who said it was cold

Well, here I am again, so far behind on my blog. I think this time I will be able to catch you up as to where I am today. It may be pretty long but hopefully interesting and good reading. In this blog writing I will show you what we did as a family here in Dalian and Harbin between Christmas and when the family left. I hope you can hang in there long enough to read this.

To start off with we had just finished a Christmas celebration complete with large numbers of fireworks. We bought about $300 USD of good ole fashion Chinese fireworks. As you can see in the picture we had a large amount of trash left over. We shot these off right outside of our apartment complex. There was plenty of room but we did happen to hit the high rise next to our complex. No damage or fire though.

Now between Christmas and New Years I still had work to do but Kathy and the boys did a lot of shopping and driving around. Nicholas took good care of them while I was working and then at night we would head out to dinner. I think the boys enjoyed themselves. Kevin found stuff to buy for friends and Brian found some nice things for Jenny and some of his friends as well. We went to a local tailor which I found a while back and had suits custom made for both Brian and Kevin. When we finally picked them up after being made these guys tried them on and I must say they looked great. We had two suits and two long sleeve shirts made for less than $150.00usd. What a deal. I know these guys enjoyed the Chinese culture somewhat. These guys enjoyed the local food. All three of them enjoyed he Chinese food Nicholas took them out to. Kevin even ate fresh crab. Now that is something I would never of thought I would see happen.

There were other things that these guys had to get used to. The obvious things like, AAAAchchcch ppppptooooo. The general unsanitary conditions of the streets and the air. And of course, the squat pots. When ever we are out in public and have to use the bathroom this is what is available. Of course this picture is a much cleaner one than most. I am sure the boys were glad they are boys. I feel sorry for Kathy. It is amazing how the local people are so used to this stuff. Consider yourself lucky you live in a country with real toilets.


There were a few more days left in the year 2009. I had a couple days off as well. As usual, in China we always find a way to celebrate and have a party. We all got ready to go out for new years eve. We went to a party at one of our new friends. Devin and Lisa's place. We had good food which was catered by the Real Eddies. One of the better restaurants here in the Dalian area. Then when midnight came around we just had to shoot off more fireworks.

After a week in China it was time for Kevin to head back to the US. He had to get back to go back to school. He was about to adventure a world travel by himself. Sorry to see you go Kevin.

Now once Kevin was gone a couple days later we had another really bad snow storm. This was the worse storm this area had in over 10 years. It dumped over 5 inches of snow overnight. Yes it was cold, wet and icy. We were able to go out to dinner to Flairs but it sure was snowing.

Within a few days Kathy, Brian and I headed to the coldest place in China, Harbin. This was going t be the last exciting sightseeing we were going to do before Kathy and Brian we going to leave for home. Harbin has an annual Ice Festival which many people travel to in order to see a remarkable site of a city made of blocks of ice. This place is an unbelievable site to see. I can understand now how these artists can build a city out of ice and not worry about it melting anytime quickly. The city has an average high temperature of -27 degree centigrade. It was flippin cold there.

Here is the temp displayed by an all ice thermometer. I think it is right around 0 degrees F. You can see Kathy and Brian are a little cold.

Here are a few pictures from the trip. This was so much fun. It was an amazing sight to see all these buildings made of blocks of ice from the local river there.

This is Don, Kathy and Brian outside of our Hotel

This is what the City looks like from afar.

The Kremlin up on a hill. All ice.

Here is what the Forbidden City looks like all in ice.

This is just a wonderful master piece and work of art.

That building in the background is about 20 stories high. My feet as I go down an ice slide. So does she look cold or what?

Even in China there is a little bit of America.

Now, after all the ice cold fun in the Harbin ice festival we visited the Siberian Tiger Park. A one of a kind of park built to protect a species of tiger's that were close to extinction. It was fun to see all these tigers being cared for in different ways. We were able to ride in a bus that went around the park and experience the tiger's just walking around in the almost wild. The best part was watching them get fed with a live chicken. It was so cool. The driver of a utility vehicle came out and threw a live chicken in the air. Then the tiger's went crazy. Just a couple pictures that shows those wonderful animals up close and personal.

Just to let you know, that is not a real tiger and Brian is fine.

