It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...

The tree’s up, the stockings are hung, and the smell of gingerbread cooking fills the house. It must be Christmas time! This is definitely my most favorite time of year as I’m sure it is for most people. I was so excited and a little surprised to see how many Christmas decorations are around the city. The malls are decked out like in America- huge Christmas trees, lights, and even Santas. Eric was very curious to see whether they would have Chinese Santas or who they would find to play Santa. So far we have only seen one- but he was definitely Chinese. And no attempt was made to make him look old. It was funny to see. But all the little kids crowding around didn't seem to mind or even to notice. The big red suit is enough for them I guess!

Even though the city and malls look like Christmas, it is definitely still different than being in American malls at this time of year. No huge, stressed out crowds, trying to all do their last minute Christmas shopping at the same time. Quite nice, actually.

Even with all the Christmas stuff around, Eric and I opted to do all homemade decorations for our tree this year. the ornaments we did find were a bit tacky looking and not that cheap) So I got to do something I've always wanted to try- string a popcorn garland! Very time consuming but it was fun. We strung the popcorn while listening to 'The Mansion' and 'The Other Wise Man' by Henry Van Dyke. (A definite must read for Christmas time by the way!)

To the Market

There is a market very close to our apartment where I go almost every day to buy veggies and things for that day’s meals. I have had some fun encounters there that I thought I would share. But today, I just wanted to introduce you to the people there and take you on a tour.

When you first walk in the market you see the friendly egg and flour man to the left. He has huge bags full of dry beans, flours, nuts, rice and all sorts of things that I don’t recognize. But we usually stop there on the way out so for now we will just say ‘Ni hao’ and keep walking.

We then come to the vegetable section. There are at least 5-6 different vendors selling pretty much the exact same thing. We have visited most but as you can tell from the loud, friendly ‘Ni hao’ as you walk by the first stall on the right, there is one that I frequent more than the others.

We are nearing the back of the market and here is the meat section. Large chunks of meat hang from the ceiling and fish lay in baskets (and sometimes there are eels, turtles, clams, and all sorts of fun, alive, and squirming things). We have not as yet bought meat here. In fact, we have not as yet bought any meat to cook ourselves. I just can’t bring myself to buy from these types of places and the grocery stores don’t make me feel much better. And somehow, though I know it comes from these same places, I don’t have many qualms about ordering meat in restaurants.

Right behind the meat is the tofu or ‘dofu’ lady. While we don’t ever visit the meat man, we come here at least a couple of times a week. Yes, we have virtually become vegetarians. And its not so bad, really. I have made almost anything you can think of using tofu. From ‘meatloaf’ to mock alfredo sauce. (mashed tofu makes for a super creamy sauce by the way!) Good thing we like tofu- though let me tell you, a good piece of grilled chicken would be heaven.

The tofu lady doesn’t say much and considering my limited vocabulary and thus limited conversation skills, there isn’t much else to say about her.

The vegetable lady, on the other hand, is quite the talker. She goes on and on to me in Chinese although we both know I understand hardly a word. And then she laughs at me when I tell her for the hundredth time that I don’t speak Chinese.

The flour man is a unique fellow. He likes to throw English words in all throughout our transactions. Usually the word of choice is a very energetic ‘Thank you!’ He knows exactly what I want and to keep me from asking, every day for the last couple of weeks he says right away when he sees me, ‘Meiyou damai mianfen!’ (I don’t have barley flour!) Eric had mistakenly told me that the word for barley flour was the word for whole wheat flour. So I used it quite happily for a couple of months before the flour guy suddenly stopped selling it and before we realized it wasn’t even whole wheat flour. But the egg and flour man doesn’t sell that either so I am still without a good, healthy flour. Very sad.

There you go, that is the friendly neighborhood market! I'm really liking buying food this way though I still wonder sometimes whether they are ripping me off. Who knows...

One down

It's been a long while since I posted, and I can't promise any better frequency in the next couple of months (at least from my hand), but here is my small celebration post. On December 3, 2009, 4:29:54 AM San Diego time, I submitted my first graduate school application. And I feel good!

