The blog of four sprouts: 四芽的blog

things to do tomorrow 10/13

2010-10-12T21:18:00.000-07:00

a hop harvest at tornado in the lower haight starting at 6pm.

a free event which samples wet-hopping, the addition of hops that have not been dried, hops that are fresh off the vine.
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it's a heat wave. Tomorrow is going to be even WARMER than tonight! Let' s have another warm park night. mmmmm. it might be the last indian summer heat wave- don't miss a warm park night.
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and that's all for tomorrow night:)

a sunny day off:)

2010-06-11T17:04:00.001-07:00

We forgot to eat the bananas that I bought last week and they got all black and mushy so today I used them and made banana bread with chocolate and hazelnuts.

I also made a soup and sandwich lunch. Yesterday I found a slow cooker at Walgreens for $10. I scooped it up and made some soup last night which was undrinkable. I tried to make a mushroom beef stew, but at the last second I decided to add some of this hot pepper I bought. MISTAKE. It was so spicy that everytime I had a sip, I would cough for about a minute. Anyhow, today's soup was definitely more successful.

I roasted two big tomatoes on an iron skillet in the oven for 20 minutes then mushed 'em up and put them in the slow cooker with some chicken broth. I then cooked up some butter, fresh basil, garlic and a little milk on the stove top and threw it in the slow cooker as well. It came out great.

And I made a baguette grilled cheese with marinated artichoke hearts to go with it.

I love sunny days off. They make me happy and productive:)

I'm preparing to make that no knead bread, so tomorrow morning I'll be baking it. Show you guys the pictures soon.

2010-04-22T15:38:00.000-07:00

Wow, I'm sorry Alabama.

Lucky Man

2010-04-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

Listen to this, (while you enjoy the lovely fantasy photos)....

and understand why I want this...

Die Antwoord! DEF SIDE!

2010-02-25T15:26:00.000-08:00

A group of performance artists from South Africa who make incredible videos. Word on the interweb is that they're making a movie with the die antwoord characters. They're also going on tour soon.

waiting for you 等着你回来

2009-08-13T19:58:00.000-07:00

This video is strange and terrifying. I would have never interpreted the song this way.

For all you china people who can't access youtube: the video is a scary interpretation of the 白光 song. It's really not all that exciting, but I'm always looking for another excuse to listen to this song again.

Does anyone else obsessively listen to the one track? Why does listening to the same song over and over feel so great? Is it a building of the familiar that makes us so attached to a particular song? repetitive ingraining of familiarity...?

the last couple of weeks

2009-08-11T11:50:00.000-07:00

the pacific from the other side

sweet cherries

SF symphony at dolores park

rollercoaster at Santa Cruz

The view from the smallest park in SF

Harris and Vicente playing chess

using pretty light to trace something

I let these kids attack the piano. 加油！

do da stanky leg

2009-07-17T22:49:00.000-07:00

I recently found a job at a summer camp. I'm working as a teaching assistant in a 4-week language summer camp where the children are taught in Mandarin and encouraged to communicate using Mandarin, which means I must speak Chinese for 8 hours each day. I'm happy.

During dismissal yesterday I saw two of my students dancing while singing, "do da' stanky leg" and came home to find this on youtube. Am I really late on this stanky leg thang?

Carrie Koo Mei, 顧媚, 顾媚, gù mèi

2009-06-24T16:38:00.000-07:00

Avril's Screechy Voice Transcends Linguistic Divides

2009-06-23T23:20:00.000-07:00

Avril Lavigne recorded the refrain of her hit in eight languages: English, Japanese, Portugese, German, Chinese (Mandarin), Italian, Spanish and French!

See a compilation of Avril's 8 versions (turn on your unblockers, china friends). It's worth it.

我知道你喜欢我！不是一个秘密！[加老外口音］
No es un secreto! Yo quiero ser tu novia! [apply gringo accent]

the city and a birthday

2009-06-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

mmm green onion biscuits and GRAVY

happy birthday, Harris!

charlie and the monkey king (孙悟空)

san francisco

2009-06-15T08:52:00.001-07:00

A lot has happened since I last posted. Blogger is blocked in China and so it became more difficult for me to post.

I moved to San Francisco last Wednesday. Here the sky is blue, the air is incredibly fresh, people dress great, everyone is pretty, the food is delicious and mexican food is cheap!

I'll be sure to take more photos in the near future. It's just, I've been too excitedly dazed to remember what a camera is.

cloudy day in beijing

siberian sunrise

delicious

fun

my brother!!

a tiny cone of delicious ice cream

a bookstore i passed had a summer sale: free books! you were allowed to take 2 books on the rack. I picked one and it was extremely uninteresting, but the drawings were nice. and it felt nice cause it was free...

我到香港啦！

2009-05-10T22:22:00.000-07:00

I've reached Hong Kong (香港). It is a strange place where the buildings are enormous, people would prefer to speak to you in English, the food is delicious and Indian people speak fluent Cantonese.

I came here via Shenzhen (深圳), which was incredibly convenient. I took a train from Guangzhou (广州) to Shenzhen and then followed the signs pointing towards Hong Kong. I had to fill out a questionnaire when I reached Customs about the Swine Flu, and there was a looped recording advising the public to seek a doctor if they are feeling flu-like symptoms. It was all a bit intimidating.

I found a cheap hotel which is run by a very sweet old man. I will stay here tonight, pick up my visa tomorrow (it's already processing) and be on my way back to Guangzhou tomorrow.

广州 Guangzhou

2009-05-08T23:48:00.000-07:00

Martyr's Park (烈士陵园)

delicious

sexy santa chicken

Gar (a band from Beijing)

Kelvin and Demon

Erin and Jero

an old song from Henan, China 河南的一个老歌

lately

2009-05-03T01:32:00.000-07:00

veggies

2 days after the H&M grand opening...

Ross and I biked all day long

and we took pictures near Tian'anmen

We went to a tiny village on the outskirt of Beijing. Ross posted about it.

Emily and Ralph just woke up.

and Emily's neighbor drew eye charts and wrote an essay about her uncle on the wall with chalk.

guangzhou

2009-04-04T22:10:00.000-07:00

erin!

(chai1) It means "destroy". This building will soon be destroyed.

night street food.

a bar we went to called ping-pong. The sign says 'ping'

This sign says 'pong'.

