"Can we deep fry that?"

So! We're back from Chengdu. I know I haven't really written anything about the Chinese New Year festivities but I will attempt to do so shortly. While I was there I dropped my camera. Sad, yes, but I am getting it repaired right now and it's only going to cost maybe 50 bucks. So pictures will have to be attached later.

But first, let me say this: when the ambassador's family left Beijing some of Will's roommates got to take some stuff the house that they were leaving. These acquisitions included a deep fryer. Will and I were going to make chicken and bake some sweet potatoes and broccoli. These plans were thwarted when we walked in and the other roommates were preparing for fried chicken. We commenced frying everything that we could find. Here is a list of what we fried:

• chicken wings/legs
• chicken strips
• beer battered onion rings
• sweet potato chips
• french fries
• dumplings
• oreo wafer bars!
  
• snickers
• Toblerone
• bananas

I think that is it. It was all so good but wow.

One thing you should know about Chinese New Year is that it lasts from January 25th to February 15. There are several days of celebration that happen. I'm not really sure what they all are or if there are more than I know about... but I haven't read any wikipedia on it yet. I do know these things:

• Everyone gets off from work for at least a few days. People go home. This is a time to be with family and eat and bring in the new year. This year we are leaving the year of the rat and entering the year of the ox. I am an ox, so this is supposed to be a good year for me! I'm supposed to always have something red on this year.
  
• The first big night of CNY is Jan 25th. This is what I was in Chengdu for.
• The night of the 30th is the dumpling night. more on this later.
• The last big night is the 15th, I'm not sure what we do on the 15th but I guess I will find out and have a whole separate blog entry.
  
• And potentially the most important thing: Fireworks are legal during this time period. I think the fireworks are supposed to scare off the bad demons and bring prosperity. This is probably in wikipedia too. In any case, it's good luck to set off fireworks, you are supposed to do it.
  

So. Chengdu. Will and I went down to Chengdu, which is in Sichuan province (famous for its food and pandas) about 40 miles away from where the earthquake happened. We went with two of Will's good friends, Katie and Adam, to visit a friend of Katie's from college at Stanford (Megan). She lives and works there with her boyfriend Eoin (pronounced like Owen) who is Irish and a Dutch guy named Sam. Our festivities also included one of their old roommates, Jord, also Dutch. They lived on the 6th (top) floor of their apartment building and had private access to their own rooftop garden. The rooftop was split level and it was perfect for the CNY party that they had on the 25th. Chengdu is a tiny little baby city compared to Beijing. I'm not sure what the actual populations are (the census is actually this year). But anyways, Chengdu is smaller than Beijing. It's also a little bit warmer. But where Beijing is dry dry DRY, Chengdu is so damp. There's mist and fog everywhere and it makes it feel colder.

Jan 25th:
We were pretty lazy during the day. We drank some beers, ate cheese and crackers, made brownies, played cards, ate oranges, played apples to apples, and snacked. This, apparantly (eating and gambling and drinking), is how CNY is supposed to go down. We also went shopping for fireworks. Fireworks were going off all day long (yes, even during the daylight). As it got darker and while we were decorating the roof for the party we could watch fireworks going off sporadically all around the city. The whole night people who had been around years beffore us were telling me that it was "nothing compared to what midnight will be like" but I had a hard time understanding because it seemed like a lot of fireworks were going off.

Finally around 7 we went to a restaurant called Blue Chair. Actually, it has a chinese name but Megan said they never really knew what it was. But it has really prominent blue chairs. So it's just known as Blue Chair to them, and now to us. The food in Sichuan is really spicey but it's soooooo good! I can't remember everything we had, nor did I ever really know all of the names or what they were. But I did have some spicey bullfrog. Honestly I did not think I would enjoy frog. But, I am so glad that I tried it because it's actually really tender and delicious. In the middle of dinner we all got up because there were some awesome fireworks going off (IN THE STREET!!) right outside of the restaurant. It was great! These fireworks that I'm talking about are NOT SMALL. So that was fun and we returned to finish our food and get back to the house to greet the party guests.

When we got back to the apartment we all got dressed in costumes. Eoin wore a red apron with an ox on it and a panda hat. Megan had a bathrobe and a blue curly wig. Will wore a thai chi outfit with a huge afro wig. I wore a fish hat (think finding nemo) and a lifepreserver. katie had some devil horns... there were some others and I'm sure there were pictures but I can't remember what they were. When the pictures come out I will of course post them. So now the party is starting... eventually there are about 30 people there. At 11:30 we all headed up to the roof to start blowing stuff up. We had music going which made it extra festive until we couldn't hear anymore because there were fireworks everywhere. And when I say everywhere I mean EVERYWHERE. I don't even know how I would begin to describe the intensity of this hour. But, luckily, Adam posted a youtube video that includes some pictures and some video of the night. It's amazing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiGALS-u2Fg if for some reason you can't see this link just search for RedChina66 on youtube and the video is called CNY2009.

Ok, that's all I can write for today, I'm tired and I need to drink some water or some tea after all of that fried food. More on the rest of the Chengdu trip, including the temple fair and the giant buddha coming soon!!

worst blogger ever...

