"Cinco de Mayo" on "Dos de Mayo"

This weekend was a long weekend in China. Friday, May 1, is when China celebrates Labor Day* [see footnote at bottom], so it was a national holiday. I ran some errands during the day on Friday and Saturday, more to come on that in the near future.

Saturday night, once I returned to Zhudi Town, my current outskirt of Shanghai, I went to The Monk. The Monk is a local bar that caters to the expatriate community and is the Zhudi Town version of Cheers, where "everyone knows your name."

The reason that we were all meeting is that the owner of The Monk, Ralph, a lovely gentleman, organized a Cinco de Mayo event. Ralph, being a businessman obviously understood the gains he could encounter by putting the event on Saturday May 2, versus Tuesday May 5. That said, I'm sure there will be a crowd at Ralph's establishment on Tuesday.

There was a mexican buffet and a hoppin' salsa band. I had a good time visiting and even got out on the dance floor for a little while. Being one of the few (if not the only) folks from Texas present, I was asked several times if I had my honky-tonkin' boots on.

I just found it ironic that I was celebrating Cinco de Mayo in China... more than 8,000 miles away from Mexico.

* Labor Day Information
Curious as to why our (American) Labor Day is observed as the first Monday in September, and not May 1 with the rest of the world? See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_day#International_Workers.27_Day If you follow the link, you can scroll above to see how different regions observe the holiday.

Follow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_day to find out more about our observed holiday.

Care Package

I have not forgot about the pictures I've promised to put on the blog. I've had some problems loading the pictures onto the blog, and I sent my super-reliable-built-in IT support home to America. On top of that, the weather has been yucky here, and when there is a pretty day, I'm stuck in a classroom.

I received a care package from home yesterday. Most of the teachers have mail/packages sent the school for ease of delivery/pickup. Needless to say, I was giddy to see the package waiting for me in the high school mail/copy room. I felt like I was 5 years-old and got a letter in the mail from my Grandma & Grandpa Aschenbeck. Only instead of my name being written in my grandma's pretty cursive, it was someone else's penmanship on the USPS package : my husband's all caps writing.

So what does a girl who only have 2 months left in China want and need?

1) Socks. The few pairs of dress socks I brought with me in June and September are officially thread-bare. With some pairs, I was offering regular prayers of petition that they would not have a hole in the toes by the end of the day, followed in the evening with a prayer of thanksgiving.

2) Magazines. There are only so many times you can re-read a magazine, and all of the advertisements therein. When my mom visited in January she brought two, and I have fully exhausted those as well. Which magazines did I receive? Runners' World, Better Homes & Garden and Fitness. (Ranked in order of preference.)

3) My FHI flat-iron. Silly? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely. I bought a simple, cheap one back in the fall, and my hair suffered. It made my hair (especially the ends) dry and brittle - basically damaged. Not something a girl who is trying to get ponytail length hair back wants. I have to use the power converter with it every time, apparently plugging it directly into a socket with 220V could cause a problem.

That's all. A day later, I'm still just as giddy about the delivery.

Thank you Jim. I hope you know how much I appreciate it. ;)

Twisted

This is a picture of a piece of art that was towards the front of our apartment complex in Pudong; it was on the path that we always took when we were coming in or leaving.

You can see in the pictures, it is surrounded by a small moat of water, and you can see the reflection of the piece in the water. At night, the lights would shine on the piece and the water would have a red tint.

I always enjoyed watching my perspective of the piece change as I walked by. I would try to 'untwist' the twisted piece.

For the other mathies reading this, I'm pretty sure the piece is topographically equivalent to a torus, not a mobius strip.


From another angle:

New Digs

Jim is back in the land of free-flowing BBQ, enchaladas, Dr. Pepper, etc. and I'm in China through June. Wow, I could have never imagined that this would be a reality for us.

As Jim mentioned last week, I'm now living in a furnished school-owned apartment at the Shanghai Racquet Club, SRC for short. I decided to post some pics of my new place so folks will know what type of accomodations I'm living in, and maybe ease some of the fears/concerns friends and family may have.

The entry way...

The closet in the entry way. This is only one of three closets in the apartment.
The living room...
View of the living room into the kitchen.

Kitchen that includes a real oven, our old apartment only had a dish dryer.
View of the kitchen and the dishwasher, even though I have an ayi (chinese for maid.)

Laundry room, with a full size washer & dryer. The old washer only had a cold water cycle, and the dryer didn't have a heat setting.
The bedroom (with another closet!) The guest bedroom has a desk, a futon, the third closet, and is separated from my room by a set of sliding doors that turn into a wall.

My bathroom. There is another bathroom sans bathtub, avec stand-in shower, again not picture-worthy. I also have a balcony, but I'll have to take some pics during the daytime.

I'm really excited about some photos from our journeys we had printed and framed, and they should be delivered within a few weeks, so I'm hoping to have those on the walls for a little while before I ship them back to the states.

I'm pleased with the place, our other apartment was nice, but laid out in much more of a Chinese-style and the arcitecture may have been a tad too modern for my tastes. The SRC was designed in a more traditional western style.

That's a pretty much it for the picture tour of the apartment. I will take some pictures of the outside of the complex this weekend. All the plants are begining to bloom, I especially love the magnolias and the cherry blossoms.

