We survived

You might remember this from last year: sometimes the Chinese government would do this thing where they'd give us a holiday, but we had to work a Saturday to make up for it. Happens here to. We're now enjoying Saturday #2 in a four-day weekend, but that meant we had to work 11 out of the last 12 days. Not fun for us, not fun for the kids. And we had to work on Christmas.

But we made it. Merry Christmas to all. Christmas day was fairly quiet for us; we saved our big celebrations for this weekend. And Grace got me this awesome coffee siphon which I have to share.

Here's the setup, all ready to go.

Grind them beans.

Coffee goes in this funnel-shaped container on the right. There's a cloth filter in the bottom. Hot water goes in the beaker on the left.

Set the funnel in place and switch on the awesome little gas burner.

When the water starts to boil, gentle push the funnel down so that the rubber gasket creates a seal. This is the cool part: hot air expands and pushes the water up into the upper chamber. Stir to mix in the coffee and let stand for a minute.

When time's up, remove the heat. The air cools and contracts, creating a vacuum that pulls the water back down through the filter into the lower chamber.

Finished.

Pour.

Enjoy.

This is coffee geekery at its finest.

In other news, I took my students on a field trip to the library on Friday. Some of them told me that they'd never been to a library before! The Taipei Library Main Branch has a good-sized English-language collection, including reference books (OED, yes!). They also have a small "American Corner" with American travel books, books by American authors, a US road atlas, and two stations with laptops, Kindles, and an iPad. "Gift from the American People" say the stickers mounted next to each of these electronics. We went to McDonald's for lunch and then back to school. We watched "Crash Course" history videos on YouTube for the rest of the afternoon.

Yesterday was warm and sunny. Grace and I went to brunch at a nearby restaurant called Coda, then to the park. Came home, made coffee with the siphon for the first time, took it easy. In the afternoon, I rented a "YouBike" at a nearby subway station and met up with Grace on the riverside trail behind our place (it was a little tricky, but we found each other eventually). Grace was on her new silver bike (which we will post pictures of soon) and we pedaled our way along the river until we were almost out of the city. Came back as it was getting dark. Returned the bike and the cost was only $0.60. Had hotpot for dinner in the Gongguan neighborhood. Came home. Watched "Castle." Went to bed. Not a bad day.

Today it's cold and rainy. Relaxing at home right now. Will probably go out this afternoon. Church in the evening.

Happy New Year, everyone!

...and go Seahawks!

We're still here... here's proof

Wow, it's been a while since we've posted anything. We came over to this country telling people to check our blog, that we would be updating more often than we did in Beijing since we'd have more energy for stuff like that.

We didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into when we said that. Apologies.

Part of it is that I (Chris) have been reluctant to log onto Blogger and post something because it felt as though I had little to say that wouldn't be negative, and I didn't want to post something that was pure <blah!>. You see, work is just really consuming and, at times (very often, in fact), nonsensical. It can make it hard to see the upsides of living in Taipei.

And living in Taipei really is a huge improvement over living in Beijing. Not always as interesting, but much less of a headache, less harmful to one's health, and more beneficial to eyes accustomed to green foliage and lungs used to moist air. We're making friends, slowly, but surely, I guess, including a few from the Northwest. We had this one couple over for dinner on Saturday and the guy, despite hailing from Portland, had never really had coffee, though he'd expressed an interest. So I invited him to have an after-dinner cup. I opened a brand new bag of Kenyan peaberry that I'd just bought from a local roaster (one of the blessings of Taiwan is that good coffee is much more readily available than in Beijing), ground it, and brewed it in our Bialetti stovetop espresso maker. I only gave him a quarter of the batch and wasn't worried, since I usually drink a whole batch myself without feeling much effect.

I was only halfway finished when I noticed my hand shaking. We found out the next day that our initiated friend was up until 2:00 a.m. that morning. Looking on the bright side, though, he informed us that their apartment got really clean.

