Friday night fun at Wangfujing!

It was adult date night on Friday.  Kelly and I, along with our friends the Ricklefs, went out for a fantastic dinner at Din Tai Fung.  They are world renown for there amazing dumplings.  After that we ventured into the heart of Beijing to go to Wangfujing (otherwise known as the night market).  It looks like NYC with all of the lights, stores, restaurants, bars and skyscrapers.  Then you get to the street vendors.  Let me tell you, if you have a hankering for any kind of meat, insect, fish, arachnid, crazy slimy thing out of the ocean on a stick......this is the place for you!  They will fry it up fresh right in front of your eyes.  Some of the more disturbing ones were the baby shark on a stick, snake, huge spider, meal worms, starfish, sea horses, scorpions, dog, marinated donkey penis (yes, that's what I said), octopus, sea urchins, prickly sea cucumber (which is an ocean creature) and some of the strangest bugs I have ever seen: dragonflies, beetles, cockroaches, centipedes.  Yep, it all tastes like chicken!!  LOL  No, I didn't actually eat any of it.  I was too full from dinner, or that's what I said at least.  It is definitely a must see though when visiting Beijing. 


Heather and I in the streets of Beijing's Wangfujing!

Date night



This guys girlfriend wanted to take his picture with me........aahhh OK??!!

Little lobsters and silk worms.

I borrowed these images due to our lack of photos.  These are scorpions and lotus.

seahorse and live scorpions



starfish

dragonflies

what the street vendors look like

yep, scorpion on a stick

This was baby shark.

Lots of Halloween parties this weekend!

Both of the girls were invited to their friends Halloween parties this weekend.  Julia went to a neighborhood called River Garden for a party and trick or treating.  River Garden is where the US embassy families live so they are known for having all of the "good American candy".  Ella, myself, and a couple of her friends that live in our neighborhood all rode into the city for a party at their friend Valerie's apartment.  It was a fun night!

Julia is "Alice in Wonderland". 

Jules friend, Natalia, the hippie!

Vampire Annique and Pirate Ella

Arggg Matey!  Thanks for sending the awesome costume Grandma!!

Maria, Ella, Annique and Valerie
 

A day in the life of a pampered pooch!

Ya know, it is kind of sad when your dog has more of a social life than you do.  Twice a day, Tucker gets (walked, jogged or biked) to the dog park where he has doggy play dates.  He has made a lot of friends there.....and a few enemies.  Really??? Even dogs have drama!!  His best canine friend is a Rhodesian Ridge back named Argo.  He is definitely the Alpha of the dog park.  Tucker thinks he is the wing man and those two love to play rough with each other.  There are several others that he plays with as well though, and they usually run and wrestle so hard that he is usually "tuckered out" for the majority of the day! 

That is Kelly on the bike with Tucker running lickety split next to him.  That dog can run faster than 25 mph.
I was still pedaling behind them trying to snap this picture without killing myself in the process!  LOL

Let the party begin...Tucker is here!  Tucker loves to bark "loudly" at the other dogs to get them all riled up so they will run with him!

On a side note,  it can be slightly amusing and disturbing at the same time watching all the dogs "play bunny hop"  with one another.  Sometimes there will be 4 dogs in a row.....it looks like a doggy Congo line!  Ridiculous!!

Tucker is NOT fond of the Sheppard.  So he was put in time out for poor behavior!!

This is Tuckers BFF, Argo.  He is the Alpha of the park. 

What a BABY!!  He is back home and tired from his play date.  He is chilling with his girls and looking a bit sleepy!

And he's done.  Nite nite Tuck D!!  We will go back and do it all over again later this afternoon!!

'

Harvest time a bit different here!

One of the things that we loved about our house in Illinois was harvest time.  We were totally surrounded by corn fields and it was quite a show watching all of the John Deere combines roll in across the street and clear out a massive field in the matter of an hour.  It's done a little different here!  On the backside of our neighborhood there are a few corn fields.  They are harvested by man power and brought to the back street (behind our neighborhood) and are spread out by a woman with a rake, walking on the corn in her stocking feet, to dry on the sun for a day or two.  The corn is then shoveled back into a cart and taken away.  So this is our "new" and "different" harvest experience.  It is not quite the show we got to see back home but it is still impressive to watch how much physical work goes into it.  The common people here are so much more primitive than what we are used to seeing and they do a lot of manual labor to get their jobs done.  I hope that my children can see this and learn to respect this kind of work ethic and appreciate how blessed we truly are to have modern conveniences!