Chinese people like Clinton and flowers

KTV

2009-03-23T03:09:00.000-07:00

I went to KTV (karaoke) with my friend Sheen last night. Karaoke in China is a bit different to the karaoke I know. The one we went to yesterday is called Party World. We paid about 50RMB, which included a private room with a long couch for 4 hours, and access to their buffet, which was quite tasty. I thank Sheen for kidnapping me and taking me to Party World.

picking songs

Sheen's favorite song (Ariel is teaching her Spanish)

Singing is so great and this audio system somehow makes my voice more bearable and less like a boy who's hit puberty, which makes me feel more confident and content as a singer. Thank you, Party World!

Hotel California, an international standard

Qingdao

2009-03-09T21:31:00.000-07:00

I went to Qingdao (青岛) to visit my cousin's business associate and friend, Michael. He and his family are very warm and made me feel like I was at home when I was with them.

Qingdao is a quaint place, and less of a gritty city than Beijing. At the end of the 19 century and the beginning of the 20th, for a little over 10 years, Germany had control of Qingdao. They did wonderful things to the city, like building a sewage system, constructing lots of beautiful colonial buildings and bringing beer to China. But it seems that the Germans didn't stay in Qingdao long enough for their culture to make a really big impact on China. Last summer when I went to Vietnam, I felt that French culture was much more a part of daily life for the Vietnamese (coffee, baguettes, even bits of language) than German culture is for the people in Qingdao. I would have liked to see just a tad of German culture in Qingdao and was a bit disappointed when I didn't find any. That said, the buildings are beautiful and I was extremely happy to see the ocean!

kites flying in a park by the ocean

a new way of making dumplings, which grandma taught me to do

there were many, many couples taking wedding photos by the water

extremely cute, fresh faced boys just arriving in Qingdao, ready to join the navy

A singing man 地铁车上的歌手

2009-02-20T10:54:00.000-08:00

What I heard on the subway today.

你知道这首歌的话，请告诉我谢谢

a day out

2009-02-20T09:46:00.000-08:00

798

a UFO chandelier

part of a pig face and other unrecognizable parts

A series of strange photographs were shown on this wall of monitors in a shop that sells monitors.

a melting snowman (it snowed recently for the first time this winter) in front of a bookstore holding a very cute sign, which says:

读好书，好读书，读书好
du hao shu, hao du shu, du shu hao
read good book, good read book, read book good
read a good book, it's good to read a book, read the book well
*I think I might be translating it too literal. All three sentence might very well mean "study well".

It's a cute play on words. I've seen the same sort of play on words used in a Mcdonald's advertisement for a new spicy chicken sandwich in McDonalds and it said:
不怕辣，辣不怕，怕不辣
bu pa la, la bu pa, pa bu la
no scared spicy, spicy no scared, scared no spicy
I am not scared of spicy food. Spicy food is not scary. I am scared that the food is not spicy.

Guy and Ross at a place named Chinese Burger's home (华堡家) where the food is questionable, but cheap and deliciously greasy.

元宵节快乐！Happy Lantern Festival!

2009-02-09T08:27:00.000-08:00

Today was the 15th day of the lunar calendar, which is the first full moon of the lunar year. It also marks the last day you can legally buy or set of fireworks in China. Needless to say, there were many fireworks set off tonight.
Traditionally, to celebrate the first full moon, people would walk on the street holding lanterns, but today I didn't see anyone holding a lantern, except one child holding a Pokemon shaped inflatable lantern. A taxi cab driver told me it's a tradition that has pretty much died. It seems to be something that everyone has forgotten about it.
A tradition that they haven't forgotten is eating 汤圆 (tang1yuan2), or glutinous rice balls with red bean paste filling. They're great. But don't eat too many or you'll get a stomach ache, as two cab drivers told me. I found it strange that two seperate cab drivers reminded me not to eat too many. One of the cab drivers described tangyuan as, "difficult to continue eating, once you've had too many." Isn't this the case with every food? Why did two cabbies tell me the same thing? Oh, questions that have no particular answer!

Well, It's 12:30am right now and everything has settled down. For the first time in half a month, it is completely silent in Beijing.

Andy and I

Ariel and Andy buying fireworks

One of the fireworks we bought

an audience

my bedroom view

Happy Birthday, Ariel!! 生日快乐！

2009-02-04T23:38:00.000-08:00

西安 Xi'an

2009-01-31T00:26:00.000-08:00

Last night Andy, Ross, Ariel and I came back from Xi'an. It took us about 12 hours, stopping only for gas, on a sleeper bus. Xi'an is a bit dirtier, drier and smaller than Beijing. It's located in Shaanxi province (陕西), to the southwest of Beijing.

We went there to visit our good friend Ruby who was going back to visit her family for the Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival. Her mom and dad treated us to a fantastic dinner the last night with millions of dumplings and gave us each little red envelopes (the first one i've ever received!). I'm sure Ariel will soon make a post about the dumplings. He was the most emotional about the tasty dumplings (he was practically crying tears of joy). Ruby and her family are nice warm people that made us feel like family.

The city, inside the city walls (which are still intact), is incredibly easy to navigate through. It's designed so that the drum and bell tower are in the center of the city. The four main roads cross the city, intersecting where the bell tower is located. The hostel where we stayed, ShuYuan (书院), is conveniently located just inside the south gate of the city. The hostel has a small bar which seems to be one of the more popular bars in the city.

During the day, there are countless things to do. We visited a place near the South Gate called Xi'an Beilin Museum (碑林), where they have many stelai, which are upright stone slabs or pillars bearing an inscription or design that serve as a monument. It was incredibly interesting to see ancient styles of writing characters. What were the most impressive to me where 篆体字, or what I think are called seal characters. They look incredibly ancient, more like hieroglyphics than today's chinese characters. I'm a little unclear on the specifics, but will get back to you guys soon with pictures and explanations of these characters.

During our trip we also visited the Terra-cotta warriors. It's about an hour outside of Xi'an and well worth the trip. The first thing you see as you drive into the parking lot is an immense KFC and millions of people selling animal pelts and handmade baby clothing. I ended up buying two pairs of incredibly cute baby shoes for the newbies in my family. The warriors are divided into 3 different warehouses. It was interesting to see these clay sculptures from thousands of years ago still around and for the most part still intact. I recommend getting a tour guide while you're there. If you don't have anyone supplying you with information, you're so full of questions that you begin making up history, which is probably not a great idea.