I guess maybe it's time to name names, since this next story involves this same couple: Miles and Kristen. We randomly met them in our neighborhood our second week in Taipei. We were checking out at the grocery store with two piles of food to take back to our newly leased apartment and Kristen must have thought Grace had a friendly face because out of nowhere she asked her where the two of them could find an electric fan. We talked. They were from Portland. We were from Seattle. It was cool. Anyway, flash forward to this weekend, we went to Costco, the four of us. The two of them (Kristen and Miles) joked that they had made up their minds to come to Taipei when they found out that there was a Costco here. On a rainy Sunday, after two subways and a taxi, we could see the familiar giant beige box with red letters. Well, familiar, but not.

Kristen and Grace getting geared for amazingness.

First of all, perhaps due to concerns about space, many Asian stores have levels whereas American stores would be flat. Fred Meyer in Ballard - one massive floor with a really high roof. Auchan in Beijing, Carrefour in Taipei - just as massive, but stacked on three levels with a series of escalating ramps. Asian Costco was a combination: massive floors on two levels. You enter and the ramp takes you directly to the second level.

Ahh, familiarity, kind of.

Up, up, and away.

Ah snap! that's the food court down there, and they have hot dogs!

Aight, here we go. Kirkland brand, here we come.

Level two was all the non-food stuff. I didn't last too long up there because of Sunday afternoon sleepiness and the crowds, so I came down and got a soda for 20NT ($0.66). The food level was more interesting to me anyway. Samples, just like in the US. Except people stand in long lines for the best ones. There was no line for the whiskey sample, though. We quickly found the Tillamook sharp cheddar and the Kirkland organic corn tortilla chips.

Muffins and scones!

Rice, rice, baby.

Yeah, represent. In USD, that's roughly $12.

We got a couple other staples that were either a better deal or harder to come by at the local groceries stores, things like olive oil, salsa, peanut butter, feta (of course, more cheese). Our one bulk Asian item: a four-pack of wanton soup. And, at the end of it all...

Classic.

Living where we do, it's oddly comforting to have a tub of Jiffy peanut butter in the cupboard.

I should share at least one school story, and then wrap this up. Around Christmastime, my school has a big production for the parents that includes all of the students in the bilingual classes, K-8, and it's planned, produced, and put on by us teachers. For the longest time, our director kept telling us to hold off on planning anything because the administration still hadn't made up their mind on the theme, and she didn't want us to jump the gun. Two weeks ago, we still hadn't been given the go-ahead, and so we teachers expressed the concern that we were running out of time if we were to organize something coherent for this production. Still no word. That Friday, someone had gotten a verbal indication that the theme would be something Christmas-related, so we could move forward with planning something. The teachers held a meeting that same day and decided on a rendition of "The Grinch," with three actors from each class, and each class performing a Christmas song. OK, cool, totally different from what I'd been told we were doing before, but still, nice to have a real plan. The next week at our English staff meeting, our director asks us what our plan is (even though she already knew). One of the teachers summarizes it simply and succinctly, just as we had all agreed the Friday before.

"OK, well, let me just interrupt you a little bit."

(?!)

Our director proceeded to inform us that the theme that had been decided upon was Thanksgiving. (again, ?!) Secondly, each class needed to do its own song and play; no single big play with a few actors from every grade.

Back to square one, and this just a bit more than a month before the performance, with two weeks of testing in the middle. I almost, almost raised my hand and suggested that we hold off on preparing anything at all until just two weeks before the date, since things keep getting changed on us; then we just devote half of our weekly classes for those two weeks to focus on rehearsal and forgo less important things like math and science and reading.

There was lots of head-shaking in that meeting.

The next day, what did we find out? The plan that we had been told to throw out just the day before was, in fact, good to go. But still with the Thanksgiving theme.

We'll just tweak all the lyrics. Thankful bells, thankful bells, thankful all the way. We wish you a thankful Christmas, and a thankful New Year. Rudolf the thankful reindeer, had a very thankful nose.
Anyways, speaking of Thanksgiving, I believe this will be my third away from home. No four-day weekend for us, though this Saturday and Sunday we get to go on a short retreat outside of the city with our church. Should be a great opportunity to escape the city and get to know some more people.

Work is definitely an ongoing challenge, for multiple reasons, and it's hard not to get stuck in the mentality that "work is my life and it sucks!" The truth is, though work is really challenging, life here is good. We have good food, a good apartment, we're making good friends, we get to do fun things (when we have the time and energy left over). We've gone indoor rock climbing twice in the last two weeks, which is double the number of times I climbed in an entire year in Beijing.

