A Daring Adventure

All Good Things Must Come to an End

Hello from Florida!


I haven't blogged in a while because, well, I don't usually blog during R&R breaks. Which is what we're on right now.


For the last several weeks, Matthew and Zachary and I have been in the U.S. James was able to join us a couple of weeks ago. So here we all are. Together. It's wonderful.


Unfortunately, we're only here for one more day.


James literally made it to Florida (the boys and I were already here, having left Chengdu the day school got out for the holidays) on Christmas Eve Day. I was a nervous WRECK that he would end up getting caught in bad weather while he was traveling, and would thus get stuck in an airport for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but we were very blessed in that he arrived on Christmas Eve Day, just barely in time to celebrate with us. He was jetlagged and exhausted, but we were all thrilled to be in the States, to be with our families, and to be together.

James's beard is reaching back through time and space to wish you a belated Merry Christmas. Unless you don't celebrate Christmas. At which point James's beard wishes you a happy whatever you celebrate. Because James's beard is culturally sensitive like that.

 

How to put this nicely? Oh, hell, I can't. I don't say things nicely, anyway, which is why I always get myself into trouble. So I guess I'll just come out and say it: Christmas in the States this year was FAR FAR FAR FAR better than Christmas in Chengdu, like what we did last year. Which sucked. This year, Christmas didn't suck. Didn't suck AT ALL.

Christmas this year was actually FANTASTIC, just ask Matthew, who actually smiles when we're in the States. I had forgotten what Matthew's smile looked like, since he never smiles in Chengdu.

 
 Yeah, both of my boys were/are glad to be back.

This is Zachary. Smiling. Zachary smiles sometimes in Chengdu. In direct contrast to Matthew, who NEVER EVER smiles in Chengdu.

 
Christmas Day provided me with many photo ops, which made me happy.


 

Look! ALL THREE of my guys together - smiling! A true Christmas miracle. Kid you not.

I can't even tell you how exhausted poor James was on Christmas Day. He powered through it - through the jetlag and everything - like a good husband and father. 

Please ignore how badly my sons need haircuts and focus only on the familial joy.

 
My parents were forced to cook a huge Christmas spread full of food we cannot get in China. Like, you know, mashed potatoes and stuffing and cranberry sauce and yeast rolls.

And turkey. You cannot get turkey in China.

It's very, very difficult for normal Americans to understand the depth and breadth of the items you cannot get in China. 

Like a "Happy Birthday Jesus" birthday cake. Can't get that in China. And, anyway, poor Jesus didn't even get ONE SINGLE PIECE of His own birthday cake. How sucky is THAT?!

 

So, anyway, that was Christmas.


New Year's was far less exciting, owing to the fact that I was desperately sick with the stomach flu and was vomiting everywhere. And actually, any and all womanly mystery that I may have held on to over these last zillions of years of marriage (and after birthing many babies, with James present every time) FLEW out the window as I lay on the bedroom floor, sobbing and wailing and VOMITING, right in front of James. Vomiting so hard and fast that I literally couldn't breathe in between violent heaves.


All RIGHT. IN. FRONT. OF. JAMES. Who sat, eyes wide in horror, tapping furiously on his iPad trying to figure out which hospital to try to take me to at 3 am.


(Spoiler: I lived. Without even needing to go to the hospital.) 

Everything else over our R&R has been shopping and eating and smiling and being together as a family. 

 

And pelicans. Because there are pelicans in Florida.

 
Which is why I haven't been online much. Haven't been blogging, haven't been returning emails, haven't been on Facebook.

I've actually been standing underneath flying Florida wildlife, looking up into the air and holding my mouth open. Or not.

 

Life looks very different from Florida than it does from Chengdu.  

 

Of course, this may be because Chengdu doesn't, you know, have an ocean. JUST SAYING.

 
Tomorrow is our family's last day of R&R. Last day of the States. Last day of U.S. food. Etc.


::sob::


                                              ~   ~   ~


I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions. But I do believe in New Year's Revelations, which is where you think/write about what you learned over the past year.


Over the past year I have learned many things. The most important things I have learned - not that I didn't already know them, but they've become even more obvious over this last year - are:


1.) Going through incredibly painful, very difficult circumstances that would most certainly tear other relationships apart serve to actually strengthen our marriage, which is an amazing blessing, when you think about it. And...

2.) When we are going through horrible trials and my husband is forced to choose between family and anything else in this world, my husband chooses family. Always. ALWAYS. And, to me, this makes James a man of character and strength and morals, which is a rare find in this day and age. I am a lucky girl.


                                               ~   ~   ~

James and I were walking along the beach today, just the two of us. The eighth (I think? I'm actually losing count...) DS panel for last year's summer bidders (which James is) has come and gone and no, we have no clue where we're going when our assignment to Chengdu is over this coming summer.  

And as we were walking and talking about what in the world 2013 might end up looking like for us, James gave my hand a squeeze, shrugged his shoulders and said...

..."I have no idea what in the world will happen in 2013, except that I know that we'll have each other... and so nothing else matters."

 
Exactly. 

 

Let's Take a Little Walk...

...down a touristy street in Chengdu. No, not all streets are like this one. In fact, very few of them are. 


But this is a touristy part of town, and that's where Chengdu shines.


We're on Jinli (pronounced: gin-lee) Street. I mean, the place even has its own website.

It also has its own shopping bags. Available for purchase, of course.

A charming, clean, tidy, very stylish part of Chengdu. 

A whole lotta ambiance. What's not to like? If you look closely, you'll even seen the Starbucks sign!

You can find stuff here that you can't find very many other places. Charming little things, such as:

Candy artists who can fashion candy almost like glassblowers can. Yes, these are CANDY. But they look like glass. And the candy artists can make any shape you like, as long as you know how to ask for it in Chinese.

You walk down the little shopping alleys and you feel like you're in a charming little pre-modern Chinese world.

