Year of the Tiger

Once January rolls around the city begins to gear up for Lunar new years. This means the santa faces come down and large images of sparkly gold animals go up. This year was the year of the Tiger, my mom's year. (I won't tell you how old she is) So this post is for her and everyone born in the year of the tiger! Nanjing Rd.
These are the finished fireworks boxes from our apartment complex. The fireworks are inside the tubes, and shoot straight up 6 stories - 21 stories high. The bigger one are easily 1000 rmb, over $140 usd! and familes will go light them off in succession to "scare away" evil spirit or whatnot. About twnety of us had one, all pitched in and it was great.


Giant rose on Nanjing rd. No idea... And the tigers: Which one are you?

happy valentine's new lunar new year of the tiger!

Lunar new year happened to land on the very day of Valentine's day. So we headed to a Valentiger's party. People anonymously wrote love letters to be read in Russian, Country hick, and other accents- while others wrote news years resolutions in character of chocoholic, couch potatoe shopaholic. Was quite entertaining!


This is my doodle to celebrate the day.

Here we are at a rooftop on the 21st watching the fireworks. It was trés smoggy.



It snowed! Big flakes- it was SOO cold.




The aftermath.

Honeymoon reflections: Rafting in Bali

One of the most beautiful fun activities in Bali. It was no white water adventure, but the scenary was amazing! Tall mountains beside us covered in greenery, rope bridges, and narrow shady water ways. Ahhh.

This was in our of our package day tours, and so T and I got grouped with a Chinese tour group, some Japanese and a Taiwainese couple. If you look at the far left side of the photo, you can kinda make out the Chinese couple with their matching outfits.

We all had to hike about 20 minutes down to the river, and our guides were inflating the boats behind us. It was a narrow steep path of rough hewn steps (some of those gals were in heels!) and half way down, I began to wonder how the boats were going to get down. Then there's this whizzing sound, and a raft comes flying through the air above our heads on a (clothing) line type thing! It lands in a manmade tiled pool, where the guide unhooks it from the line and then shoves it down this biggie slide which connects to the the loading pool, where we jump it. It was really cool.



Ropes bridges crossed over head, passed fancy resorts, and saw locals doing their thing.


Here's just a taste of the scenary! Green, green, green! We even got to ump out of the boat and just float around for a bit. We'd also pass other tour groups and have water fights and races with them, as needed. One section we near a 8 ft waterfall, where they made us all get out the boat, and let the boat go over, and then we hopped in. This was about when I felt my back really hurting. After we had to begin hiking up back to street level, my back was killing me and I was using my paddle as a walking stick to push myself with my arms up the stairs. woo! What a day!

visa

Getting a visa in America to visit China is easy. Getting married to someone with a residence permit should be easy, but suddenly became really complicated.

I got registered at the local police station, with a "pink" slip proving I have a local address, and then got an official health check to prove I don't have any awful diseases, and the next step was to apply for a residence permit basically "adding on" to T's currently residence permit & working visa.

With 春节 (chun jie, lunar new years) next week, the Entry/Exit bureau would be closed, and my visa expired the next day- so we needed to extend it for just 5 days more, in order to get the rest of my paperwork through after the holiday. We headed 45 min. to the Entry/Exit Bureau in Pudong and then were told that there weren't any pages left in my passport, and I had to go to the American consulate(45 min. backwards, plus an appointment is needed) and have more pages added before they could extend my visa. Stargely, I had about 3 blank pages completely empty that said, "Amendments" on them- which in T's passport were full of visas! With one day left until the holiday, we were slightly panicked that it wouldn't happen, and didn't want to get hit with 500 rmb($73) per day fine for going over my 30 day Visa stay.

So Timon began speaking in Chinese to the officer (who's english was really good) after 5-10 minutes of rapid questioning and commentary, he agreed to give me a 10 day extension. They took my passport, and gave us a pick-up reciept with instructions to return friday afternoon.

So when I returned friday at 1pm to pick up m passport I suddenly noticed I had to pay.... 940 rmb.($137) What they didn't tell us, was that it cost 940 rmb (we hadn't noticed on the receipt) I had about 215 rmb on me, and I hadn't eaten lunch yet :( I was in shock, and didn't have any credit cards or ATM cards since I lost my wallet in Malaysia...and the fellow who found it cancelled all my cards before returning it... thats another story.

