A much needed Respite

We ran screaming from Chengdu for our Christmas holiday in Malaysia on the 17th.  We(as in me) needed it.  Bad.  Children however have a funny way of adding excitement to holidays.  In this case, dear boy S started puking as we were making our descent into Kuala Lumpur.  I'll spare you the gory details but lets just say I went through seven more 'dog poop bags'(that I keep in my purse for this very instance) by the time we arrived in our hotel in Kota Kinabalu at noon.  Reason for sickness?  No idea.  Once he saw the pool and ocean he was right as rain.  For a moment.

The view from our balcony

The previously sicker-than-a-dog child seemingly cured and ready for some fun in the sun(hindsight tells me this was a bad idea...)

Right out our door

The craziest little beach crabs dig these holes and pile up all the sand in little balls.  It looked like fireworks.

We splurged before leaving China and bought a waterproof camera knowing that we would be going snorkeling and wanted to have pictures to remember it by.  We were giving it a test run in the pool.  Not bad!

That was our first day.  Or part of it anyway.  S gobbled down a PB and J sandwich after this which came back to bite him.  He was tucked into bed at 3:30pm and we didn't see him again until 7:00 the next morning. The rest of us fell into bed before dinner.  Late night flights just don't agree with any of us. 

Stay tuned for pictures from the rest of our vacation!

You deserve to be Happy

You deserve to be happy.  I deserve to be happy.  We all deserve to be happy.  Sometimes we lose sight of this but for myself, recent events have brought me to the conclusion that no matter what is going on in my life I deserve happiness.  We can not buy, trade or expect happiness, we have to create it ourselves but we all deserve it. 

Moving to China seemed like an easy thing to do way back in July of 2011 when we got the news that we were heading overseas.  But once I got down to brass tacks I realized what a huge challenge it really was going to be.  I thought I had prepared myself mentally and emotionally to move to a foreign land where walking down the street creates a larger spectacle than a man taking a poop in the hedges.  Boy, was I wrong!  Not only was I adjusting to living a million miles away from 'civilization' with 15 million people but I was giving up my comfort bubble, functional indoor plumbing, trading in my independence for a driver and a translator, and learning to live with my husband after 10 years of him working shift work.  Huge adjustments.  HUGE.

I recently read She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb.  I read it back in high school and had been meaning to read it again.  Its the part where she spills all her secrets to her husband and chooses happiness that opened my eyes.  I don't have the secrets to spill like Dolores but I needed the happiness part.  When this realization hit me I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.  Like I was high.  I got a bounce in my step and a smile on my face and did it ever feel good!  It wasn't until this revelation that I realized how unhappy I really had been.  It was making me sick.  I was tired all the time(which also has to do with air pollution obviously), a walking emotional time bomb, snappy with my kids, suffering from chronic nausea and shooting daggers from my eyes at my husband.  All this added up to misery.

Now obviously everything is not all peaches and cream.  I have to work at this, we all do.  For the last week I've had a major setback in the happiness department and am just now trying to dig myself out from under it.  This whole next week the kids and I are on our own as K left for Dubai this morning so I am taking time for myself- cleansing, breathing, eating my fruits and veg and remembering to be happy. 

I have so many things to be happy for but I got caught up in the negative.  This year in China has been an immense learning experience in so many ways and I think everything that I take away from here will become more apparent once we've moved away.  A friend had posted on Facebook a while back that China is one of the best places in the world to go for spiritual growth and reflection.  I scoffed at that and she said, trust me, you'll be grateful later.  The more I think about it the more I think it must be true.  If you can handle China, I think you can handle pretty much anything and come out the other side a happier, more patient and compassionate person.  I'm working on it.  That's all any of us can do.

A.W.I.P(I'm getting tired of writing the whole thing out)

Gingko in full Autumn regalia.

A little pooch soaking up some sun on Binjiang Road East.

A trip to flower town to pick up some Christmas color.

Garbage Dog doing what Garbage Dog does best--posing for pictures so his fans back home in Canada can ooh and aah over him ;)

Roosters for sale.  Handsome fellas!

My little kitchen helper.  Using his elbow grease to hand chop those onions!

Advent calendars!!

Our elevator is out of service for 10 days.  They put up warning signs that make me chuckle.

Raffles City decked out for Christmas!

A Gingerbread Brulee Cappuccino from Costa Coffee.

Sunday morning sun through the haze.

 

A package from my Mom <3  Thank you Mom!!

A Week In Pictures

This week our Air Quality wasn't terrible but it wasn't good either.  As you can see the number at the top is the US Consulate reading and the one below is the Chinese Government number.  On this day there wasn't a huge discrepancy but some days there is and it makes you go hmmmmmm...

They pruned the trees in our courtyard and I think some got confused and thought it was Spring ;)

My cuppow went cuppow.  This was a sad afternoon.

 

Sophisticated Tea 

My mom suggested I try Zentangle as a way to relax and de-stress.  So I gave it a go.  If you want to learn more about Zentangle you can visit their website here.

My fave Tangle.

Hope you have a lovely week!

Third Drivers the charm?

As of today we are on to our third driver.  The 'temporary' driver we had lasted a little over a month before I had to tell him he no longer worked for us.  Not only is there a major language barrier but there are major cultural differences as well.  Something that we think is inexcusable has them looking at us wondering why we are making such a big deal over nothing.  For example: this weekend we went to Raffles City to look at the Gap.  As much as we could, we explained to the driver with much hand signalling and translation on my iphone that we were going to Raffles City and for him to park the car.  When we were finished we texted that we were ready to go and he said he was in parking in B3.  We went to B3.  He wasn't there.  Then he asked us to come to the road because he can't find us.  We went back upstairs to see the car parked outside the mall with the driver's door open, no driver to be seen with my camera sitting in the back seat.  Common sense would suggest if you were going to leave the vehicle you close all the doors and lock it but when the story was relayed to my husband's assistant she couldn't seem to understand what the big deal was.  HUH? 

Needless to say that was a strike against him.  Yesterday was strike two when he refused to take me to the costco-like grocery store Metro because he said there was too much construction in that part of the city and there was no way to get there.  Today was strike three when he took me to the Shangri-La instead of the before mentioned grocery store and then finally upon arriving at said store refused to drive me to the door saying there was no way to get across the parking lot and then yelling at me when I slammed the door.

From a young age I was taught to treat all people equally whether they are White, Black, Native, Asian, whatever.  People are all the same.  I think that's one of the reasons I have a hard time in China.  I am expected to treat a driver as an employee who is to be available at my beck and call, not as my equal.  I have mentioned before how much that bothers me as well as the fact that I am almost completely reliant on this person to get me from Point A to Point B. 

My first mistake with our first driver was I treated him like a friend instead of an employee.  You know that saying, give them an inch and they will take a mile?  That sums up our first driver.  I bought him Starbucks because I felt guilty for drinking it in front of him, I asked him "is it okay if you take me____?" and before I knew it he was using our car to drive around his friends and their dogs, giving excuses why he couldn't pick me up and asking for our weekly schedule so he could plan his leisure time. 

I think the mistake I made with this temporary driver was that I set boundaries right from the get go and inadvertently made his job easier.  He tried overly hard for the first two weeks by opening our doors, trying to help the kids and driving like we were a carton of eggs and liable to break if he drove over a caterpillar on the road.  When he realized we didn't want his help with certain things like loading groceries or taking the kids back packs he took that as permission to be lazy.  He started smoking right outside the car so it smelled like we were driving around in an ash tray rather than a brand new car.  He started treating the vehicle as his own, refusing to take me places and sleeping in the car.  Is there no happy medium?

Tomorrow we have a new temporary driver until the 1st of December and then hopefully we will have a suitable permanent driver after that.  I keep threatening to get a scooter(which I really do want to get) but it pisses me off that I have to resort to driving myself and my family around on a glorified bicycle because we can't seem to get a driver who takes his job seriously.  Truth be told, some might think that maybe we are taking advantage of our situation with the low cost of living and hiring help but honestly we pay our driver well, he gets benefits and he really doesn't have to work that hard.  

I am really hoping that the third drivers the charm because being taken advantage of really starts to grate on the soul after a while.

A Week in Pictures

It's not A Week in Instagram this week because I just didn't post that much to Instagram so its A Week in Pictures instead.

This week we saw some terrific smog and high numbers on the Pollution index as I blogged about previously.

Serving Mojito samples at the grocery store.

Anyone need a Parakeet? 

My little violinist.  Her first performance at the Christmas Bazaar!

The 8 and 11 year old violin students getting ready for their moment!

The 5 year old class joins the violin students to sing 'Up on the housetop' and 'Jingle Bells.'  So adorable with their hand actions and forgotten verses!

Refreshing bottle of water that comes from very close to my home town in British Columbia, Canada!  I thought it was tastier than what I am used to drinking!

From the Grocery Store

After hitting the gym earlier today I stopped at Carrefour to grab some dumplings for lunch and a bottle of water.  I walked through the Ex-pat section which is next to the liquor section and saw them handing out Mojito samples!  I couldn't help stopping to take a picture!  They're already terrible drivers so why not add some free alcohol to the mix!  Ha!

And you thought it was going to be something gross! 