Not a single bus. Or cab. Could this possibly be Chengdu? Why, yes. IT IS.

It's outings like this that can remind one of why one bid for China. Ahem.

Because I wanted to see a live Chinese statue in person. Normal concrete or whatever statues weren't good enough, I wanted the statues to be real live human beings paid to act like they're really statues. AND I GOT EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED.

I wanted to be able to buy AUTHENTIC CHINESE STUFF.

Holy cow, that's a lot of stuff.

I wanted to know what REAL Chinese people did.

They walk around Jinli Street together, arm in arm, wearing clothing perfectly suited to artistically contrast the picturesque surroundings so that white chicks with cameras can secretly take their pictures and put them on their blogs. Ahem.

I wanted to be able to capture the colorful beauty of China. The unexpected charm and whimsy.

Look, it's whimsy! I found the whimsy! Anyone wanna buy a pinwheel?

I wanted to see REAL China. Authentic China.

It don't get no more real than the unraveling of silkworm cocoons during the process of making silk. If that doesn't SCREAM "China," then maybe the fact that the silkworms, after emerging from their cocoons, are MADE INTO SOUP does. Silkworm soup. Yep, that sounds like China.

I was hoping to be able to come into contact with some of the many, many different ethnic groups that make up China.

Let us not be fooled - she is paid to dress this way in order to try to sell me jewelry. But I'll take it.

All in all, a very pleasant place to be, this part of Chengdu known as Jinli Street.

I mean, really - what's more peaceful and picturesque than a waterfall with a Chinese lantern hanging nearby? Charming.

                                                 ~   ~   ~


And if you're wondering what's going on with James' bidding, well, that makes two of us. DS just paneled the third round of people from the summer bidding cycle, and James didn't get anything. So the waiting game continues for our family (and many others)...

Hello From America's Heartland!!

Zachary and James flew back to Chengdu about a week ago and got there safe and sound (yay!), so that's good. 


Matthew and I have a few more days left here in the United States on our R&R, so we're living it up! I feel guilty, actually, with James and Zachary not here, that Matthew and I are doing so much fun stuff without them.


Guilt. It's my ever-present companion.


So, anyway, since I'm still on American high-speed internet (what a HUGE difference! I would blog every day in China if I had internet like this!), it's a good time to show you guys what we've been doing here in the States. Other than thinking deeply about life, of course.


So: a summary of the last couple of weeks.


Back in Florida, before Zachary and James left to go back to China, some of us went on airboat rides.  Airboats are great in Florida because they can glide along on top of all of the vegetation, unlike normal boats. They're just... loud and huge. But that's okay - they're fun!





Airboats zip along and can go really fast. We even saw some gators!





(Not that seeing gators is surprising in Florida. Because it isn't.)


Zachary LOVED the airboat ride:





We cut through serious vegetation:





And just in general acted as though we didn't care if we lived or died. IT WAS AWESOME!


But that was before James and Zachary left to go back to China. And now that they are gone, Matthew and I have gone off on a trip through the gorgeous (albeit burnt to a crisp because of some epic, hideous drought that is torturing the middle of the US right now) states of Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin.


Oh, Wisconsin. How insanely, breathtakingly gorgeous you are.


My Auntie hangs out sometimes up in Door County, Wisconsin, and let me just say that it's about the prettiest spot you could ever imagine.  Matthew and I would just gaze around at the gorgeousness, in awe.


The little fishing and boating towns are so adorable:




 We were super blessed in that family friends own an extra jetski, and for the first time in Matthew's memory he got to ride one. Talk about HAPPY GUY:





The Wisconsin beaches on Lake Michigan are rocky, but pretty:





Believe it or not, the whole month that our family was in Florida, no one got a sunburn. Matthew and I get up to Wisconsin, though, and are immediately burned to a crisp!  It was so funny!  Just totally unexpected.


Matthew even got to ski for the first time in his life:





Since it was the first time he'd ever tried, it took him a while to get up onto those skis, and let me tell you - - three or four days later and he is STILL sore and walking like an old man!


The playing around on other people's toys was super fun, but really - the biggest treat was just to look around at how beautiful it is up there.  Here are two pictures from the area, because I couldn't choose which one to post and so I posted both (yay high speed internet!):









 
We went through some museums in the area - tiny but adorable - and I found the most disturbing object!  It's a tiny set of medical razor blades that used to be used in bleeding patients back when bloodletting was the thing to do.  Can you IMAGINE a doctor using THIS thing on you??





I don't know if you can make it out in the picture, but it's a square contraption out of which razor blades pop up.

Medicine. We've come a long way, baby!


If a doting, obliging Auntie gave an 18-year-old-Matthew his first ever bottle of beer, it's not like I would post that here because, HELLO, that would be ILLEGAL and underaged drinking is BAD and all sorts of law enforcement-y types read this blog, etc.  But...


Oh, look! Matthew holding a beer! I wonder why.  It must have been someone else's and he must have grabbed it for a photo op or to read the label or something...





I'm sorry, I have to post one more gratuitous shot of the gorgeousness of the water:






Because HOLY BEAUTIFUL, BATMAN.


It was so pretty, Matthew even voluntarily went swimming there:





Which says a lot, because Matthew never voluntarily swims.


But how could you resist swimming here?





And, of course, no blog post of mine going on and on about how beautiful it is here would be complete without... BIRDS!!






(Of which there are a gazillion)


And... SQUIRRELS!!






(Of which there are an even BIGGER gazillion.)


So, anyway, this is the longest blog post in the universe with the most pictures EVER (thank you if you're still reading... you're a trooper! Or you're my mom, dad, husband or youngest child, all of whom are required to read. Apologies, again, to my husband and youngest child. I MISS YOU. I'M SORRY WE HAD TO HAVE FUN WITHOUT YOU. DON'T HATE ME!)