I had my Chinese ATM card, but when I tried to get the needed 900 rmb, it refused, since I had only 740rmb in my account. I had cleared out most of my money when I went home last spring, and left maybe $100 worth of rmb just for emergencies. So I took the 700rmb from my acct, (no bill denominations under 100) plus the 215 in my pocket, I had 915 rmb. I was a measely 25 rmb short!!! Infuriating! I began to dig through my bag- maybe some escapee bills? lots of change? Maybe I could sell my umbrella to someone. Nothing. I still had 40 rmb in my acct but coudln't recieve such a small amount unless I could find a bank branch- except you normally need yoru passport for that, which I couldn't get without having 940 rmb. Then it struck me that a deposit was paid for my metro card- I remember this from my first trip here and we met up with Daniel and he explained to us... and I remember asking, "Deposit? Doe sthat mean you get your money back, right?" So I trotted off to the Metro to sell my card, in between frantic phone calls with Timon who was looking online for bank branches or think of some way to get me 25 rmb- and so I got there and handed the official my cell phone, which she looked at rather confused, and I told her to talk into it, that my husband was on it, and she just stared at me, rather speechless.

Eventually they understood T's question and told me I had to go to another station to sell my card. I'm sweating in my 2 sweaters and wool coat and running to the train since I have an appt at the American consulate at 3pm, their LAST appointment of the week before the holiday. PHEW. I sold my metro card and all the money on it for cash, and ran back to the Exit/Entry Bureau to apy for my passport, then ran to the American consulate. They didn't allow any electronics inside, so I gave up my ipod touch and twiddled my thumbs for 30 minutes while they did their thing. I had so many things to play, read, and do on my ipod touch... and now I had to sit here and do what? Read posters about registering to vote? Doing taxes? Registering babies? Phew. I was soaked with sweat and began wondering if I'd freeze in my sweat because the wool coat was letting me ventilate, and it was windy and frigid outside.

I collected my passport with its extra pages and visa; then went home, exhausted. What a day.

a fresh february weekend

This weekend we headed to IKEA to get some homey- goods: Rug for the living room, and these awesome bed trays for 39 rmb! ($5.70 usd) They are much bigger than laptop stands, fold up, and have cup and pen holders. This is great since it'll have space for my tablet/mouse/snack on the side.


And no, I did not eat all those meatballs by myself. Timon helped. He was surprised there were no vegetables on my plate.... The Ikea in Shanghai has an upper floor restaurant that stretches the entire length of the building, so there's a narrow seating area like a mile from the cafeteria in a nook where most of the custormers are just hanging out, playing board games, reading, or gazing out the panoramic window.



One day outside our apartment complex we saw a pink car. Correction- a pink Cadillac. "Who would EVER want their Cadillac to be pink??" Timon said. We agreed it was probably a Mary Kay or Avon car or really rich Chinese person. (The only other pink car we've seen here was a bubblegum pink mini van, for English first)

So on our way to Ikea, (Yi ja = Righteous Home) we saw a whole lot of pink cars. They were having some Mary Kay event at the indoor stadium.

Then it rained a lot, and there was 50 people in line for cab sat Ikea, so I said, "Lets muscle it on the qing wei" (Above ground metro- could you call it a superway? So we picked up either end of our rolled up rug and bags of pans, cassarole dishes, and bed trays, and trotted off into the sunset. Getting it up the stairs was a bit tricky, it was really wet out, and the rug (2 x 1.5 meters) was in a plastic bag and slippery. And it was cold. My hand was frozen! We made it home wet and full of excitement!!

How sweet of you; thanks for the duck stomach!

Went on a business trip last week, which included a road trip. Stopping off at a gas station, my colleague ran to grab food while others used the restroom and I help down the fort. When we all reconvened, dinner had been purchased, the 棕子 (zong4 zi) [rice and stuff wrapped in leaves and boiled] and a plastic bag with a dark squishy thing- the duck stomach. They said it was really delicious, too bad the 棕子 filled me up too much to eat any more. So I just put it in my pocket for "later". I didn't take a photo, because I didn't think anyone would want to see it.



Here's a pic of the 棕子 I pulled off the internet instead.

Camera: image taker, memory keeper

Cameras can do amazing things. (The above pic, we rented a waterproof camera)
People can also do amazing things. (Like be clumsy and break things)



Sigh. My trusty Canon SD450: You have saved me so many times, and record so many important sights and sounds. From taking video at 3am in Korea, to being my breadcrumbs in China, you have helped me get through design school, capture great memories, and help me get home.

