Shanghai and Oz

I went to lovely Shanghai the other day. Like the sign says on the building above, I love that place. The timing of the trip coincided with a visit there by some friends from Australia. I met Fiona when I lived in Australia from 1987-89, and have kept in touch with her and her family (meaning her parents and her) since. Last time I saw Fiona was in 1991 when she visited in Colorado. Since then she has moved north to Brisbane, gotten married and had a daughter. They are on vacation in Shanghai, so we met up...and I met her husband and daughter for the first time. 


I Kall my Aussie friends, and wish I could see them more often!

One week to go

A week from now I commence travel to the USA. I have a lot to do in the next week!

Before every trip, I spend some time with the twins in my office, Comet and Cupid, pictured above. (Their names are really Comet and Comet.) I'm pretty much done with them for this trip prep.

I have dog food to buy. I have to buy several months' worth of food ahead of time. Stores don't have that much food in stock at one time, so I make several trips to the store (allowing them time to re-stock).


Other chores on my list:

• Pre-pay rent, by paying in person and getting receipts signed.
• Do lots of banking
• Scan important documents
• Make sure Mimi's minder has extra keys, which may entail getting more made.
• Pay utility bills (in person, they can't be paid by mail)
• Set aside money envelopes for someone else to pay my utilities in my absence (Mimi runs the a/c during the summer, ya know).
• Give Mimi a bath
• Line up transportation to the airport
• Go visit Aussie friends in a major city nearby (which is not a "chore" but something pleasant). Buy train tickets to do that (buying tickets is the chore).
• Go to the doctor here to get prescriptions to last the duration of my trip.
• Wash, iron, pack
• Restock the kitchen with soy sauce, brown vinegar, rice, meat, cookies and other snacks so the house/dog sitter will be well taken care of in my absence.
• And do my regular work.

If perchance I don't post anything new in the coming week, you might suppose it is because I am busy getting ready. If you don't hear anything from me the week after THAT, you might suppose I am suffering from jet lag. But you may hear from me before then, so keep checking back!

Slow Cooker

I recently bought a slow cooker. (I can't call it a Crockpot, because that's a name brand, and not the name brand for the one I bought.) I pretty much know how to make one thing in it -- a big chunk of meat with carrots, potatoes and onions. I did make barbeque pork once though, with barbeque sauce made from scratch.


The Internet has a gazillion recipes, but I never know which ones are really good. So, if any of you out there have any slow cooker recipes that are tried and true, and you'd be willing to share with the rest of us, click on "comments" below and type in your recipe (or cut and paste it). Thanks, I'm looking forward to having some new ideas to try.

The aftermath

On Sunday morning I had some local friends over for a "party" of sorts. We ate pumpkin bread, drank green tea (coffee for me) and talked about life. Then I offered them some pork stew over rice for lunch. And when it was all over, my "coffee table" (which is in the shape and location of a village dining table) looked like this. All in all, it's a beautiful sight, because though it is really a mess, it is evidence of something good.

Mi Padre

Happy Father’s Day to my Padre!

Here are a dozen things you may or may not know about my dad:

1. He likes Sudoku puzzles and reading books (he has a Kindle).
2. He substitute teaches at the local high school.
3. He faithfully serves God in various ways, and once served as a deacon and a Gideon.
4. He makes things with tools and wood, in his garage workshop.
5. He keeps track of the family genealogy on his computer.
6. He’s a coffee drinker. He often gets the “senior coffee” at McDonalds when he is out. He doesn’t like that high-priced strong stuff (Starbucks).
7. He is a chemical engineer, having graduated from the University of Houston.
8. He was the youngest in his family, with an older brother and sister. Both his parents were born in the latter part of the 1800s. His unique first name is the last name of his maternal grandparents, and his initials spell “WOW!”
9. He likes to go deer hunting.
10. His favorite TV show seems to be “Wheel of Fortune,” and he is also smarter than a 5th grader!
11. He mutters at bad drivers and calls them “Leroy.” For example, he’ll say: “Get out of the way, Leroy.” (No offense intended to anyone really named Leroy.) And when he’s not fussing at Leroy, he might just be singing some hilarious campfire cowboy song that you’ve never heard before as he drives down the road.
12. When he gets out his flashlight, the dogs wag their tails with joy, as the nighttime backyard doggy pit stop is about to commence. Apparently, they are quite taken with him.

 It's fun to be in my family. :-)

Go here to learn more about my mom.

In every corner

God's creation is just beautiful ... in every corner, all over the world.

Lovely

It's June. It's hot. It's lovely. I'm enjoying the warm beautiful days of early summer in Bamboo Forest.

Dive right in, little doggy

No one can eat just one, not even her. (Mimi? That is you in there, right?)

I hate it when that happens

On Saturday, May 26th, I stumbled upon the local culture and arts center run by the government. They were remodeling the tea room so that it could serve as the venue for upcoming opera performances that would start two days later, on Monday, May 28th.

What a wonderful idea! Listen to the {screeching in nasally tones} opera singers while sipping Chinese tea in an ancient garden setting. I would definitely be back! Why, I could even take pictures that I could share with you, my blog readers!

But I wasn't born yesterday. I had my doubts that they would actually start performing on May 28th, despite what the printed brochure they handed me said. After all, this is the Middle Kingdom. Things said in the most definite, confident and earnest of tones cannot necessarily be relied on...folks here often voice their hopes and dreams as if they were facts. Well, guess what? You can't fool me, I've been here awhile, ya know?

So I went on Friday, June 1st. Surely things would be in operation by the fifth day.

Yet as I exited the taxi and walked towards the culture center, I had a feeling in my bones that this was going to be a bust. I walked in and saw the empty room and empty chairs at the empty tea tables (photo above). The only costumes were the ones on the wall (photos above).