We (Grace writing) will be thinking of you all this week.  Have very merry celebrations (no.. wait, wrong holiday).  Um... thankful celebrations?!  Basically, eat lots of turkey for us :)  We love feedback, leave a note if you've stopped by.  Peace out.  

A Few Insanities

Chris mentioned in the last blog post that he missed Beijing.  Let me just say, he stands alone in that.  Even though the starry-eyed newness of Taipei is wearing off, I don't look back.

Here are a few insights into life:

-I am becoming an expert cockroach killer.  Good thing Chris has such huge shoes, is all I have to say.  I haven't started killing them with my hands yet (one of my coworkers does), but I'm sure the time will come.

-We have made our 3rd trip to Ikea and finally feel like our house is where we want it to be!

-During my training, we were told that we had 6 sick days and 4 leave days.  Wrong.  I had to clearly ask: "so, we are given these days but we shouldn't really take them?"  That is correct.  They are given simply as a formality.

-I leave the school at 7 pm (!!) sometimes and people are still working.  There's this mentality that you have to stay later than your boss, so if your boss hasn't left, you don't leave.  Some of my fellow foreign coworkers are embarrassed to leave early, and so sneak out the back door.

-We got a phone for Chris after my many visits and arguments to get a phone for myself a few weeks ago.  Even this time they started putting up a fuss about the wrong dates on my Taiwan ID (ARC).  When they realized I already had a contract, they had a long and serious discussion between themselves.  "Ok," they finally told us, "we give you another phone on this contract, but you can't go tell everybody."  Can I just ask... who is Everybody?!?!
(it's on the internet now anyways... :)  

I'm sure there are many more oddities, but this is a good start.  Both Chris and I are making head-way with our students -- getting to know and understand them.  Grading periods are ending soon, which makes for extra stress...  It's 9:30 pm and Chris is just getting home.  

Until next time.

The grass is always greener, right?

Two weeks of teaching done. It has been insanity.

No computer until the third day of classes. Repeatedly being told, “Oh, you need to be doing this and this, oh, and that,” after we’ve already fail to do this, this and that because no one told us ahead of time that we needed to. Building multiple curriculums from the ground up while having to teach them; like building a car while in the process of driving it down the road. And so many more things.

It’s been a bit of a shock for us. I left Beijing thinking that teaching in Taiwan would only make school more organized and predictable, and have since discovered just the opposite. A fellow teacher who’s been at my school for a number of years asked me last night what I thought of teaching in Taipei. “It’s like Beijing, but on steroids. No, wait, like speed, like Beijing on speed.”

It seems to be more intense for the students too. In Beijing, students arrived at school around 7:30 am and worked until 8:30 pm; a long, long day, granted, but they still were given many breaks throughout the day, some as long as a full hour. At my school in Taipei, students also arrive around 7:30 am, but their day is very different. Ten classes a day, only a five-minute break in between classes with one 15-minute break in the morning. School ends at 6:00 pm, but then most students head off to what are known as “cram schools,” where they do even more studying. Only after that do they actually start working on homework. Some of my 7th grade students don’t get to bed until midnight. It’s a system that puts a lot of expectation and pressure on teachers and students alike.

In the midst of this, it’s easy to think back to Beijing with a little bit of longing. Longing for those shorter teaching days, for a familiar curriculum, for a less pressure-filled work environment. But I also need to be careful to remember how difficult life was in Beijing also. Despite the stress of work, I feel as though we’re already developing healthier lives here in Taipei. We’re surrounded by green trees, the air is fresh, we’re making friends, we have a place of our own to call home. And nostalgia for our old school quickly faded this week when we heard from a friend back in Beijing that the principal was just fired and my former supervisor is leaving China. It's a reminder that, though things are tough here, things are not necessarily better elsewhere.

To an extent, you make the best with what you have and where you are. I don’t regret our decision to move, though I miss my students and our friends in Beijing. This year is going to be really, really challenging for us professionally, but I know that we are capable of rising to the challenge and we’ll be better teachers in the end because of it.

