From Grits to Chopsticks

It has been wonderful to have Timothy with us in China.  Although we have worn him out meeting and eating with students, we have also enjoyed spending some time together.  Here’s a Mother’s Day visit to the zoo: We also were able to have a meal at one of our favorite restaurants (which is scheduled to be demolished soon): While […]

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While walking around the Kunming Expo Garden on a recent Sunday, we rode a small gondola up to a park surrounding an ancient temple. The trails surrounding the temple were nicely gardened with azaleas: The main attraction of the park is the Golden Temple, built over 300 years ago during the Ming Dynasty: En-route to the […]

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Over the recent May holiday, we traveled up into the part of Sichuan Province where a devastating earthquake occurred on 12-May-2008.  We stopped by to visit a memorial of the disaster which took the lives of over 85,000 people: The village in the background of the picture has been rebuilt, and a new bridge was constructed further up the valley to […]

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I have the privilege of eating lunch with students on a regular basis.  In order to avoid getting stuck in a rut, I always ask the students to select the location and the food.  Here are some recent photos of different foods and students this semester: My noodles – a little less spicy than everyone else’s: […]

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Our city continues to grow and change, providing a wide range of travel options for residents of all types.  If you’re a student trying to get a ride to the train station on a busy afternoon, unregistered taxi-vans line up three deep to help you out: If you’re rich and want everyone to know, you can […]

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Yunnan province has recently been experiencing the one-two punch of drought and rapid development, forcing the city management department to take some drastic action.  If you open our apartment faucet between 1:00PM and 4:00PM (and at other random times) each day, this is what you get: Nothing (but dry skin).  And we consider ourselves to be fortunate, […]

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Whenever we want some fresh fruits and vegetables, we just walk out of our apartment (the white/yellow buildings) and into the decades-old marketplace: It’s a convenient location to pick up some local produce: have our corn man slice kernels off the cobs: or visit our favorite “short stool” restaurant: There is also fresh local pineapple and sugar cane: […]

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Last week, we had a pretty big group of students come to our English Corner lesson on the Easter Holiday: Prior to the arrival of the students, we had prepared and hidden some plastic eggs that contained candy and a paper with the name of an Easter or Spring symbol: After Susan’s lesson, she sent the students hunting for the eggs.  […]

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Since we returned to China, we’ve been attempting to restock our cupboard with a reasonable amount of western food items.  I say “reasonable,” because western food is very expensive here.  A couple of stores carry the items we are seeking: (By the way, you might recognize that this is an updated spelling of a previous blog picture of […]

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We are still amazed at the thousands of people who come to our city zoo when the flowers are in bloom.  Here is Mark buying some tickets so that we can join the crowd: The large numbers of people can make it difficult to see if there are animals in the cages:  Unless, of course, you’re willing to climb the fence: […]

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