Jaunt to Hangzhou

Last week we had the privilege of a visit from Andy's Dad Tom. Can I just state for the record that we love visitors!? And we have plenty of room in our house for people to stay with us..... so, if you have ever wanted to visit China....

I digress. On Saturday we drove to Hangzhou to spend the weekend. Hangzhou is beautiful city located on XiHu (West Lake). After a long drive battling traffic, we arrived and visited the tea museum. There is a whole lot more to the growing and even brewing tea that I ever imagined. The kids were interested to see what tea bushes look like and some of the machinery used for the pressing and drying of the tea leaves. After touring the museum, we went to the hotel to rest up, had a marvelous dinner, and then went to the show called Impressions. We had been before but it is an amazing show using the water as the stage (the actual stage is 3 cm below the surface of the water so the performers look as if they are walking on water). The show, which is choreographed by the man who did the opening ceremony for the Olympics, takes place in the evening and uses lights and music in a breathtaking way. But it made for quite a late night and we were more than ready for bed at the end. In fact, Josh and Tori feel asleep in the midst of the performance.

The next morning we spent some time just enjoying the scenery of the lake. First enjoying our coffee on Starbuck's balcony overlooking the lake. We then took a boat to one of the islands in the middle of West Lake. It was a wonderful weekend. Here some of the highlights in pics:

Outside the tea museum

A man working in the tea fields

Tori in a tea field.

We have so many pictures of our kids in these "keyhole" doorways. But they are always adorable, so I had to post yet another.

Becca and Grandpa having a discussion while riding on the boat.

I am still here!

Yes, indeed, I am still here! But I have been busy, hence the lack of posting. Hopefully, over the next few days I will update you all on that has happened over the last few weeks. If only life would slow down, so I have time....

Just in the last couple of weeks, we had a visit from Andy's dad, Tom, Andy and I were rather sick, and we FINALLY bought tickets for our visit home this summer. I am getting excited about visiting and hopefully seeing many of YOU. But I am also realizing the many things that I need to do here before we leave and then I have quite the list of things to take care of in the US. While this summer will be fun, I am not sure that it will be relaxing. Alright, let the updating begin!

Learning Chinese

It has been quite awhile since I updated you all on my ongoing battle with Chinese. Probably because it feels like there is nothing to report! Not that I am not progressing, but it is just slow and steady. I feel like the tortoise plodding along. But.... I have really been pondering for a some time about ramping up my language learning. So, I think that next year I am going to take classes full-time (which works out to be half-days) at Soochow University here in Suzhou. This means not only full-out more Chinese, but learning characters as well. This year has been wonderful meeting with a tutor and just making sure all the kids were adjusting well, but I feel ready for the next step. Now that I have decided this, the "American" in me wants to register for classes. Find out times. You know, figure everything out. But this is a more laid-back system, and I won't need to register until August. I will keep you updated....

Beautiful Suzhou

I spent most of last week sick. Feverish and just feeling lousy. Monday I started feeling like myself again. But I had a ton of errands to do this morning! Amazing how things pile up when you are not feeling well. I set off to pay for the gas, put more minutes on my cell phone, among other things. Of course as I was doing these things, I floundered along using broken Chinese (and at one point seriously needing the help of a bank employee to know which button to push on the machine that uses only characters). But as I was walking home, I was struck by how much I love it here. Yes, I don't always understand why something is happening. But I look forward to understanding culture more so I do. Yes, things are not familiar. But in fact, I am becoming accustomed to the unfamiliarity. I wonder how the U.S. will feel unfamiliar and different this summer when we visit. Yes, learning Chinese is hard... but also rewarding. Throughout the last 11 months, I have really come to appreciate where we live. While I am really looking forward to visiting the US this summer (less than 2 months!), this is home. 

Redneck-Chinese grilling

After sitting outside for the last several years, 2 of the legs rusted off our grill. We discovered this just before getting ready to grill. Andy being my engineer rigged something up. But c'mon, isn't this totally redneck grilling?! Don't worry, we didn't catch anything on fire.... this wall is total concrete.

Plant & Animal Market

Saturday we went to the plant and animal market. Andy was on the hunt for a bonsai for his office and I wanted to get a few flowers for our front steps. Tori came with us and loved looking at all the flowers. We didn't venture too far into the animal market but she enjoyed checking out the turtles.

So many kinds of turtles!

Tori kept telling this turtle "hello" and then "nihao" much to the delight of the shopkeepers

Flowers! I ended up buying some petunias and a daisy-like flower (because daisies are my favorite)

Tori was excited to carry the pretty flowers. Isn't she a cutie?

Getting the pot ready for planting with the assist of Xiao Lu.

Making a Yurt

Sunday night after all the birthday festivities, Becca built a yurt for a school project. They are studying how and why buildings stand up. Her assignment was to build an interesting structure from somewhere in the world. Due to the international nature of her school, they really encourage the kids to think about and appreciate many other cultures. Then she needed to write about who used it, what materials were used and why they used these things. We found several great websites to aid in her research. After reading this one, she decided that she would build a yurt, a type of portable house found Mongolia. Kind of fun since sometime in our stay in China we might actually see one! We debated about how would be the best way to build it. She used chopsticks for the support beams (because after all, we are in China, what else would we use?) and some fabric a friend gave us for the covering. Unfortunately, we had no wool to give it that authentic look. :-)

I think she did an amazing job (really amazing because she did it all.... I just performed slight assists with the glue gun). Here is her finished masterpiece:

And then a picture of an actual yurt: