apartment painting update

As you saw in a previous post, we were having our apartment painted. The bare chested, smoking painters are long gone and the apartment is nicely cleaned up. Here's a taste of the color palate -

This is an accent wall (and pillows) in the living room:


And this is our very, very green room. If anyone knows the psychology of green, please let us know...

The bedroom is light brown. Neutral. Not worth a picture.

We also added a little more accent to the living room this past weekend, because there was leftover paint. However, we opened the buckets and found that the painters had watered the pain down. (Why - I've still got NO clue. Seriously. Watered it down?) But the walls were taped off already and we had a half bucket of the stuff, so we figured, "why not?"

10 coats later (at least) it was done. Looks pretty darn good!

More pictures to come once we get our new artwork hung. Sounds simple enough, but we've got concrete walls so it is not as east as putting a nail in the wall...

-alan

Back from trip #2!

We just returned earlier today from our school staff retreat near Dujiangyan. We stayed at a nice resort away from the city - a big complex that included all types of fun activities like rock climbing, bowling, tennis, boating, etc. I liked the location!

We stayed in a faux-European section of the resort, which was complete with its own columns and statues.




[this was actually one of the more tasteful and appropriate statues in the place - think about ancient Greeks and let your imagination run wild]

We played around the hotel for the majority of the time, with the highlight being a fantastic game of ultimate frisbee. I'm a little sore today, I'm not afraid to admit!

We also had some serious time to talk about our school and its involvement with Earthquake relief. I helped play some music during this time. Perhaps I'll find some pictures, because I know they were taken. In all, it was a good balance. Exercise, sleep, food, meetings, and of course....

GAMES!


Unfortunately, neither Allmen triumphed in this game of Catan. Rachel sabotage my one good shot at victory a few rounds before the game ended....

Now we've got the rest of the week off for Chinese National Day. Tomorrow - Ikea. Time to finish decorating this place. The painting is done, and pictures will be posted on that soon as well.

-alan

Hotpot newbies

Sichuan province is known for its spicy food. If you've ever seen "Szechuan" food in the states, that comes from this region of China. And of all types of food, hotpot is the king of spicy around these parts.

We had avoided hotpot successfully until now - not because we didn't want to try it, but because it was just too dang hot outside. But now, the weather has cooled and a rainy fall day seemed perfect to go with some friends to try it out.

Here's how it works: Your table has a large metal pot in the middle, with its own gas-powered burner underneath. The pot is filled with chili-enfused oil (and a type of non-spicy soup, which is considered optional) that is heated up to boiling.


You drop raw meat and veggies into the pot and let it stew in the bubbling cauldron of death. After it sits for awhile, you snatch it out with your chopsticks and dip it in sesame oil (more oil?!?). From there, let it cool and enjoy!



We dropped beef, lamp, squid, lotus root, potato, cucumber, tofu, and shrimp into the pot - and all were very yummy!

Here we are before:


And after:


Notice any difference in my glamorous wife?

In all, no major complaints about the experience. Though we were nervous, it was tasty and much more palatable than we expected. Granted, Rachel did have to visit the bathroom three times - but, perhaps that was all unrelated to the hotpot meal :)

Which brings up the lingering question - does hotpot guarantee diarrhea for all foreigners? That's what we've heard, but the food and oil has not been swimming in our stomachs long enough for us to really know yet. We are loaded up on Immodium, so I hope that helps!

-alan

Done retreatin'

Floraland was a success! Huzzah!

The big concern this week was weather. As you would expect with any amusement park, rides are weather-dependent. And the past couple weeks have brought a remarkable increase in inclement weather. On two nights this week, we awoke to powerful thunderstorms and heavy rain. As of right now, it has rained on 5 of the last 6 days. This has had an effect on our apartment (as well as my general mood - I hate the rain!) Take a look at the water damage to our wall, and new paint job...


So back to the retreat. As Thursday approached, we were all praying that the rain would cease. Thursday morning was still soggy, but by the time we got to the park it had slowed and we were relatively dry. Here's Rachel outside the main gate to the park:


In the morning, we broke into groups - with each teacher taking some students around the park on a photo scavenger hunt. Here's some of my students -

Thankfully, I managed to avoid most of the pictures, expect this one by the carousel....(it is supposed to be a shot of team members mimicking a carousel ride)


But I fared much better than Rachel. She went on one ride (pictured below) that she shouldn't have. It spun around in a circle, then swung back and forth in the air in a pendulum motion. Her group had gone on together - and when the ride was complete, the operator informed them that they would all be getting a second ride. Unfortunately, this was too much for Rachel's stomach, who went with another student back to the hotel to throw up and sleep for the rest of the morning. So much for teacher supervision of that activity!!


In the afternoon, kids were free to roam through the park. I spent much of the time explaining to disappointed students that we did NOT have extra tickets to replace the ones they had lost/destroyed/gotten wet. [Actually, the kids were having a lot of fun, and were very cute in inviting us to come with them on rides. I've never had students who didn't think I was completely lame! There was one crazy ride (that would never be allowed in America) that was a giant rotating trampoline. The operator played music and violently shook the trampoline in synch with the song. Result: bodies flaying widely on top of each other as all are knocked hopelessly off balance.]

So during the afternoon, I did have time to see some of the park, and visit what can only be explained as the Floraland Shrine. Notice the weird Mickey-esque Panda mascot they had...

In the evening, we sang some songs and had some serious group time, followed by some very silly games led by Rachel and another teacher. Other than some vomiting on the part of the students (related to drinking and eating contests) it was a fun time.

We awoke in the morning to more hard rain. Yuck. We walked/ran/waded across the park for breakfast, and then decided that it was best to simply return to the school. Then we got to walk/run/wade back to the hotel, clean up, and walk/run/wade with our bags back to the main gate. Not fun. Everyone was pretty well wet, but there was little complaining.


So we spent the day at school, playing dodgeball and mafia. Unfortunately, the rain meant we had to cancel an activity in which we would host students from a local migrant school for an afternoon of sports and games. Maybe we can reschedule.

In all, it was a success! Now, we can use this experience to help us think about the spring trip - which will be a longer, more serious retreat that will take us out of Chengdu. I'm excited! It was fun to spend the time outside the classroom with the kids.

In all, not stressful or too taxing...though we did sleep 10+ hours afterwards. Definitely more than usual. It was nice.

-alan

Milk?

Seems there is something going on with milk round these parts....though honestly I have learned a heckuva lot more from the foreign media than my own firsthand snooping. Yes, the milk we were drinking was one of the "tainted" brands that is now off the shelves. Ours was poured down the drain a couple days ago. I imagine milk will be hard to come by (or expensive) for a little while until this all sorts itself out.

But, we were not using too much milk anyway. It's a bit different here and I think I was losing my taste for milk anyway. Oh well.

But on the subject of dairy (even the subject of tainted dairy), I could still go for some cheese. Mmmmmmmmm cheese.

-alan

Retreats a comin'

A couple big things just around the corner!

Later this week, both of us will be going with the middle schoolers to Floraland! What is Floraland, you might ask? Well, at this point I don't actually know. But I DO know that it is a Chinese amusement park of some sort. It has rides and junk food, so what else do you really need?

I'm looking forward to it - we will be spending the night, so I know it will be fun to hang out and play with the kids.

Also, next week is an October holiday - National Day, to commemerate the founding of the PRC back in 1949. We'll have some days off of school, but the first two days will be an all-staff retreat in Dujiangyan. This city is a couple hours west, at the foothills of the mountains. It is famous for an ancient irrigation system, and now is infamous because it is in the hard-hit earthquake zone. I am helping to plan some music for our time there, so it is nice to feel a little more invested. We'll let you know how it goes!

-alan

Painting time!

We've been here for almost 2 months now, and we still have yet to much (well, anything) in terms of decorating. Everything was on hold, until we could get our place painted. We've actually HAD the paint for several weeks now, but never got around to doing anything with it.

Now in the states, we would certainly take a weekend, put some tarps down, and get the place painted using some good 'ole fashioned elbow grease.

Not here. SURPRISINGLY, we have not had too much trouble adjusting ourselves to the local customs and culture, which says - Why do it yourself, when someone else can do it for you?


So that is why we are sitting on our porch right now, taking refuge from the painters who are doing their thing inside. It is a bit of a disaster in there, with dust everywhere from sanding the walls and all our furniture turned this way and that. The funniest part is that our furniture is used as ladders - look closely at the picture and you can see footprints on our desk.


We'll let you know how it turns out! It's all very exciting!

-alan