So, anyway, I just wanted to say hello from R&R





Either that or goodbye to our R&R, as Matthew and I head back to China in just a few days.


::sob::


And also, that picture makes my rear end look HUGE.


My shadow needs to go on a diet.


 

Blue! And Green!

First of all, Happy Father's Day to my Dad and to my husband!


My husband's Father's Day gift is where we are right now: HAWAII.  Yes, we stopped in Hawaii on our way back to the U.S. on our R&R in order to split the 12 hour time difference into two 6 hour pieces. 


And, of course, in order to, like, BE IN HAWAII. 


We flew from Chengdu to Tokyo, where we had just enough of a layover to allow us to eat sushi in Japan. I will say that when we got off the plane, a certain member of our family was all "Look! McDonald's!" but I was all "NO WAY are we eating McDonald's our one meal ever (probably) in Japan!"


So we had sushi. DUH.

SO not McDonald's. Thank goodness.

 
It was neat to be able to watch all the Japanese sushi masters at work.

We'll take one of each, thank you.

The only drawback was that China has completely spoiled me with its prices. Things in Japan were scary expensive compared to what we've been paying in China. So, yes, it was totally awesome to eat sushi in Japan, but we each just had a little (we didn't eat to fullness) and it was $86!!! Holy COW!

Then we found some seriously awesome Japanese fudge (did you know that such a thing existed?) and my family chowed down at the terminal waiting for our plane.

Some of us ended up with chocolate all over our faces because we ate the fudge voraciously because there's no fudge in China.

 

Then we boarded the plane for Hawaii.


A hundred zillion hours after leaving Chengdu, we got to Honolulu. We were more exhausted than we've ever been in our lives. HOWEVER:


Blue skies! Blue water! Green plants! So many colors!


We immediately went and worshipped at Pineapple World (aka the Dole Plantation):

Fresh pineapple can't leap into our mouths fast enough, people.

Everyone was so freaking happy that the children VOLUNTEERED to have their pictures taken in the wooden pineapple cutout:

This is quite possibly the first time Matthew has smiled in nine months, give or take.

I am SO putting these pictures on Facebook and tagging the boys in them.

Even though there was no swimming at the Dole Pineapple Plantation, Zachary was still very happy.

The Dole Pineapple Plantation is where Dole Pineapples are born.

First they're little bitty...

...Then they're less little bitty. And more in danger of being eaten.

It is FABULOUSLY awesome to see (blue) skies and (green) trees and, actually, everything is so insanely colorful (it's sort of like when Dorothy leaves Kansas and gets to Oz and all of the sudden: COLOR!) that even the tree trunks are very colorful:

 

I have literally never seen anything like this.

 

James and I just kept staring at the colorful tree trunks at the Dole Plantation:

If this isn't Tree Trunk Epic Awesomeness, I sure don't know what it.

Meanwhile, the mountains are in the background, just being their amazing mountain-y selves:

Hello you gorgeous mountains, you.

 
So, anyway, we're going to put on our suits and go swimming. BECAUSE LIFE IS AWESOME, THAT'S WHY.


Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there. Thank you for sacrificing your needs and desires on a daily basis in order to bless the lives of your families. 

In Which China is Toured, Part the First

So a few weeks ago it was time for the once-yearly, week-long field trip for the kiddoes in Zachary's age group at school.


Even from the time we knew that there was going to be a field trip, James and I knew that at least one of us would be going as a chaperone. This ISN'T because we're nosey parents who can't stand to be apart from their children for even two seconds, but IS because we literally can't even fathom sending a child's Diplomatic passport with its only Diplomatic stamped visa** out into the wild with countless other passports and visas (presumably in a huge, communal passport bucket?), whilst simultaneously sending one of our plague/sickness/injury prone children out into the big, wide, no-western-medical-care world without one of us being there. 


[**Seriously, can you IMAGINE if that thing got lost? It's not like you can replace it/the visa at a local Consulate or whatever.]

And it's not like James and I had to draw straws to figure out whether he would go or I would go. I mean, please. People with penises (penii?) are WAY, WAY more easily toted around China than people without. Furthermore, *I* have never moaned and whined about how I desperately wanted to tour every last inch of China and how I've been here in Chengdu without having gotten to yet like SOME of us have.


So, yeah. James went on the school field trip with Zachary and Zachary's school classmates while I stayed home with Matthew, because only the jr. high kids were going that week. James took days off of work, paid his hotel/flight/train/meal costs, and left me behind for a week in order to SEE THE WORLD.


Or, at least, the Chinese part of the world.

AND THERE WAS CHINA:



 

Waiting for them in all its glory! 


They flew out of Chengdu and flew to a different part of China (because China is big, yo!), and the first place they went was the Shaolin Temple. 


Which basically is a big, huge, GIGANTIC school where boys learn to kill people by using lots of different scary weapons.


Now, James is going to come home from work and read my blog and be all No it's not, it's the birthplace of martial arts! And Kung Fu! and... and then he'll talk all about what it really is and that's all great. But I'm sorry, when he came home from his trip and I downloaded all the pictures he took, it looked to me like the place was basically teaching boys how to use lots of different weapons to kill people.


Because the Shaolin Monk Warrior Guys know how to kill you with long poles:





And they know how to kill you with machetes and chains:





And they can fly around in the air upside down and kill you with disc thingees:





And tridents:





And whips:





And there are so many of them and so many different weapons that there's pretty much no end to the ways that they could kill you:

And there are so many younger students there (because it's also a school) that are also learning how to do all of this:

That when you tour the monastery, the young practicing students stretch out as far as the eye can see:





And it's all so very not like an American junior high or high school, you know? 


Because while all those well-disciplined Chinese junior high/high school guys were training and such, my American junior high son was...


... busily trying to make sure that there was at least one excellent photo of him with a water bottle suspended in midair, kind of like a UFO Flying Water Bottle:

So, yeah. If a well-trained Chinese Kung Fu Death Force comes hurling itself at my American son, they had darned well watch out for that water bottle, is all I'm saying.