It’s Saturday afternoon now. This feels like a hard-earned weekend and we are making good use of it. Went out to breakfast this morning and had eggs and sausage and waffles. Walked back home through a morning market and bought fresh fruit (giant yellow mango, pears, star fruit) and vegetables. Grace is napping. I’m drinking coffee and typing on the couch. It’s rainy today, and the coolest it’s been since we got here over a month ago (80F). Maybe later this afternoon we’ll jump on the scooter and vroom over to the flower market or one of the colorful Buddhist temples. Or maybe not. It’s nice to do nothing.

School Has Started

We've been in classes for about 4 days now.  We have some war stories, especially Chris.  My school has some level of disorganization that comes with cross cultural work places, etc. but my school puts Chris' school to shame.  He found out 2 days into the school year that he is teaching in a starter program -- again -- similar to last year in China.  One of the reasons we wanted to get out of that situation!  The Chinese homeroom teacher, in his 7th grade classroom, has been taking advantage of Chris' time by tactically disappearing when needed, or acting lost and confused so that Chris would take the lead with the students.  When confronted, her "surprise" at the "news" clearly gave Chris the impression she knew more than was letting on.  Hum...

We've finally gotten at least one phone with a contract, which turns out to be cheaper that pay as you go.  So now I have a Smartphone.  It was a fight getting it, but I think the phone office was so tired of seeing me and arguing with me (I'm getting good at that...) that they caved.  Just kidding, I had a translator friend to help me and all the silly required paperwork.

My latest adventure has consisted of hunting down free bikes.  I saw an ad online, emailed the guy, he responded letting me know he'd moved but the bikes were left outside the apartment complex, unchained.  My first thoughts were "Free bikes!" plus "I'm sure they're still there!"  Well, I took the subway, tried as best as I could to follow his directions and 5 blisters and 2 hours later, I floundered my way with my poor Chinese back to the subway empty handed.  

One of the reasons I want a bike is to ride by Chris as he has started training for a marathon!  I have to say, there are times it feels like we are hitting our heads against a wall and yelling: "why is this so hard here?!?" but we're, for the most part, having fun doing it.  Not the head banging part.  Mostly just life.  I get to walk everywhere, which I love.  Chris is going to get a scooter soon.  Our walls aren't completely white anymore.  This feels more like living again.  It is good.  

Pictures!

I didn't realize the last post actually posted... ha!  Technology evades me again.  Here are pictures, for real this time.  

Chris in our living room.

 Dining room, opposite of the living room.  Lots of bare walls still.

Hallway to kitchen, bedrooms, bathroom.

 Yey, a real kitchen!  Minus an oven.  Both the kitchen and living room go onto the balcony.

We lucked out, we even got a place with a bathtub.

 Bedroom, other room not shown.

Nighttime view from our place.  We walk on that bridge to go to the riverside park.  It's lovely.

In the daytime, we see lots of trees.  We like our new place!

The Sad and the Happy

Admist the changes, the good things happening in our new lives in Taipei, the excitement and endless sense of new and wonderful places to explore, there are the things that are behind us that still leave a mark.  We found out this week that our car was totaled, by no fault of Adam who was driving, but it means we will have one less way of getting around next summer.  That plus the emotional attachment, yes it's only a piece of metal but we'd just managed to pay off our loan on the car and it took us to lots of places together without ever giving us the worry of a pending breakdown.

Another point of sadness is our cat.  We were ridiculously attached to our cat and we found out that Chris' parents found another home for him last week.  A cat's a cat, yes.  But having lived a life with many changes, our cat had been a wonderful companion.  Moving overseas kind of took us by surprise, and so giving him up only came with the territory.  We held on to him as long as we could but he has hopefully moved on to a home where they will love him and appreciate him as much as we did.  Not without a moment of sadness on mine and Chris' part.  

In other, happier, news we found an apartment!  I know Chris posted about is last week, but we have some pictures.  Now, we've only been in about a week and so it's still pretty bare bones.  We had to buy things like a fridge and a washer - basically, almost everything except a bed, closet, and some built in cabinets in the living room.

We've also found out that the way to pay bills it to go to 7-eleven.  You bring your bill and the money, and they take the stub and money and voila!  You have electricity for another month.  You can do practically anything at 7-11, and they're everywhere!  You also get your garbage bags there.  Chris jokes that soon we'll be able to vote at 7-11.

Anyways, here we are...