What does that mean? Only at least four more applications to go and two months of pushed back school assignments to catch up on. But, it's December and Christmas is in the air, so I'm not complaining. After all, who could complain when Kiersten found an additional rice cooker hidden in one of our cabinets a couple of days ago. For me, that means, twice the amount of cookies in the same amount of time, and many, many thanks to Sharla for bringing us molasses back from the U.S. Christmas never tasted so good!

Thanksgiving in China?

Thanksgiving is one of my most favorite holidays- right up there with Christmas. So the last couple of weeks I have been trying to figure out how I could still make Thanksgiving feel like a holiday in a country that doesn't celebrate it and doesn't make for a very conducive environment in which to even try (i.e. I have never seen turkey here...). So I took it as a challenge, and armed with my handy rice cooker and the local market I got to work. After experimenting a bit (Eric will tell you that we had three 'thanksgiving dinners' this week- he's not complaining :) ) I felt that maybe this would work. And the result? Yes, you CAN have a traditional (mostly) Thanksgiving dinner in China without spending a fortune!

Here is our completely vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner. I contemplated attempted to make a tofurkey so at least we could pretend we had a turkey but we both decided that it didn't sound even remotely appetizing so that idea got scratched pretty quickly.

< img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" img src="http://i643.photobucket.com/albums/uu152/rachiii88/DSCN3921.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket">
Pumpkin Pie! I was most worried about this. But with an oatmeal crumb crust and a last minute discovery of evaporated milk on an amazing sale at the local import store we did it!


In the evening, the Flagship Program treated us all to a Thanksgiving dinner. This one not too traditional. Though I think they did try- the place did serve some American-ish dishes. Eric and I were excited to taste cheese for the first time since being here so we opted for the pizzas- and some sort of tomato cheesy dish that was over rice but which definitely should have been over pasta. Oh well, couldn't really expect to much in a Chinese restaurant, right?

This is the rice one- looks like an Italian dish, doesn't it?

Look at that cheese! Yum...

The restaurant decorated the room especially for us. But I think they got the occasion for which we were celebrating just a tad mixed up. The place was completely decked out in elaborate Christmas decorations. Kind of funny- I didn't get a picture though.

Well, Happy Thanksgiving all!

China's Venice

“In heaven, there is paradise. On earth, Suzhou and Hangzhou”.
-Chinese saying

While we didn't make it to Hangzhou, this last weekend we decided to test this Chinese saying and went to Suzhou. We loved it.

Eric needed to get his new temple recommend signed by the district president and this required going into Shanghai which is a couple of hours away. So Eric and I decided to make a trip out of it. A lot of our friends have recently gone to Suzhou and told us how amazing it is so we decided to check it out. Suzhou is one of the train stops on the way from Nanjing to Shanghai. So early Saturday morning we hopped on a train to Suzhou and spent the day exploring Suzhou before heading to Shanghai Sunday morning. Wow. So much more amazing than we had expected. Suzhou is sometimes referred to as the 'Venice of the East' and for good reason. There are canals all through Suzhou lined by old-style Chinese houses and buildings. It was beautiful. This is the hostel that we stayed at. It was right on the edge of a very picturesque canal. When we walked out of it Saturday morning after checking in, this is what we saw: Artists painting... Elderly women gossiping and laughing... A beautiful canal... And an old woman washing her mop out in the greenish water...
Eric and I took a different approach to seeing Suzhou than others have. Besides for its canals, Suzhou is known for its beautiful gardens. However, Eric and I didn't go to a single one. Not that we have anything against gardens (besides the fact that they aren't the cheapest places to go to...) but we were most excited about just walking around 'Old Suzhou',exploring, and just seeing the city.

