The short version

(posted by Dave - Monday, 8/31)

Ah, the events in China continue to pile up much quicker than we can write about them! I imagine at some point, things will settle into a routine and we'll wonder what we can write about... maybe in a couple of years? Anyway, here's a quick headline news version of what we've been up to.

Friday: We ate two meals! Not just any two meals, but 1) our first home-cooked meal by Jiang Ayi, our Chinese housekeeper, and 2) our first Sichuan hotpot, featuring all sorts of meats and veggies dunked into boiling oil loaded with chilis and other spicy good things. By "meats", think any imaginable part of any animal. (we liked the duck tongues)

Saturday - another three hour bus odyssey into Chengdu. (Okay, the three hours are round trip, but it sounds better than "one-and-a-half hour bus odyssey") Highlights include origami paper, a readable map of China, an English language bookstore with overpriced panini, and a vertigo-inducing 7 story computer mall where we got a printer and (drumroll please) our first pirated 75 cent DVDs!

Sunday - while Jane actually Went Out Into the World and Got Stuff Done (including getting Xander set up with a piano teacher and asking around for secondhand piano connections). I sat around on the curb in front of our apartment and watched Zekey and Ysa go back and forth on scooters all afternoon. It actually turned into quite the block party, with all sorts of kids and parents in our building and the building across the street coming out to talk and play. (and yes, Jane and Xander also came and joined us.) It was almost a block party! We were just missing the beers, the grills, and the ability to converse, but it was great fun anyway.