I'd take photos of street signs, for streets I liked to shop, pictures of addresses & vegetables in Chinese from my laptop to show people to ask questions, countless maps to refer to later.

My screen got cracked between the wedding and the honeymoon, so we coudln't use the trusty x-shot my mom gave me, sadly. It still takes photos, but, can't use the back screen. Its harder to "sneak" photos now, and I have to really have to gauge myself when it will run out of batteries.

Will be shopping around for a new camera soon. Any recommendations for a convenient point-and-shoot?

Jimbaran Bay: Sunset dinner

Our last dinner in Bali was spent at Jimbaran Bay, watching the sunset.


We swam in the warm waters, and T lost sunglasses,


listened to a group of Korean travelers sing "How great thou art,"


enjoyed BBQ'd red snapper and shrimp


It was beautiful.

Pics from Bali!

Finally, what you have all been waiting for.... honeymoon photos!

We flew into Bali from Kuala Lumpur... from Shanghai, from SFO...

Bali, an island in Indonesia, is home to a large Hindu population- a minority in indonesia. They rely heavily on the tourism industry, about 80% of the Bali workforce is in Tourism. Beautiful beaches, Floridan climate, and cheaper doodads than China (surprisingly). Now, onto the photos:

Below, at the coffee plantation where we tried Bali coffee, ginger tea, lu wak coffee (from animal droppings)
Delicious, but a bit expensive.


And here is Mt. Batur, an active volcano, with a lake at its base, Lake Batur, with hot springs we got to swim in. What was really amazing was how people managed to farm the land around the volcano- basically volcanic rock, as far as the eye could see. Piles of huge charcoal like rocks, with patches of grass sprouting up and bright red tomatoes popping.


We also hit the zoo for a very awesome tree-walk [ropes course] $10 for about an hour in the trees doing a very challenging obstacle course plus 4 or 5 zip lines zig zagging across the river. This was not the type of river you'd want to fall in! On the first tremendously long zip line, Timon lost his shoes! He hit the net at the other end so hard, his shoes just went flying off- only a few feet from the river we'd just crossed. Close one!

Then it began to get dark. It was late afternoon now and we still hadn't gotten to see the zoo part of the zoo. It was sprinkling and misty and the animals were hiding, and then suddenly, "BOOM!" A Thunderclap! "We'd better run for it-" before Timon could finish his sentence, buckets upon buckets began to pour on us poor ill prepared tourists. The zoo was a singular direction path, so it was forwards or backwards. We ran forwards down a path through the Bird Section (they had roofs, so it seemed safer) and we got startled by a roaming turkey (I'm not sure who was more scared- him or us) and hit a chained off area. We ran backwards for about 5 minutes to the zoo cafe, totally soaking wet! Although lousy, they did bring a few critters out for us to hold and pet, like the below gator ("Are you going to put something over his mouth?" Haha! No, he won't bite people...) We managed to get off without a scratch. : )



Black sand beach.


Our roof of our villa.


View from our villa at Bali Masari, about 5 minutes from Sukawati Art market. It was a lovely place with a large swimming pool, very quiet, and our own private pool and outdoor shower. We were of the few foreigners in the rural area.

Little gifts: Customized

Since we got married just a few days after Christmas, I didn't have a lot to invest into Timon's Christmas present. No handmade scrapbook or Kindle eReader. I gave him a rubber stamp book plate.



T has quite a collection of books, right now two cases full, not including the nightstand pile and all the ones he's lent out. Books about business, China, theology, self-help, and more. We'll be chatting with some friends, and someone will say, "I really pondering [insert deep thought here]," and T will jump up with: "Ooh! I have a book you might like!" And he'll grab the book and scribble his name and phone number in it and hand it to them. He's had this pattern for a quite a while, so I thought it'd be handy to just have a stamp, instead of handwriting in the cover of every book.

When I asked him if he preferred stamp or sticker for his design, he said, "Oh! Am I supposed to have a bookplate made for your too? Wait- what is a book plate?" I'm guessing he thought it was a pre-marrying tradition, or Christmas tradition, or something, but I thought the comment was cute. I did the artwork in illustrator, and then emailed to a company in Malaysia that made it, along with our wedding stamp, and a stamp for my mom.



It was about $5 for the stamp unmounted, from eBay I think they make great gifts. I know when I was little, I loved putting my name on everything!!




I thought I'd also include a snap of some of the hand delivered invites to our friends in China. The envelope looked really empty without a colorful postage stamp, so I doodled one up and added this photoshopped postmark that I found online. That's my designy post of the month.