Yu Dai Hu

I can't believe we've lived here for almost two years and only just recently visited this park. It's AWESOME! Yu Dai Hu is out on the edge of our city and it's a total escape from the busyness that surrounds us downtown near our apartment. It's around a small lake and there are so many things to do out there! It's like a small amusement park only with some homemade stuff thrown in the mix! haha...sounds totally unsafe! But it sure was fun!

On our way out there our taxi driver made some calls and got us in for free! It pays to be the whitey foreigner!

The only thing that maybe wasn't quite up to par was the "Pony Rides" ... which we didn't partake in! :) But we took pictures because the horses looked a little neglected and needed some attention.

These are some of the "homemade" toys. They were a lot of fun!
In the first one it's like a big carousel, and the guys in the middle were pushing it. :)

And then there was....wait for it..."The Flying Trapeze" (aka zip line) over part of the lake. Brandon went on it twice. I was less brave because the "landing area" was about 4 feet long and then you either face planted into a dirt embankment or successfully ran up a flight up wooden steps. I didn't want to risk it! :)

The bridges over the lake all looked like this...(ignore the dufus look on my face)

and Brandon's favorite part:

The lady in the picture was telling Brandon not to go too fast. And then right after that he peeled out. woops...

There was a huge ferris wheel too. eh...a little creepy. And a huge roller coaster, which we totally wanted to ride, but we left early because the wind was beginning to make Eden crazy.
Here's the picture from the top of the ferris wheel...you probably can't tell much from the picture but I just wanted to post it to give you an idea of the grey sky around our city!

I'm posting this picture just for fun. We see this all the time, but just happened to have our camera this time coming home from Yu Dai Hu.

Eden's Flower Photo Shoot

In an effort to get some more "professional" looking pictures of Eden, I set up a little photo shoot for her yesterday. Starting out though, I had several strikes against me...
1. I'm not a professional photographer.
2. I don't have professional photographer equipment.
3. I don't have proper backgrounds, props, etc...for taking prof pics.
4. I did it while Brandon was gone...and wrangling a baby and a camera and keeping her from eating the flowers...all at the same time proved to be more difficult than I imagined.

BUT even with all that going against me, I did have a few things going in my favor...
1. The cutest baby in the world (in my humble opinion).
2. Several gerber daisies.
3. A clean white blanket draped over our bed.

And with those props, I managed to get some pretty cute shots of Eden.
Rather than posting 63 pictures in this one post, go to this link and check them out.

Here's a little sample:

An Overdue Introduction

We asked you what you wanted to hear about...and you said Fu Mart!! So here it is, a long overdue introduction of the place we lovingly refer to as "Fu Mart."
Fu Mart is actually called "Da Run Fa" but it used to be "Da Fu Yuan" which I assume is where the Fu was derived from. It's actually RT Mart in English, but once we got hooked calling it Fu Mart, there was no turning back. Regardless of the name, Fu Mart is your basic Chinese Wal-Mart on a lesser scale.

As far as the lay out of the place, it's just like what you would expect a large grocery store would look like...

check out counters...

The major difference of course, is what they sell...
"fangbian mian" instead of Ramen noodles
TONS of yogurt instead of fresh milk (chinese love their yogurt)
pigs feet & whole chicken (including the head and feet) instead of sliced deli meat
small steamed buns instead of Mrs. Baird's wheat bread
Thai Rice, Small rice, Long Grain rice, Chinese rice, etc...instead of, well, Minute Rice
dead & live turtles instead of...I have no idea what those replace.

Anyhow, you get the point. LOTS of differences. But we can get cheese, butter, and when we're lucky, "fresh" milk. They even recently imported Pillsbury Chocolate Frosting. :) You just really never know what they'll get next! :) When they do import stuff, they put it here, The Foreign Foods Aisle.

One of the things we love about Fu Mart is the "decor." They love to label things all over the store in English. Above the chips and crackers is a sign labeled "Creakears." mmmm creakears.
And above the fresh fish tanks is a huge Nemo poster. I don't know...I guess they think it's appropriate.