It's getting a bit breezy

We're sitting in the national immigration office right now waiting so that I can apply for my Alien Resident Certificate. Exciting stuff.

Looking outside, it's cloudy and windy this afternoon, foreshadowings of the typhoon that's coming our way. Tis will be our first typhoon, which, if I understand correctly, is basically the same thing as a hurricane, but in the Pacific. Not sure if we should be worried at all. Everyone else seems to be going about business as usual. I think typhoons might be one of those fact-of-life things, like snow in the Midwest or heat waves in the Southwest, all things that Northwesterners are not all that accustomed to. So, I guess we'll just have to wait and find out what it's like.

Here is a satellite image of the typhoon and it's projected path. The center will cross the island near the south, and Taipei is located up at the north end. We'll let you know what it's like.

Jet lag... so much fun

We have been in Taipei for a full week. It feels like we've done so much, and yet so little has happened. Let me explain.

After a fun but busy summer seeing our families and so many great friends, we arrived in Taipei last Friday around 11:00 pm local time. Grace's boss and her husband were there to pick us up and thankfully their car has a nice big trunk that was able to accommodate our many bags (and one guitar). Since then, we've been staying with this same couple and devoting most of our energy to finding an apartment. This has meant spending hours looking online at various sites, getting help from bilingual friends and coworkers to call and  set up appointments, and then navigating the subways, streets and back alleys of Taipei in order to find these places.

Throughout this process we've had a number of reality checks and disappointments, but there have been some good things too. We are greatly indebted to Ariel, the librarian at Grace's school who has helped us by making countless phone calls to landlords and agents on our behalf. We've also had a lot of success finding our way around Taipei, something that wasn't always so easy in Beijing. It's a small victory, but this week, I'll take it. Running all over the city has also let us get acquainted with new areas that we didn't see during our first visit back in January.

Overall though, this week has been a challenge. It's hard to make big decisions, let alone talk right, when you're jet lagging. Visiting so many places by foot is also exhausting. And, after a summer of living out of our suitcases, we came to Taiwan really looking forward to settling down for a time; but at the moment we're still living out of suitcases. But there is good news. We looked at a good apartment yesterday, and I went back today to negotiate with the agent. Hopefully things will work out, we'll be able to sign the contract tomorrow, and move in this weekend.

There's more to tell, but this is it for now. First post from Taipei. We'll try to make them more frequent this year, especially since we no longer live in a country where the government censors Blogger.

Grace started teacher orientation yesterday; I start on the 27th. Here we go!

UPDATE: Just heard back from the agent, Miss Leu. We got the apartment! We just have to go down tomorrow and sign the lease (and fork over the cash). Guess this means we need to stuff our stuff back into the bags that somehow exploded all over the room during the course of the week.

Last Beijing Post

This is  going to be a short and sweet one.  We're on our last week, hoorah!  and have 5 more days in Beijing.  We arrive in Seattle on the 1st, and are looking forward to resting, eating good food and being with people we love!  Our time this summer will be split between mainly between Seattle, Portland, and short stints in CA and OH, with a departure for Taiwan around August 10th.  

We have a Google number you can reach us as: 206.745.2924 (calls and texts), which works almost exactly like a 206 number and it's free! 

We are grading finals and wrapping up our last week with much anticipation for the future.  We are grateful we've had this experience, but are more than ready to move on.  Thank you for reading this past year, and stay posted for Taiwan adventures.

Please contact us if you want to see us this summer!   

Weekend trip to Xi'an

Check out our latest adventure!  http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohheychina/
We went to Xi'an, one the few walled cities in China and home to Terracotta warriors (see pictures, I'm sure you've seen them on TV).  We had our first experience on overnight trains in China; let's just say that if you get the cheap tickets, you will be packed in like sardines.  People were sleeping in the middle aisle, on the bathroom sink, under the bathroom sink, cell phones going off all night, vegetable sellers going through the train at all hours, I mean, it was a whole new world.  I would recommend it for the experience of it (and they're the cheapest seats), but be prepared to be super uncomfortable!  We were able to get sleeper bunks on the way home.
In Xi'an, spent the night with friends of friends and had a great time talking about their ministry learning about their hearts for China.  We so enjoyed hearing about their lives here and their future plans.
Xi'an is also quite a lot smaller than Beijing, which made getting around a bit easier and it is a city that has kept its old world feel very well.  Some parts of it, mostly the Muslim quarter, made you feel like you were transported back in time.  Really neat.
Alright, I will leave you to the pictures.  Enjoy!