Xi'an has one more great thing going for it. It is full of Muslims, which means beautiful mosques and delicious food. On Xi'an's famous Muslim street, which we ate at every night, there is a huge variety of street food to pick from. My favorite are the xiar bing (馅饼, xian4bing3) or what one of the vendors, a young girl with red cheeks and a child-like voice, called it: Xi'an Pizza. It is two pieces of fried disk-like crackers pressed together with filling in between. The best filling was the sour cabbage (酸白菜suan1bai2cai4). Yum. Then of course there are the Xi'an specialties like 羊肉泡馍 (yang2rou4pao4mo2), literally lamb and puffed bread, which is a wonderful soup with puffed bread, some rice noodles, tasty broth and bits of lamb. Another famous Xi'an snack is 肉夹馍, which literally means meat presses bread from both sides, and is a toasted bread with delicous stewed meat inside it. I've heard my Chinese friends jokingly say that the name of the this delicious snack should not be 肉夹馍 or meat presses bread from both sides, but should instead be 馍夹肉 or bread presses meat from both sides.

An incredibly yummy red bean paste(豆沙)dumpling

Xi'an was a great place to hang out for a bit. Surprisingly enough, I enjoyed the food and the people millions more than the trip to see the terra-cotta warriors. The people in Xi'an speak a bit differently than they do in Beijing. They have their own sort of slang and they change the tones around，so if they speak slow enough, it's probably sometimes easier for a foreigner who speaks Chinese to understand their meaning versus a Beijinger who isn't familiar with the Shaanxi dialect because foreigners are very much familiar with mixing up tones. :) I know I am...

我下次去西安想完成几个好玩的事：
1。找个知识丰富的导游再去碑林碑林特有趣但我都看不懂
2。还想去一加一呀拍几个照片呀喝酒啊美国没f那么大的club
3。想去华山看风景

下次吧。

Andy, Ariel, Ross, Ruby and I eating dinner.

Andy and Ross in a tiny motor rigshaw we took because the driver kept saying, "Let's Goooohh!"

春节快乐！ Happy Spring Festival!

2009-01-30T22:14:00.000-08:00

Spring Festival is about one of the only times where almost all Chinese people have a long vacation. Everyone goes back home to visit their family and celebrate the coming of the new year. I celebrated the new year on the balcony of my friend Emily's 平房(ping2fang2). A ping fang is a house usually found in the old neighborhoods of Beijing. The literal translation is "level apartment(s)" and what they mean by it is that the majority of the houses are one or two stories, and so when it comes to height the whole neighborhood is more or less at the same level.

the balcony of our pretty little apartment

a firework about to explode in houhai 后海

setting off fireworks at Emily's house

the view from Emily's 平房 (ping2fang2)

ice-skating

2009-01-16T19:23:00.000-08:00

About a week ago I went ice-skating with some friends at Houhai (后海). It was incredibly freezing but definitely worth almost losing my toes to the cold.

We arrived at sun down and it was nice watching the light change from a natural sort to the neon and flourescent variety.

my rented skates

ariel anna and andy

ariel skatin'

I'm not exactly sure what happened but when I arrived Andy was on the ice and Aoife laughing and apologizing.

ariel posted about our outing as well!

my new little monster!

2008-12-31T01:58:00.000-08:00

The little monster, Adriana, skyped me today.
I love you, Adriana.

This little person changed the dynamics of my family. My parents have been bumped to grandparents, my brother and his wife are now parents, and my other brother, his wife and I are now aunts and uncles. How amazing.

a makeshift Thanksgiving 感恩节快乐！

2008-11-28T23:00:00.001-08:00

andy and ariel acting excited

Our Thanksgiving feast: sweet wonderous chicken strips, cute tiny sliders and quesadillas con queso extra. Un sangsgiving tan rico que no lo puedo poner en palabras! (poner en palabras? did i just translate that? oops)

Is drinking part of Thanksgiving? I can't remember. I think so.

没有吃火鸡呀：（

This thanksgiving was a bit different than last year's. Ariel and I went to Steak and Eggs, which is an American diner (that first opened if Florida, believe it or not). When we arrived, the owner said there was no space for us. Needless to say we were very upset.
Since we were in an area of Beijing that's full of western restaurants (great Russian places) we decided to go with the nearest American restaurant, TGI Fridays. Yes, we spent thanksgiving at Friday's. Ross felt sick and stayed at home, so it was Ariel, our English friend Andy and I who celebrated Thanksgiving at the great American restaurant chain. It felt like America.

Well, no turkey for me this Thanksgiving. But a lot of cheesy appetizers & 2 long island ice teas later and all is forgotten. I hope all of you had as wonderful a thanksgiving as I did. Please, eat a leftover turkey sandwich in my name!

中国人，
你没吃过火鸡的话，你下个感恩节去个美国朋友的家或者美国餐厅吃吧。感恩节有好多很好吃的菜有土豆泥，南瓜派，地瓜，等等。好吃死叻
火鸡日快乐

finally

2008-10-21T04:47:00.000-07:00

I finally am connected to the rest of the world! We have the internet.
Soon, I will post lovely pictures of our house and my room.

I have been back in Beijing for about a month now and have been working for about a month as well. My classes are going good and for now i have the weekends off, which is great because I will get to visit my friend Lix in Weihai (威海)!

That's it for now. Soon, I'll post pictures.

北京到了 I've arrived in Beijing

2008-09-27T20:04:00.000-07:00

I've missed Beijing very much and am glad to be immersed once again in this country. Of course, I was in America for so very long that I had forgotten the frustrations of living here. For example, the great firewall of China. I had forgotten about this. When I was in America, I was really getting into building a community on youtube and now China has permitted me from being a part of that community. How crappy and selfish. Arggh. I feel like I am 14 all over again. I, like, totally hate my parents.
On the other hand, people speak Chinese here! How incredibly exciting! I came back and Chinese just started sort of spilling out of my mouth again. Also, I think the distance from China for three months has actually improved my listening skills. Since I have been away from the country for such a long while, I have a new and fresh patience with the listening aspect of communicating. I don't think I can say the same about my speaking skills, which definitely haven't improved while I was out of the country.
Now, the search for an apartment is happening. Wish us luck. It looks like I'm going to live with Ross and Ariel. We're looking for a 3 bedroom. We'll take up two of the bedrooms and have the third for a studio. How exciting!
去找一找房子呀！

Miami

2008-09-18T20:35:00.000-07:00

Bird and 107th

found in Winn-Dixie

$0.25

kristina marie gonzalez

typical wet season afternoon shower

Kristy's barbeque, Ricky's cookin'

Susie and Kristy

Mahzhong (麻将) at Fridays

Oh, Miami!

