We wanted to give a shout-out to the two best ladies in our lives…our moms!

Although we’re really enjoying living in China, it’s not without certain difficulties. Missing our family and friends is at the top of that list… specifically, our mothers. Kristen and I have been blessed to have two super supportive, loving, amazing moms. Both have been big influences on just about every aspect of our lives.

So know this Ma (Danny’s mom) and Mom (Kristen’s mom)… we love y’all very much and miss you a ton!!!

Besides, how many moms have the wingspan of a turkey vulture? 🙂

If you remember back to Kristen’s Valentine’s Day post, I bought her a bike for $13. It needed a lot of TLC (2 new tires, new tubes, new seat, and an overall inspection) but less than two months and an additional $30 later, she can finally ride it!

I feel like China has changed me into a real “handyman.”

After spending a couple of hours wandering from bike shop to bike shop searching for the correct size tires and tubes…I finally made it home and began the 5 hour work of repairing the bike!

I still need to work out a few kinks, but at least it’s rideable!

Thank you to all who believed in me. To the rest of you… “Don’t ever underestimate the heart of Champion!” –Rudy Tomjanovich (1995)

We recently traveled to another province (where the climate is often referred to as “forever Spring”) to visit some friends. On our way to our destination, we had an 8 hour layover in the Chengdu airport. But don’t worry…we had these goodies to snack on!

By no means are we criticizing our city (because we love where we live), but upon our arrival…this is what greeted us.

We did the touristy things, like strolling through the historic downtown:

Beat taffy? Kristen thinks it’s taffy…I’m not so sure. Anyways, we had a pretty large crowd cheering us on!

One of the coolest parts of the trip was driving out to another town for a night. Some of the views from the drive…

We were also able to visit a village. The village was at 12,000ft elevation and in the middle of nowhere!

Then to top it all off, we were invited into one of the homes in the village (seen above) for an authentic meal of yak butter tea, chicken (which was killed, plucked, and cooked in front of us), pickled vegetables, and barley bread.

Overall, it was an incredible trip! We hope to return soon!!!

This blog is dedicated to People’s Park, the Central Park of the East. It’s located downtown and Kristen and I have visited a few times with friends. It’s a fun way to get away from the concrete jungle and visit an area that has some natural beauty.

The park is hard to describe. It has a running/walking trail that takes you around the lake and is loaded with a mix of carnival games…

and carnival foods…

and random weird carnival type things…

green space to practice your sweet yo-yo skills…

Plus if walking is not your thing, you can take a monorail around the lake. Caution…it’s more like a roller-coaster!

A couple of a pictures showing what the lake looks like in the winter. You never get to see this in Texas!

In conclusion, People’s Park is yet another thing in China we both love, and are confused by.

I (Kristen) have been talking about getting a bicycle since we got here. It has been awesome to walk or take public transportation everywhere, but it would be nice to be able to hop on a bike every now and then to run errands. Knowing this, Danny surprised me with a bike for Valentine’s Day 🙂 Cute right?

So, exactly 1 month has passed since Valentine’s Day… why wouldn’t I have posted about my new bike sooner?

Because I haven’t once been able to ride it. I’m not too picky and I don’t mind that it is a used bike (I actually prefer it …less chance of getting stolen), but he bought me a bike that is broken.  As you can see from the picture, the bike needs some serious TLC.  Both tires are blown out and need to be replaced, the chain is rusted, and the seat is falling apart. He paid $80 kuai  (about $13 USD) and swears that now that we live in China, he is a handy-man and can fix it up to look brand new. The bike hasn’t moved an inch, and we still don’t even know where to get the right parts…

He has told me that a future blog post will be dedicated to me riding the “fixed” bike!

Our second semester of school starts today… We’re feeling highly motivated to work hard, but we know it comes down to hours and hours of tedious study, perseverance, and endurance. Someone told us learning another language was like filling a bath tub with a spoon. We couldn’t agree more.

This blog is dedicated to our neighbor who lives by example — persevering in every step!

We are currently celebrating Chinese New year — welcome to the year of the sheep/ram/goat. It started last Thursday and festivities will go on for 15 days… ending in the lantern festival. To sum up the entire festival: lots, and lots, and lots of fireworks. Loud ones. Everyday. And every night. Non-stop.

To give you an idea, here’s the NYE midnight firework show from our apartment… the first video is the view to downtown, the second video is the view inside our apartment complex.

Not all of the fireworks are pretty. Traditionally, fireworks are set off in order to scare away a monster/ghost, so most of them are just loud (like blackcats). They’re set off in front of doorways, in public areas, and even in stairwells. Here’s some of the daily aftermath:

The other festivities include lots of eating at friends’/family’s houses, and gift giving… including mandarin oranges, milk, eggs, yogurt, and of course hong bao’s (red envelope with money in it). We were invited to a local friend’s house to eat with his parents and participate in the gift exchange… our first hong bao! The gifts we brought are on the floor behind us 🙂

We’ve enjoyed experiencing China’s biggest holiday. We still have 8 days to enjoy it… but we won’t be sad to see the nightly 3am firework display cease.

 

We have 6 weeks off of school for Chinese New Year. The actual date is February 19th. So, we took advantage of the long break by visiting Hong Kong and Thailand — making sure to be back for the actual festivities that will happen this Thursday!

Hong Kong was our first destination…the city is known for it’s small/cramped living spaces, international cuisine, shopping, and beautiful scenery! We can confirm the first 3, but the scenery was clouded by some pretty heavy pollution. The pollution (a.k.a. “fog”) was terrible.

Best part of HK was visiting Tai O. It’s a fishing village where all the houses are built on the water. Venice of the east!

 

After experiencing Hong Kong, we headed to Thailand! Warm sun, the ocean, and delicious Thai food were good for the soul. We’ll let the pictures do the talking!!!

Hopefully this isn’t the same monkey that groomed me:

Overall, it was a great trip but we’re glad to be back. Time to get back to work!

We had heard from locals and other foreigners that there was a mountain range about an hour outside of our city with some pretty nice hiking. However, the first 5 months we have been here we have been too busy to visit. Luckily, on a recent Saturday, we set aside time to find this area and “conquer our Everest”. Not sure what we were thinking, the altitude and terrain here is considerably different than hiking the greenbelt in Austin. In the end, it was possibly one of the hardest hikes we have ever been on…but we had a blast. The scenery was amazing and aside from the 2 guys we met at the Buddhist temple, we didn’t see a single soul!

Enjoy 🙂

Translation: “I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t understand”.  We have used this phrase a lot in our first 5 months. Today was our last day of class, the end of our first semester, so we wanted to show you what we have learned thus far 🙂

Danny has also been working hard at growing his hair long enough to pull off the “Last Samurai” look. Maybe he can replace Tom Cruise in the sequel.

Disclaimer: We did not plan at all for this dialogue – it’s as candid as we could get.