But by far the thing we love MOST about Fu Mart is the prices. We can get really great fresh veggies...
for a fraction of the cost in America. Our last purchase: onions. A pound of onions at Fu Mart? 14 cents.
Meat is really cheap too. We like to buy the most expensive beef, ground tenderloin, which we get for about 2 dollars a pound. Chicken breasts are extremely cheap too because Chinese people don't like the good part (ie chicken breasts) of the chicken. They prefer the feet, necks, wings, etc...so we cook with chicken a lot.
AND if you are a big rice eater (like the people we're daily surrounded by) then this is the place you want to go for rice (although sadly, the price of rice has doubled in the last three months...causing riots in some countries). Note in this picture below that above the rice there is a price of 1.22 Yuan. That's about 17 cents a pound.

Fu Mart may be the only place on earth that you can see people with a grocery cart filled to the max with just rice. They have these huge barrels in the store and you just scoop out as much as you want. Imagine 5 Wal-Mart bags full of rice and you'll get the idea of how Chinese people buy their rice. They think I'm weird when I want to buy about 1/2 a pound. (that will last us several months)
Fu Mart trips take a lot longer now than they used to. About every other person that we pass in the store likes to stop us to play with Eden.

That makes for a long hour of grocery shopping.

And finally...we would be remiss if we didn't mention the egg line. This is a phenomenon that no matter how long I live in China I will never understand. We buy previously packaged eggs in plasic cartons (similar to the states only not refrigerated). Super easy. Walk up, pick up the packaged eggs, and you're good to go. But for some really strange reason, most locals here prefer to stand in a sometimes ridiculously long line so that they can buy eggs that are a little cheaper. And when I say cheaper, I mean like 2 cents cheaper. It baffles me. And on one of the worst days that I've ever seen it, we happened to have the camera. :)

So I hope you feel more acquainted with the place. As much as I can describe it though, you just won't get a good feel for Fu Mart unless you come see it for yourself!

babble...

Here's a new video of Eden...six and a half months old!
She can say "dada" now, but we're not quite sure she knows the meaning of it yet! :)
and of course her usual after dinner special at the end!

A Shot in the Arm

Last week we took a few days to head up to the capital for Eden's next round of vaccinations (I told you we weren't total hippies) and to enjoy some American food! We've found that after a few months being back in our city we can always use a little dose of America, whether its in the form of food, other white faces, speaking english, or shopping for cereal. And this time around, we got to do every one of those!

Here's Eden decked out and ready for the big trip. She LOVES getting out and going places!

We met this little baby at the train station and Eden thought she was pretty cool...

The family sitting next to us on the train loved Eden. She steals the show wherever she goes.

Within a block radius of the hotel that we stayed in is:

1. Starbucks

2. Peter's (more to come on that later)

3. Annie's (an awesome italian place)

4. the International Hospital where Eden got her shots

5. Jenny Lou's (the best grocery import store ever)

6. Tom's (every movie imaginable...bootleg of course)

7. and last but not least Sunny Gold's (they've got all your shopping needs...if your shopping needs include knock off North Face, Burberry, Crocs, etc...)

It's like our own little America right in down town Chiner. It's the perfect place to go when we're needing a little "American Pick-me-up."

ok. about Peter's. It's a little Tex-Mex cafe with seriously one of the best bacon cheeseburgers I've ever eaten. I believe it's owned by a local, but I have no idea who taught that boy how to cook the way he does because it for real tastes just like the Tex-Mex served up back in the real Texas. The food by far is the best part of the joint, but the atmosphere totally helps. See...

Now if that doesn't look like your little mom and pop joint in downtown (insert your own hometown) Texas, then I don't know what does. We got a kick out of the Texas flag behind me in this picture with the word "home" written below it. hmmm...ironic.

Before leaving though we made one more stop to my favorite place to shop in Chiner, the Silk Market. They've got the coolest stuff. Now see...if you had come and visited us I would have taken you there! It's a place where the prices start out at about 5 times what you should actually pay (and most foreigners go for that) but if you can speak Chinese like us...then you can get an awesome handmade quilt for about $30 (price started at $150...hooray for bargaining skills!)

Eden also got her very own "chop." The Chinese word for this escapes me, but basically it's a stamp of her Chinese name, "Chen Yue En." We both have one and wanted her to have one too. And at the Silk Market they make it right there in front of you. A man engraved it into the stone that we picked out for her.