On Monday Ariel and I go back to Beijing to meet Ross.

Very soon it will be back to teaching English, eating greasy yummy things and speaking Chinese. Mmmm.

Leif turns 2 and I turn a lot older than 2

2008-09-15T11:00:00.001-07:00

****Leif's party**********************************
***********************i told you!****************

leify and fam

fingers in cake

cake in mouth

********************************************
**************My Birthday*******************

Kristy and Susie showing off their glowing parts

Isabel and Ariel

Kris and I showing off J's bling

Andre and Lindsey

Shrek

Jorge and Erika

That was really fun.
*Susie, thanks for the house. *
*J, thanks for the speakers.*

tropical park: chasing a dinasour into a pond

2008-08-12T14:58:00.000-07:00

things from cambodia

2008-08-09T08:25:00.000-07:00

a collage of bits of Cambodia

The country that affected me most was Cambodia. The feeling there was much different than any other Asian country that I visited. Vietnam is more influenced by China and it is evident in their temples, food and society. In Cambodia however, the temples are incredibly different from anything I have ever seen, the food has more curry and milk, much like Thai food, and the people interact with you in a completely different way. It felt a bit more threatening and a whole lot more unstable, but it was refreshing to hear people openly bad mouth the party in power.

We were there when the country's 4th elections were taking place. Emotions were stirring and party banners lined the road. People were proud to have voted but did not seem surprised when the same party that has been running for 15 years, the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), won yet again. It seems that the CPP will continue to deposit the Cambodian people's money in their own accounts and give nothing to their people. If this is doomed to continue for 5 more years, when will it be declared a failed democracy?

It is sad and infuriating to experience a bit of the rich and lost Khmer culture only to find out that the bit of hope these people had on their election day was immediately destroyed by these CPP gangsters.

Bangkok Portraits

2008-08-06T01:13:00.000-07:00

Last night, Ariel, Ross and I were walking back to the hotel when we came across a portrait artist on the street. For a dollar-fifty a pop, we had the three of us drawn.

Today, Ariel and I landed safetly in Tokyo, Chicago and lastly, Miami. Ross is in Bangkok.

coming home

2008-08-03T21:26:00.000-07:00

After a month of traveling through various Asian countries, I am ready to visit somewhere familiar. And so, I am coming home!
I will see you all tomorrow, the 5th.
When I'm able to use a computer next, I will post pictures and stories.
See you all soon.
<3

many wendesdays ago picnic

2008-06-02T22:27:00.000-07:00

the crew

lix cassie and cam

the kite

dirty park foot

ross playing sports!

八大处 Badachu park

2008-04-17T07:13:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went to Badachu park.
It wasn't as beautiful as other places we have been, but it was extremely worth it because of the slide ride that it had.
After climbing up the huge hill we were rewarded by being able to slide down this immensely long twirling garbage chute of sorts on a little one-person car contraption. I will get to posting some pictures that Ariel took soon. There was no way I could take any pictures, I was concentrated on going as fast as I could without dying. It was the best 40元 I have ever spent!

Some pictures...

Red lanterns which people have scribbled wishes on with markers.

猪八戒！the pig of the eight prohibitions

孙悟空！ The Monkey King!

a silly picture next to a painting of a tree branch

Ross posted about this too!

广州 Guangzhou

2008-04-14T21:42:00.001-07:00

The weekend before last I was able to escape Beijing and visit my friend Erin, who lives in Guangzhou. It was extremely exciting to leave the 60 degree dry weather of Beijing for Guangzhou, who's temperature and humidity resemble Miami.

The city is situated deep in the mouth of the Pearl River, way down south, in Guangdong (广东) province. Before I left, I checked the weather and was happy to see the forecast predicted blue skies! I soon found out that blue skies in Guangzhou mean that there might be some blue behind the all-encompassing pollution dome that covers the city. The pollution was severely worse than any other city I have been to in China.
Aside from the gross smog-blanket issue, the city was pretty amazing. The most wonderful thing was the difference in culture and language. Northern China and southern China are very different. The south seems to be more social. The subway cars were full of chattering as opposed to the usual silent subway ride in Beijing. I got to speak to lots of cab drivers using the Mandarin I know and quickly found that it was difficult to understand their Mandarin. They had no trouble understanding me, but I had much trouble discerning their strangely accented Mandarin.

There are a few reasons why their Mandarin is so different from the Beijing accent I am used to hearing. One of the reasons is, of course, the distance between Guangzhou and Beijing, the city which sets the standard accent for Mandarin. Another reason is that the cities which are situated near the Pearl river in Guangdong province also speak Cantonese, and so their Mandarin carries a Cantonese accent. I absolutely love the sound of Cantonese. Every cab ride became a lesson in Cantonese, with the driver as Erin and I's teacher.
I cannot begin to stress how incredibly different this language is from Mandarin. When you speak Mandarin, like every other language I know, you must shift your tongue into different positions to achieve a desired sound. Well, a cab driver I met taught me how to say hello in Cantonese, which is something like lay? hoe? (pronoucing both syllables as if you are asking 2 separate questions). When I tried to mimic him, he corrected me. He told me that I was trying to use my tongue to speak, as I used it in Mandarin. He says to speak Cantonese correctly your tongue should not move at all, it should be completely limp. It will feel strange at first, he told me but assured me that I would quickly get accustomed to it.
广州Guangzhou, as much of a building erecting, counterfeit product producing, cancer-air city as it is, I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. The quality of restaurants is comparable to Shanghai, the people are charming and the language is one which I must learn.

Thanks Erin! It goes without saying that you have free stay in Beijing anytime you'd like!

The Filipino, Maria Fernandez lip-syncing to It's Rainin' Men at a drag-queen show we stumbled upon.

Erin and I looking a bit glassy-eyed

An exhibition at Guangdong Art Museum(广东美术馆) of Jacques Henri Lartigue's photographs.

