Happy Birthday Carl Sagan!

So I found out yesterday that I share my birthday with Carl Sagan. I feel a little bit smarter now.

Dana celebrates something called "birthday week". That means i get to buy/open/discuss birthday presents all week long. Dana's mom sent me a package that arrived friday. It included very important things that i have run out of including: a new shaving razor (I have been using the last mach 3 head i had the past 2 months----without the stick itself), i also got some deodorant, which i had been low on. and some awesome new black slacks seeing as i seem to be dressing up a lot more lately. Also, some seasoning packets for chicken wings which i will be using tonight! Thanks Ericksons!

Next, i picked out my present from my parentals. They always put birthday money into our bankaccounts because everyone in our family is a bit spread out. We have had this little nook in our house that has the best view in the house but no way to utilize the view because it lacks a chair (remember we are on the 29th floor)! I went to Ikea and got one of those cool rocking chairs. Now...this is my view while i answer work emails! I wake up at 6:30am or so and answer emails and watch the sunrise. I love it! Thanks mom and dad!

YUM!

Nick introduced me to this new treat on Friday night. We were wandering around downtown and had just finished a delicious dinner of dumplings, but we needed a little something more.

I have no idea what this is called, but it was delicious. Yes we did finish it between the 2 of us! I know it looks huge, but the whole center of it was a pile of shaved ice. Basically what they did was make a huge pile of shaved ice and put fresh mango all over the outside. Then they blended up some more fresh mango with sweetened condensed milk and poured it over the top, then completed it with a scoop of mango ice cream. It was so good! They have other flavors, but the mango was so good I don't know if I'll ever get around to trying them.

Nick told me this was a favorite treat of his from Taiwan, and I am super glad that we can have it here too.

chinglish..."jew's ear drops"?

This is a drink they sell at the market downstairs....

wonder what the manufacturing process entails????

Random Pictures from this Week

We took a walk Sunday afternoon down to the water. Nick can't wait to buy a pole and join these guys!


The lovely tram I ride to work every morning. It's better than taking the bus because you avoid the traffic, but I bet you can't guess just how many people they shove into this little thing...


Nick pointing to our apartment building.


I finally convinced Nick to go get a foot massage with me. He wasn't very good at relaxing, while I was almost asleep he had his phone or his kindle in his hands the whole time. He did enjoy it though, so hopefully we can make it a tradition and I can help him learn to just sit and do nothing.


That's my computer. I'm in a little room with 6 other people. They all speak English pretty well and are super nice. They are helping me with Chinese slowly. I'm even learning some of the local dialect.


My view from my desk. The girl standing up is Mona and she's my favorite person at work. She took me shopping last weekend and I found a fabulous coat for cheap. She also knows all the yummy places to eat in Dalian so I'm slowly expanding my food choices.

I ate hotpot for the first time this weekend too, but I forgot my camera that night. We will go back soon and hopefully get some pictures. I was kind of scared to try it since I've heard mixed reviews, but the place we went was really nice and I enjoyed it. Mona even informed me that we can have hotpot at home as long as we have a rice cooker, just fill it with water and plug it in. I don't know if we're quite ready to try that yet... maybe someday.

My Job

Quite a few people have asked me lately for details about my new job...so here they are!

I work for a company called BIT Life Sciences. They basically organize big conferences here in China. My job is to proofread just about anything they ask me too. Right now I am working on their main website, and then after that they have about 40 other sites (one for every conference they organize) that needs editing. Here's the website if you want to go check it out. Keep in mind they haven't made any changes to it yet, so this is what I had to work with my first day. Sometimes some of the things they say are super funny, and others don't make any sense. Hopefully soon they will have time to make some of my many corrections. I also proofread letters, or speeches, or any other random thing they send to me.

Most of the people in my department speak English pretty well. They all lived in either Australia or England for a couple of years. They do all the translating and then I have to proofread. Some of them are pretty good, and others aren't. I've realized that Chinese and English don't always translate so well. They always tell me funny stories of things they have been asked to translate that are normal in Chinese, but in English just sound ridiculous if they translate it literally.

I work 4 days a week from 8:20 til 5:20. Its a pretty random time, but getting to work in the morning is crazy. The traffic is ridiculous, and the public transportation is even worse. Its something you have to experience for yourself to understand. Let's just say I didn't think it was possible to fit so many people on one little tram. I try to find myself a little corner and keep my head down. My work isn't far, but it takes me about 45 minutes to get there. After 2 weeks of trial and error I think I have finally managed to figure out the exact time I have to leave to catch the least crowded tram.

I have also had a crash course in Chinese food. I eat in a cafeteria everyday for lunch. It's cheap, and they have a couple of different options so it's not bad. I generally try to eat without asking what it is exactly that's on my plate. I stick mostly with vegetables since I have been to the supermarkets and seen all the crazy animal parts they consider edible! One of these days I might end up eating pigs ears or kidney and will be none the wiser because they just call it pork.

My contract is for 1 year and then we will see if I stick with this job or if I go out and look for another one. So far I have been happy with it. It gets me out of the house, and I have met some really cool people, even if the work itself is kind of boring.

Polar World

Nick and I got season passes a few weeks ago to the little theme park/zoo/aquarium by our house. I read on wikipedia that Polar World is the only exhibit of polar animals in China. Lucky us. We had a fun time seeing all the animals, but one of the highlights was definitely feeding the sea lions.





The other highlight was a show called Kung-Fu Walrus. They had a seal do some tricks, then a walrus do some tricks, and then the grand finale, the walrus did a dance routine to a Michael Jackson song! The video I took didn't turn out well, so we will just have to go back and see it again... Here's a little preview until then.


Notice the picture behind the walrus!

Quarter of a Century!

My birthday last week was great. I just wanted to post a few pics of some of our new Chinese friends and our little party.


This one is with our cute little ayi. She comes 4 times a week to clean our house. We are so spoiled! She showed up on Friday with this huge bouquet of flowers for me. I guess Nick had a whole conversation with her about it, but I had no idea. I really need to learn Chinese!


Me and Nick with the very asian cake our new friends/neighbors bought for my birthday. She told me to get whatever I wanted, so I picked out a yummy looking chocolate hazelnut cake with frosting flowers on top, but I guess it wasn't considered "pretty" enough. (whatever it looked delicious) So I ended up getting this funky cake with a cat on top because she told me cake would taste better if it looked good.


Our new friends. They live on the floor above us. We met on the elevator one night. They came over to help Nick get some business cards printed and when he told them it was my birthday we had our impromptu party complete with funny cake. Cissy speaks enough English that we can have some conversations, although they do get kind of funny when I use a word she doesn't know and have to try to explain. They live with her parents and we already have plans to go over and learn to make dumplings with her mom. I can't wait.