more kids

some recent pictures of kids from a winter camp

Spring in Beijing :)

daytime is much warmer now. sunlight hits newly exposed skin and warms you to the core instantly. afternoon temperatures reach up to the mid fifties and at nighttime only drop to the forties. all the plants ross and i keep on the balcony are just starting to bloom. the landscape is also beginning to find new, brighter color and life. it'd be nice to wear t-shirts and sandals again. we'll probably be storing away all our really heavy winter clothes in the next few weeks!

this is silvia's kitty who stayed with me for the few weeks kristy stayed with silvia. he and big face got along just fine and were super cute and playful

meet kristy...

she's silvia's partner in crime back in miami and came over to beijing for a visit, so silvia and i took her to shanghai for a few days. this was my second visit and silvia and kristy's first.

mister donut is the freaking best thing in the world! there are no donuts anywhere in beijing so this small chain eatery in shanghai was one of the highlights of the trip.

some silliness

au revior shanghai

shanghai at night

the view from our hotel room!

a movie-theater sized screen floats along the river dividing the city regularly, showing commercials on loop.

above and below: the chinese take their new year celebrations really seriously. this being the year of the rat; there are cute, good fortune attracting mice and 福 (pron. fu in a rising tone, meaning good fortune) hung upside down as per tradition all over. a fireworks video will come soon

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

chinese new years fell on february 7th, welcome to the year of the rat! this whole country gets insane! there have been non stop fireworks for the last 3 nights, and it really sometimes sounds like there's a war going on just outside. you can hear the POW!s and crackles from explosions echoing over all parts of beijing for many, many hours every night until the sun rises. this is rumored to continue for the next few nights.

silvia bought some sparklers, and we had our own fun....

the character on the right is 人 (pron. ren in a rising tone like you're asking
a question, e as in men), which means people or person

this character is 中 (pron. chong in a high tone, o as in show) which means middle or center. this is the first character in 中国 which is the name for china in mandarin

and in other news, sylvia's friend kristy got here a few nights ago and tomorrow we're flying to shanghai! i'm not sure whether to expect the same new years craziness in shanghai but it's sure to be awesome. it's about 20 degrees warmer in shanghai than here in beijing so it'll be nice to feel less freezing air, that's awesome in itself. man i miss summer...

I'm alive by the way

the snows and winds have not knocked me down. the crazy weather is happening several hundreds and thousands of miles away in the south of china. weather has been cold, but not as hellishly cold as a few weeks ago. spring starts soon, and the afternoon sun already feels warm. temperatures are usually in the 20's and days are mostly clear. it's very surprising to a lot of people here that the snows hit so hard down south, and the north has been such a global warming style winter.
my birthday was great, shared it with new friends. didn't take many pictures so instead i'm putting up some skype art of sorts. maybe this is an unexplored field?


chad and leif










a picture of my computer in china, with the three of us as seen from a monitor in miami.




my stepmom oyalda and my reflection

it's my birthday!

celebrations started last night. had a small pizza party with silvia, a co-worker friend fred, and his awesome girlfriend fay. right now i'ma few minutes away from skyping my family, then later tonight a get together chez moi. pictures tomorrow! :)

Some new pics and some news

this week has been the coldest since i got here. today at 1:00 a.m. it was -7 C !!! the day before yesterday we had the second snowfall of the winter and the first of 2008. i realize more and more how much i'm a creature of the caribbean and that snow and freezing temperatures are nice and all, but not something i think i'll ever learn to love as much as humidity and direct sunshine. anyway, winter will only last what's really a few more weeks. by the end of february temperatures begin to rise and spring is in full swing before april... can't wait!







my company had a "thank you party" for a great semester, over and done with. that's me with my two spic partners in crime at the office (left: tracy the panamanian, right: silvia la cubanita). it was a fun fun dinner in a western chinese food restaurant with a billion beers, kung-fu fighters, snake dancers, and roasted lamb.


i never introduced the new addition to the apartment. it's a cat. he's really big and though very shy initially he's now really really sweet. in typical chinese fashion we gave him a western name and a chinese name. i gave him his western name ennio, after ennio morricone. his chinese name is 大脸 (pron. TA! - liENNE) which means "big face." silvia gave him his chinese name because he's giant, heavy, and has an abnormally large head and face.

in other news ross will be going back to the u.s. for a few days!!! he leaves beijing for new york on january 28th and gets home to miami on february 4th where he'll spend something like 12 days. while i'm horribly jealous, i'll be in china for my first chinese new years which starts just a few days after my bday. as an added bonus, silvia's friend kristy will arrive here on the 4th and we're all going to make our way to shanghai for a few days. so i'm psyched to get my ass back to shanghai and hopefully get silvia to fall in love with that magical city from the future and get her to move there with ross and i in a year or two :)

Engrish!

chinese people often use "oh my god" to display shock or surprise much like westerners. it's especially strange though considering they're atheists and don't truly know what the idea of god is. like most things adopted without full knowledge of context it ends up misused and naming a mediocre boutique in shanghai.

this is another shanghai storefront, and one of the many many lacoste knock-offs available for purchase in china. this is actually a knock-off of the much more popular (and not that cheap) knock-off "crocodile" brand. btw, across the street is a knock-off superman paraphernalia store.

i bought this just a few days ago because i couldn't resist. the product is appropriately enough called BATHMASTER. it's a good enough soap...but i don't think the feagrant is long enough, and my horniness is still intact.above and below: more proof that there is very little respect or belief even in intellectual property. the store above has very few "disney" things inside and is mostly faked japanese-y stationary stuffs. below is but one example of almost convincing but obviously bobo products.

pics from home

our typical weekend breakfast, when we have time for more than cereal or toast

how we dry our clothes and linens

our living room

a chinese friend, ana. that metallic gray thing is our central heating and the wall behind it is where we hang our recently finished paintings