Post Christmas come-down

Well that was Christmas. I hope everyone made merry and had a good time. I was a little strange here..for a start I somehow picked up a stomach bug in time for Christmas day. So no Christmas fare for me on the day. It also meant that I was not a great help with Penny which meant that Michelle had a pretty average day as well.

We did however get our wish for snow granted a few days prior to Christmas. It was a little sprinkling and was all gone by that afternoon but it was enough for a nice surprise upon drawing back the curtains.


The compound in the morning before the melt.


This is taken from a balcony of one of the teaching buildings on Mai Lu campus. It is always about 5 degrees colder there and luckily Michelle had an 8am class that morning...brrrrr!


This is a lone concrete Panda that inhabits one of the gardens at Mai Lu. Why? Who can say?


Our washing machine also suffered a little. It now lives in the bathroom.


Santa chose a Toy Story motif for Penny's 2008 stocking collection - here Zurg and Rex tangle at the dinner table.

Fortunately Penny had a great day, she was an excited little monkey and played with her many presents all day. I was feeling better for Christmas dinner (roast pork and veg with lashings of gravy and crackling) but could only manage a small serve and then in bed by about 6:30 pm leaving Michelle to a lonely Christmas night. The good news is that I was better by boxing day and things got back to normal - well as normal as it gets around here.


Penny has been obsessed with big blue gym balls since encountering one at a playground. So she was quite pleased to find one waiting on Christmas morning.


There was also a Duplo shopping centre...


...and a Woody doll with vinyl cowboy hat and drawstring activated voice - "There's a snake in my boot!"


Here is an unrelated non-Christmas picture of some passengers pushing a bus...irony? Wait a minute didn't we pay to push this bus?

We have had problems with our internet connection (again) which seems to have been fixed for the moment. The communication (or lack of) is still a frustrating part of most days. An IT guy came and played with our laptop for about 3 hours. Eventually he unscrewed the casing from the wall and fiddled with the actual network jack before telling me that the problem was due to the network being occasionally unstable... This seemed a little strange since we have had no problems at all and then all of a sudden we were being disconnected from the network constantly after about 20 minutes on line. When we took the laptop next door it was fine...I guess that the network problem was really only a problem to the little part of the network that we use! Anyway hopefully the problem is fixed now.


Once a fortnight Michelle and I get Anna the babysitter to visit and watch TV while Penny is a sleep so that Michelle and I get to go out. We have managed it 3 times now and hotpot has been the destination each time...mmmm spicy!


Quick game of pool anyone...anyone?

We have decided not to travel over the winter break. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly because all forms of transport are crazy ape shit bonkers over the period leading up to Chinese New Year. Secondly because it is expensive at this time of year and thirdly because we are going to buy a lounge chair so that we can have somewhere comfortable to sit for the next 6 months to a year. Another good reason is that the University will be blissfully empty of students...ahhh feel the serenity.


Last night we were invited by Maggie and Ryan to learn how to make jiao zi and bao zi. Maggie is an expert and lead the way. We did eventually try but with limited success (at best). They were delicious and I will be trying to master the recipe myself at some point (probably several points actually).


Even Penny had a crack!


This is roughly 11 kilograms of oranges...all gifts and most probably going to waste if we cannot find a juicer soon. Vitamin C abounds.

Almost Christmas

The temperature is tipped to hit -2 today and it seems to be dropping just as quickly as the wind is rising. More talk about the weather. Its seems that we have become obsessed with weather since arriving in China. Every post that we have made on this blog have something to do with the weather...too hot or too cold. Oh well. Christmas is approaching and we have both finished all of our exams and formal classes so now it is all pretty much smooth sailing...hopefully.


Due to popular demand here are a couple of photos of our Goose down jackets. Michelle models the knee length with belted waist.


While Darren shows us the popular ski-style look with reflective highlights on cuff and across the back...just the thing for that unplanned avalanche.

The foreign office had their Christmas party for the foreign teachers and students on Friday night the 19th. It was a pretty strange affair (par for the course I'm afraid) which consisted of Chinese students singing (hip hop and pop in a rather average manner), Nigerian students singing (more of the same except worse), Chinese teachers singing (not too bad), Canadian teacher singing (god-awful), Philipino teacher singing (really good voice terrible choice of songs), and then some traditional Chinese instruments (really good). This was interspersed with speeches, and spontaneous explosions of Nigerian hip hop dancing... Penny of course loved it and was on super excited hyperdrive. Michelle and I were somewhat less excited....


Some of the Nigerian students keepin' it real.


Penny, Darren and Jonathon (the Filipino teacher) at the banquet table for the party.


A quick pan around the table at the X-mas do.

We have been accruing presents for the little one and thankfully the last one arrived this morning. There is something of a shortage of good toys in China..ironic seeing that China manufactures something like 85% of the toys sold in the world. All we can find is guns, ultraman, and the cheap dangerous types of tat that you
get at Crazy Clark's back in Oz. So once again TaoBao comes to the rescue...and toys all round...good toys that is. Now we just need to have a couple of parcels from home arrive before Christmas and all is good. We have our pork roast ready and the fairy lights are blinking in the windows now all we need is some snow.



