Day two of the bachelor life

Day one was spent at a big dinner and the massage to see off a friend from the U.S., so I didn’t get much time to think about it.  It’s eerie how quiet the house is now.  They all arrived in VA safe and sound yesterday, which was more relieving than I thought it was going to be.  I’m not the type to worry overmuch, but the thought of the whole family on a plane did have an impact.

It's been raining for the past month here, but I was able to get out on the scooter for a quick ride around the lake, taking notes of bus numbers and stops as I went.  The below picture is a new arrival in Suzhou, the sign went up late last week.  The funny thing is that the sight of me in a Harley do-rag or t-shirt on my scooter will neither be funny nor offensive to the Chinese.  I guess I shouldn’t bother spending the money then…

Ads from the weekly circular

It's been awhile...

This may be a repeat.  I like their detailed approach to marketing.

I wonder how Rebecca would react to seeing these upon her return from the U.S.

Yes, the hairtail is a real fish.  Appetizing name!

My favorite - old naturally fed hen, only good for making soup.  This is a level of honesty I'm unaccustomed to while shopping.

School's Out!

Today was the boys' last day of school.  Their report cards came in and due entirely to their good genes on mom's side, they managed to get good comments and overall marks (grades for you Americans).  Anyway, sadly for me they are headed to the U.S. next week where they will vacation for about 6 weeks total.  I will join them after a month or so.  In order to keep myself distracted in the off work hours, I've been compiling my to-do list which includes:

• Taking all of the buses that stop in front of our neighborhood from one end of their route to the other.  There are over a dozen buses, so I may not get to all of them...
• Cooking lessons - Thai or Chinese
• Poker tournaments
• Riding the scooter - who knows where?

That will be a start anyway.  Also next month will bring a trip to Thailand, then a tradeshow in Shanghai all week, a vistor from corporate (maybe I can coax him onto the scooter?), a trip to Mexico, then finally meet up with the family in the U.S.  Whew!

Finally, I leave you with some totally false advertising below.  :)

Born to be Wild

Some friends of ours are repatriating this month (moving back to the U.S.) and somehow I found myself the owner of a new E-bike (scooter) last week.  Happy Father's Day to me!  As Rowan and I set out on the maiden voyage around the neighborhood, we quickly approached speeds of 50 kph (about 31 mph).  I heard Rowan say in a very quiet, introspective voice "This is making me happy".  Me too RoRo, me too...

So confusing

Last week Rebecca and I had a chance to visit Shanghai.  Nothing really opens in China until about 10AM, so when we arrived 20 minutes early, we decided to stop in a cafe and grab a quick snack.  The cafe was supposed to be French, and I must say the atmosphere was quite nice.  The food was good too; one of the best omelettes I've had in China.  It was also non-smoking (see pic below), which is almost backwards here.  Anyway, what made it blog worthy was the music.  In this nice, quaint little cafe we were treated to such French favorites as: Guns N' Roses (Heaven's Door), Prince (Purple Rain) and also Soundgarden (Black Hole Sun).  Hmm.

Production Night

Reid has been involved in the school play this year; which he volunteered for on his own.  He was Ishmaelite #3 in Joseph and His Technicolor Dreamcoat.  Below are a few pictures of the event.  On the whole, the kids were great and the production was very impressive.  All those late school days and Saturday rehearsals ready paid off!!!

Reid saying one of his 4 lines.

Pharaoh's court.  Most of the kids were in this scene, so you can see how many there were.  Reid is standing in the back row, right side blue shirt.

Kung Fu Fighting - Take Two

I'm guessing this topic will become a prevalent one in the years to come for three reasons:  we live in China, Riley is taking Taekwando and Lego just came out with the "Ninjago" series.  Below are the two youngest pretending to be "Injas" (as Rowan calls them).  We finally convinced Riley to give Rowan the blue Chinese dragon pajamas below, which he had worn for two years insisting that they still fit him until I held them up to another pair of Rowan's pajamas and he saw they were exactly the same size.  Riley decided to go with the white thermal underwear, which you can see he is using to blend into the walls, essentially becoming invisible.

Such a Sweet Boy

Below is the action sequence of Rowan saying goodbye to me on his morning bus to school.  Print out 20 copies, make book out of them, then flip the pages like a cartoon and you'll have an idea of what he's doing.  His grandfather "Daddy Mac" would be so proud, since I'm pretty sure that's where he picked it up...

Dragon Boat Festival!

Monday I was off work for the Dragon Boat Festival, below is a brief Wikipedia description of the Holiday:

The best-known traditional story holds that the festival commemorates the death of poet Qu Yuan (Chinese: 屈原) (c. 340 BCE – 278 BCE) of the ancient state of Chu, in the Warring States Period of the Zhou Dynasty.^[5] A descendant of the Chu royal house, Qu served in high offices. However, when the king decided to ally with the increasingly powerful state of Qin, Qu was banished for opposing the alliance. Qu Yuan was accused of treason.^[5] During his exile, Qu Yuan wrote a great deal of poetry, for which he is now remembered. Twenty-eight years later, Qin conquered the capital of Chu. In despair, Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month.

It is said that the local people, who admired him, threw lumps of rice into the river to feed the fish so that they would not eat Qu Yuan's body.^[5] This is said to be the origin of zongzi. The local people were also said to have paddled out on boats, either to scare the fish away or to retrieve his body. This is said to be the origin of dragon boat racing.

We headed off to Jinji Lake at about 9am to watch the races.  Unfortunately it was drizzling rain and it was cooler out than how we dresssed.  In all though, the event was OK.  The boys had a good time running around, but they really didn’t watch much of the races unless one of the boats tipped over (which happened twice).  The zongzi we purchased and steamed at home were also a bust with everyone but me and Riley, so we suplimented dinner with left over pizza.  Below are a few pictures commemorating the events of the day; unfortunately Reid was running around too much to be photographed.

A decent example of a dragon boat.

A shot of the expat women winning their race, as they do every year from what I understand.  Also, in the background the two buildings under construction will eventually be joined at the top.  Nothing says classy like a big pair of pants on your skyline.

Rowan huddled in his friends jacket for warmth.

A lot of the local flora at the industrial park we live in is the same as what you encounter on the East Coast of the U.S.  Note the crepe myrtles in the foreground.  Riley is taking a closer look at the boxwood in the background to determine if it is that same variety as what we saw in Williamsburg.  I'm a bad father, but maybe his future wife will thank me for keeping his ego in check.  What's truly funny is that when you live in China, you wouldn't see anything out of place in this picture.

Bizzarre Fruits

On Sunday we went back to the Japanese market to check it out with mom.  We decided to pick up some fruit types that were new to us.  In the end, dinner was fruit, cheese and crackers (which was a pretty common meal at my house growing up).

The smorgasbord.

Yes, that starfruit really is the size of my hand.  Also on the cutting board above only one starfruit was harmed in the production of dinner.

Lychee.  Weird on the outside, like a grape on the inside.  It was very good, although it did leave a strange aftertaste.

A berry of some kind.  The flavor was similar to blackberries or raspberries.

Everybody was Kung-Fu Fighting!

Riley had two reasons why he wanted to move to China:

1.       Learn Chinese with the family so that when we move back to the states, we have our own secret language.

2.       Learn Kung-Fu

While it’s not Kung-Fu exactly, he is having a great time with his after school Taekwando lessons.  Note that he has 3 black stripes on his belt.  I asked him what they were for and he said he didn’t know, but that he keeps getting them!