Change of Plans

Well, it's official, we are no longer staying in China next year.  You're probably wondering, "what?!  You just decided you were staying!"  Yes, it's true, we have the tendency to be fickle.  However, since making our decision to stay, we have been constantly sick -- which means at least one new illness a week between the two of us.  We've also had a few things come up at our school which were pushing us in the direction of wanting to leave.  So we began seriously talking about it, and once we allowed ourselves (mostly me, Grace) to be okay with not coming back, it was like a huge weight had been lifted off of us!  We hadn't realized how dried up we were: there's no where in Beijing that we have found where we can feel refreshed, whereas in Washington, we'd go on a weekend hike after a long week at work.  Here, it's pretty much concrete and more concrete.  Beijing is just a tough city, in a hard culture and you always feel like an outsider.

While we have no idea what we're doing in the fall,  it is such a relief to do what is best for us.  We know it could be easier the second year, we know that maybe the illnesses might eventually go away, we know that we could actually teach the positions we wanted next year (after they told us we couldn't), but as I told Chris, this is our time.  We are refusing to live where we are unhappy, and there has been so much freedom in that decision!

In the meantime, I'm looking and applying at a job in Taiwan, Chris is looking for jobs in the States, we are going to Xi'an this weekend (14-hour train ride one-way, woot!) we are planning for the summer, and guess what?!  We have an electric bike.  Oh yeah, we're hip.  The old Chinese men that sit on the side of the road always do a double take when they see us ride by... it's hilarious.  I told Chris I want to ship the bike back to the States, it's that awesome.  Probably won't happen, and now that we're leaving, we have to figure out if there's a return policy on that thing!

If you think of us, please pray for direction for the fall, we'd appreciate it!  Thanks so much for reading, the adventures continue!

7 day work weeks, fires in your belly and other news

Let me (Grace) go on a short rampage about 7 day work weeks.  We're working the weekend in order to get a 3 day holiday, Mon-Wed (Qing Tomb holiday, when people decorate tombs of ancestors).  The result = exhausted teachers, cranky kids, and the 7th day ends up being movie day, which is a basically a lost day but as a teacher I have no energy left to think of one more creative way to teach adjective phrases.  --Btw, if anybody out there knows of any great teacher websites, please let me know!! --  All in all, we're working for such a short reward that in the end, it cancels itself out.  Why do they do this in China?  Because the government told them to, and no one asks questions.

People have learned to just accept things the way they are and though there is some complaining, it is the foreigners that ask "why?"  But, whether or not they ask questions, we've been learning the Chinese like to give opinions.  I've been hearing this line a lot this week: "wear more in the spring and less in the fall."  It's a Chinese saying, meaning that because there are so many germs going around in the spring, you should wear more clothes to keep from being sick (not sure what the fall part means).  I followed my TA's advice, but I'm still sick :(  Which means I've been hearing this line a lot as well: "drink hot water."  Apparently, the Chinese believe that cold water is bad for you, and you should only drink hot water to keep from extinguishing the "fire in your belly."  There is also a drink here that Petra swears is to cool the fire in your belly.  I haven't quite figured out what the fire signifies, other than it can be bad for you if it's too strong.  There is also the belief that you can get wind in your joints, which is like joint pain/rheumatism, from my understanding.  But whether you have fire or wind, the Chinese like giving advice, and everybody says the same thing!  It's quite interesting.

And yes, I'm sick.  I think it's to be assumed that any time we post, one of us is sick.  It's getting to be a bit trying, but Chris hasn't been sick in 3 weeks, which is a record, and I went a good 2 months without getting anything major.  We talked with some other expats, and they told us the first year was the hardest health wise, after that, it's fine.  Good to know there's an end in sight.

In other news, we decided we're staying another year!  Though Beijing is not the greatest city in the world to live in - there is currently a thin layer of dust covering EVERYthing due to spring winds - we feel like this is where we want to stay and have a sense of purpose here.  It's nice to have the stability, job wise, and we can keep getting to know people through church, etc.   We will be coming back to the States this summer, though the dates are still up in the air.  Probably early July to mid/end August.  We'll mainly be in WA and OR, and OH for a few days.  Please do let us know if you will be around this summer, we are excited to see all of you!

