March 25, 2018 - Serendipity

"I'll bet no one in this country has ever eaten this before!" said Kathy one night. And she was probably right. We had picked up a chunk of roasted pork leg the last time we were visiting Zhujiajiao, the ancient water town with lots of vendors selling everything from pork trotters to wooden combs (See our post of Nov 19 to see pictures of pork trotters). The day we pulled it out of the freezer to try it, we decided it was a bit dry. And the spice on it wasn't our favorite. So the next night we shredded it, put it in corn tortillas (that we brought back from the States), added green enchilada sauce (that we brought back from the States) and cheese.  Pork leg green enchiladas! Very tasty!

This week we share with you more details showing how serendipitous life in Shanghai can be! You never know what you're going to find (or create). Besides teaching:

we explored Century Park one afternoon when we had a couple of hours,

We've known this park existed for a long time. But we finally went to see it,
and it was in full bloom.

Serendipity means renting a four-pedal conveyance with which to explore the park. Sadly, as we were learning to maneuver it, we did bump into one poor soul. 

We often find wonderful children to
interact with. They gave John one
of their blossoms.

we met up with Jared Barnard and his family at the world’s largest Starbucks - Jared worked with John 20 years ago at American Express and now lives in Singapore,

we happened upon an alley that serves as an art gallery,

we found a puppet museum at a theater where puppet shows are presented (we didn't go to a puppet show; Tammie was looking for a "Monkey King" puppet that we had serendipitously seen being carried by a child on the street),

Puppetry has a long tradition in China, from paper-thin, lacy looking puppets
shown as shadows behind a sheet to these very  large and ornate puppets. 

and John found Easter lilies for Kathy.

In other news: this week we found that the camphor tree outside our apartment that stayed green all winter is now losing its leaves - but has new growth, too. We enjoy watching the chefs from the nearby restaurant periodically come set up a ladder to pick camphor leaves, although we're not sure what they do with them...

Every morning a worker sweeps the leaves off
the driveway next to this lawn, using a broom
made of branches of leaves.

We also were invited to a concert on campus. Music is, indeed, the universal language.

"The Eurasia Silk Road Influenced by German Music" - Huan Qi playing
Albeniz, Debussy, Chen Pei-Xun, Zhang Zhao, and Rachmaninoff.

On Tuesday night we supervised a lively English Corner discussion led by English Club staff members. They had recruited a lot of students from across campus to come to our regular English Corner to practice their speaking and listening.

It was an enjoyable evening.

We had a hotpot dining experience with some Chinese friends who had gotten married the day before.

It's nice to go with people who can read the menu and who know
the cuisine. Plus, they're a cute couple.

And we stayed up until midnight on March 31 (10 am Utah time) to participate in the worldwide conference of the LDS Church, the "solemn assembly," a sacred meeting where we sustained a new prophet to lead the church.  What a blessing to be part of this wonderful meeting and see the energy, vision, leadership, and inspiration of a 93-year old prophet!  He and his wife are going on a global ministry tour April 10-23 and will visit 8 cities in 11 days:

• London, England
• Jerusalem, Israel
• Nairobi, Kenya
• Harare, Zimbabwe
• Bengalaru, India
• Bangkok, Thailand
• Hong Kong, China
• Honolulu, Hawaii

We are amazed!  That is a challenging schedule for a person at any age!!!

Russell M. Nelson, 17th president and prophet of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

We are grateful that there is a prophet on the earth today, just as there was in times of old.  The Lord loves the people of the earth as much as He ever has!