So... yeah, I have realized that I'm sort of terrible at blogging. I never thought I would describe myself as "a blogger" but what're you gonna do. I'm going to try to be better. I also have realized that I'm not very good at taking pictures (well once I take them they're alright but the actual act of taking them is something I don't do very often). So here's an update of some things that have happened in the last week-ish:

On Jan 15th I went to a party at the American Embassy Residence! Crazy? Yes. The Ambassador to China has a son that's our age and Will is friends with him. Will, me, all of his roommates went to this party at the residence. The ambassador is changing with the administration change so they had one last party. It was fun, I met lots of people! Other than that I've been busy bouncing around and getting things like bed sheets, towels, food so that I can stay at my apartment. Things take longer than you think to get done and it's so cold that it's good to minimize the time outside.

Other than staying warm and running around things have been kept to a minimum a little bit. Partly because will has been sick and it's like 1 degree outside so I've been happy to hole up inside a bit. Resting up for the Chinese New Year! It's going to be fun. There's only one week (this week) where fireworks are legal (in Beijing at least) and this is the week. So people have been shooting them off and it's pretty fun.

For the New Year I am headed to Chengdu, a town in Sichuan. I had only heard of it before because it was where all of the news broadcasts came from when the Earthquake happened. Will hasn't been there either. We are going with a couple of his friends who know people down there. Supposedly it's really fun! I will get to see some Pandas and perhaps even hug one. At least there's rumors that I could hug a panda. I am trying not to get my hopes up too much. I've held a koala before so hugging a panda seems like next on the list, right? I mean, I don't want to make little kitty too jealous or anything but pandas are so damn cute. Except when they bite your face off.

I miss home... I miss my sis, and I miss driade and margarets and sage and bagels and barbeque and so much other food. but here I can get kungpao chicken that's so spicey it will melt your face off if you're not careful... and it's only 2 bucks. The dumplings that I promised I would eat every day have proven to be much more elusive than the kungpao chicken. Sad, but true. but when I get them they are soooooo tastyyyyyy...

ICE BIKES-PS

PS- that is indeed a sheep pulling a sled on the ice. Little blurry because I was in motion when that was taken, but I felt it should be documented.

Question: Why call it "a series of near disasters?"
Answer: Because it seems to me that everything here in china is kind of like a near disaster. People are running around all over the place, cars are honking, construction is going down, taxis are cutting across traffic to pick you up... but somehow things work out. I have not yet seen a single accident.

Yesterday, Will and I went to a part of Beijing, not far from Will’s place—maybe 25 min walk? We tried to take a taxi but the traffic sucked—called Hou Hai. It’s kind of like a little lake district. Will was talking about renting a paddleboat but when we got there we realized that (of COURSE!) the lakes were frozen over. So instead of a boat we rented ICE BIKES. That was fun, we biked around for a little bit. Then we walked around the hutongs (old architecture instead of the new big crazy buildings) and went into a tea shop and played pool, ate tea and popcorn and stayed warm for a while. Then we took the subway to Tiananmen square at night. It was all lit up… we thought we would be able to go inside the gates but we couldn’t ☹ Sorry daddy, no good pictures of that yet since we couldn’t get very close. It was SOOOO Cold that night so we only walked around the government buildings for a little bit before getting dinner at this place called QuanJude which is the most famous place to get Beijing (or Peking) duck. Pretty much the only things on the menu are duck related. You can get pretty much any and all parts of the duck. But we got the whole duck, which they bring to your table and slice up for you. So rich. We also had some really tasty mushrooms and bamboo shoots, as well as some sort of eggplant. A bit pricey, but the best of the best… supposedly. It was really really good, but not something I would eat every day. I think our meal cost 300 Kuai, which is about 45 bucks. Compare that to the noodles that we had a couple of days ago: 8 Kuai, $1.15.

We have been outside doing various errands and sightseeing, but it’s SO cold that a lot of the sights I think will be a lot more enjoyable in a couple of months. We also go out to meet some of will’s friends: we have had dinner at his best friends’ house, they cooked soup for us. Damjan and his fiancé Annalies (Damjan went to ECHHS with me) made us brunch this morning. I think tomorrow I am going to talk to the Chinese girl I met about moving in with her. I like staying with will but I don’t like being dependent on him to come and go. I also think that if I wasn’t with him all the time I would go exploring a little bit more. I have to walk to do that though since I’m not quite sure I could handle a taxi yet. This girl seems like a good roommate… she used to work at the restaurant that Will was running (but before he worked there). Will and I went to have dinner with her to meet her and stuff and he said that as far as a Chinese roommate goes, she would be a good one because she seemed pretty open to western culture—a lot of her friends were foreign, she wanted to practice English with me, could help me with my Chinese, wants to go to school in DC.

Tomorrow I am going to go to a school, www.frontiers.com to take a placement test and get these Chinese classes under way so that hopefully I CAN take a taxi by myself! I did an interview at an English school the other day also… they said they would pay me 130kuai/hr (about 20 bucks) to just sit and CHAT with someone. No lesson plans, no books really, just talking. Sounded pretty good to me. They said people pretty much just want to practice speaking English, not so many people are worried about passing tests.