Sunday, April 26, 2009

More fun with Mom

Here's a picture that should've been included with the last post - my reaction to eating the silkworm larvae:
Here we are taking a stroll through the school's compact but lovely garden.
The school has educational and propaganda-type posters on all of its flat surfaces. In the garden, though, I think they got confused and accidentally printed off an internet joke version of man's evolution:
I assume this is supposed to be a joke because they certainly don't discourage the kids from sitting at the computer all day. Also, the second to last man is holding a jackhammer (?). Just one more sign of man's inevitable decline!

I forget why Andy looks so sad eating his enormous Easter bunny (thanks Doug & Suzanne!). He's been gnawing away on it like a dog with a bone for the past few weeks.

Our contact teachers very generously took us and the other foreign teacher out to a feast. There were like four different desserts! We had a pretty good time. It's always interesting to tell a Chinese person that you're Jewish, which Mom did with these guys and our friend Andy. They say all the same things that Americans and Europeans say about Jews (they're clever, good at business, etc.) but apparently without any of the animosity, just admiringly. I find it sort of hard to believe. Anyway, Andy, our friend the math teacher, told us that he's from Chao Zhou, which makes him a "Chinese Jew". Yup, telling people you're Jewish always leads to a surefire interesting conversation.
Here we are at the bay between Hong Kong and China, just a few minutes from our school.
Here's Mom with a GIANT bag of dehydrated mushrooms. Almost as big as she is! I wasn't as grumpy as I look - we had just gotten caught in the rain.
Here's Mom at the Spicy Frog restaurant. I love this place! You get a huge hot pot of broth and oil, then they add whole frogs and all kinds of ingredients - tofu, mushrooms, greens, and duck's blood, which is not my favorite. The frogs are delicious!
Here's Mom practicing Tai Chi. I'm not sure how you're supposed to spell it in English anymore, but apparently it's actually tai ji, not qi or chi. Andy and Mom got up early one morning to cruise around for Tai Ji groups, and they found some ladies practicing by the grocery store. After tai ji practice was over, they invited Mom to do something with them, Andy's not sure, but they had to get back to school.
Here's Dad and Spot, very excited about the giant dried squid that I sent back with Mom. Who wouldn't be? Have you guys cracked into that yet, or are you just going to put it up on the mantle?
Check out the outfits on the guys to my left! My favorite part is that the two on the left had a pair of pink Converses and a pair of yellow Converses, and they're each wearing on shoe. Mom and I pulled a trick that the Chinese pull on me all the time - they act like they're taking a picture of something scenic, but really they're just trying to get the foreigner on film. The giant poster of Deng Xiao Ping, which is something of a Shenzhen landmark, serves well as an excuse to take a picture.
Finally, here's a series of creepy ads that are being run in the metros. I can't say I fully understand what it means, but it's definitely an ad for some kind of "learn English" program.

Kitty de Mama


So some of you might know that my (Kitty's) mom came for a visit last week. She was an awesome guest and I think we had a pretty good time. Here's a whole mishmash of our various activities:

We went up the mountain on an unfortunately rainy day. Of course, that didn't mean that there weren't plenty of Chinese people up there, and we got assaulted by kindness and Chinese-style curiosity. Also known as I almost killed some people because they just would not stop taking photos of us, for like 13 minutes, even after I repeatedly asked them to leave us alone... A few photos, fine! But what do you need more than 50 photos of some white people looking irritated for?
Mom thought that the "bamboo" and "tree stumps" that were actually made of concrete were pretty funny.
I can't remember what this girl's t-shirt said besides "caffeine crap". She is some kind of news announcer on the bus TV here. Bus TV is awesome! I've learned so many different ways to boil eggs from Chinese bus news.

Since us English teachers in China have barely noticed the recession that's ruining the rest of human society, I thought we could share some of our incredibly cheap luxuries with Mom. The best cheap luxury around here is the Queen's Spa that we went to for our birthday. Andy smuggled a camera in this time:
I think we're waiting for back massages. And the following picture has a classic Kelly photo pose. We smile at the camera for about 2 seconds, then promptly get into some kind of discussion and lose our photogenic smiles:

I don't know how many pictures I've seen of Mom with that same face. Also, I'm eating red bean & nut ice cream, which is possibly my new favorite flavor.

Here's the Rolls Royce that will pick you up and drive you to the spa for an extra $5:
Let's see... I've been fighting ordering bee (silkworm?) larvae at one of our local restaurants for the entire year, but Andy and Mom agreed that it was a great idea, so I was outvoted.
What an enormous plate of silkworms! And boy were they gross. Don't believe the look on Mom's face:
That's before she tasted them. Anyway, they weren't SO bad, but pretty much like you would expect larvae to taste. Not quite crunchy enough.

I'll probably make a separate post to cover all our antics. More Mom posts coming soon!
Posted by Picasa

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Quick Hike

We found a way to extra beaches near our house, and went out for a quick hike!
If I look miserable, it's mostly because I smashed my leg on the way. It's over two weeks later and I still have the bruise! - Kitty
Kitty fell in love with this rock she was on. She named it Stoney, her favorite rock, but forgot which one it was on the way back. Heartbreaking.


She caught a pretty sweet picture of me leaping from a set of rocks to another. For a city of 15 million people, there sure is a lot of outdoorsy fun!