Merry Christmas everyone!! We hope that you all have a happy day and that Santa brings you all you desire.

Last couple of weeks of classes

Well we are finally approaching the last few classes. Michelle and I have both finished teaching for the year and now only the delights of testing remain. We have some classes in the week of Christmas but are just showing a movie as all of the exams will have been completed. We had a relatively warm spell for the last week although today seems to be back to the normal low temps.


Penny interacting with the locals. This is in one of the "brown spaces" on the campus.


Skidoosh!!!


Penny and Shellby.


Yes Penny still enjoys "cafe culture" here in China. Baby Vienna and donut with whipped cream anyone?

The air pollution seems to have increased in the couple of days and the visibility has dropped considerably. Its kinda like the days when there are bush fires on Mt Cootha (in Brisbane for those non-brisvegans) except the smell is more "chemical-ly." When we brought our clothes in off of the deck yesterday they smelt like they had been airing in the smoking room of a chemical waste processing plant. Nice!


This photo was taken at around 5:15 pm yesterday and you can see the thick crappy smog in the air. Needless to say it was a short sojourn outside.

The pollution here has become something of an issue. The last time we were here in Nanchang it was OK. The air pollution wasn't too bad at all. However there seems to be more cars, factories and dust than last time. Michelle read something about the air pollution targets here in China. Each province and city has to reduce their emissions to reach new targets. Some provincial governments are managing it and some are trying but not quite getting over the line. However Jiangxi seems to be going the other way. In fact the polluters are moving here as the provincial government wants their money (in bribes most likely) more than they want clean air and a healthy populace. In fact between the dodgy people and extreme weather we came to the realisation that Nanchang is actually the "Ipswich" of China...

As such we are actively looking for jobs elsewhere after our contract here is up next June. We are thinking of somewhere in Shandong province. It basically consists of a large peninsula just West of Korea and is known for its clean air and nice scenery. Maggie, one of the teachers here is from Shandong and her and her husband Ryan lived in a town on the coast called Yantai which sounds nice. There are a couple of International schools there so maybe it is a goer. We shall see.


These little suckers are called Nan Feng Mi Ju and are delicious. Basically they are a minature mandarin. The people here go crazy ape-shit bonkers over them and rush the fruit stalls selling them like a boxing day sale at David Jones. They are good, really sweet and usually seedless. Penny really digs them too which is great. Although after being given over 5 kilos as gifts from various sources we are all well and truly sick of them...


We all have our winter coats now which is good timing with the below zero months close to hand. We all have goose down jackets which of course are stylish and really warm. Penny is modelling the pink pointy hooded pixie look whilst dancing around the table playing her gourd pipe (there is a shortage of standing stones and pan pipes here so the pixies have to work with the materials on hand).


I had a look out of the kitchen window into the awful weather this morning and saw some street cleaners with their stick brooms scraping the dust into the teeth of the horrible arctic wind...of course the dust just blew right back into their faces and eventually landed back where it was. Oh well at least they have jobs I guess. Sorry about the quality but this one was from my phone...I promise I will do better next time.


Here is a high note to end on...the lovely Miss Penelope.

Winter has arrived

Well its officially cold now. The temperature overnight is set for minus figures and the wind has picked up again. All this conspires to make it C..C..c.c.cold. We have just ordered some goose down jackets and are eagerly awaiting their arrival. I took the above shot with my phone while waiting for the bus to go to one of my night classes. It doesn't quite convey just how cold I felt while taking it but you get the idea...


Speaking of geese these live on the lake on the North campus...probably flown South by now.


Penny likes watching and listening to the geese. They are always making a din and flapping about. On our last trip to the lake we checked out an adult "playground" (they dont really seem to make them for children in Nanchang??) there were kids all over it and it was as rusty broken down and dangerous as all of the other playgrounds that we have seen so far. So no joy for the Pen-ster who would love a real playground.


A kid plays on the sit-up bench while some older girls check out Penny and Michelle near the broken rusty chains of the weird pull down hatstand looking thing...

We are approaching the Winter break and classes are winding up which is good. However it also means that exams are around the corner and the compilation of results and attendance, participation etc are due as well. So there is some work to do before we take a break.


This is a pile of broken chairs. They are cheaply made and constantly breaking. In true Chinese fashion the makers probably tried to save some money and left out some screws or something...anyway there are students flying everywhere each class and the pile grows and grows. This pile is on the Mai Lu campus which is about ten minutes from home by bus. I'm not sure what the plan is for the chairs. They have been piled there for about a month now.



This is the back entrance to Mai Lu campus. This is where we get the bread vans back home at night and where the public bus leaves from during the day. There are no street lights so at night it is dark, dusty and at the moment it's freezing as well. A lovely mix.

We just got another parcel from home (Thanks Granma Alice!) with some X-mas decorations, presents and books for Penny. Its always exciting to get mail and since arriving in China we get more than we ever have. We get them from TaoBao (the Chinese version of eBay) and from an online kids book store and of course from the lovely, kind people back in Oz. We luvs youse all.