One place Eric wanted to go to was the Suzhou University. In his research online before our trip he had read about a certain building there. In our exploring around the university (which had lots of pretty, old buildings!) we stumbled across what we were looking for. This doorway(if you look closely) has faded Cultural Revolution propaganda/slogans. The left column reads 'Long live the Communist Party' and the right one 'Long live Chairman Mao.' If you know the background of the Cultural Revolution and what happened with education you will understand why we found this interesting.
We walked to some other really interesting places- old pagodas and such places that towered over the other buildings. We figured that since they poked out enough we didn't need to pay to see them closer. Yeah, I guess were pretty cheap- or as Eric would probably prefer me saying- we are smart with our money. :) Here are some of those places. The third one is a tower that is sometimes referred to as 'The Leaning Tower of China.' Next time I think this is one that I would like to see a little closer up. You can't tell very well in the picture but the tower is actually leaning at a 3 degree angle- doesn't sound like much, but in such a tall building it makes a difference.
We really enjoyed walking along Shantang street which is an old shopping district. It is right along a canal and, although most of the shops are now souvenir shops, we thought it was great! And we found these super yummy snacks. I particularly like the one on the left- mostly because to me it looks like an ice-cream cone. They are both sweet and filled with red bean paste. Yum! One funny thing that happened here: As we were watching the vendor make those amazing red bean snacks, two young women approached me and asked if I would take a picture with them. Nothing out of the ordinary with this and I agreed. Afterwards, they thanked me profusely, calling me 'beautiful woman' and then ran off. About fifteen minutes later as we were crossing a bridge, these two girls suddenly ran up from the other side calling out 'beautiful woman', put two boxes in my hand, and again ran off. They had bought me boxes of some specialty Suzhou snacks. I found this really funny and flattering too, I guess. It reminded me of times on my mission where people would get so excited by me as if I were some sort of celebrity. And I always would think, 'Really, me? Do you see how gross and sweaty I look!?' But hey, if I get free cookies out of it, I'm not complaining!

After walking through the nice, kept up portion of Shantang street, we kept walking along the canal and were soon in the middle of a neighborhood with narrow, winding streets and amazing smells coming out of the windows. We kept hoping someone would invite us in...

And here are more pictures of a few canals that we saw.
What a fun place! Definitely a needed break from all the grad school application stress which has taken up so much of Eric's time.

Let it snow!

Snow!

We woke up this morning to what we thought was going to be a super cold rainy day. But when I went out for my early morning run, I could tell in the dim light that there was definitely something white on the ground. So we ended up having a super cold snowy day. I had a halfhearted thought of venturing out later to make a snowman but I must confess that I chickened out. Somehow even though I am fine with running miles in sub-freezing weather, I can't make myself go out just to play in it. Then this evening Eric tells me that snow is actually an infrequent occurrence in Nanjing and I may have missed out on one of three opportunities to make my snowman and snow angels. Well, the snow isn't supposed to stop until tomorrow afternoon so I still have my chance...

It has been incredibly cold the last couple of weeks. Almost unbearably so. I have never lived in a cold humid place and it is definitely not the funnest experience. Especially considering that Eric and I thought it would be a good idea to only bring one sweater and jacket each with us to China. And with us trying to save money we haven't as of yet bought any good winter clothes, or a good blanket (you'd laugh to see our mismatched assortment of 'blankets' that we use). We finally broke down and bought gloves on Saturday night,though. It's amazing what a difference warm hands make!

Here was the view this morning from outside our bedroom window.

The Great Pumpkin is Coming to Town

Halloween in China turned out to be a lot more fun than I had thought it would be. We were even able to find Halloween in some unexpected places- a Chinese university and a local mall.
The night before Halloween we got to help out at a party a lady in our branch was giving for her English students. This is their costume parade.

Much to Eric's displeasure I had agreed for the two of us to be in charge of the songs. Our assignment was to sing 'Halloween Carols' with the students. This meant we sang horribly worded renditions of Christmas carols. Every single song seemed to find some way to sneak mention of the 'Great Pumpkin' in there. Why, we could not figure out. But they sure gave the impression that Halloween is celebrated only to commemorate the 'Great Pumpkin', whoever that is... (all we could come up with was maybe this was a reference to the Great Pumpkin from the Charlie Brown comics?)

Halloween night we ventured out in very Halloween-ish weather to go to a mall called Aqua City. To our surprise we discovered elaborate Halloween decorations everywhere and little witches and supermans running around! (Apparently a community trick or treat was going on.)

< img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;"img src="http://i643.photobucket.com/albums/uu152/rachiii88/DSCN3607.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket">
Some of the friends I made:


We also had our own Halloween celebration at home. For the first time in years I attempted caramel apples. Definitely put our chopsticks to good use!
Here is Eric carving our pumpkin.
Aren't they cute?!
We'd like you to meet Jack aka 'The Great Pumpkin.' (He does exist!)