That previously mentioned museum had another exhibition where they had many paintings, each representing a country. Each Chinese artist was given a country to make a painting about. This was Cuba.
USA was a collage of every race smiling with an American flag draped in the background, oh my god.

Skype pictures

2008-03-29T19:53:00.000-07:00

Skype is a strange thing. When both parties have their webcams hooked up, the conversation is so much more about looking at each other's videos than actually having a conversation. When I'm Skyping, I find myself showing people neat things that I have lying around my house or newly found youtube videos. Sometimes we have a beer together. When I was back in Miami, my brother Vince, who lives out of town, once attended a family function using Skype. His wife and him would sit down in front of the camera and invite people towards the laptop. My brother said they had a few successful conversations.
Skype has had a huge impact on the health of long-distance relationships. Let's keep Skyping, people!

西游记 Journey to the West

2008-03-12T09:13:00.000-07:00

Journey to the West (or The Monkey King) is one of the four classic novels in Chinese literary history. If you ever ask a Chinese person about Chinese literature they will bring up these four classics, Journey to the West being one of them.
The story is about how the Monkey King, the Pig and Friar Sand protect the Monk Tripitaka on his journey to find the Buddhist scriptures.
The book is written like a comic book with no pictures. Each chapter ends with, "Listen to the next installment to hear how he was dealt with the following morning," or "If you don't know what happened to Monkey King's life, then listen to the next installment," which makes reading it a bit awkward, but overall Chinesely pleasant.

In the 80s a TV show was made which plays out the novel, chapter by chapter using amazing special effects and lots of smoke machines. You can turn on Chinese TV at ANYTIME and this show will be on. Every Chinese person living in China today knows and loves this TV series. I just bought the entire show and am also reading the book. Reading the book helps me understand just what, pray tell, is going on during the show. It seems the producers had a low budget to make this highly fantastic novel and so some of the scenes are hard to understand without any previous knowledge of the story.

Here is a clip from the show...
In this clip, a very fancy party is going on in one part of heaven while the devious monkey king is causing ruckus in another part. He's gotten drunk off heavenly jade liquor, downed a bunch of golden pills of refined elixir and stolen a plethora of heavenly treats to take to his monkey friends down on earth. Now, he's trying to escape the floating ladies with lanterns.

ENJOY!

a new blog

2008-03-05T20:00:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been making my house my home which takes a lot of work. I am well on my way. Cleaning is quite fun when you move furniture around. Moving furniture around makes me feel like staying in my house and cooking and drawing. I've started drawing again. Something that was long overdue and so will have some pictures up soon.
For now, I have another project that you can look at. I have started a blog called strawberry face. It was named by my dear friend Kristy. I will post one Paint drawing a day.
Enjoy and I promise more pictures in the near future!

the last few days 几天以前

2008-02-15T18:51:00.001-08:00

These are some pictures from last week...

a fish we ate soon after taking this picture.. delicious

My landlords daughter and her cousin took us to this street fair near the temple of heaven the first day of the new year.

at these fairs I am always extremely impressed with these
pinwheel bouquets

frenchies

An impressive new year's light display in Shanghai's Yuyuan

more here at my flickr

shanghai 上海

2008-02-13T20:57:00.000-08:00

I have finally left the city of Beijing! Kristy, Ariel and I came back from Shanghai yesterday. We got there by plane and came back on the most comfortable Z train.
I learned how to say thank you in Shanghainese. It is sia-ya-nong! or 下牙农！呵呵：）

here are some pictures...

huge rat lanterns in a place called Yuyuan near old Shanghai street （上海老街）

one of many small drawings of insects at the shanghai art museum 上海美术馆

us 3

The Chinese use the peace sign when taking pictures, but they mean it as a 'V' for victory!

more soon../.

mmuah bbong

2008-02-01T22:04:00.000-08:00

So, I've been teaching at a 7day English camp which is called 洋爸洋妈 (yang2ba4yang2ma1) which means 'foreign father, foreign mother'. Fred (洋爸), who's in the video and I(洋妈) are teaching these kids from 8am-6pm. We teach English, play games and improve our Chinese.

In this video, Yelly, who I am sure misspelled 'Kelly' when writing her name tag, is playing against Jenny in a game of Mmuah Bbong. In the very beginning of the video, Jenny adorably forgets what a 'letter' is, but remembers in an equally adorable way when another student screams out, "A! B! C!"

Enjoy!

2008-01-31T05:38:00.000-08:00

This is from a Beijing Olympic game show that I happened to catch where many people
in animal costumes were racing running on spinning platforms collecting cheese and running from real bulls.

This is a piece of my neighborhood.

my place has small windows but lots of light and high ceilings!

I'm teaching at a 7day English camp for the winter break.
These are the kids pretending to be dead flies. Soon, I will
put an extremely cute movie on you tube.

Ana, this is the print from my cock chair. Oh and I was wrong in my last post
when I said the other chair had a duck pattern. It has a crane pattern.

Thanks for all your comments on the last post. I'm really enjoying my new place. Mom, I want to buy a piece of furniture to put my mess of shoes in and my keys on. Thanks Scott, my Chinese refrigerator is a great 70s avocado green and it's one of my favorite pieces which came with this place.

Kristy is coming on Monday!! Kristy, have fun on the trip! I'll see you soon!!

my new place

2008-01-22T21:22:00.000-08:00

I moved into a 平房(ping2fang2), which is a freestanding house within a 胡同(hu2tong4), an old Beijing neighborhood.
It's a few blocks south of 积水潭地铁站(Jishuitan subway stop). The structure where I live was recently renovated and sits within the structure of a very old building which they thankfully have not destroyed.
In a hutong (胡同) neighborhood most of the streets are too narrow for cars to fit, so it becomes this open market sort of neighborhood where they sell everything you need just a few steps away. I'm going to the main market today to buy a measuring tape, cute seat cushions and some produce which are all there.
My place, like you can see in my drawing is a studio. I'm having trouble deciding where things should go so I'm working on Paint to help me figure it out and in the process, missing Adobe Illustrator immensely!
Let me know what you think of my place.
I'll post real pictures soon.

saved by the bell and home movies

2008-01-22T06:48:00.000-08:00

an episode that I remember occasionally and laugh.

-------------------------------

an entire episode of saved by the bell dubbed by two black guys. very strange.

-------------------------------

home movies

a link to the whole episode
----------------------------------

enjoy.

