FALL is finally here.

"Cool breezes, and a slight chill in the air. this is what my hometown is like everyday," I tell my co-workers. We had a bit of rain today, but the weather change has been refreshing!

I managed to catch a sore throat and had a slight fever, so been in bed all day today. Getting sick is def forces you to slow down and just think. I tried to do some reading, but ended up listening to my ipod. Timon brought over progresso soup and duck(but he thought it was chicken when he bought it) for dinner which was delicious! we watched Chariots of Fire, while my new roomie Chris cooked up something really onion/garlicky in the kitchen. He's really good at that. Our apt smells like a real home, I think, with the food smells.

Timon got me hooked on Pomelos.



I also found ANOTHER entrance to my apt complex.... which actually validates my written address. And thus discovered about 4 more penguin garbage cans.

And last weekend, He went to get a hair cut and I got a massage, and then the girl started to play with my hair, even tho I told I was going to sleep shortly.... and I ended up with a french braid around my head and a sideways ponytail. : )

And I will leave you with a cute video of kids rapping the upcoming election to T.I.'s "You can do whatever you like"- but their version is, "You can vote however you like"

cooking is deliciouso

This morning made german oven pancakes with my new used oven, that I brought home last night in the rain.

I made delicious oven pancakes(b/c I have lack of baking powder) and I am super obsessed with using the oven now. Cookies, pies, breads. . . mmm. even FROZEN pizza!

the possiblities go on.

Yesterday also made some guacamole and toffee!

T O F F E E

1 stick of butter
2 c. white sugar
1.5 chocolate bars
1 bag of almonds (200g?)

Cook on medium, constantly stirring until its begins to brown, to a coffee type shade.
crushed almonds and chocolate on a foil lined pan and on top of toffee. For some reason the butter began to separate a lil bit when I removed it from the stove, so I tossed in some finely chopped almonds to keep all the pieces from sticking.


G U A C A M O L E
2 avocados (that we got imported from efruit delivered to the door)
1 medium tomato
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 red onion
1 tsp salt
lil bit o pepper
red chili powder if your roomate has some

Add the tomatoes last.

Forest park fun!!!

me and timon headed to gongqing forest park.

what we expected was little trees and some kiddie rides.

What we found was little trees and awesome adult sized rides!

All the many different trees are all about 30 ft tall, and I imagine it will be really cool in 20+ years when they become more mature. For now, brides and grooms have over run the forest to take their romantic couple pictures amoungst the trees, traintracks, and greenery of the park. Activities included horse backriding, row boating, "angling", paint balling,and BBQ(!). All the rides had totally english translated names like "Acentric turntable" "bungy rope/flying bodies", "Boat in the torrents" etc. We were searching fro a bungy cord which was next to the ascentric turntable, but, after trotting back and forth, we realized it just might be the flying bodies chairs on ropes thing. but we rode the ascentric turntable, and being the only ones it was nice and private. Its like being strapped in a zoe-trope and spun around and at an angle, so the centripical force holds you in, even when your vertical and it looks like you should be falling down! That was actually a really peaceful , lulling ride.

Their roller coaster was pretty rad, witha few loopdy loops and twists going over the pond. I was screaming the whole time!

We rented tandem bikes and it was quickyl established that kristina should not drive the bike. At all. This was a great way to get to the farther corners of the park, where it was just around the lake, gazebos and foot paths and peacefulness- and nearly running over a frog!

It was a long metro ride out, bout an hr and a half from line 2 to the end of line 8, up north. Then we cabbed to the park, bought a kite, and look forward to coming here again! (I want to do the paintball)


Friday: hit the urban planning museum, and a french dinner in taicang lu with a friend. Finished off the day with george clooney in "Brother, where art thou?"

hoo I'm tired!

october national holiday

All of china gets about 5 days off for the national holiday, which yesterday was the 59th anniversary of the founding of the people's republic of china.

My company gave us 5 days off, but made us work saturday and sunday. It's been insane, managing a project that shipped monday, and finally glad to be over with it!

not to grumble or anything, but my manager took off for his motherland, without telling me about several other products I was in charge of shipping. Also we didn't have an appt person to ship our million packages, b/c they thot I was supposed to do it. And I was like, "1, I am a designer. 2, I don't speak or read chinese so I couldn't call DHL if I wanted to!" Yeah. that went over well... besides when the printer says they'll deliver at 5, they actually mean 7. Talk about chinese time! I managed to get home by 10pm, and slept very well.