The corn was drying here for a few days and is now being shoveled up into the blue "Chinese grain truck"  or scooter.

This is a small farm behind our neighborhood.  People live in little shack type houses back in there and they have a small tree nursery, chickens and ducks, and some corn crops.

ISB 6th grade soccer team

On Saturday, October 19, the ISB 6th grade girls were supposed to play in an all day soccer tournament.  Unfortunately it was cancelled due to high air pollution levels.  (This happens occasionally here in Beijing.)  All the girls were so bummed that they couldn't play so they decided to hang out at the DeSmet jia (home).  They ended up having fun anyway, and in the afternoon when the pollution levels dropped Kelly, Ella and I took several of the girls up to the school and had our own soccer practice and match.  You just can't keep a good coach away for too long!! 

Some of the ISB girls soccer team.
 

Persimmons from Simon

Today my Mandarin teacher, Laoshi Simon,(sounds like l-ou-sure) brought along some persimmons for us to try.  They are native to China and are called shizi here. (sounds like sured zu)  They are to be eaten very ripe.  So ripe in fact that you have to scoop it out with a spoon.  It really was quite mushy and jelly like, and not exactly cohesive with my palate.  Ella said it looked like baby poop and wouldn't even try it.  They look like little pumpkins but are in the berry family.  They say that they have some medicinal purposes such as reducing heart attacks and fat metabolism....(everything here has medicinal purposed) I guess I am going to have to make myself like them.  They really aren't that bad.  I am glad that I have gotten to try some of the different local fruits and vegetables.  There are things over here that I would have NEVER had even heard of!!

This is the persimmon....Kelly thought it was a rotten tomato!!

You pull the top stem out and scoop out the middle with a spoon. 

Seriously.....who needs Happy Wok???

I am just going to say that Happy Wok has nothing on my Ayi.  Xiao Liu can make some of the most amazing Chinese cuisine that I have ever tasted.  The whole family loves her cooking and I am afraid that I am getting a little spoiled over here.  Yesterday, she picked little apple/berry things out of our tree in our backyard and made cider out of it.  It was amazing!!  I wonder when our three years are up if she would move back to the U.S. with us???
P.S.  As good as her cooking is it still doesn't hold a candle to my mom's....love you mama!

One of our favorites......fried rice!!

1st Chinese Haircut!!

On Saturday, October 14,  we went downtown Beijing to get our 1st Chinese haircut.  NO we did not all come out with bowl cuts!!  We went to a place where one of Kelly's co-workers goes.  It is very nice and the people that work there are lovely (at least I think so....I'm not sure what they were saying so I could be wrong).  Anyway, they seemed very nice and of course snatched the girls right up and were playing with their hair.  They got washed, massaged, cut and styled.  Daddy too! I myself got an hour long full body massage followed up with a hair cut.  I really wished I could understand more of what they were saying because when that guy tried to comb through my nappy, curly hair his face was priceless.  I was a little bit nervous about trusting him with my hair but he did pretty good.  He was a little baffled with trying to style my hair but nothing that a ponytail couldn't fix!! 
My favorite part was watching the whole salon of workers go outside for their morning pep talk or "huddle" as we called it at the hospital.  The whole staff goes out on the front sidewalk and they get in lines.  There are 2 leaders that gave a pep talk and then the music started playing.  They literally did a dance routine for a good 10 minutes and sang to.  I swear it was like a Glee moment or a flash mob!!  I wanted Kelly to video tape it but we were to embarrassed too.  The next time I talk to my friends at Trinity I am going to give them some ideas on how to warm up your employees for the day (I'm talking jazz hands and everything)! 

Getting ready to dance.  I would love to see Kelly's office people do this!

Julia getting her "best hair cut she has ever had"  We asked why she thought that was...."because you can't tell that I got any cut off.  That's the way I like it".  OK......1/8 of an inch was like dust on the floor!  Whatever makes her happy!