(Insert here how different American and Chinese kids and schools are, etc.)


To be continued...

 

Are We Happy? (Possibly Part the First of I Don't Know How Many)

A very brave bloggy girlfriend of mine (no, sorry, won't link to her because not everyone who reads my blog LIKES BLOGS) recently wrote about how she's been at post for a while now and whether or not she's happy there. She answered yes. And no. And maybe. And how things at post are WAY different than what she and her husband had expected before they got there. Not different *bad*, just... different. 


It got me to thinking. About expectations pre-arrival and realities post-arrival. 


Pre-arrival, James had many high hopes for his first overseas assignment. Somehow, he had envisioned that he would be using his trained-for-a-long-time-language skills (2/2 in Mandarin, baby!) Every. Single. Day, and that he would be sharpening them to utter Mandarin perfection, leaving post with a higher language score upon departure, just from the sheer awesome immersion language-y experience of it all.

Neither of those has happened, nor will they. 


He also dreamed of our family traveling around frequently on breaks or weekends (actually, I'm not specifically sure when exactly he planned on traveling) around China or Asia or the EAP area or... something. You know: travel. Seeing stuff. That was another one of his major goals. Another thing that he specifically looked forward to.


Which hasn't happened, either. Nor will it.


It's hard when your children are older and you don't want to pull them out of AP classes in order to go look at some random something somewhere. Or when they're always either sick or injured, as is the case with our two sons. So the traveling thing hasn't really happened. Oh, sure, we have DS friends on Facebook who literally seem to be jetting off to Lord only knows where every freaking weekend (hate you people! You know who you are!!), but that's... not what's been going on with us. 


It's just... reality. It's not bad, it's just...life. It's different than what we expected.


The other weekend, even though one of our sons was ill (of course) and the other was injured (of course), James and I left the house via taxi to go to a local tourist-y place that we had not visited yet. Because, let's face it: the boys wouldn't have wanted to have gone with us even if they had been feeling 100% fantabulous, that's why.


It's spring!  A smallish tree across the street from the Consulate burst out in bloom recently:






The flowers only lasted for a few days at the most. But they were pretty. And in a city filled with 15 million people, you sorta hafta grab the beauty when the grabbin's good. You know?


On the way to the touristy spot, we passed an excellent reminder of why we don't own a car/drive here:





I snapped that above photo from the back of our cab, and it made the cab driver reallllllllly nervous. 


What you're looking at in that picture is a tiny portion of a HUGE, rowdy crowd that had gathered literally in the middle of the street after an electric scooter and a car collided. People were yelling at each other in Mandarin, police officers were at the scene yelling at the yelling people, injured folks were there, as well, and as we drove by I was all Oh hell no, I am SO GLAD we don't own a car. Because when wrecks happen here, from what I understand money changes hands before people depart the scene. So the crowd gets involved in who did what wrong and whose fault it was, advocating for this and that for one person or another. Can you even IMAGINE?  


::shudder::
 

We got to the touristy spot and found the solution to one of life's MYSTERIES:





Namely: Who the HELL has been selling teenaged and young adult Chinese girls eyeglass frames WITHOUT ANY GLASS OR LENSES WHATSOEVER INSIDE THEM and convinced said girls that wearing empty, plastic eyeglass frames on their faces was a good fashion choice?!


That street vendor, for one.


Craziest thing I have ever seen, I kid you not, and it's all over the place here... girls will wear those empty eyeglass frames on their faces. Out in public. Like those colorful, plastic, COMPLETELY EMPTY eyeglass frames are some kind of face bling or something.


We went into the touristy spot, and I'll say this: it was quite lovely. Which is why it had to be touristy. Just saying. No offense, Chengdu. But there were no green or yellow spat-out-phlegm-globs on the sidewalks or baby/toddler poo on the sidewalks (or baby/toddler puddles of urine on the sidewalks), and the stores all looked something like this on the outside:




 
The stores sold touristy sorts of things, such as Mao bags:

And t-shirts that were, um, ODD:





:::speechless:::


And there was food EVERYWHERE.


I've said it before and I'll say it again: Chengdu, China has the best food of any post anywhere on this planet. Kid you not. Don't even approach me to try to challenge me on this. YOU ARE WRONG.






I loved the buildings. So much character! Touristy character, of course, but HEY, I'LL TAKE IT:





and




And just in case you were wondering, HELLS YEAH Chengdu has Starbucks. It has them all the heck over the place. There's even one within a one minute walk of the Consulate. 


This one was very.... touristy and pretty:





It even had the Chinese name for Starbucks on a separate sign that lined up with its English Starbucks name, allowing me to get a shot of both of the signs at once:




Which is fun, but probably only for those of us who tortured ourselves in Mandarin and thus care about these sorts of geeky language things.


All in all, it was nice to get out and about a little, even if everything we saw WAS just touristy, and even if we stayed within downtown Chengdu the whole entire time, basically just minutes away from where we live or where James works or where our kids go to school, etc. Not so much... travel. And not so much as a family. And we didn't even use our wicked Mandarin skillz (kidding! A 2/2 gets you pretty much nowhere here!) at all.


So... yeah.  Differences in expectations pre-arrival-at-post and realities post-arrival-at-post. 


Interesting to ponder, especially since we've just passed our six month mark here in Chengdu. Meaning that our assignment is now officially more than a quarter over.  And did I mention that we bid this summer/fall?


Crazy.

(UN)Happy Chinese New Year (or: KILL ME)

Something called "Chinese New Year" has come to Chengdu. 


And it SUCKS.


It sucks in a get-me-the-HELL-out-of-this-place-RIGHT-NOW! kind of way. Which is why my happy, chirpy, I-love-it-here! blog posts have been temporarily interrupted by this seriously unhappy one.


