From The Grocery Store

Its been a while since I've done one of these posts.  It's amazing how fast you become immune to the things you see; things that when I first arrived either made my jaw drop, made me cringe with disgust or laugh out loud.  We have seen bull's penis; we have seen brains, hearts, bins of intestines crawling with flies, we have seen whole goats.  We have seen pretty much everything there is to see that comes out of an animal. 

But there's just something about a bin full of rabbits that just tickles my gag reflex a little bit.  Gross.

Better not do that again

Yesterday after feeling a bit down about my realization that I've turned into some wimpy dependent person I made a huge mistake!  A colossal mistake!  What did she do?  you're wondering...

I looked at pictures.

That is a sure fire way to make me homesick.  Yup, it sure did the trick I tell ya.  For some unknown reason I thought it would make me feel better so there I am scrolling through several years' worth of photos on Picasa; cows, chickens, walking from the bus stop, puppies, snow, kids in snow suits, kids with cats...If I thought I was wimpy before well I got a whole lot wimpier!

But as my husband is constantly telling me, we need to have dreams so that we keep working hard to get where we want to be.  So I'll wipe my eyes, pull up my socks, enjoy my photos but get on with life here so I can get back to life there one day.  And hopefully one of these days this cycle of homesickness/hating China/loving China will end and I can look back and say, hey that wasn't so bad!

Independence- what's that again?

My daughter F is home sick from school for the third day in a row today.  My boy S had to head off to school by himself again much to his chagrin.  I was busy gathering homework from teachers for F while S was having himself a meltdown in the hallway because he couldn't get his lunch kit out of his backpack.  "Don't do this today, please," I told him as I helped him get his stuff organized while his teacher encouraged him from the classroom door.  "He was looking forward to his sister walking him to class," I explained as I ushered S inside.  I explained that F was still sick and sitting in the car waiting for me and my husband is in Australia right now and not able to help out with the kids being sick and and...

I couldn't believe my own ears.  Where did this dependent woman come from?  What happened to the country mama/farmer/able-to-hold-down-the-fort-for-35-days-while-her-husband-is-in-China woman that I know and love?  Good grief!  

This move overseas has certainly been an adjustment in so many ways.  Up until January, my husband always worked away and I stayed at home with the kids.  He was usually gone for a month at a time but in the past had been gone for two months or more.  We made it work.  I became very independent; raising the kids, renovating houses, being a landlord and running a hobby farm.  Fast forward to now and I have a husband who is generally home every night, we have a driver who takes us everywhere and if there's a problem my hubby is a short 20 minute bike ride away and can come home.  Its weird.  Its overwhelming some days.  I'm sure there's nothing wrong with depending on other people but I haven't been that person for so long that it feels foreign and makes me feel a bit like a wimp.  

People are always asking me if I have an Ayi which is Chinese for Aunt but is used as a term for housekeeper/nanny.  They want to know why I don't have one and if I'm going to get one.  "I didn't have a housekeeper back home so why would I have one here?" I explain.  "But it's so much more work here to keep up a household," I've been told.  Really?  Well even if I can afford an Ayi I'm not getting one.  Believe me, I hate cleaning as much as the next person but I'm just not giving up that one last bit of me.  And even if I don't clean the bathrooms for a week so what?  

Yesterday I went and spent a small fortune on a vacuum cleaner.  I vacuumed the entire apartment  and man did it feel good!  So what if I spent the equivalent of two months salary for a full time Ayi on a dust sucker, at least I have kept a wee bit of my independence!

Little Farm on the Rooftop

How have I not blogged about my chickens yet?!  Sheesh!  When we got back from our summer away there was a little surprise waiting for me on the rooftop.  I jokingly refer to them as my thank you for coming back to China gift from my husband ;)

A couple weeks ago we hired a guy to come put up a simple fence on the roof top to keep the hens contained so they didn't: A. Try to fly off the top of the apartment or B.  Poop all over our patio furniture.

Not too shabby for 350 rmb which included labor and materials. 

 Here are the girls!  They aren't laying yet but hopefully they will be soon.  It took them a long time to not be terrified of me when I came in the gate with their food.  I guess running for their lives is in their genes ;)

 Are you gonna feed us or what?

I wish I could have a cow or a pig too but you know... apartment living and all ;)

China: Thru my Lens

I love photography, I always have.  I'm not terribly good at it.  I don't know anything about aperture or proper lighting or anything like that.  I just like taking pictures.  So with that said I was trying to think up ways to really show China to you other than gross stuff at the grocery store or dingbat drivers.  Recently I have taken most of my photos with my iphone which is great because I can edit them in Instagram but I wanted to start taking pictures with a 'real' camera again.  I dug out both my cameras last week and dusted them off.  One is a compact Canon Power Shot SX220 HS and the other one is a full size Canon Power Shot S3 IS.  Both are awesome cameras other than the full size is bulkier and doesn't fit in my purse.  My plan is to get myself a bike this week, get on it with my camera and just take pictures.  I mean, what else do you do when your kids are in school and you're in a foreign country that's just aching to be photographed, hmmm?  Certainly not laundry!

Today I stopped off at Sichuan University to take photos of the Lotus in bloom.  There are two huge ponds of them and they are just beautiful.  I took 26 photos but I couldn't decide on  just one so I will share three with you.

Can you almost smell them?  Think flowery licorice ;)

Zi Gong Dinosaur Museum

It's Saturday again and we decided to go on another fun filled family day trip.  I had asked Alice about the dinosaur museum I had heard about and she said it was a two hour drive from Chengdu.  Very doable so that's where we headed today.  First off road trips are not nearly as fun when you can't drive.  Second, don't trust anyone to know how long it will take to get somewhere!  It took THREE AND A HALF HOURS!

You know how when you get the first millimeter snowfall of the winter and everyone starts driving like morons and ending up in the ditch?  Well its kinda like that here too except with rain.  We saw five accidents one of which was a bus that had hit the guard rail.  Luckily it didn't go over the ravine! 

Anyway our driver got lost so we had to back track and finally ended up at the Zi Gong Dinosaur Museum.  Halleluja! 

A Szechuanosaurus?  This seriously made me laugh.  Then again I think there is an Albertasaurus because it was found in Alberta...but that doesn't seem nearly as funny as this. 

It was a little wet out.

After an hour or so of trekking around the museum we went into Zi Gong town and found a McDonalds before starting back to Chengdu.  It took us an hour to go 10 Kilometers because of this obviously-not-speeding-at-all-truckdriver(no sarcasm whatsoever.)  He jackknifed his trailer so bad he drove right back over top of it.

So it took us three and a half hours to get there and four hours and 45 minutes to get back along one of the worst highways the 'Chengyu' from Chengdu to Chongqing.  Did we have fun?  Aside from the more than eight hours of driving; yes.  Would I recommend it?  No.  Unless you could find a better way to get there.  That highway was seriously scary!