Once we finished up with the cold of Harbin we made it back to Dalian. Nicholas was waiting for us at the airport and we headed back to the apartment for a final night for Brian and Kathy. They had to get up the next morning to begin their journey back to the US. Kathy caught a cold the last day she was here and felt terrible. Then she had to get on a plane for a long flight home. I went to work the next morning and Nicholas sent them off at the airport. They made it home safely and I am guessing they all enjoyed themselves here. I know they will all be back. China is a wonderful country and fun to experience. The next time they come back it will be warm and we will go and experience other parts of China.

That is it for now. I will catch you up in the next blog to get us to today.

Christmas in China

Well, once again it seems like I run out of time to update this blog. I was in a whirlwind for the weeks preceding Christmas and then again during the Christmas and New Year Holiday.

I returned back to China the second week of December with hopes of moving into my new apartment and getting away from the hour drive from downtown to work every day. I was supposed to move 2 days after I arrived back only to find out that was not going to happen. Was I surprised, not in the least. After all, TIC (this is China). I was told it would be the next week and then I would move. Well, that weekend I went to the Korean Market in downtown and began doing some Christmas shopping to prepare for the family coming on Dec. 24th. I bought myself a tree which was lit up with lights and fiber optics. Originally when I went to buy it and I asked the price the seller wanted to charge me 3800RMB. That is about $500.00 USD. Tai gui le (to expensive). My driver scolded me and told me not to ask price. He would ask for me. Well, now I understand why, we was ultimately able to get me the exact same tree for 250RMB, that is $31.00USD. Big difference huh? I know have Nicholas do all my negotiations for me and all I do is give him the money afterwards. I was able to do all my shopping very inexpensively. Not cheap, just inexpensive. Now all I needed to do if figure out if I should put it up in my apartment as the Shangri La or wait to see if I was going to move on the 14th of Dec. Well, the 14th of December came and went and I still had not moved. Talking with the folks at the Shama Luxe, (the new apartment complex) I was not going to move until the 18th. Well, I decided to not put the tree and decorations up at that point since I thought I would be in my new place before Christmas and the family getting here. At least I thought that would be the case. Well, you guessed it, that date came and went. Come to find out there was an air quality issue at the Shama and Intel would not let anyone move in until the quality of the air got better. They had to do a couple of air samples and we were just waiting for the results at that point. The sample test came back bad again and it looked as though I would be spending the Christmas holidays in the Shangri La. Not that I mind. It is a really nice place to be. I resolved myself to the fact that this is where I would be so I proceeded to set my tree and decorations up in the apartment. It looked great. I got tree ornaments, a wreath for the door, bells to hang above the window and of course, stockings for everyone. I put them all up that weekend. That was Dec 20th. On Dec 22nd at 4:30pm, the relocation folks called me and said another set of air quality test results were back and they came back good and I could move in on the 23rd (the next day) if I wanted too. Well, I thought about it for a few minutes and decided that the reduced drive time would be good, the new apartment would be nice to share with the family and I was just ready to move, so I said OK. What a whirlwind to get into the apartment.
This isn't actually mine but mine was just like it. I forgot to take a picture of mine.

In the meantime, work continued to be extremely busy. Danny was able to go home and at the same time, Rami had to leave for over a week to attend a wedding in Bahrain. That left us extremely short handed with virtually only Brian and I dealing with all the difficulties at work. I also had a coworker from Arizona come to help me out for a couple of weeks. He showed up on the 12th and was going to leave on the 23rd. We did not set him up with a driver and I had to pick him up everyday and home every night. Then of course I couldn't leave him alone in China in the evenings so we had to go out for dinner and drinks almost every night. That ate a lot of time up. He left on the 23rd. I just had Nicholas pick him up and take him to the airport while I stayed home to pack my apartment and ready for the move that day.

I finally moved into the Shama on the 23rd. The movers showed up at my place about 9:00am. I had to take my tree and all the decorations down and put them in boxes to prepare for the move. Brian and Barbara were in the same situation as I was and in a whirlwind as well. I however, was first on the list to pack and move that morning and they were set up for 1:30pm. I let Barb know that was because I was moving into apartment 1810 and they were moving to 1710 in the Shama. Obviously I was in the better apartment. It has a much nicer view than they have the floor below me.
Looking out of my apartment window on the 18th floor.