I'm doing fine, work keeps me busy, which eases the adjustment. I also have a great support system of friend and colleagues. I will ask for two favors: if you think about me, say a little prayer (for well-being, continued sanity, health, etc.), and if you see my husband, please give him a hug for me. :)

Finally, here's one last photo of me sitting in the living room.

Coming home (one of us at least)

A lot of people are curious about our plans to come home. And we finally have some details which will surprise most of you. As the title eludes to, one of us will be staying here for a while longer. The decision was hard but the opportunity is too hard to pass up. So, I (Jim) will be coming home March 8th and Rachel will be staying here until June. The main reason for the decision is the school really needs her to stay and finish the school year. They are offering her housing near the school and all of her new friends live nearby, so she has a great support group here. It also gives us another opportunity to travel again in Asia this summer.

Sorry the posts have been scarce lately. I still have some more pictures to post from Tibet and another city we visited. Stay tuned, that is my goal for this week...

Lhasa - Tibet Part 1

Potala Palace
Originally uploaded by jimwink

Our next stop on our vacation was Lhasa, Tibet. Even though Tibet is part of mainland China the Chinese government keeps a careful watch of who enters or leaves Tibet. When we booked our trip we had to submit copies of our passports and work visas. The tour company then arranged to get us a permit to enter Lhasa. This is the reason why we went to Chengdu first. It is one of the entry points into Tibet.

Our first day in Lhasa was spent in the hotel, acclimating to the altitude. Lhasa elevation is about 3650m (11,975ft or 2.25mi). Everything we read about Lhasa told us that we will need a day to get adjusted to the altitude. We definitely needed it. I think we both experienced a little of every symptom from altitude sickness. But later that evening we started feeling better and even took a walk to the local convenience store.

The next morning we headed to our first historic site in Lhasa, The Potala Palace. Construction was started by the fifth Dalai Lama, Lozang Gyatso, in 1645. If you are wondering,(we did) the current Dalai Lama is the 14th. It is about 13 stories tall contains 1000 rooms, 10,000 shrines and about 200,000 statues. The Potala Palace was used as the central seat of government and as the winter palace by the Dalai Lama up until the Tibetan uprising against the Chinese in 1959. Since then, China has turned the palace into a museum. But as we toured the palace you still got a strong sense of it as a religious shrine. Monks still roam the halls and pilgrims still make offerings every chance they can.

Jokhang Temple
Originally uploaded by jimwink

After all the hiking and climbing at the Potala Palace we were starving. We then headed to place called Lhasa Kitchen for lunch. It was really nice, with English menus and English speaking staff. And the hot chocolate was the perfect way to warm up.

Our next stop was the Jokhang Temple on Barkhor Square. It is the first Buddhist temple built in Tibet during the reign of King Songsten Gampo between 605 and 650. It was to celebrate his marriage with a Tang Dynasty, Chinese princess named Wencheng, who was Buddhist. The name Jokhang means the 'House of the Buddha'.

Barkhor Street
Originally uploaded by jimwink

Surrounding Jokhang Temple is a circular street named Barkhor Street. And it is the place to be if you want to do some shopping. It is said that after the temple was built, due to its magnificence, it quickly attracted thousands of Buddhist pilgrims. A path around the temple was created by the pilgrims which has become the path known as Barkhor Street. Even today, pilgrims follow the same path walking around the temple in a clockwise direction, many with the prayer wheels. There was an added benefit to everyone walking in the same direction, it made it easy to negotiate pedestrian traffic. What a concept.

As usual, just click on the photos to see the rest.

Chengdu (where the Panda reserve is located)

Chengdu
Originally uploaded by jimwink

Here is the first of many posts for our recent Christmas/New Years' vacation. It was filled with great and unusual food, icy road conditions and crazy taxi drivers among other things. Overall we had a great time. Our first stop on this adventure was Chengdu, near the center of China. It was our gateway into Tibet because visitors have to obtain a special permit to visit the area. We used an agency this time so they arranged everything for us. The name might sound familiar to some, as this was the location of the major earthquake that hit China earlier this year. In fact, the panda reserve that we wanted to visit was partially destroyed so our tour included a different panda reserve. We were still able to see the pandas up close and was able to visit the baby panda area. Unfortunately we were not able to take any photos of the them but I assure you they are very cuddly and playful. All the pandas we did manage to take pictures of were over a year old.

We spent a day and half in Chengdu with very little planned on the agenda. One evening we decided to walk around and see what kind of restaurants we could find. We popped into a couple of them and after looking at the menu (which we couldn't read in Chinese) we decided to head back towards the hotel. Soon we came across something promising. I don't remember the exact name but Steak was part of it. At this point we were both starving and decided to give it a try. Another factor that contributed to us going there was that the place was packed, and if a place scores well with the locals, then it might be worth trying. The menu was in English, the waiter could speak a little and the prices were really cheap. Rachel and I joked about the prices and little did we know, it does make a difference. So with a mix of our broken Chinese and pointing, we ordered what looked like steak and eggs.

After a few minutes our dinners arrived still sizzling on the iron plate with a cover. The server waits for us to hold up our napkins so the oil doesn't splatter all over us, then he removes the cover. Steam rises and reveals a steak, a fried egg and potatoes. It looks great. So we start cutting into the steak and find out why this steak costs about $6 USD. About 80% of it was just fat. What little meat you could find was scattered throughout. We both agreed that it was the worst steak ever. No pictures were taken of this meal...

Well, we hope you enjoy the photos of my favorite animal, the panda. Click on the photo to see the rest.