Big Brother or User Error

I am fighting with the blogging from China.

Big Brother has a bunch of blocks on sites and blogger is one of the forces of evil.

I can only access when the wind is blowing from the south while it is raining and temp. is between 45 and 55 degrees. Once I have the correct weather conditions I have to hold my laptop at a 45 degree angle and point it to the north, south, east and all the while chanting….please, please, please.

If I do this in the right sequence and at the right speed I can log in through a photo program, not directly from IE. By logging in this way I can put a few photos up and the text. I cannot alter the background or post videos or any of the little extras that some would expect to see.

For those of you that know me, know that patience is not my thing and since I ran out of Xanax – you can just imagine my inability to deal with internet chaos.

I have to be in just the right frame of mind to do battle with the internet in a normal environment so add the challenges of creative access and I am typically a freaking nut case by the time I get a solid post.

I am trying to do the text in Word so I can paste it into the site and pictures are limited to a few because I never know if I can get the add photo option to work.

I really appreciate all the comments and interaction with those of you that take a few minutes out of your life to keep up with our life here in Chinaland.

Dozy of A Weekend

New Years Eve was celebrated with our “China Family”. Tammy and Chris hosted a wonderful party for 30 or so expats. The group was diverse; some of the countries represented were as follows: USA (go figure), Britain, China, Japan, Australia, Austria, Germany, Italy and France. I am sure there was one or two that I am missing. Chris cooked a leg of pork on the grill that was amazing. Everyone was asked an appetizer to share, I made my world acclaimed bruchetta ( it really is world traveled now), there was also spring rolls, Italian pizza, veggie with dips, cookies, hummus, couscous and dips. The food was wonderful. The drinks were plentiful with many bottles of wine, beer, JD, Stoli and champagne plus an evil bottle of Sambuca. We all ate, drank and visited till midnight when we all filed outside and Bill set off some huge fireworks that everyone contributed to, the Chinese do know a thing or two about awesome fireworks. Then back inside for the DANCING. What a great evening. Bill and I stumbled home around 330, I did my preventive maintenance ritual which consists of drinking as much water as I possibly can, apply a lot of Burt’s Bees chapstick and three extra strength Excedrin, crawl into bed and pray for the best. Bill had a drunken bathroom incident that for those of you in the know just think of what the Maki’s are renown for when they are overly intoxicated – Travis, Jeanelle and Ray are famous for these occurrences………

The next morning, okay, noon – Bill and I woke up to well, if we had to do a breathalyzer, we probably would have failed. New Years day was spent on the sofa watching movies and drink gallons of water and orange juice. Even Derek, who celebrated between his friends’ house and our gathering, was not interested in leaving the house. Hmmmmm? I am not going to ponder that too hard.

Friday was a better, physically. Tammy had called and asked about flooring. It seems that a couple wine glasses were broke in the living room and dancing plus glass equals bad scratches on the hardwood floors. Chris was trying to fix the damage and Bill being jack of all trades jumped right in…..Tammy and I went around town and returned some loaned items and ran some other errands while Bill and Chris went to B&Q which is like a Home Depot. The project started at around 10am and by 5pm it was looking 100% better. It was a mess. Word to future host/hostess, plastic cups and no shoes on the hardwoods equals a much better clean up situation.

Saturday the weather was a little dreary but Bill and I went out to a ceramic market. Bill bought me a huge bowl on a stand similar to a bird bath that we have set up with water and it is going to be the fish bowl. I am collecting these jade rings that are about 3” diameter that I am putting in the bottom of the bowl along with some shells that we collected in the Dominican Republic during Nicole’s wedding trip. In the afternoon we met up with Green, a property manager for JRE, to look at apartments available in Yulan Villa. We looked at 4, two of which we are interested in and we are going to back to see them on Monday. The one I really liked is on the third floor (no elevator) so I need to decided if I am willing to commit to the stairs. I will tell more after Monday. That evening Bill and I went for a few hour walk around downtown. One of my favorite places is an open air market in the Choatian Palace. It has many names to the expats: Jade Market, Antique Market, Ming Market but my personal favorite is the Dirt Market. There is a 100 venders set up daily selling all sorts of knick knacks and jewelry. Most of it is not fake, they don’t like that work, call them copies. In Nov. the gov’t came in and closed it down. No one really has the full story but rumor is that they are going to clean it up. Remember we call it the Dirt Market. It wasn’t open when we were there but it was around 5pm which may be why, but outside of the enclosed area there were numerous people selling odds and ends out of suitcases and boxes. This is my favorite place to find the stone rings and oddities. I spent a little time talking to the venders and haggling over a couple pieces, which is always a riot. By the time Bill got me out of the mess I had about 15 Chinese men around me showing me items, repeating what I said or haggling on my behalf. It is so much fun to get into these situations. Bill walks off and leaves me to my negotiating, the men are better with me and the women work better with him…now that my vocabulary is a bit more diversified the locals are becoming great entertainment. For dinner we met up with our “gang”, Tammy and Chris, Susan and Jim, unfortunately Erica and Jamie were not able to make it. We ate at Les 5 Sens, a French place that has the best tenderloin that we have found in our area.

Now we are on Sunday, Bill and Green have been negotiating on the apartments. EVERYTHING is negotiable in China. We went to the grocery store this morning and stocked up the basics for the week only to arrive home to the bird cage laying on the floor. Mao, the cat, seemed to hit his great hunter hormone. Birdie 2, was in the cage still but Tango (Birdie One) was not. We followed the feather trail and found him in the hallway. He was still alive but we didn’t know if he would make it. His wounds were minor but he is just a little bigger then a Finch, fragile. I ripped up a bunch of paper and set up the travel cage for him. He laid there for several hours but eventually got on to his feet and perched on the water bowl. He is now in the big cage with Bird One. He ate and is drinking which means he has to go from perch to perch. I think he may be okay but time will tell. Otherwise, we picked up a bunch of our BlackMarket DVD’s and have spent a great day watching movies. It is cold and rainy and a wonderful day to snuggle in the blankets and let the world pass by.