From Grits to Chopsticks

We’ve already mentioned how the oversupply of rental bicycles crowds the sidewalks in our city:In spite of that, another company has added their bicycles to the mix:These blue bicycles emblazoned with “Hello Bike” actually say “hello” in English when you unlock them:  The number of city-owned rental bikes is also rising:Unfortunately, these bikes must be returned to a […]

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This week, we received three special gifts.  One of our expat friends crocheted this amazing afghan for us, and it is a perfect match for our (fake) Ikea sofa:Some local friends gave us this container of special treats from their hometown:Guess which of the following best describes these individually wrapped morsels:  mouse pellets, cocoa beans, […]

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Chinese language contains many four-character idioms.  One is 人山人海 (rén shān rén hǎi), meaning “people mountain people sea.”  It refers to huge crowds of people, like we experienced last week at the zoo-park: Almost every year, we travel to this park to see the crowds taking photos of the cherry blossoms: We’ve posted photos like […]

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Here in China, “Lantern Festival” caps off the Spring Festival holidays after Chinese New Year.  Traditionally, people would light paper lanterns to celebrate:But things have come a long way since the old days.  At the shopping mall across the street, there was a big production with a continuous stream of dancing groups (click here to […]

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From China, we would like to wish you a happy “Year of the Dog”:We returned from the States four days after the official new years day, but continue to hear fireworks outside of our apartment every day and night:Click here to view: Firecrackers. There are still many for sale on street corners, so we expect the celebration to […]

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This year, our family had the opportunity to gather together for a late Christmas celebration at our son’s home in Park City:Park City is a beautiful place to walk and play in the snow: To escape the cold, we visited a nearby children’s museum, and the Alf Engen Ski Museum at Olympic Park.We also enjoyed hanging around […]

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As we reach the end of the year, it seems appropriate to post a few more random pictures (since we live a very random life).  A sweet Chinese friend organized a birthday dinner for Susan and bought this cake, loaded with fruit, etc:When the restaurant owner noticed it was a birthday dinner, she presented Susan […]

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On Sunday afternoon we visited the Kunming Flower Market on the southeast side of town.  70% of the flowers grown in China come from our province (about $5 billion USD/year), and many of those flowers pass through this market.  Every day, farmers deliver their flowersand pile them onto the loading dock;they are then sorted and […]

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Two weeks ago, we launched our University’s first Winter English Camp (with the usual speeches):29 English teachers came to the camp from 16 different vocational colleges. Our objective was to help them improve their oral English and their English teaching skills:Since the first Thursday of camp fell on Thanksgiving Day, we used that opportunity to talk about […]

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In order to celebrate my 60th birthday, we took a break from our overloaded schedule and flew to Hong Kong for a few days.  Upon arrival, I bought a temporary SIM card for my phone and read the “simple” instructions: Once I got it working, it was wonderful to use the “CityMapper” app for transit directions.  Hong […]

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