The Cookout...

A couple of weeks ago we got the chance to grill-out. Beth returned from her secret excursion to Wuhan with a beautiful grill that now resides on the balcony of mine and Brad's apartment. Brad put this thing together and it was beautiful. On our previous trip to Wuhan, we purchased charcoal. We thought we had everything in order but someone realized we didn't have lighter fluid. Ok. We will pick some up. Nope. None here. (Though, we might be able to use Zippo lighter fluid. Who knows?) The bag of charcoal was opened only to reveal what is strangely reminiscent of pieces of coal straight from the earth. Yeah, nothing close to the charcoal briquettes we are used to in America. I am sure they use the same stuff in steam engine locomotives.

After doing some research on the internet about starting grills without lighter fluid, we decided we should come up with a better solution than a chimney starter. (It was too complicated.) Many ideas were passed around...paper? Nope. (Doesn't burn long enough.) Gasoline? Nope. (Too dangerous.) Who-dey? Nope. (We would rather have him in a soup.) What about Bai Jiu? Come on, it's alcohol...albeit terrible alcohol. What better use of this stuff? (Strong start but didn't finish strong.) So, how should we light these coals? Peach grabs a coal and brings it into our kitchen and proceeds to light it over our stove top burner. Not a bad idea actually. The coal is lit after several minutes of loudly vocalized fear from the foreignors. Hooray! Now let's go light the other coals. Didn't work. So we ended up boiling the hot dogs for dinner. (I prefer them that way anyhow.) Not a bad dinner and it was accompanied by a fabulous lightning show. Dinner was saved but we didn't grill because the coals wouldn't light. 4 hours after our attempt, the one coal that had actually started eventually started the other coals and burned them into ash. Well, half a bad of coal gone. We know now to start the grills 6 hours before cook time. Oh China...live and learn.

First Swim 2007...

Well, winter came, settled in, and ravaged Yichang for months. Our winter vacation to Southeast Asia was a nice break from the chilly Yichang weather. (Beth went to Harbin. I guess she wanted to play with the Russians and the ice sculptures.) Spring came and went in maybe 2 days. Now summer is here. Everyday, the heat increases greatly. Right now, I am camped out in my room loving my A/C.

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to go to Xia Lao Xi. It is a neat little place to swim. The swimming area is man-made. They blocked the river with concrete walls and now the water blows through nice and gently. It is clean, cool, and refreshing. It isn't very deep either so it is a great place to relax and wade around. We taught 2 of our friends to swim. I tried but failed. Beth did a better job at it. Before the end of the day, both Peach and Seheno were swimming around like pro's. Well, maybe not pro's, but they weren't drowning. (Good thing too! I don't know CPR and who knows how long it would be for emergency services to come to the rescue.) It was nice and serence for a while...then a 20 Indians showed up. No problem that they showed up; however, they just like to strip down to their underwear and take a swim. No shame. No shame. I suppose we will go swimming there often over the next month and a half. Oh, summer heat - glad you got rid of the winter cold but couldn't you back down just a little?

April Birthdays...

So as you know, I have struggled keeping my blog up to date. Now that I can blog due to the Foreign Affairs Office finally coming through for us, I am forced to think about where to begin. Do I catch you up on everything or pick it up without caring what happened over the last few months? I think it would be a pity not to catch you up because so many neat things have happened and there are friends who deserve to be talked about in this vast and infinite cyberspace.

Here are some pictures of the April Birthdays. Beth and I celebrated our birthdays last month. On my birthday, my friends laid candles out in the shape of 23 down below my apartment. That was cool to see. Beth comes up with the coolest ideas. I have never seen anyone else go to such great lengths to make people feel special. Well, I have seen my Mom go to great lengths...so Beth is the second most creative and giving person I have ever met. My mom sent a Red Velvet Cake (my favorite) to China for someone to cook. Amy cooked it and wrote Chinese on it. Travis told me before I saw the surprise but it was no big deal. It was still cool. AND they let me have the whole cake to myself...thus continuing a tradition that my Mom started my freshman year of college. (And sometimes I wonder why I can't get into shape...)

We celebrated Beth's bday on the 27th. We did Mexican food, ghetto dance party, and special hang out time. That was a good night. Beth dressed up in her new skirt - very classy looking. Mexican was great! (She loves Mexican food. She also cooks a mean enchilada...I am sure it is better than Daniel's. Haha.) (Daniel if you read this, nothing personal. Beth is too great!) Ghetto Dance party...well, I don't dance often and I don't dance well. So basically, if we aren't doing the Macarena or the Cha Cha Slide, then I can't really do anything. Amy did a great job decorating Beth's cake. 76 days! Well, now there is less than 55 or so days. And then of course, there will be milk!

Could it be...

So it looks as if my blog is working again. It looks as if the internet is fixed now. For a while there, I could only read emails. Now I can respond, delete, view pictures and everything. Well, now that the blog is working again...the real question is will I actually blog about my life here in China? Yes Mom and Dad, I will begin again. Until the next post, snake on this picture...

Bowling with the Koreans...

This is a picture of the night we took the Koreans out for their Christmas present. We had heard there was a bowling alley in Yichang and decided bowling was the thing to do for our Korean friends. This night was pretty fantastic. First, we bowled. We bowled in China. Now, we have been roller skating and that was certainly a treat. Roller skating in China was like driving in China. No one follows the rules and everyone is more important than everyone else. People were going the wrong way. Some people were smoking. I was afraid for my shirt. There was a drunk guy out there with his spaghetti legs. That was hilarious. Our friends did karaoke in the corner. It was quite fun. Needless to say, we expected our bowling experience to be the same. It wasn't. First, it was pretty awesome because we had the whole bowling alley to ourselves. Sounds impressive right? Well, it is and it isn't. There were only 6 lanes. Our group of 12 was spread out over the lanes. The owner was a pretty shrewd business man. He required us to bowl 2 people per lane so that the games would go faster and we would bowl more. Well, we only played 2 games and found other ways to pass the time. The Koreans were a lot of fun. Now, if you haven't hung out with Koreans before then you are missing out. I don't know if all Koreans are like this, but I hope they are. These 4 (2 guys and 2 girls) were always hitting each other (in jest) and making fun of each other. They were like brothers and sisters. Too much fun. They don't speak English so we had 2 Chinese friends go with us to translate the Korean's Chinese. Despite the language barriers, we have really connected with them. Unfortunately, they will leave after this term. It will certainly be a said day when we say goodbye. We will, however, have great memories of them. I mean, who could forget 4 Korean students who were basically like locusts when it came to food. They devour everything when they come over. We are puzzled for a moment everytime this happens but then they smile and we remember that's why we like them so much. They are geniune and they are cool

Lucky Puppy...

Meet Who-Dey. This is a dog who finally had his day. He was destined to a life of eating until he was to be eaten. Then 8 days ago, Brad spotted him. Some lady was selling several little puppies down Snack Alley and this one with stripes was the most popular. Why were they selling puppies in snack alley? In a word - dinner. They were all probably going to be dinner. With Brad being an avid Bengals fan, there was no way this dog was going to suffer the same fate that many (I will say eleventy-billion) other dogs have suffered in the past and will continue to suffer in the future as long as Huo Guo exists. Huo Guo is Chinese pinyin for Hot Pot. Basically, Dog Hot Pot is a meaty soup with all sorts of wonderful ingredients that would be delicious were it not for the dog meat it contains. (Hot Pot is really good with dry chicken.) Anyway, this dog with beautiful tiger stripes was the right mix of chemicals and cross-breeding to attract the attention of the Yichang 4. We bought it. Now he lives the high life in mine and Brad's apartment pooping on our floor and squealing like a pig. He tries to bark but he just sounds like a pig. Hopefully it is because he is nearly 50 days old not because he is a hybrid off tiger, dog, AND pig. Who knows what these puppies are made of? Anyway, I just wanted to start posting again and to show my family the new dog. Out.

Another Brick in the Wall...

So, here I am once again attempting to tell you about the happenings in my life over the last month and I am confronting with another technological challenge. As I look at my screen, I am happy to see that Blogger is still functioning in China. However, I am staring at a screen where all the links and buttons are in Chinese. I don't know why. It is nice to type to you in English but I am not sure how to get pictures posted since I can't tell which button is the "Add Picture" button. As a result of these seemingly humorous catastrophy, I am unable to post pictures at this time. So now you have another pictureless brick of words on the wall of chronological rambings. FYI, life is going pretty well here. My friends and I just settled down from one of the most exhausting and yet enjoyable Christmases ever. More on that later.

To the Billions of my readers that I forgot to greet for the holidays -Merry Christmas and a Happy Every Day!