Hope all is well in your homes, thanks for reading :)

Snow today in Beijing. At least an inch. The most we've gotten all winter has been a dusting, due to the utter lack of precipitation in this place. Humidity has frequently been in the teens, which is unthinkable to a person who grew up in Seattle. Anyways, I'm no expert on northeastern Chinese climate, but perhaps this mornings' snow is coming at the intersection of a cold winter and a wetter spring. It makes the view from our windows less gray.

In other news, we had a feast on Friday night. A few weeks ago, a teaching couple from our school invited us over to their apartment for dinner. They really like to cook and they made us an amazing dinner with at least six different Chinese and Thai dishes. We finally got to return the favor, with Grace leading the way in the "kitchen" and all the rest of us helping (I made the tortillas, with help from our floormate, Veronica). The Western food included a dish that you could call Mexican lasagna, salsa, a cheesy pot of pasta, and bruschetta. Petra, our Chinese floormate, also made a number of Chinese dishes, including baked chicken wings and some other good things that I don't know how to describe. Our Chinese friends enjoyed our Western cooking and, even with all the other food on the table, the Mexican lasagna (with the tortillas that I made) was demolished by the end of the evening.

All this cooking got me to thinking about foods from back home, and the list of foods I miss would be quite long. I'm not starving here by any means, though, so instead of publishing a list of foods, I think I'll share a list of some larger things I miss from Seattle and Bellingham:

• fresh air
• mountains
• salt water
• fresh air
• rain
• the color green
• fresh air
• personal space on public transportation
• and of course, people

My list of food would be at least twice as long. Maybe next time. Here are some pictures from dinner the other night.

Above: This is what cooking in our "kitchen" often looks like.

L to R: Petra, Mr. Guo, Mrs. Wong, Veronica, Grace

Reasons Why We Never Get Anywhere in Beijing...

-Grace:  "Isn't north what's in front of you?"
Chris: enjoying a good laugh


-Grace: "Did you write down the street names?"
Chris: "No, it's all in my head.  I read Chinese better in my imagination than on paper."
Grace:  "?!?!?"

-The city's too big, it has too many streets

-Can't tell the cab driver for the life of us more than our three Chinese phrases.  It's amazing we make it home at all.

-We forget to do our Chinese homework, and so never learn more than 3 phrases.

- Chris thinks the maps are lying to him.  I've heard this speech more than once.

But somehow, in the end, we make it home in one piece, mostly thanks to our Chinese floormate, Petra.  So here's to being in one piece in Beijing with more funny stories by the day.  Like the one where we walked west instead of north (that's wasn't my fault either, even though I'm slightly directionally challenged.  Beijing makes everybody directionally challenged).  We've managed to find ourselves a small group and it feels so good to be in community again.  And, Chris is over his 3 week sickness and we're hoping he'll stay healthy another little bit.  Maybe that will make living here easier next year.  We've also joined an Alpha course as facilitators and brought 2 Chinese friends to it, and it was so cool to hear their questions and be able to answer them.  God was present.  Please keep August and Helen in your prayers.

Love from cold but sunny Beijing.  