Monday I spent talking to my folks back home, family and friends, tons of laundry, then caught pinapple pork for dinner with my friends and we headed out to the french apt for the evening. We were sitting around the coffee table eating chips and drinking. One my friends is an avid cyclist, and he took his visiting gf on a cycling expedition earlier that day... and anyhow she lost her voice entirely, and was forced to whisper all night. So she starts saying something, but the french music is going and we're like, "What? what? I can't hear you-" and she's attempting to yell, but only a whisp of air comes out. "the tv is on fire!" and we turn around and the tea light holder has all but gone up in flames, and we all try to put it out, and its burned right thru the plastic and in the inside is flaming and one guy poured his beer on it, yeah... It smelled terrible so we all decided it was time to leave.


Tuesday I had yet another wonderfully lesuirely morning and then went out with my friend Nicole to check out Qipu lu, a famous shopping street in Shanghai. Its the place where all the chinese go for deals, and big variety. Boy, it was a madhouse. ALL of shanghai was there, and you could barely move and it was huge and crazy!!!! All clothes, men's women's for every season, and many strange awkard things I would never bring myself to wear. we didn't buy anything and proceeded to go home.

Wednesday I went grocery shopping and made chicken pot pie- which was totally awesome smelling and I love the grocery store! I never get to cook during the week, so i was glad to do something rewardingly productive.

People operating motor vehicles poorly.

There is lots of traffic. In downtown SF, the 405 and the 238/580/880 interchange.

In the states, you have to follow rules- no running red lights, no weaving, no excessive speeding on the street, or else you get ticketed or fined. But here in china, the lights are there just for decoration, and there's pedestrians trottin in the middle of a 6 lane intersection. And bicycles too. They(we) are everywhere, zipping between traffic and in armies on the road.

And on the little pond in zhongshan park, there is tons of traffic. We rented a little electric powered boat on the pond and cruised thru the weeping willows listening to some cover band, and avoiding fishing lines. And there's little bridges to go under and such, and mind you its a complete loop. And people just CAN't get anywhere!!! They are all head to head inside a tunnel shaped for one boat, but 4 just keep on charging in. sigh. The little kids about 7 or 8 yrs old were the smart ones backing out and maneuvering backwards. props. after that it started to down pour and so we went swimming. We got our swim caps, required at the pool here, and hopped in only to find a bunch of lap swimmers!! The last time we came, it was chock full of kids, and unable to swim straight anywhere. Some people swim cross wise to the lanes and so there was a bunch of crashing going on there, but still a cool way to pass the time on autumn festival.

Visa update: I don't have to leave the country!

expat show-and more

Finally. A moment to sit down!

This is day six of my seven day work week. October holiday has creeped up on us, and we are required to work the weekend, to get 7 days off. Mandarin lessons, planning, apple pie baking, cell group, and family phone calls have kept me out n about every evening this week. So tonight I rest! I hope to finish The tipping point by Malcom Gladwell, respond to emails and of course update my blog here.

So last weekend was the expat show. It was a wide variety of vendors, from wine sampling to pre-schools, the million tree project and buying fruit online. A few friends had booths there, including Taisley Red interiors where I took a rest on a sweet sofa, Shokay, "luxury with a story, style with a touch of humanity" where i sampled yak cheese:

So between it all, we managed to find ourselves in the fruit online booth. I have a bad habit of getting sick from fruit here, so I was interested in the imported fruit, if it wasn't too expensive. Actually what really caught my eye was the avocados(aka alligator pears) they were selling. which reminds me of a logo i designed for an xP iron chef event:
3 for 39 rmb(75 cents) So of course they had a show deal, if you sign up you get x amount free, so we signed up for granny smith apples and avocados! And they came this week, and so we made an apple galette. (Actually my mom sent me her recipe, but she didn't tell me the oven temp, so I had look it up.) I made my own pie crust for the first time as well.

And I realized how I miss normal flavored chips. The chips here are chicken flavored, itailian redmeat, blueberry, and cucumber even! What ever happened to sour cream and onion?? The only cheetos they've got are both meat flavored. And not even anything close to chili cheese fritos. Well, I guess thats kinda ironic!

We also hit a birthday party at JWOW, and I had my hair curled at a local salon. . . and then in the humid wind filled cab ride there they all came out : ( The most inspiring part of the night was these two girls who came decked out in huge fluffy dresses (the theme was "glam") and you get closer to them and...their dresses were made of plastic bags!! like the big black ones, and white ones. It was pretty slick and majorly impressive. Wish Ida photo of it!

What else interesting things have I been up to?

Firsts

Had my first mandarin lesson today! It was great, a struggle, but good. My tongue is tied.

Had my first shrimp flavored waffle. It was a gross accident. I was ordering the plain egg puff... and it was spicy and shrimpy tasting...ick.