顾有财 my cat friend

2008-01-07T03:56:00.000-08:00

I have adopted a cat. A friend of a friend moved and for some reason or another had to give up this kitty for an unsaid amount of time. He has a Chinese name 顾有财 (gu4you3cai2). 顾 is a last name and 有财 means 'has wealth' . It's supposedly hilarious. HA!

He needs an English name.
Here are some of the good ones:
-Percy Persington
-Hello!
-White-y

Please, help me name my cat friend!

I think I love him.

grading ESOL tests proves to be a good time

2008-01-02T16:36:00.001-08:00

new year's morning i made hash browns for the boys

2008-01-02T16:30:00.000-08:00

Miami

2008-01-02T03:09:00.000-08:00

a miami beach

mmmpan con lechon

espumita

pretty football shape

motorcycle Santi Claus and snowman

From the 19th to the 29th of December, I was in Miami. I went to two weddings: one on the beach and one in my folk's backyard. It was a dreamy 10 days full of family and food. Noche Buena was full of the new generation's tiny adults, one of which asked me if I thought I was still a little girl. To answer her question, I am very much 'still a little girl' and (fortunately and unfortunetly)will always be.
I miss my family, but am glad to be back home(?).

two miami weddings

2007-12-23T10:15:00.000-08:00

Susie unexpectedly tied the knot. Her wedding was small and sweet. I finally met the groom... he seems pretty awesome. Best of luck to them.

My brother and Carin finally got married! The wedding was in my parents' backyard. Only immediate family came, so it was intimate and wonderful. It makes a lot of sense to me to have such a small wedding. I think we all felt like we were and will continue to be an important part of my brother and my new hermana's life.
I luf ju, mano!

The big reception will be Christmas night in my folk's backyard. If you know where my house is, you are welcome to join us. :)

the monkey 我小猴子

2007-12-12T01:42:00.000-08:00

The monkey gives me humidity. Something I thought I would never miss.

A snowy morning surprise 下雪了！

2007-12-10T20:14:00.000-08:00

Reading a Chinese newspaper

2007-12-04T07:34:00.000-08:00

There aren't many newspapers in China which are written in English. I've seen around 5 : one dedicated to business, a couple others that have to do with sports and two all-around news ones, my favorite being The China Daily. It is definitely the most well written, but that's not saying much. About every other day I pay my 1块5 (around 20cents) and read while I eat lunch . It's become as entertaining as the Onion. My favorite section is one called Across China, which is comprised of many short articles where they bring you up to date on the happenings in other provinces.

Things like this...

CHONGQING
STAMPEDE VICTIMS SAFE
All the people injured during a stampede at a Carrefour outlet in Southwest China are recovering, officials said. Three have been discharged from hospital, an official of with the Shapingba district government of Chongqing Municipality said.
The stampede happened early Saturday morning when people flooded into the Carrefour outlet in Shapingba to take advantage of a sales promotion for cooking oil.
Three people were killed and 31 others were injured in the accident.

Occasionally, when I am in the van which takes all us teachers from the office to the elementary we teach at, I read the colorful headlines aloud...
POLLUTERS WILL PAY
HUNGRY MAN SURVIVES TWO-WEEK FAST IN TRUCK
OUTRAGE OVER USE OF RECYCLED CONDOMS
FIREWORKS CLAIM 40

The more serious, worldly articles in the newspaper manage to say nothing at all in 2000 words. I read the main articles, but somehow, am not any more informed, which is quite frustrating. That frustration, however is easily fixed. You gotta read the headlines, skip the uninformative blabber and jump right into the juicy sections like Across China where you get tiny informative niblets of ridiculous substance.

I understand you, China Daily.

Tracy opening her present

2007-11-26T18:51:00.001-08:00

Beijing DVD stores are filled with great findings.
Skinemax was one of those hilariously awesome finds.

sanksgiving en la china

2007-11-26T06:41:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday we celebrated Thanksgiving. I went to Ross and Ariel's a bit early and helped clean up and prepare for the festivities.

Ross made stuffing and sweet potato. I made mash potatoes and gravy. Ana brought some veggies. And Tracy's husband made some kick ass Arroz con Tofu! We bought a chicken and a duck which I was hoping would somehow morph into a turkey, but no luck. The party was a success. We played Corey Ruffins and came up with some amazing drawings of dead children and elicit superhero porn.

Hopefully, there will be another party soon.

Be on the look out for the new Corey Ruffins blog.

Here are some pictures, mostly of the aftermath...

all of us eating and chatting at Ross and Ariel's

Aftermath leftovers. I was so nervous I hardly ate, so when everyone left Ross Ariel and I pigged out on leftover slop and it was de-lee-she-oush!

tired but still hungry

found at ross' corner shop

2007-11-18T04:47:00.000-08:00

immediately eaten.

春咬 Spring Bites

2007-11-18T03:45:00.000-08:00

A cute satire of a famous Chinese poem (春晓)...

春眠不觉晓
处处蚊子咬
打上敌敌畏
不知死多少

Two translations: the first is from babelfish, the second is from me:

Spring sleeps unconsciously understands
everywhere the mosquito to nip
gets the phosphate insecticide
not to know dies how many

Spring slumbers unconsciously understanding it is time to wake
Everywhere Everywhere one finds biting mosquitoes
We receive the insect poison
It is not known how much we will die.

a ride on a three wheeled box car 坐三轮车

2007-11-11T20:05:00.001-08:00

When I get out of the subway exit closest to my house there are tons of these small sort of cars. What they are, are three wheeled motorcycles (三轮车) with a sort of box in the back where you can sit. They're only 5 kuai and take you to anywhere relatively near. I was exhausted yesterday, so i decided to hop on one and was at home in no time.

my young driver who in this picture is weaving through on-coming traffic

The back door is held by a bungee cord and so it cracks open while you're riding.

a fogged-up window painting inside a hotpot place that was so-so

2007-11-08T19:49:00.000-08:00

the waitress drew it and laughed at me when I photographed it

ross photographing; us dancing

2007-11-07T19:19:00.001-08:00

国都公园 GuoDuGongYuan

2007-11-05T08:44:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, Ross, Ariel and I visited an abandoned theme park called 国都公园(National Capital Public Park). The park is right off 北苑 (BeiYuan), a subway stop in Northern Beijing. It seems that whoever built this park thought that the subway line would bring people, which was obviously very wrong. The park seems to have opened on February 25th, 2005 at the same time as an adjacent park, which has a very similar name, 国都宠物公园 (National Capital House Pet Public Park) that was very popular at one point because they had tunnels and tracks for the dogs to play on. Dogs and their owners still go there, but it's just a piece of land now. I'm not sure what happened in the last two years, but it doesn't seem like much. The kiddie park is very small and seems to have been very cute at one point, but at the present is something else entirely. As we were roaming around in awe and taking about a million pictures, a woman saw us and screamed, "买票!" (buy a ticket!) as she smirked and walked away. People are funny here.