Okay, first of all?  Chengdu has gone from a busy, bustling, open-restaurants-everywhere, people-everywhere place to a GHOST TOWN.  Check it, peepz... here's a picture of a totally deserted Chengdu street:





This street, with its shops and its vendors and its food for sale and its restaurants would normally have tons of people on it.  


But I know that the above picture doesn't adequately communicate "ghost town" to you, probably, since you haven't seen a picture of what it's usually like.  So let's see if I can do a better job of communicating "ghost town."


These are just a few of the zillions of shops that are closed (each metal garage door is a different closed shop or restaurant):





And these are closed, also:





And *these* are closed:





ALSO, YES, OF COURSE... CLOSED:





So, yeah, everything's all closed up in here.  


Which, in and of itself, would only be *sort of* creepy I guess (except for the fact that my happiness depends upon restaurants being open because otherwise I STARVE, which is because I don't know how to cook anything here and that's no joke, and it's not because I'm lazy)...


...but the worst part?  The bombs "fireworks."  And by "fireworks," I mean BOMBS.  At least, they sound like bombs. They do NOT sound like U.S. fireworks, which are all polite and sort of nice sounding.  Chinese fireworks sound like the city is being carpet bombed from the skies, and I am literally not kidding.  And since I can't do the sound justice, I will stop here with my pathetic descriptions that don't do the hideous sounds justice.  


But really?  This dude is NOT selling U.S. style fireworks:





I don't know what that crap is, but it makes the world sound like WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE, and I'm only half kidding because if polite U.S. firework-y sorts of things cause lots of injuries (anyone ever work in a U.S. Emergency Room on the 4th of July??) I literally can't imagine what damage these things inflict.  


And also, people literaly set them off right next to buildings and homes and other people and streets and cars and other people and each other.  IT IS FRIGHTENING.


And they make my windows rattle and the building rattle and my bed rattle and my teeth rattle and my brain rattle and yes, I may have gone outside and yelled obscenities at no one in particular and everyone in general. (In English, of course, because FSI didn't teach us how to say any of the good stuff.) Which might have made James laugh and threaten to post on Facebook that I did that.  And I was all: Go ahead, James!  Everyone on the internet already knows that I'm completely crazy! And he had to admit that I was right. 


So, yeah.  I absolutely HATE Chinese New Year.   


Which means that this blog post needs some balance.  Because even in the midst of my taking pictures yesterday for this I HATE CHINESE NEW YEAR blog post, I took some pictures of some things that I love.


I love this advertisement at a local clothing store:





The shirt's print is upside down so that he can see Mickey Mouse better, right?


And in the midst of the ghost-town-like deserted streets and closed up shops, there were still gorgeous Chinese babies to admire:




 
I mean, tell me she isn't the most beautiful thing ever:





Her proud Grandma wanted me to take about eleventy zillion pictures of her (and then show the pictures to them both on my camera's instant digital screen), and I was more than happy to oblige because, HELLO, Chinese babies are the most beautiful babies in the world.  


Know what else I love?  


These hideously ugly oranges:





They're so hideously ugly that, when you go to buy them in the store, you feel sort of stupid. Like you're the super dumb foreigner who's so super dumb that you're about to actually pay money for fruit that your eyes can plainly see is already rotten.  


But it's not rotten!  It actually tastes really yummy. And having yummy oranges here is a balm to this Floridian soul.


Last but not least, I think it's high time James's wardrobe got a bit of a Chinese update.  I mean, come on!  The man just got tenure!  Which means he can totally trade in some of that boring, yawn-y U.S. businessman clothing for something a bit more local, right? 


I'm having a hard time choosing which outfit I should buy for him.  On one hand, there's:





It's sassy!  It *so* breaks away from that unspoken, matchy-matchy State dress code! (Well, and the unspoken DS dress code is all the more boring conservative, but at least the mannequin totally has the Yes-I'm-DS-thankyouverymuch *stare* down pat!).  


But if you think THAT outfit is awesome, take a look at choice #2:





The tie is on a slant cut!  The shirt says "Hello! I just walked into the room! And I'm so self-assured, I can rock this epic print!"  

Oh, it's so hard to choose!  Anyone have a preference as to which one would be best for James?  I think, whichever one I get for him, I'll have to make sure he wears it during the next VIP visit.  Just so they get the ultimate immersion into the culture.


Anyhoo, HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR to those of you who don't actually hate it!  :)

 

So Much History - Chengdu, China's Buddhist Temples in Pictures

After we left the US, stopped in Beijing, and then arrived in Chengdu, we began looking around our new city - our new home for the next two years.  We jammed all manner of walking around and doing touristy-things into each and every opportunity that we had while there was a long Chinese national holiday.


Our first historical stop was the Wenshu Monastery, a Buddhist temple originally constructed sometime between 618 - 907 AD.  As in almost 1,400 years ago.


Now, here's what's cool. Super pretty and really historical places like this?  They're totally tucked away right in the middle of downtown Chengdu.  As in, you're walking around office buildings or whatever and then BAM!  There you are standing at the gate entrance of a hidden gem of historical proportions.  It totally blows my mind, because, of course, we have nothing like that back in the States.  In the States, you walk around office buildings and get...more office buildings. So, yeah, the two places I'm going to talk about in this blog post are both right in downtown Chengdu.


Blows. My. Mind.


You walk into the Monastery through the entrance gates (which are on a busy downtown street) and you've entered a historical era from long ago:





I love the buildings.  They are so gorgeous up close:





The Wenshu Monastery (and other such historical areas) consists of many different lovely period buildings scattered around a large area in a park-like setting.  


This next building is the actual Temple.  It is HUGE:





And so beautiful inside!





Outside, as you walk around, you can catch glimpses of the modern world, which seems so far away but actually isn't.  Such a striking, fascinating contrast:





I think this next building was my favorite out of all of the buildings at the Wenshu Monastery:





You couldn't go inside, but the outside was so lovely and colorful that I fell in love with it.


