Christmas Crafts

I taught a special Christmas class early Christmas week. All the kids loved it because they got to make ornaments and cut out snowflakes. Here are some of my favorite students and their artwork.

A visitor

A good friend of mine from high school, Jackie, came to Beijing last week. She's a dancer at the
Martha Graham Dance Company and made it here on tour. I saw her perform last Friday night at the Egg, here next to Tian'anmen Square. It had been a really long time since we'd last seen each other, but everything was just like high school. In fact better, because we're both pretty damn happy where we find ourselves in our lives. We caught up and laughed a bunch, and I took her and her company friends out when they weren't performing.

My favorite breakfast place in Beijing, Cafe Zarah. We met up early one morning and had a fantastic breakfast. My coffee (on the left) is a café au lait served in a bowl, something Jackie found funny.

雍和宫 (YongHeGong) is a temple just half a kilometer north of my apartment. It's one of the most famous sites to see here in Beijing, and embarrassingly, I'd never been it. So Jackie and I went together.

We had so much fun. I miss her so much already :(

Her swank hotel in the financial hub of the city set up a n awesome gingerbread town with lights and all kinds of delicious looking stuff. The first sign of Christmas...

Thanksgiving Weekend

Early in the week, I made traditional Thanksgiving hand turkeys with my kids. I think they get it, but I'm not too sure. Thanksgiving's symbols are mostly alien to Chinese people so trying to tell them why they should care about pies and Pilgrims sometimes gets muddy.
FUN FACT: the Chinese word for turkey is 火鸡 [huǒjī] which is literally "fire chicken"

Thanksgiving happened at our local Friday's. It was a fairly trashy choice I guess, but we enjoyed it. A bunch of appetizers and a bunch of long island iced teas helped make this Thanksgiving memorable. It was a dream come true of sorts to have a fancy cheeseburger Thanksgiving dinner.

Friday morning we saw a sheep get killed just down the block. I think Ross noticed it first just outside my bedroom window. Some of our neighbors (I figure) brought the sheep into our complex, laid it onto the ground near a sewer drain, and slit away. I must tell you this is the first time I see anything like this by here. I must be lucky.

downstairs balcony garden

I made it a point when I first came back to China to buy a bunch of plants in anticipation of Winter. Beijing is a surprisingly green city, there are many public parks and tree lined streets. However, this looming Winter will quickly wipe out nearly all the green in the coming weeks. There are plants pretty much all over the house, but most are in the living room balcony.

above and below: the plant balcony with all kinds of tropical plants, cacti, and spice plants.

just inside: a newly flowering jasmine just like one from a house I grew up in in Miami. It makes the whole apartment smell good and strangely like my early teenage years. The smaller plant is something called a money tree. It's some Feng Shui (风水) thing that's supposed to bring money. Hope it works!

the downstairs...

a look into our new apartment...


The stuff above the couch; some of our paintings and some of our cool stuff, and me.

It's clearest I think to show a panoramic of the balcony (on the right), living room, stairs and entrance (on the left). The downstairs also has the kitchen, a bathroom with a washing machine, and two bedrooms one with a wide balcony we use to hang dry clothing.

upstairs...

The second floor is a big open space we use as the dining room. It has a large and comfortable common area, an enclosed balcony, an open balcony, and Silvia's bedroom room and bathroom

The open balcony with two giant David heads that came with the apartment. The one on the right broke somehow, I suspect it was some cats I've seen around. This balcony is at the top of our building and gives us a view of our whole complex and, on very clear days, a view of the mountains.

recently...

Halloween was fun. We went out to a party and a foreigner bar all dressed up. Our Friend Ruby (above) from Xi'an joined Ross and Silvia in a "dead 80's" theme

I went dressed as a XinJiang chef. This Muslim minority group from far out in the west of China are a fairly common sight all over Beijing. They have restaurants all over the city where they sell their closer to Turkish than Chinese style dishes. They also sell barbecued meat on a stick called 串 (pron. CHwar in Beijing accent Mandarin). The Chinese character represents two peices of meat skewered on a stick. I made my own 串 out sponges, I think they made my costume a success.

a memory of warmer days... just a few weeks ago it was easy to go out in a T-shirt. These last few weeks have been significantly cooler, and this weekend it's been down in the 50's midday and the 30's at night :(

I VOTED!

Even all the way from Beijing I managed to do it, so there's no excuse for anyone who didn't. I'm listening to an NPR stream of the results as they come in, eating breakfast and freaking out just a little bit :)
All of us on this side of the world should know the winner by early or mid-afternoon. We're all really excited around here, I had a pretty rough night's sleep as all the voting was going on in America. Let's hope there's big cause for celebration tonight!

Same old , same old

So, Beijing looks basically the same. Who'da thunk it? more details coming soon, in the meanwhile here are some recent pics

Sorry about that

I've abandoned the blog while I've been home and for that I apologize. In the last few weeks I was first unable to extract pictures from my camera, then later my hard drive fried and I lost everything :( I return to Beijing on Tuesday, apartment-less. My lease ran up while I was out and I couldn't renew. All Silvia, Ross, and my posessions lie waiting is storage, somewhere.
Still I'm very excited to return to China. I look forward to reigniting the life I very quickly walked out of a few months ago. There's a whole lot of China I've not come across.

Homeward Bound

We three at Angkor Wat

Silvia and I leave to Miami early tomorrow morning. It's a 31 hour flight stopping in Tokyo and Chicago, and and strangely enough i still arrive the same day I left... I don't get it. I also return to America just 3 days short of exactly one year since I left to Beijing in the first place.

I still have a few pictures from Cambodia and Thailand I'd like to post but those will have to wait a few more days. This final afternoon in Bangkok Ross and I will wander a little more before finishing packing and soon enough heading out to the airport. I'm excited to be out of Asia for the first time in a year... Ross will be staying Bangkok another few days before possibly returning to Vietnam and waiting out Silvia and my return to China, painting and exploring otherwise. I can't deny that I'm excited as hell to return, but I still sit nervously pondering the remainder of this vacation/return to my roots/trip back to my new home in Beijing. Where is home and what does it mean? Guess I'll find out sooner than I think. Why do I sound like a Lisa Loeb song?

Bangkok

Pics from my first excursion in Bangkok

a humongous reclining Buddha in the old city center and the surrounding temples

Angkor Trees

The temples at Angkor are hundreds of stone towers constructed between the 9th and 15th centuries by the kings of the Khmer empire. The temples, palaces, monuments, homes and other giant stone buildings were abandoned when it's builders were defeated by the invading Thais and these monuments were slowly and almost entirely reconquered by the surrounding jungles. The entire site was the world's largest preindustrial city, 8 times larger than it's closest competitor. The architecture, sculptures and sheer mass of these buildings is larger and much more vast than i could have ever imagined. Ross, Silvia and I spent 3 whole days traveling between the many sites in the complex. It's quite a sight and I was horribly sad to leave. What impressed me most was the buildings with gigantic trees still left over from the centuries when it was overrun by jungle. More often than not, these exaggerated trees are what hold the buildings together and removing them would cause the buildings to collapse. This is the one place I saw on this trip where I'm positive I'll return.

Ross and Silvia

more pictures of the biggest buildings coming soon :)

Angkor Trees continued

me :)

Saigon floors

To conclude the series of Saigon interiors I present photographs of ... floors. Strange as it was, I fell in love with the intricate tile work and carpets in the city's older buildings. The French (the colonial overlords in Vietnam for over 100 years) are really good at integrating a strong design sense and influencing food culture.