shifting weight

I'm sitting on the couch in our living room waiting for the washer to start beeping like crazy again, because it can't handle the 2 kgs of weight that I put in it. The bulk of the weight always ends up on one side of the machine, so I have to get up every few minutes and shift the weight. The three loads of laundry that I have to do are going to end up taking the whole day. Which is not a surprise at this point - things over here almost always seem to take longer than you would expect them to.

Like for instance, living in your home for a whole calendar month. Aaron and I moved here December 6th, and since December 6th we haven't been in our house for the completion of any month - December we visited friends, January and February we were out traveling, and we won't be at home for the entire month of March either.

Getting over sinus problems takes longer here....but I don't know that this is related to the location as much as my expectations for sinus relief to have come a lot sooner.

Communicating with the vendors at the market takes longer than i expect.  Their dialect and accents are so thick, that I often have them repeat what they are saying a few times before I realize that they are saying "I DON'T HAVE THAT."

Even time in between blogs is longer than I initially expected because life seems uneventful or uninteresting when i sit down to write or I am spending hours studying Chinese which is probably the only thing taking about the amount of time i would expect it to take (FOREVER) and don't make time to blog.

Lately I have been reflecting on how much of my life is done on a time schedule I create, when in reality I have an eternity to live. So unexpected lines and delays are reminders that it is okay when things move slower. Thank you, China, for challenging me to change perspective.

And because it has been my goal for our blog not to become my personal journal, but to be more like a photo album or slideshow of our lives for our families. Here are recent pictures from around the house. So I can at least feel like I didn't compromise that goal with so many words written above:)

Two things we're pretty excited about:

Making brownies in my new oven!
Thank you to both Moms & your friends,
for praying for me to find a good oven.

Aaron standing at his desk he installed as a wall desk.

Go and Bear Fruit

Two years ago teams of people went into the lower Himalayas armed with apricot trees from Pakistan with the hope to provide a rural mountain community with some much needed vitamins,a potential new source of income, and a different perspective on the future. The teams planted more than 400 seedlings in about 10 different villages. A few weeks ago Aaron and I had the privilege to join the teams that would hike back to these villages, prune the trees, and start discussing with the villagers the idea of bearing much fruit.

James and Laura are friends that we recently made when we met in the U.S. and found out we were both going to be living on the same side of the world for a while. The two of them plus us made up our 4 person team, as we went and pruned around 100 of these trees. We spent a week in the mountains, walking from home to home, eating potatoes with the locals, and sleeping wherever anyone invited us to stay.

James put together a really great video of our trip that he put on his blog. I'm putting it up here, but encourage you to check out James and Laura's blog at http://jamesrosenberg.blogspot.com.

Enjoy!

....and we're BACK!

Confession: We've been back for a week.

We left January 13th and returned on February 16th. During that time we traveled to three different cities in Thailand and three different cities in China. It was fun to be gone for so long, because walking in the door on the 16th, this place actually felt like home.

Since we have been back, I have been avoiding email, blogging, and checking the news. I think I just got so used to not having constant internet connection over the last 4 1/2 weeks that coming back to it seemed a bit tiring.

BUT today, I'm back. I'm ready to tackle the internet. Our lives for the next couple of weeks may be fairly boring, as we start class, so the next few blogs may just be recaps of the last 5 weeks. Speaking of which, today we took our placement tests, so we'd know which class we'd be in. We sat there for an hour filling out TWO tests, and as soon as we turned them in, the teacher asked us to look at the books and decide which class looked like our level.....so I'm not exactly sure what the placement test was all about.

I leave you with this: In China, you can get your hair washed and blow dried, complete with a head and shoulder massage for just a couple of dollars. My hair wash cost $3, Aaron's hair style cost $4.55. I think this picture explains why:

He stepped with swag as if it was still the 70's and the theme song to Shaft was playing in the background, walked right up to the counter at KFC and came back to the table with a free refill on a hot fudge sundae.

He is the most interesting man in the world.

Or at least has the most debonaire hair style in the world.

Scalping doughnuts.......

This is Krispy Kreme in Bangkok:

 
 It just opened a few months ago, and well, Krispy Kreme chose the perfect place to open...because this is the line to buy doughnuts at Krispy Kreme:

Yes, that is outside of the store.  They called people in shifts to enter and buy doughnuts.  Once inside you have to choose if you are the "original glazed only" type or the "assorted" type.  Once you decide, that is the kind you will get...it doesn't matter how appealing a NY cheesecake doughnut sounds after you are in the original glazed line.