Toward the front of the grounds (for these sorts of places usually have many lovely buildings scattered across a large amount of green space, quite like a park), there were many areas where people were burning incense.  I think you could purchase incense to burn in front of different Buddhist shrines or gods. This man was tending one of the incense areas:





It was a nice smell - somewhat spicy.  You could see people kneeling and praying all around.  


Very peaceful.


                                                 ~   ~   ~


A few days later, we visited the Wuhou Temple, which is also right smack in downtown Chengdu. Its admission fee was much higher - about $10 U.S. dollars per person - but, then again, it is right next to Jinli Street, which is a nifty shopping area and a place that every tourist to Chengdu should visit when they come.  So: location, location, location.


Wuhou Temple (along with many other beautiful buildings) was a short walk from the front entrance gates, and we were pleasantly surprised to find one of the sets of directions sporting some English:





One of the buildings had a set of ladies dressed in period costume (I would think?) playing period musical instruments (I assume?).  It was quite charming for the minute or two that it lasted... and then we realized that it was actually an advertisement of sorts:





You see, the goal of playing the instruments was to draw a quick crowd of tourists (it worked), and the goal of gathering the crowd of tourists was to advertise that we tourists could pay money to dress up in period costume, as well, and have our pictures taken (with or without the musicians in the shot).


And interesting offer, but we declined.


The carvings around the grounds were beautiful - this little dog was part of a vast set devoted to the different animals of the Chinese zodiac.  This dog drew my attention because of its sweet little face and expression:





Barking?  Smiling?  Who knows.  It's quite charming.


The grounds were covered in different carvings:





Dragon?  Lizard?  Both?


After meandering through all of the buildings, we exited the temple/monastery grounds directly onto one of the most interesting shopping areas I've yet seen in Chengdu: Jinli Street.


And wouldn't you know it?  Tucked in among all the shops and the vendors... where you can find shadow puppets and woven decorations and stitched shoes and all manner of food... there's a:





STARBUCKS COFFEE.


There's a message there somewhere.  I just know that there is.

A Bazillion Pictures for You. And Also A Story or Two.

So, the last y'all heard, we had left all of our training behind in DC, had visited family, and were off to the Great Unknown (our new post, Chengdu, China).  After not having internet or phone for a while after we got here, I was able to steal a computer and internet from another source and let everyone know that we had gotten to Chengdu safely and that everything was A-Okay.


But now it's time for the US to Chengdu story!  And pictures!


After saying a tearful farewell to our families, we flew for what felt like a hundred zillion years to our first stop:  Hawaii.  


Yes, you read that right:  HAWAII.  We went to Hawaii because James had meetings there.  Which really didn't suck.  In fact, I have something to say really quickly:


                                              ~   ~   ~


Dear State Department,

Anytime y'all have any inkling whatsoever to send my husband to Hawaii for meetings, you can just feel MORE THAN FREE to HAVE AT IT.  I truly, seriously, wouldn't object in the slightest.  NO, REALLY.


Sincerely,
Me


                                              ~   ~   ~



So, yeah.  We hung out in Hawaii and got our this on: 

 

And then it was time to head to our next stop:  Beijing.  Because - you guessed it - my husband had meetings there, too.  


The evening we flew into Beijing, we were exhausted and overwhelmed.  We had been awake for upwards of 40+ hours between catching connections and what have you... not including losing 6 hours and CROSSING THE INTERNATIONAL DATE LINE... and, honestly, when the shuttle picked us (and our eighteen suitcases/bags) up at the Beijing airport, we were all already emotionally spent.


Our first glimpses of China - from behind the windows of the van taking us to our hotel - were obscured by twilight and haze and honking and exhaustion and lights and smells and DIFFERENT.  I looked at our two boys.  Matthew seemed grim, and Zachary had large, silent tears rolling down his face.  


I pressed my sons' hands with my own and willed myself to emotionally keep it together.


We got to the hotel and immediately needed our Chinese.  Not that we have all that much.  We got all of our bags out of the van and up to the room, which was quite a production, let me tell you.  We tried to peer out of the hotel room's windows, but couldn't see much.  The son of mine who hadn't cried in the van broke down and cried in the hotel, his arms flung about my neck.  Once we all fell into bed, James only had a couple of hours before he had to be at the Embassy.


The alarm went off what seemed like 15 seconds later.  We had already noted that the per diem for hotels goes a WHOLE HECKUVA LOT FARTHER in Beijing than in the US; our "hotel room" was actually a three-bedroom, three-bathroom gorgeous apartment complete with a balcony off the master bedroom. We tentatively opened the curtains to the balcony and were deligted to find a clear, crisp day with a pretty blue sky:





 
We practically RAN out onto the balcony to get a better look at China for the first time during daylight. We found BLUE SKY:



 

James was going to be gone the whole day being All Important And Stuff, so I faced a huge dilemma.  


We only were going to be in Beijing that one day.  What should the boys and I do while James was gone all day?  I didn't want to waste our one day in Bejing - possibly my sons' ONLY day in Beijing ever - by sitting in the "hotel room" like a total scardey-cat.  


On the other hand, it had been MONTHS since I'd been in Chinese at FSI, and to say I'd lost almost all of my language would be an understatement.  Furthermore, I didn't have a cell phone, James didn't have a cell phone, I didn't have any idea how on earth to contact anyone if I needed to (either inside OR outside of China), this was my first ever time in any sort of Asian country, and I had NO CLUE how to get or use taxis.  James expressed his hope that I could/would get out and sightsee, even though he unfortunately couldn't be there with us.  I debated within myself back and forth.  I was scared.


Finally I told myself something lame like YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE and I forced the boys to go out with me on an adventure.  