The guy working the tea counter shrugged his shoulders and said he had no idea when they would actually start performing. No idea.

Fooled again.

When shopping isn't fun

Shopping is fun in America, but not so much here.

First, let's consider my transportation options. Buses are out. You can't carry many groceries on a crowded bus, nor can you carry them from the bus stop back to your home. 

Taxis are hard to find most of the time, so they are not reliable. Imagine buying 3-4 humongous heavy bags of groceries, then standing by the side of the road unable to flag down a taxi. It is not an enviable position to be in. Trust me. Been there.

Bicycles don't hold much. They also don't do well on hills.

Fortunately, I have my very own e-bike that holds more, and is more reliable than a taxi (see photo above).

In the winter, the e-bike is miserable to ride. You kick up a wind that doubles as a self-inflicted wind-chill factor. Don't even get me started on RAINY SEASON, which is all the time here in Seattle Bamboo Forest. Sometimes it is better to do without groceries. Starve or whatever if you must.

You definitely should not buy toilet paper or other bulky items that will not fit on the e-bike. If you are lucky, there will be a tiny convenience store much closer to your home that will sell it. I buy Diet Cokes and toilet paper at a nearby convenience store. Yep, I get weird looks, as if they think those are the only two items a foreign girl needs.

There is no payment by foreign credit card or check at the grocery store, just cash. So be sure to stand in line at the ATM for half an hour before going in to buy groceries. 


While in line, pray that the over-eager fraud protection banker in America bucking for a promotion hasn't put a freeze on your account because he/she thinks your credit card was stolen by some Asian gang and taken from East Texas to Asia and you haven't noticed. If that happens, you won't get money from the ATM, you won't buy groceries that day, and you'll have to return home where you probably won't be able to get a long-distance connection to a real person at the bank who can unfreeze your account. Pray you have friends who can feed you for a few days in this case.

As you go back to your apartment after buying groceries, your e-bike will be stacked like Granny Clampett sitting atop a moving truck in her rocking chair (see photo above). You will walk bow-legged for 3-4 days, but don't worry, those legs of yours will certainly straighten out in time for your next trip to the store!

Inside the store, I kid you not, is a circus. People ram their grocery carts into your backside and seriously think nothing of it. If you get frustrated with this, just bump your cart back into them...they won't even turn around to glare at you. They won't even notice! Not that I would do that or anything. It's a bumper car free-for-all in these crowded Super-Wal-Mart-like stores. When I first moved to Bamboo Forest (where it is the WORST), I used to come back from grocery shopping so rattled that I had to take a nap for an hour or two to decompress from the stress. Yeah, I know I'm from Texas and all, but that is no exaggeration. I don't suffer now as much as I used to, but I think it's because I go in with very low expectations, sedatives and no other appointments for the rest of the day. :-)

Ten years ago, shopping was cheap here, but not any more. Except for vegetables at the outdoor market, I pay as much or more for things than you do in America. I'm just glad that the sales tax is already included in the price, and is not added on at the cash register here. Here you know exactly how much you're going to have to pay.

When I go back to America, I don't even know how to act when I go shopping. I suspect some re-calibration will be required so I won't resort to the aggressive survival tactics I've learned here. But if you think you see me ram my grocery cart into someone at Wal-Mart when I'm in the USA this summer, please do not assume it is me, because it is probably just my evil twin that was separated from me at birth. 'Cause I don't do that.

We got our streets back

After years of messy metal barriers and dirt, our streets are finally back to normal!
The subway construction is finished, the roads have been re-paved, and most buildings got new paint and/or signs (I can't help but think the government paid for that as a small consolation). Trees have been planted, and things are just gorgeous now.
This is a block from where I live.

This is a bicycle lane. A bus stop is in the island between the bike lane and main lane of traffic.
This street is in my general neighborhood.

The thing about progress is that it never seems to end. Sure, they finished one subway line, but now they are getting ready lines 2, 3, 4 and more. So there are more dirt roads/construction areas in town, they are just no longer the main roads through town. This one is about a block from where I live, but I don't use this street very often so I am not too bothered.

Subway love

This was my plan. When the subway opened, I would let other people be the guinea pigs. I would not ride it for the first couple of weeks, to let them work out all the bugs. If the tunnels collapsed, or the train drivers were unfamiliar enough with the tunnel traffic as to slam into another train, I would be spared.

But I gotta tell you, it was a long bunch of years I suffered through the horrendous subway construction. So on the morning the subway opened, I got up at 6 a.m. -- on a SATURDAY -- took a shower, and got to the subway at 8 so I could be one of the first to enjoy the subway experience.

Of course it wasn’t open yet.

I went to the subway headquarters and asked when it was going to open. (I realize that makes it sound like I was freakishly concerned, but the headquarters was across the street from the subway entrance I couldn’t get into. I just crossed the street.)

They were setting up chairs, balloons and firecrackers for the grand opening that would be held mid-morning. The subway would start operation sometime after that.

I went home, waited to hear the thundering noise of firecrackers, then waited a little longer to give them time to find the keys to the subway station. No one is ever in a hurry in this country, so I didn't figure there was any use getting there (again) before it really opened.

Then later that morning, I rode the subway! I was so excited. I needn’t have worried about trains slamming into each other. The trains run an annoying 9 minutes apart. (In bigger cities they run 3-5 minutes apart.)

Now I can go to town and not worry about how or when I will be able to get back to my apartment (taxis are so unpredictable, and if it rains you might as well start walking home, ‘cause you won’t find a taxi).

For the first week, I rode the subway almost every single day, for no real reason at all except that it existed. But now I just take it when I need to go somewhere. I love it!