This is my happy husband, after we stood in that crazy line:

While in the line we were approached by this guy:

(The guy on the right of the picture, with the shifty eyes......)

to buy a dozen doughnuts from him for a higher price, so we could skip out on the line.

He is just one of what seems to be a million people who are trying to make a baht or two off of the brilliance that is Krispy Kreme, by selling dozens of doughnuts to salivating people passing by.

Literally across the street from Krispy Kreme in Bangkok I passed FIVE different stands selling dozens of Krispy Kreme doughnuts for prices 50 - 150 baht more than at the store. What that means in US dollars: a dozen glazed is 249 baht or $8.30, people on the street are selling them for anywhere from 300 baht ($10) to 400 baht ($13.30) RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM THE STORE!

Today I am proud to be a North Carolinian.

Dando gracias

I'm hanging up these laces for the next month, as I spend three weeks in flip flops and sandals and then two weeks in hiking boots. But wanted to express my sincere gratitude to my mom who bought these shoes for my birthday. They have been the perfect China shoes, waterproof and perfect for the cold and sometimes wet weather, as well as for all the walking around I have done in the last month. I have worn them everyday since December 6th. They were good to me while we were in America, and actually served the purpose they were made for a few times, but here instead of trails with roots and rocks, these shoes have been dodging puddles and tiles in the sidewalk that squirt up water all over my feet when I step on them.

Thank you, mom.

Mi casa es su casa

If they mated.....

       +

Result =

This is Asian Kate. I know you can see it. Don't lie.

This is me with Kate and her son, whose English name is coincidentally Jackie....probably after her father.

Our own cider house

This is our friend Albert

Albert is standing over a cider press that he made with his resourcefulness of being able to look at objects like lunch trays and cutting boards, and see useful parts of a cider press.

Albert is known for his love of apples and is famous for his applesauce. But this apple season he has gone beyond "Albert's World Famous Applesauce" to now "Albert's World Famous Apple Cider."  He invited us over to make cider at his house.

To make cider:

First you have smash the apples. Whole apples. Don't peel them, don't core them. Just smash them.

Once they are smashed, then you can fill the press:

And then just turn the knob and cider starts pouring out! Aaron did all the hard work of smashing the apples. I just watched the juice pour out.

Last step: Enjoy.

mint hot chocolate. egg nog. and now apple cider - things that normally leave us longing when we think of them. Thinking of them makes me want to curl up under a blanket in front of a fire with a hot cup (or cold cup) with a book or a movie. So far this asian winter we have enjoyed all of these drinks, no fire, lots of movies, and the occasional book. I would say it has been a great winter. AND the egg nog and cider that we have enjoyed here have been better than egg nog or cider I ever had in the US. Y'all want to move here now, don't you?

How to learn a new city

Aaron and I have recently realized that at this point in our moving in/learning a new city we have a choice. We don't start class until the end of February, and we don't leave for travel until January 13th. So that meant this week, we had a choice each morning to either not venture out into the cold, gray weather and staying warm and cozy at home, OR we could venture out, wearing layers and layers of clothes (I'm wearing long johns for the first time in my life) and learn our city, our new home.

But, how do you learn a new city? We are doing it by getting on every and any bus that comes by our house and ride it until it ends.

Our first bus ride was a 45 minute ride to the southwest of our city. We quickly went off of the map Aaron and I were using to track our route, and ended up here:

It's kind of hard to tell from this picture what exactly is out here, but let me tell you - it was nothing. This was it. This is where all the buses stop, and the bus drivers take their nap before their next bus route. On the way out here, we watched as our surroundings got dustier and dustier and the industrial parks increased. This is where the hard workers live. If I ever need to buy construction equipment, I now know which bus to ride.

Our second bus trip was a much more successful bus ride in my eyes, as this is where we ended up:

We ended up within walking distance to H&M, Sephora, Starbucks, Subway, Ikea, and a European sports store called Decathalon. Much better ending I would say. On this bus trip we stayed on the map, and discovered where to go in our city if we ever need anything computer related, or if we need to buy a new bike.

I'm sure the other buses have pretty good stops, but I think we've already hit the jackpot. Especially considering taxis to this area cost us at least $20 USD roundtrip, and just over $1 USD roundtrip on the bus.

for Auld Lang Syne, my dear