I went to the hotel's front desk, and tried to communicate to the folks there that we wanted to go see something.  We didn't care what- just SOMETHING.  A cab was ordered or called for or whatever (um, remember this part, because it's pertinent later) and we settled on a touristy plan for the afternoon.  The hotel staff basically suggested that we go to The Forbidden City first and then walk from there to see Beihai Park, which was supposed to be really pretty.  The hotel staff gave each of us a business card from the hotel, complete with its address and a little bitty map, and instructed me to show that to a cab driver when we were ready to come back.  It all sounded so easy!  (Remember that part.)  We set off.


The Forbidden City is pretty much right smack in downtown Beijing.  Which means that we drove right through downtown Beijing on the way there.  Which was cool, because Beijing has a whole ton of creative buildings the likes of which you would never see in the US.  For example:





Isn't that building crazy?!  


Beijing also exudes newness.  It's very cosmopolitan - even more so, I would say, than Chicago or New York:






Anyway, after a long cab ride, the cabbie dropped us off here:





Which was, as it turns out, the EXIT of The Forbidden City.  But I didn't know that when I was settling up my cab fare and climbing out of the cab.  


Settling up the cab fare at the end of the ride was easy;  he had used the meter (remember that) and so I paid him and he went on his way.


It was AFTER he went on his way that I learned, as I tried to enter the above building, that The Forbidden City has a definite ENTRANCE and a definite EXIT and the foot traffic only flows in one direction, and you are turned around by uniformed Chinese guys if you try to enter the Exit.  Which meant that we had to find the Entrance.  By ourselves.


HA HA HA!!!


If you are unfamiliar with The Forbidden City, it's basically about five hundred years old (no, really, as in it was there before Columbus) and it's on a huge swath of land that Chinese Emperors carved out for only themselves and their families.  It was here that they would live and play and entertain, etc., etc., etc.  In terms of land space, it's rather huge, and so walking AROUND the outside of The Forbidden City takes a realllllllllly long time.  


Ask me how I know this.


So.  


So we finally had walked all the way to the Entrance and.... we were already tired.  And we hadn't seen anything yet.  But we bought our tickets (yes, you have to buy tickets) and entered.


Lots of beauty:






The buildings are even prettier up close:





And what's crazy is that - all over Beijing (and Chengdu... and, I'm assuming, all other cities in China) - you can be on a random modern city street and tucked somewhere away, there's a piece of Antiquity close by.  


Just like in this picture:





Peeking over the tops of the Forbidden City buildings, you can see modernity in the background.  Totally fascinating.


We got our very first taste of Chinglish:






Wouldn't dream of it.  


You would have to be a pretty awful person to want to deface this:






There are dragon sculptures and depictions everywhere.  Even in Chengdu, you can see dragons all over the place - and even all around the outside of our Consulate here in Chengdu.  I hear that they're supposed to ward off evil?  I like them:





There are also lots of turtle sculptures everywhere, even here in Chengdu.  This is one ferocious turtle:





Further back in The Forbidden City you will see a lush area with lots of trees and gardens. This area, I think, makes for the best photographs, and these next two are the last from The Forbidden City and are also my two favorites:





The rock formations are just gorgeous.





We finished looking around The Forbidden City and we were now approaching the Exit we had first tried to use as an entrance.  We were tired, for we'd now walked the ENTIRE length of The Forbidden City twice (seeing it once), and as we walked out of the Exit we were both unsure of how to get to our next destination and also how to maneuver through the onslaught of vendors in our faces trying to get us to buy their stuff.


To say that the vendors (who wait at the Exit of The Forbidden City to sell things to tourists) are "aggressive" is probably being polite.  


They stand, holding stacks of glossy keepsake books or cooked food or necklaces and they walk right into your personal space, and get up in your face yelling at you to buy their things.  I addressed this by avoiding eye contact and mumbling "I'm sorry" and "Don't want" in Chinese while sort of waving my arms in a No, Thank You! fashion (which I hoped also served to keep them from getting any closer...FAIL), but after a while my younger son, Zachary (who is usually quiet and reserved), was TOTALLY fed up with the intrusiveness. He ended up yelling at one vendor, which alarmed me, and I had to remind him that We're sort of all alone in the middle of Beijing, kid, so let's not yell at the natives, okay?  After that, he didn't speak to them again.  Matthew, Zachary and I formed a ball of three bodies and forced our way through the gauntlet of sales, hoping we were headed in the right direction.


We were, and we finally reached Beihai Park.  Beihai Park is a former imperial garden, and it's quite gorgeous.





Since there were no lakes, ponds, or water features of any kind back in The Forbidden City, Beihai Park must have been where the Emperor-ish Peeps got their water sports on:





I wish I could say that the boys and I savored all the beauty, and we sincerely tried to, but we were still really jetlagged and we had already walked a LOT.  We ambled about Beihai Park and came across our second Chinglish sign of the afternoon, stuck in a cute little flower bed:





We took the pigtailed girl's ominous order seriously and did NOT muss said flower bed.  With that, we walked out of the park and began our search for a taxi to take us back to the hotel.  (Remember: this is the process which was supposed to be SO EASY!)


We walked.  A lot.  We had exited Beihai Park in sort of an out-of-the-way spot and not at the proper Exit, so we weren't swooped upon by people trying to sell us stuff, which was good.  I was proud of myself for having the afternoon go so splendidly - we had just TOURED BEIJING!  WITHOUT JAMES!  OR ANY HELP!  GO ME!! - and I patted myself on the back as we walked up a small street, keeping our eyes out for a taxi.


Finally, one came along, and I flagged it down.  It stopped and the driver launched off into... saying something.  I had no idea what, but I had my hotel's card!  With its directions and address and name!  The magic card which was supposed to make getting back perfectly easy!  The cab driver nodded that he knew the place and the boys and I climbed into the cab.