Ella getting her hair cut.

Momma was happy after an hour massage and a cut!

We love driving around the massive city of Beijing!  Here are some of the photos that Julia took on the ride home.  These are apartments or condos.

Buildings go for farther than the eye can see!

This is the CCTV building.  It is a unique design and the home office for China television. (The building is more fascinating than their programs,)

Near Kelly's offices.

 



Ella's Chinese class

Visited Ella's Chinese class today. The class wrote books about themselves all in Chinese and then presented them in front of the class and parents. Ella did a great job. She is really doing well with learning the language and giving presentations. They have to do a PowerPoint presentation on current events once a month in her homeroom class and you would be amazed at how creative these kids are!


Ella  getting ready for her presentation.

Ella's friend Valerie......kids got a great name!

African Marimba with Ella

Thursday, October 12, I got to go hang out with Ella in her musical arts class.  The kids performmed an African marimba song, on 3 different sizes of xilophones, that they composed themself.  Them little boogers were pretty darn good.  Then they made the parents come sit with their children and they taught us the song so we could perform it.  We weren't to shabby if I do say so myself, but those kids really showed us up!  It was really fun!

Sheng ri kuai le Tuck D!!

Happy 3rd Birthday to the baby of the family Tucker Lee DeSmet!!  He had a fabulous birthday that started with a sprint to every tree in the neighborhood until we got to the dog park.  Then, he played there with some of his canine friends.(He is the life of the party at the dog park)  He followed that up with a hearty breakfast and a several hour nap.  Tug-of-war with his rope and a game of shake the stuffing out of his toy puppy, named stuffy, when he woke.  We sang to him, loved on him and took another bike ride with him to the dog park to complete his day!! 
All of the stress and anxiety it took to get him here was so worth it because he is my side kick.  He follows me everywhere I go in the house.  He loves all of the neighborhood kids and enjoys sitting on the stoop watching their every move.  He knows exactly when his girls get home from school and is anxiously watching for them out the window so he can be the first to greet them at the door, and his Daddy is his best friend and all mighty master of his universe!
We love you Tucker Lee De!!  You complete our family!

Baby Tuck Tuck the wonder pup



The birthday boy getting lovins from his girls!!

Dinner at SiaBe!!

The family went downtown Beijing on Saturday night to eat out at a Chinese restaurant called Sia Be (pronounced Shy Bay).  It was a very nice place and the kids impressed us with their use of chopsticks.  We have all gotten pretty good at using them!  I still think that if I only used chopsticks I would definitely lose weight though.  We had corn cakes stuffed with bean paste (what the restaurant is known for) and some other interesting but tasty things.  The only thing that the kids were having a hard time with, is that they only serve hot water here.  The Chinese do not think that it is healthy to drink "cold" beverages, so when we go to restaurants and the kids order "bing shui" (which is how you say ice water in Chinese) they get some strange looks.  The dinner was great though and I think that I am fully loaded on MSG to last me a while.  (I had the sausage fingers the next day to prove it too.)
After dinner we went window shopping at a near by mall and enjoyed people watching.  Sometimes it's funner to watch people watching us!  We get some of the funniest looks and of course there is always Ella's many admirers! 

Me-n-Kelly

Ella Claire actually loves using chopsticks!

This was me displaying my fine chopstick skills.....5 seconds later that piece of food hit the table.  (true story)

Julia can use chopstick well, but this girls gets hungry and she likes to eat NOW.  She would prefer a shovel to chopsticks!

Yes the kids loved the greenery too!

This was the chefs cooking up the meals.  There were some interesting things too.  The ever so popular sea cucumber and fish with the eyeballs still intact.  I prefer not to look my food in the eye when I eat it!

I saw this in one of the store windows and thought that Kelly and I would look lovely in this for a holiday party!! NO???

The girls in the streets of Beijing.  They are holding their prized mango juice that we have been looking for.  They love this one particular kind and we found it at a Wu Mart downtown Beijing.  Yes, I said Wu Mart.  That was the name of the place.  It looked like Wal Mart but it wasn't.