x2 railing?

There are LOTS of cats on campus. They are everywhere (outside).

This one seems to own a scooter!

Kathy's classroom for Oral English class. When the students are
in class this time of year, they are all bundled up in coats and
scarves and lined leggings. Central heat does not exist here, and
people are used to living without it. Except for us...we're not
used to teaching in coats and long johns.

John's room is right across the hall. The Korean on the back
chalkboard adds to the ambiance in this foreign language building.

The classroom where Kathy taught Business English.
The picture is from English Corner, which has a lot more
students in the room than Business class.

And the broom in the corner outside
our classrooms is a very happy one!

Cafeteria style food on the third
 floor of the canteen. There are
 three stories of food service areas,
with at least two or three stations
on each floor, except the 3rd floor,
which is smaller, for "teachers only."

A tomato and scrambled egg dish,
a duck dish, and (probably) beans.

John loves the sweet and sour pork spareribs.
99% of the food served for lunch is hot. No drinks
are served, except on the 3rd floor where we
have the option of a soy drink or drinkable yogurt.
Most people just eat lunch without a drink.

Everyone on campus eats between 11:35-1:30. Here you can see
a line of teachers waiting to select food. It's very busy at lunch time
on all 3 floors, but the lines move fast. The place is full of
people wielding chopsticks in large bowls of noodles, plates
of fried rice, or cafeteria trays full of other choices. The vegetable
dishes are all very flavorful. Dumplings abound.

We are happy to report that we administered our finals, graded them and the last of the assignments, and successfully turned our grades in, in spite of computer systems in Chinese, mixed-up class lists between the two of us, people just taking the final who had not been in class all semester (it's an allowable if not prevalent thing), and the student with chicken pox who will have to do his final at the beginning of next semester. For some reason only known to some, our finals were a week earlier than the other finals the students took. Now we're all on break until early March to celebrate the new year and the Spring Festival!

January 1, 2018

This week will cover Christmas and New Year 2018!

When Kristina left, we spent our first Christmas ever without any of our children around!  It feels very strange! We had made our English toffee and Swedish Tea Ring while Kristina was here. We usually go out for Chinese food on Christmas eve, but it was Sunday, and one of the ways we observe the Sabbath is by not shopping. So it was a very different Christmas.  On Christmas Day, we slept in, had a private Christmas celebration, then went out for Chinese food.  Do you know what they call Chinese food here?  "Food."

After Christmas we got busy teaching classes and working to catch up from all the playing we've been doing.  We did buy some quail eggs and beets and pickled both. Because it seemed like something we needed to do.

But we couldn't stay home for long.  About 30 of us who are English teachers from Brigham Young University met in Harbin, China - way up north near the Russian border - to see the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival. We had three separate parts of our tour: The ice sculptures, the snow sculptures, and a visit to the tiger preserve, where we saw Siberian Tigers. 

It was so cold! But so amazing.  The ice sculptures are best seen at night due to the light they place within the blocks. The sculptures are crafted from 2-3 feet thick blocks of ice that have been cut from the frozen river that runs through the city. Many of the creations are full-size buildings!

John was born in the year of the rooster!

One vendor was charging for pictures with a white fox.

This is to give some perspective as to the size
of  these creations.  Notice the people climbing
the tower?

A whole city built from ice!

We saw an ice version of the Temple of Heaven we saw in Beijing!

Hundreds of people packed like sardines waiting to slide down the ice.
Standing in one place for that long took more footwarmers than we had!

Even an ice carriage to ride on (okay, sit on). 

The tiger preserve has accomplished a lot to expand the population of the endangered Siberian Tiger. We rode in reinforced buses through various fields of tigers and lions.  It was amazing to see these tigers up close!

To protect the tires from tigers? Or for dramatic effect? 

The tiger was licking the tree. Not sure why...

You could buy chicken meat to feed to the tigers, or a whole
 live chicken, or a ringed-necked pheasant because
 it would fly and provide guests with more entertainment.

They don't seem to mind the cold.

And a visit to the snow sculpture park!

Our tour guide had a little monkey on the top of her pole, so we
would be sure to see where she was in the crowds.

A massive sculpture under construction.

2018 is the year of the Dog!

The river where the ice comes from is used for play-- tourists come
from warmer parts of China to let their children experience ice and
snow. We also saw lit paper lanterns floating over the festivities.

We finished our day in Harbin with a quick march behind our tour guide's monkey down a very crowded  pedestrian street, Central Street (after our bus tried unsuccessfully to navigate rush hour/tourist traffic going the wrong way down a very crowded non-pedestrian street). We didn't walk for long. Most of our group were pretty cold. We did visit a sausage museum, though, because it was near a restroom. Have you ever traveled with a tour group full of people? Restroom stops are a major deal. It was handy, though, because one of Kathy's Uggs (from the Shanghai "fake mall") lost half of its sole, and the nice lady at the sausage market loaned us some packing tape to reattach it. Ate Russian ice cream (it's never too cold for ice cream!).  And when everybody else boarded the bus back to the hotel, the other couple from Shanghai stayed back with us so we could experience a Russian restaurant. We were determined to try some good Russian food while this close to the border.  

So we had Americans in a Russian restaurant in China (and Tammie eating Italian food). How international! We had a few communication challenges ordering, however. We ended up laughing a lot, eating good food, and having about four of the serving staff trying to help us - sometimes hitting each other for misunderstanding and bringing five dishes to us when we THOUGHT we only ordered four. We ate them all, anyway. 

Continuing our walk down Central Street until the cold finally won.

There were still ice sculptures underway.

Matryoshka doll

We saw an elaborate marriage proposal, complete with music,
an emcee, a ring, and tears.

All in all, a very different New Year's eve than we've ever had. We ended up going back to the hotel, where we saw some fireworks from our window at 10:00, then slept the new year in. What old fogies!

A big loaf of Russian brown bread
followed us home from the airport.

December 24, 2017

So much for good intentions! Our goal to produce a weekly blog got derailed, but we're getting back on track. So this entry gives you all the highlights of the second part of Kristina's visit, and it also gives you a double dose of cuteness (spoiler alert).

When last we left you we were in Beijing.  Next up was the Forbidden City, formally known as the Palace Museum.  This is more amazing than we even imagined. It covers over 180 acres and has 980 buildings, completed in the year 1420. No, we did not see all the buildings, but we tried--we were there for about 5 hours!

Where Pu Yi, the Last Emperor of China, learned English

Beijing - The old and the new 

As we left, we headed toward Tienanmen Square, but the path was blocked and there was a large crowd gathering. We stuck around to see what all the excitement was about and found out it was time for the military to retire the colors, a formal procession each evening. Kathy mostly saw it through the upraised cell phones of people in front of her because there were too many people blocking her short view.

We went back to our hotel in the hutong (alley), then went out the other end looking for food. We found a nice little Chinese restaurant with the menu entirely in Chinese, but with a few pictures. We managed to order. The manager and waitress kept a close eye on our table - and laughed out loud at us a couple of times. Anyway, it was fun and good!

We ordered three different soups. They were all wonderful.

As we headed out for our day, we came across a "team meeting" of delivery drivers.  The Kangaroo Team:

We also visited the Temple of Heaven.  This complex was also completed in 1420 (man, were they busy back in those days!) and covers 660 acres.  This is almost 4 times the size of the Forbidden City, but with a lot fewer buildings. It was built as a place for the Emperor to make an annual tribute to the Gods for a good harvest.  And there are 60,000 trees here that are part of the park, including one that is 500 years old!

It's called the "Nine Dragon Tree" as you can
supposedly see 9 dragons intertwined on the trunk.

The Circular Mound Alter was fascinating. The number 9 is the number symbolizing the emperor, and this open alter is designed to really leverage that symbolism. The alter is made up of three levels of circular terraces, with 9 steps to get to each level. On the top, at the center is the "Heaven's Heart Stone" - a dome shaped round stone surrounded by 9 rows of plates forming concentric circles. The first row has 9 plates, the second row has 18, the third row 27, etc. so the final, outermost row has 81 (9x9).

Kristina on the "Heaven's Heart Stone." If you
make noise there is an amazing echo.

The main building is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests.  

After a stop at the Pearl Market, we headed to the zoo. It's not a great time of year for a visit to the zoo because there weren't many animals visible, but any time of year is great to see the Giant Pandas. They were very entertaining. And cute--there's your first dose of cuteness.

Now for the real cuteness of the week! Our granddaughter, Molly, was born!

And we got to WeChat video with her and her father when we were on a bullet train bound from Beijing to Shanghai. Isn't technology wonderful? And aren't new little granddaughters just precious?

We got back to Shanghai and celebrated Christmas a few days early before Kristina left for her home in N. Carolina. It was great to have her visit us in China. We saw a lot and enjoyed her company. And had a new granddaughter join the family. It was a great week!