We wandered away from that park and headed towards 国都宠物公园. It was full of extremely cute big dogs and their owners, which you don't see in the middle of the city that often. The middle of the city has cute dogs and owners, just not big dogs. As we wandered out of that park we noticed that the entrance had been turned into a bus stop for some unexplainable reason.

We left the park and did some more roaming in a field with beautiful tall trees and weeds which germinated by attaching themselves to our socks and having us pick them off. We reached a long fence that Ross was scared to touch in fear of being electrocuted. Along this fence we found two shepards herding their sheep and goats. Walking along a bit more, we realized we had been cornered by the toxic chemical canal of death. We had no choice but to cross the canal by walking, or crawling rather, on 3 pieces of trees that were lodged between the canal walls.

We finally made it back to civilization and had a victory 小吃 meal.
Sometimes Beijing feels like a strange place where the past and present are having a bloody fight.

Some pictures:

Monkey on a pole

people use this space to husk corn now

Ross and Ariel

park name-stamped tiles with a weed

The canal of toxicity
WHAT is your name WHAT is your favourite colour? WHAT is the average speed velocity of an unladen swallow?? African or European? AHHHHHHHH!!!!

The shepards' sheep and goats who secretly terrified me

a picture-less post

2007-11-01T22:17:00.000-07:00

Seasons are strange.
It's fall but it's really cold.
This morning, I woke up in my bed and couldn't bring myself to take the covers off because of the unbearable cold awaiting outside my sobrecama cocoon. When i finally gathered the strength to take a bath, I had trouble turning off the hot water. Ahhhhhh!

miami! 我真想你啊！

the 498 四九八路！

2007-10-19T18:15:00.000-07:00

When I moved into my new place about a month ago, I noticed there was a bus stop right in front of my building. The only bus that stops there is the 498. I soon learned that the bus' route isn't like a regular bus that has one route and goes back and forth. This bus' to and fro routes are a bit different, which means I can only take this bus on the way back from work.

In Beijing, there are many different kinds of buses. There are standard every-decent-public-city-in-the-world sort of buses, double deckers, long snake-like ones which are cool 'cause you can stand in the accordion-walled swirly-floored middle of the bus and whirl around and there are old blue buses. The blue buses are the crappy ones. My 498 is a crappy bus. The 490 is one of them but a bit bigger than my 498. The 498 is the tiniest blue bus I have ever seen (about twice the size of those RAM vans) and if it's anytime near 5pm on any day, the bus is PACKED with people. Literally, PACKED.

One day I got on the 498 and the driver was constantly checking that there was sufficient water in the radiator which was inside the bus, exposed! with the cap off!!
But everything was fine and that hasn't happened again. (okay, mami?)

I've fallen deeply in love with the Beijing bus system. It's incredibly efficient and cheeeap (.40RMB if you have a card; 1RMB if you don't). At every stop they have signs explaining which buses stop there and every stop which that particular bus makes. So once you become familiar with the stop names it becomes extremely comfortable.

If I've never gone to a certain area before and I'm a bit self conscience about taking the bus what I do is take the subway as far as it will get me and then take a cab. While you're in the cab, you pay attention to nearby bus stops. Then it's always easier taking the bus back home 'cause you're not in a hurry and you're familiar with the place you're going. The next time you go, you can confidently go there by bus. Of course, be sure you know the names of the bus stops nearest to your house.

Or there is an extremely helpful site called BJbus. You tell them where your starting and finishing points are and they tell you the various routes you can take, and show you a cool map, too. The thing is you need to know the names of the locations in Chinese. The website has an English version but I'm not sure how good it is.

Something I did when I first moved to my house was to hop on this blue bus I love so much just to see where it went. It's a good way to find awesome places that you've never noticed like DVD shops, 两块stores, markets and good restaurants.

Enjoy and don't pay any mind to the ticket ladies, they're almost always like that.

身体的部分 parts of the body

2007-10-16T19:39:00.000-07:00

I'm not in class anymore, so I made a book to help me study on the subway or bus...

Me!

arms and legs

back, mouth, nose and eyes

what should be the next book?

Found while correcting homework

2007-10-15T19:36:00.000-07:00

Travis' homework...

Let's Eat 奶粉

2007-10-14T07:35:00.000-07:00

These two have a place called Let's Eat or the Chinese name, 奶粉, which means powdered milk. They sell coffee, cookies, cake, mousse some kind of fruit liquor that is still not ready to drink and yes, people, FLAN. The baker on the left hand side told me that she studied in 广州(Guangzhou). Ross and Ariel told me about this little place. They stumbled upon it one day and decided to take me there yesterday. They had the chocolate mousse and I had the flan which I must say, competes with my Tia Tita's flan.

Here's their website. It's in Chinese but you can look at the delicious pictures.

INTERNET IS BACK!!!

2007-10-11T07:17:00.000-07:00

long time

2007-09-24T00:49:00.000-07:00

so it's been an extremely long time since i've posted last.
China has been crazy. In the last three months, a lot has happened. I guess the most significant thing has been my job situation because that has effected everything else. About two months ago I was assured a job at 中国戏曲学院 which is a college for the arts and culture. A well known one which holds beijing opera twice a week for free. They told me I had the job and we were going through all the paper work and such. I signed the contract and was waiting for the official 'okay' to move in. The day before I needed to move out of my apartment, they apologized and told me I could not work there. It was because Beijing didn't declare me an 'expert teacher', it turns out I am lacking previous university experience. So Chinese... they told me the day before I had to move out of my apartment. Mind you, they had my resume for 2 months.
Anyway, I now have an apartment in 积水潭(jishuitan) which is a nice location and a job at an elemantary school (2nd grade and 5th grade) a bus ride away. I also teach on saturdays at a korean-owned school. I'm hoping to fill up my weekday mornings with some one-on-one tutoring. Everything seems to be falling into place.
Ross and Ariel have been dragging me out of my house which is good. I was a little bit of a hermit for a while.