A Recap of Taiwan and New Beginnings in Beijing

Hello all!  We have successfully come back from Taiwan - as opposed to unsuccessfully... not sure what that would look like!  But successful equals tans and fun adventures and amazing food and very kind people.  Also a few extras pairs of shoes (Chris wanted to buy this really cute pair of brown boots, but I told him to buy them for me instead... don't feel bad if you're not laughing because I have fun cracking myself up :).  Anyways, we had a blast.  From a 5 star hotel on the beach, to the lady that bought me bubble tea and told me that she hoped we liked Taiwan better than China!  I laughed out loud!  We went to many night markets, had lots of street food, walked around Taipei, went to the jade market, tried using my Chinese but people just responded in English.  People were also very kind and polite.  Needless to say, it was a wonderful break from Beijing and the endless shoving, spitting, yelling, nose picking.
The first few days of our return to Beijing were a bit rough, and I have to say, we were pretty discontent with being back.  I mean, who wouldn't give up Beijing for nice, warm, beautiful Taiwan?  We're at a place were we're having to decide what our move is this fall and though we're still praying about it, we have a peace that should we stay, our cups will not run dry.  This country, though the people are selfish and sometimes rude, are this way because of circumstances outside their control.  Keeping those facts in mind keep us smiling, holding open doors and being apart of life here.  Our cups continue to flow over with grace and love for ourselves and for the people here.
We've been getting more involved in a church, and we love it.  The people are from everywhere you could possibly imagine, it's incredible!  We've started going to a small group, ok, we've only gone once, but it's wonderful to be apart of a community again!  We were sort of drying up last semester and are realizing how important people
and fellowship are.  God heard us loud and clear because we have been meeting a good number of new ppl and are hoping to get involved in a few serving opportunities.
It's amazing how he never ceases to watch out over us, we feel so taken care of.  We praise Jesus for his new mercies everyday and continue to walk and grow with Him on this incredible journey.  May you be touched with His spirit today and renewed with His love.  Amen.  

Lunar New Year Fireworks

The Chinese really know what they're doing when it comes to fireworks. The shelling seemed to go off almost non-stop leading up the the Lunar New Year (January 23rd) and then kept going. Even two weeks later, as we returned to Beijing on February 6th, we could see from the plane that people were still lighting off fireworks all across the city.

Check out the video we took from our balcony in Beijing just before midnight on the eve of the Lunar New Year. Absolute craziness. Fourth of July in the states looks mundane in comparison, I'm sorry to say.

Taiwan: Around the Island in 10 Days

We just got back to Beijing last night after a 10-day trip to Taiwan. Check out the photos on Flickr. I'll put some highlights below. Hope you enjoy. We had tons of fun and ate lots of great food. We’ve concluded that Taiwan is much more foodie-friendly than Beijing. We were a little sad to come back; Taiwan was so warm, and Beijing is still soooo cold.

We’ve been enjoying our semester break and the Chinese New Year festivities. We have today and tomorrow to rest, and then it’s back to the office. Semester 2 starts on Monday. 

Finally... the end of the semester

Well, we made it to the end of the semester and the end of winter camp.  We're exhausted, but here are a few highlights from 3-1/2 months of work and adjustments:

-We can ask for beef, chicken, lamb, pork and duck meat at the market in Chinese!!

-We can get ourselves home with a taxi in Chinese (this is actually quite difficult as our school is a ways out of town)

-We took Chinese lessons ;)

-Biking on the streets of Beijing. Anything goes.

-Stories from the classroom. Here's one: In my sixth grade class (Chris'), we were learning prefixes such as trans-, sub-, and inter-. I was asking students for examples of words that used these prefixes, and one truly innocent student raised her hand and emphatically declared: "Intercourse." I fell on the floor laughing, in my head, but maintained my composure. Of course, no one else had any idea except for the TA.

-Students putting both fingers in their nostrils simultaneously. No shame.

-Watching where you put your feet because people spit everywhere.

-Finding a church we really like and hopefully a small group soon.

-Finding a Chinese guitar. 750 RMB.

-Celebrating our first Christmas and New Years away from home...  It's not quite as special here as it is in Europe/America, but we still had a good time.  Hamburgers for Christmas Eve, presents, etc.  Petra, Chris' TA and our floormate, had her first Christmas, so that was really fun.

-Being so tired we could barely talk straight... not that that's different from the norm for me... (grace). But thank G for a break!

-Taiwan in 8 days!

-Putting on 2 plays each for Winter/English Camp, a lot of work, but worth it. They did great.

-Having to take over 4 science classes a week 2 weeks before finals (for grace). Not fun.

-Being taken out to lunch at a hummungous Chinese buffet - amazing food experience!

-Fireworks! This is what Chris is looking forward to in the next few days leading up to Chinese New Year.

Overall, we're really happy here. Communicating is an adventure, but I love that (grace) and I love trying to figure out "how to fit in." We both love discovering new places together. We're hoping to explore the city more in the next few weeks as well as enjoy some good restaurants. Thanks for reading our adventures, we love your comments! (Hopefully we can post more often now as we think we have a better connection.)

Happy Chinese New Year! (Haven't learned that one yet...)