There's an App for that

The China Air Quality App 

That's probably all I really need to say but that would be silly and very unrantlike of me.  I know, unrantlike is hardly a word but its my blog so there.  Anyway I downloaded this app a couple weeks ago when I overheard some moms talking about it in the front office of the school while we all waited for our kids.  Its a great topic of discussion amongst us moms.  As a matter of fact, one such mom sat down beside me this afternoon and the first thing she said was, "did you see the pollution index today?"  Its a great ice breaker, you know?  My husband K on the other hand says, "would you quit looking at that thing?!" every time I bring up the number(which is usually on a daily basis.)

Today the sky was particularly disgusting and a quick look at my app told me the air quality index was 303 which is 'Hazardous.'  How delightful.  Really makes you want to go outside for some fresh air. 

I took this picture out my dining room window.  The buildings that are in the very back(I know, they're hard to see) are about a kilometer from our apartment.  Probably not even that far on second thought.  It would take me about 20 minutes to walk to them.  Gross.

I think I need to make a more concerted effort to find that Hello Kitty mask I've been on the hunt for.

Just a little Rant

I got in the car as per usual this afternoon just after 3:00 to head to the school to pick up the rugrats.  Also, as per usual, we came upon some construction barring our way to the school.  Or sort of anyway.  There were pylons set up with a giant sheet of steel laying across the trench they were digging so that cars could pass over.  I tried to motion to my driver he could turn but he just tsked and clucked his tongue and continued driving.  Sigh.  Did I mention there is no other turn off to the school on this particular stretch of highway?  Well I'll tell you now- there is no other turn off on this stretch of highway.  I know from passed experience of this specific fact.  So off on a magical misery tour(as my mom likes to call these little adventures) we went while I'm watching the minutes ticking by on the clock.  I'm really glad I had the talk with my kids a while back about if I'm ever late picking them up. 

I HATE being DEPENDENT!  It really chaps my a** to have to be driven around in the first place but then to be blatantly ignored by said driver and be led on a magical misery tour just drives me nuts!  Grrrr!  I am really, really, really considering that scooter! 

End of rant.

A Week in Instagram

I think I'd have to be really thirsty to drink this...

Cheapest lunch EVER!  That's 4.75 RMB or about $0.75CDN

 A great way to start the morning...walking passed bags of goat bits.

Christmas has arrived at Starbucks!  Cranberry Bliss Bar and Cranberry White Chocolate Mocha mmmmm... 

Natural Air Freshener...little old ladies weave through traffic to sell these to motorists for 1 RMB

Dog sweater weather has arrived

S and Daddy ipad time with the 'Old Booth.'

Its Sunday...coffee, ipad and Dexter

Coloring our own poppies for Remembrance Day and reminding the kids why we wear a poppy on November 11.  Lest we forget.

China: Thru my Lens

I found this guy hanging out having a snack in the courtyard of our apartment complex.  He looks like he would be happy to carry off a small child or dog to feed to his mate in exchange for her love.  Yuck.

From the Grocery Store

Okay so this isn't technically From the Grocery Store, its from the Goat Restaurant down the street from our apartment near the grocery store but the principle is the same.  Its gross, nasty etc and you wonder WTH they do with it?!  I'm not squeamish about stuff like this, really I'm not.  I have butchered chickens, I have seen our bull Sir Loin's head laying in the field, I have seen calves and puppies and kittens and even chicks birthed and all matter of gooey nastiness in between but there's just something about the way they do it here that grosses me right out.

Goat heads and feet fresh from the farm in bags laying on the street outside the restaurant.  There are about eight goat carcasses hanging to the left of the photo...I guess they probably match the heads and feet.  Ugh.

A Week in Instagram

I'm so boring, I know.  I have nothing to blog about.  Well here's some pictures again anyway.  Two of them aren't Instagram so my title is kind of misleading but oh well. ;)

My boy S's class was invited to one of the other International schools to play games and make crafts at their Carnival.  Here they all are after playing and crafting their little hearts out!

Waiting for the Metro on my hunt for an ipad for K for his birthday.  Learned an interesting fact about Apple in China this week.  There are only five actual Apple Retailers in all of China.  All the other stores that sell Apple products are 'scalpers' and have jacked the prices up to turn a profit.  I managed to find an Apple 'Authorized Reseller' that sells products at the same price as the Apple website.

 

Tianfu Flyover.  The kids call this the 'A' Bridge or the 'Triangle' Bridge.

My girl F's first masterpiece in Chinese Painting class.  At their school they choose an 'After School Activity' five times a year and during the last hour of school on Tuesdays and Thursdays get to go to their 'ASA' to learn a new skill.

 Chengdu is considered more laid back than other cities in China...as you can see this girl rolled out of bed and headed out the door.  The epitome of 'laid back'?

 

 We took the Birthday guy out for brunch at The Lazy Pug yesterday.  <3

For K's birthday I made a lemon vanilla cake with lemon curd and vanilla frosting.  It tasted like a lemon meringue pie.  So yummy!