Well, I took the whole day to set my apartment and most of the night. I wanted it completely done and set up before Kathy and the boys were to show up in less than 24hrs. I wanted the tree up, the decorations up, the wreath on the door and the stockings full and hung with care. I stayed up so late that night that I think it was Santa that actually showed up to help me because remarkably enough, I got it all accomplished. I got all the boxes unpacked, the tree and decorations up and even when grocery shopping. Something I had not done in over 2 months. My cupboards were completely bare. The next day, I left for work at my usual time only a half hour later. Nicholas picked me up at 6:30am instead of 6:00am. What a nice change. I was to work in 20 minutes. I left the apartment with the Christmas lights on both the tree and the window and ready for Kathy, Brian and Kevin.

Here it is, the 24th of December and Christmas eve was upon us. Nicholas picked Kathy, Brian and Kevin up at the airport at 11:00am. He had to take Jackie to help him because I knew they were going to have a lot of luggage. Nicholas and Jackie waited for them at the pick up and they recognized them immediately as they were the only white American men over 6ft 5in to get off the plane. They went right up to them. Brian said they were staring at them so he knew that they were there to pick them up. Then Nicholas recognized Kathy. They then went back to my new apartment. Kathy said it was a nice touch to walk into a new place and have it all set up waiting for them. I even had a bowl of peanut M&M's waiting for them. Some I had brought from my visit home.
Here is my new living room and dining room with a view.

The master bedroom, what a view from there.

Here is the kitchen. She did not come with the apartment but I am glad she is here.

When I came home from work on the 24th, everyone except Kevin was asleep. I let them sleep for some time but then told them that they needed to get up as we had a party to go to. Now I know I threw them into the party scene very quickly but what the heck, TIC. We went out to one of the local Intel hangouts. It is called Obsidian. This is a nice quiet little bar in the area called 5 color city. Just down the street from the Shama. They were having Christmas eve drinks and putting together food, Chinese style. We went and you can see we did have a good time. We spent a couple of hours there and just relaxed some. We had Chinese dumplings, chicken strips, vegetables and other good food. It was all prepared by the girls who help run the place for Cindy who is the manager of the place and the girlfriend of a co worker.

Girls of Obsidian making the dumplings.

Kathy, Brian and Kevin (l to r)

Here's the family after a long flight from America on Christmas eve.

We closed that night out and went back to the apartment to prepare for the next day which happened to be Christmas day. I was going to have to work on Christmas day for a few hours as we still had tools moving in that day. Christmas is not a national holiday here in China. After all, TIC. During the night, Kathy did not sleep very well as the jet lag was causing problems. She got up around 3am and to her surprise she looked out the window and saw something we never get to see in Mesa Arizona on Christmas morning. Yes, SNOW. Just like I ordered. I thought it would be nice to have a white Christmas for a change and it made me look good by ordering it.

A white Christmas. What the heck is that?

We all got up, I went off to work, Kathy and the boys relaxed that morning and by 1:00pm I was home. We all relaxed for the evening and decided to just stay in and warm. We played a few games together and then went to bed early on Christmas. All of my coworkers decided that we were going to celebrate Christmas on Sat this year since we all had off and it was really the 25th in America. We got together in Rami and Wendy's apartment. They happen to live in the same building as I do now. this made it very easy to get together. Just had to walk downstairs. Brian and I went to purchase fireworks for the evening entertainment. The food was wonderful. We had all kinds of good eats. We had a turkey which was cooked by a local restaurant and it was really delish. We spent the evening having a few drinks, listening to Christmas music and eating. At 8:00pm we decided it was time for fireworks. These are not just these small pop, pop kind. These are full fledged hundreds of feet in the sky type fireworks. We had over 2000RMB worth of fireworks. We lit the sky up. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of the fireworks. I was busy lighting them. I will try and get some pictures when the other folks share their pictures.

Party Animals,Kathy,Danny, Devin, Richard, Cindy, Brian

Here is Kevin, Kathy and Brian

Kathy. She doesn't look too jet lagged, she looks great!

So this took us through our Christmas celebrations. It was a lot of fun and we really enjoyed the family being together. We had a great time with all of our old and new friends alike. It has been a wonderful experience to have an opportunity to celebrate a Christmas in China. Even though it is not a holiday in China it is a lot of fun and as we all know, anything goes in China after all, TIC.

My next update will begin the next couple weeks while Kathy, Brian and Kevin are here. Some exciting adventures.