Last week was my birthday and many people treated me to food. Thank you Ruby and Lix for the pizza, thank you ross and ariel for the beer, thank you 만영 for the icecream cake:D, thank you 도형for the barbeque.

teahouses and monkeykings

2007-06-29T19:37:00.001-07:00

LaoShe Tea House
老舍茶馆

(erin's here!!!)

chinglish

2007-06-10T00:10:00.000-07:00

It finally happened.
Sometime last week, I started to be able to actually use this language. Ross and I have nights sometimes where we are only allowed to speak Chinese. Of course, our conversation is extremely limited but it's not so much about what you want to say, its about what you are able to say.
For example, I befriended this one Korean guy from my Chinese classes which i take 2 hours each weekday. My Chinese speaking level is about par with his and so we only speak in Chinese. Sometimes it is a bit frustrating because you can't say exactly what you want to say, but it's not about that. It's about taking the words and structures you know and applying as much fucking vocabulary that you possibly can! It is incredibly rewarding. Luckily, we're able to communicate a bit easier cause he knows some English. So we use Chinese structure and apply English vocabulary. I think its called Chinglish.

澄汁死了。。。

2007-05-24T22:16:00.000-07:00

Usually near the subway stops there are street vendors selling animals... kitties, puppies, turtles, snakes and the occasion piglet. Every Chinese person I have met has told me not to buy one of these animals because the majority of the time they're very sick. I've heard countless stories of people buying animals from the street and within weeks the little creatures die.

Last weekend, Ross, Masa and I were walking after lunch and saw a crate full of kittens. We had talked about maybe aquiring one of these little beasts. It's nice to have an animal walking around the house. So, that's how we got 澄汁(chengzhi).

Sad, to say that Chengzhi didn't make it a week. He got really sick a few days ago. We took him to ... a woman by our house who owns a petshop... she's not a doctor, but she's had a lot of animals. After a 5 minute language barriered conversation about the word 'dissolve', we bought some medicine and began treating this 小东西。 He just got weaker and weaker. Yesterday, Ross and I came home to a meloncholy roommate and a dead kitty. Saul saw this little thing die. We took 澄汁to a little piece of land that borders 东王庄and buried him. It was strange to have a little friend like that for such a short period.

小澄汁猫。。。 poor tiny thing.

有关花的问题！

2007-05-06T08:04:00.000-07:00

There are 7 green friends on the balcony and all of them are either wilting away or have been chopped to stubby stubs, except for the desert rose. I'll keep you updated on my favorite, she grows magenta buds which bloom purple, but she's very fickle. I think she's getting too much sun.

nearing 3 months...

2007-05-03T04:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Ross and I went to 司马台长城 (Simitai Great Wall) and 金山岭长城(JinShanLing Great Wall). We woke up early, dragged ourselves to the subway station, caught the train to 东直门 (Dong Zhi Men), took the 980 bus which smelled of old shoes and had a bus driver who loved to tap that break, until we reached a suburb of 北京(Beijing) called 密云(Miyun). We were reminded to get off the bus by a nice bus worker who lead us to a few men who offered to take us to the great wall. We were able to knock 30kuai off this one seedy man's original price- he then lead us to his small toyota-like car and off we went. Getting off the car at 司马台, I realized how incredibly hot it was. We began climbing/walking/stepping-up the wall at around the hottest time of the day, for some reason...? Maybe we wanted it to be more of a challenge?

Alright, so the wall is not in any way easy. It is probably the hardest hike I have ever done in my life. I can't think of anything more physically demanding except maybe swimming under the water for long periods of time handling langosta. Anyway, it's unbelievably hard.

The millions of tourists and castle-shaped trashcans made this part of the wall feel like Disney, so we decided to walk until there were no people and sleep on the wall if the sun set before we reached a town. Ross and I planned to walk to a completely different part of the wall called JinShanLing (金山岭), but realized one hour into the hike that we were walking the wrong way. hah! So, we started back- my god, is it easier to go down those steps (except for the heightened possibility that you might tumble to your death)! So, we took around 30 minutes to get back to where we started. On the way down we saw a path to a tiny village between the mountains which we decided to visit. We crossed the scary bridge of death after handing over some money to a guy tending the bridge who gave us pretty tickets, which were never checked.
When we reached the path, there was a sign saying 'dangerous, no crossing', but after explaining to a guard that we wanted to maybe sleep in that nearby village he told us to go ahead. The hike was incredibly fun, better than the great wall. We were walking through what seemed to once be a stream... finally we reached an old village where we met an old woman which reminded Ross of his Grandma. After asking her if we could stay at her house, she laughed at us and said there was no food and walked us to a neighboring tiny village of sorts where we met another old woman who told us she had too many people staying at her house. The first older woman kept telling the second woman to charge us 100kuai (to rip us off)... we told them it was way too expensive and then starred at them awkwardly for a while before saying thank you and leaving.

We kept walking down that path and quickly realized that the path was following the great wall. The path finally met up with the great wall, this part very far from the first part of the wall we were on. We had reached 金山岭... it is the most incredibly beautiful thing... In this part of the wall there are hardly any people and few castle shaped trashcans. We saw three guys walking in the opposite way and then a couple about an hour later. Most of 金山岭is not restored and so makes the walk somewhat dangerous, which makes the experience better for some reason.

It felt like I was walking through some sort of Lego 'the orient series' construction that my brother put together when he was younger. I wish I could have stayed there over night with ross reading Lolita and eating our spoiled tuna fish with crackers, but we live in a desert and deserts get unbearable cold at night. We finally saw the town and found a steep path which we slid down most of the way. About 20 minutes before the sun set we arrived tired and smelly to 金山岭. We washed up, ate like savages, drank beer and paid 20kuai to sleep on wooden beds which were really comfortable. Before we went to sleep, Ross read some Lolita to me which worked out perfectly 'cause i like being read to and he loves hearing his own voice.

The next morning we took some strange motorcycle carriage thing to the bus stop and then took a bus to Beijing.

It was my first time outside of 北京. I feel a tiny bit more Chinese. ><

Ross has some more pictures here.