Once in, the cab driver kept talking as he pulled away from the curb.  I had no idea what he was saying, but I watched his hands intently, waiting for him to turn on the cab's meter, but he didn't.  "Mom?"  Matthew, who has also taken Chinese, asked tentatively from the backseat. "Did he just say that the cab's meter is... broken?"


The cab was fully in motion now and it was obvious that there was no meter running.  I tried to crank my speaking skills into full gear and engage the driver in what conversation I could.  My rusty Chinese wouldn't come, and FSI never taught us how to talk about hiring a cab or anything even remotely useful for real life scenarios like this (but I can talk about the US Presidential election and problems with US immigration in Chinese!) so this cab scene was just... horrific.  Matthew saved the day, for he interpreted that the guy was telling us that the meter was broken and was demanding THREE TIMES the cost that I had paid that morning in order to take us back to the hotel.  

THREE TIMES the cost I had just paid that morning?  Was he out of his mind?


I told him to stop the car, which he did.  I told him I wasn't paying that.  I now knew this was a haggling scenario, and I wasn't having it.  I told the boys to get out of the car, and we all got out.  The cab driver, thorougly disgusted (but not as disgusted as I was), peeled away from us and we were on our own again.

I patted myself (and Matthew) on the back AGAIN for realizing what had been going on.  We were being duped!  And ripped off!  And we realized it!  And got out of that situation!  Oh, how wonderfully fabulous.  All I needed was another cab whose meter wasn't "broken" and we would be on our way back to the hotel.  


We meandered around.


We passed shops:





And walked.  A LOT.  We passed construction:





During which the guys were busily carting bricks in wheelbarrows.


We finally flagged down another cab, but trouble awaited us yet again.


This cab driver didn't even give me the excuse that the meter was "broken," he just up and demanded SIX TIMES what I had paid that morning - and TWICE what the "broken meter" cabbie had demanded - in order to take us back to the hotel.  It was about now that I realized that not only were we obviously tourists, but when I handed my hotel's card to the cabbies (which was my only link to the hotel), I was basically putting a sign on my chest that read: "HI, WE'RE REALLY, REALLY RICH, TOTALLY CLUELESS, AND FULLY DEPENDENT UPON YOU TO GET US WHERE WE NEED TO GO!"  


I gave that cabbie a hearty NO in Chinese and walked away from him.  This really ticked him off.  I started walking down that street, for I was coming full circle back to The Forbidden City's Exit where cabbies congregate in order to find tourists in need of a lift.  He followed me in his cab, inching down the road and keeping pace with us as the boys and I walked.  


I came up to a line of cabbies, holding out my hotel's card and basically trying to figure out how much THEY would charge me to take me back to my hotel. They laughed hilariously when I asked to have the meter run.  I asked why none of them would run the meter.  They laughed again and told me that if you call on the phone for a cab, they have to run the meter, but if a cab randomly picks you up in the city, you haggle for the fare (and it's a LOT more than what the meter price would be).  The cabbie who had been following me showed up and joined the other cabbies facing me and... well... let's just end the story here.  I'll tell you that the boys and I ended up in a cab, that we paid an insane amount of money for the fare, and that I should have just stuck with Mr. Broken Meter who had picked me up in the first place.


A few minutes after the boys and I got back to the hotel, James showed up, too, fresh from his meetings at the Embassy.  He burst into the hotel room with worry and was beside himself with joy to find us all there, safe and sound.  Turns out, James also had quite a time getting a cab back to the hotel.  He ended up needing Embassy assistance and, in the process, heard some horror stories that led him to be very worried that the boys and I wouldn't be able to get back to the hotel.  He and other DS folk had worked out a plan to try to find the boys and me if need be.  Mercifully, we were already back before James got there and everything was okay.


Our cab experiences notwithstanding, we still really liked Beijing.


Tune in next time, when I share our first few days at our new post and also talk about how our cabbie experience in Beijing helped us be overwhelmed with joy about being posted right now in Chengdu!  (Hint:  THE CABBIES HERE ALL RUN THE METER! AUTOMATICALLY! ALL THE TIME!)


:)

 

Don't Hate Us. Unless You Already Do. Not That I Blame You.

Okay, so, you already know our family lives in Florida. And that we're visiting them before we head to China. And that James and I were high school sweethearts here in our Hometown.


A thousand years ago.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.


Some (most? almost all?) things here in sleepy little Hometown never change.  


The beach is always yummily inviting, and only a few steps away (as I said, don't hate me!):





Since it's only September (it doesn't get coolish here until about November), it's still warm out on the beach:





This next picture is pretty much a free (FREE!) ad for Nikon, which is both the kind of camera that I have AND the kind of lenses that I use, even though my favorite lens broke randomly a week or two ago and I had to mail it into Nikon AND THEY DON'T MAIL TO DPO ADDRESSES, so they won't mail it to me in Chengdu once they fix it. DARNIT.  


But, my current issues with Nikon notwithstanding, I just *love* my camera and my lenses.  Just look what they can do:





Oh yes, there are some fabulous photo opportunities in Florida.


Floridian sunrises are gorgeous, and worth waking up for:











Know what else? 


Florida wildlife wears weaponry on its face.  But is still pretty:





If you don't think that the above beak is "weaponry," then I invite you to get really close to that bird while holding something in your hand that it wants to eat. 


Let me know how that goes for you.


Here's another picture I've taken recently that I adore.  I call it "And This is Pretty Much What I Look Like From My Husband's Perspective ALL THE TIME:"






As for us, today is Thursday.  This weekend we will leave quiet little Hometown, FL and start our winding journey to Chengdu, China (our new post).  


We're making a few stops along the way for meetings here and happenings there, etc., so we're not going to get to post for, like, a whole 'nother week or something... but it's getting close.


It's getting realllllllllllly close.


And as interesting as travel/going to new places/experiencing new things is... it's hard to leave our Hometown and our families.  


Oh yes, it's VERY hard to leave.