We had a great time...errrr Brandon and I did. Turns out Eden was getting her first tooth in the same day that she got her shots. Yeah. Rough day for the kiddo.
So she got her dose of HepB & dTap...and we got our dose of America.
I say that...but as soon as we got back last week I was dealt a shocking blow. My favorite all time band, The Counting Crows, came out with a new cd about 2 weeks ago without me being the wiser. Had no clue. Even when we feel like we're "staying in the loop" on all things American...there's just some stuff that still passes us by. I guess that comes with the territory of living 12,000 miles away!

In other news...we have a scheduled departure date! May 22nd Texas here we come!

6 Months!

Eden is 6 months old today! WOW! And she's trying so many new things and really beginning to "scoot" around! She's been eating rice cereal for a couple weeks now which she totally loves. She gobbles it up quick! And she's loving sweet potatoes too. She's not like her momma though...she hated the avocados! We'll try those again in about a month! And of course, she LOVES banana now.
She had her first taste of carrots yesterday:

And this is what she thought of them:

haha! I looooove that picture!!!

and this is how she looks after meals!

strange...I think her hair looks a little red tinted in those pictures but it doesn't look red at all in person. She's definitely a blondie for now!

I'm too lazy to post this video on the actual blog so I'm just going to paste the link. Check it out if you want to! :) It's of Eden's new scootin' around.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LW6q7UHumf0

Here's a few more recent pics...

Who is Shakira?

As I walked in the door I was greeted by 40 students who stood to their feet in applause. They cheered for me like I'd just cured cancer. I couldn't believe the reaction I was getting for just walking through the door! Little did I know, that I'd be bombarded by giddy 20 year old girls (who could have passed for 13) who wanted to be in a picture with a Lao Wai (foreigner), and cell phones that took pictures throughout the entire class.
That was the ridiculous part. The rest of the 50 minute class was pretty cool.

This week I visited two classes of students learning english so that they can move abroad and be tour guides. It's a little far-fetched if you ask me. Most likely they'll end up being tour guides for English speakers across China...if that. But even still, their ambition was amazing.
Two girls wanted to sing a song for me...voluntarily and individually. That would never happen in America. However, the "I'm too cool" complex is not an issue here. And they were both great!
I spoke of family and friends back in Texas. Hobbies. My favorite Chinese food (something they ALWAYS ask). American Weddings. All the usual questions we get asked when doing this sort of thing.
And then they pulled out a few random ones:

Student: "Can you describe Rock and Roll music?"
Me: "ummm, like how do you mean?"
Student: "Well, can you sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow?"
Me: (trying to stifle a laugh) "Well, I can...but that's not really Rock and Roll."

Another student: "Have you been to the White House?"
Me: "I've seen it from the outside."
Student: "Can you describe it?"
Me: "welllllllll, it's a big, white house!"

A boy in the back of the class: "Can you tell me your opinion of the China/Taiwan relations?"
Me: (oh so tactfully evading the question) Many Americans don't know much about Chinese customs...for instance (and I totally pulled out something that I can't remember and didn't have to discuss that topic any longer!)

And then a girl asked me to explain the differences between American babies and Chinese babies (which I'm not real sure what she was wanting me to say) but it totally gave me a door to inform them that the rest of the world (at least none of it that I've seen) doesn't use split pants. and a huge gasp overtook the room...

Besides the silly and political questions, I got to discuss some pretty neat stuff. But it's tough doing this sort of thing because it's likely that I was the first foreigner for any of them to see, much less speak to. So it's a lot of pressure to "deflate" this American idea they have built up in their head....that we all dress like Britney Spears. Or sing like American Idol. or obsess over the latest season of LOST (well, ok most of us do). Or eat pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. you get the idea. For them to hear that I hadn't heard the most recent album of Shakira was a total shocker.
As far removed as they are from American culture, being 12,000 miles away, even still they seem to be swept up in it...or at least want to be. But I hope it was encouraging for them to hear that America is a lot more than McDonalds and shopping malls. And it's not always something to be swept up in.

They were eager to hear about America, but much to my surprise, they were more interested in hearing about my adjustment to their culture. Which was great to talk about. It was helpful for me to speak with them about it because I could only focus on the positives (it's not like I can criticize their culture in front of them) which forced me to really think about how far I've come in the last 2 years as far as handling Chinese culture is concerned.

And then of course after all of our serious discussion and the progress I felt I'd made, a girl asked, "Where does Paris Hilton live?" ahhhhh well. I guess we can't escape it completely!