We live in an amazing place.

It's cold here.  But nothing that some hand knits can't take care of!  A Frogtree yarn hat and a Manos Uruguay yarn shawl keeps our little guy warm when we go outside.

Jie Jie is back from the Philippines and feeding our little guy.  Yes, the chopstick training starts early!

We have fun New Year statues

We can buy fun name stamps or chops.  So can the President!

We have wonderful examples of English gone slightly wrong.

The sentence structure in the above two ads has the same mistake.  I've seen that mistake in ads all over China.  I am trying to figure out what the structure relationship is to Chinese.  It seems to be similar to the command structure in Chinese as in "gei wo/give me."  But in English, it's the wrong part of speech.

I think I need mild hair care.  I am too old for wild hair care.

Even the buildings are smart here.

We have a place to worship,  I mean buy English books.  This is in Beijing.

Sun rising over Beijing hutongs.

Mysterious door ways.

Joyful New Year decorations.

I never want to lose the sense of amazement and wonder that we live here.

Leaving our calling cards.

One of my favorite books is Little Women.   In one of the chapters, Jo and Meg go calling on people and leave their calling cards.  The social part of visiting people was an important part of the culture of that day and that is true in China today.

Of course, social life in China wouldn't be social life unless it involved food!  We had several meals with several friends.

Our first meal was in a restaurant with our friend, Hongwen.  We knew Hongwen in the USA.  She came to our city to help her son while he was a graduate student. We have reconnected with her here and really have fun when we see her.  She is a retired public health official and Chinese traditional dancer.  She still dances almost every day.

Our friend and her sister....plus a very tired little boy.

The husband of the niece who is a very nice guy.  We just feel like the more we can get our little guy out, the more people can see that children with Down Syndrome are more like us than different.  Many Chinese have never spent much or any time with children with special needs.

The son who works in Beijing but comes home to his mother for Chinese New Year.  Plus the fruit sculpture that I think was meant to look like a rabbit but no one agreed. 

The very sweet niece and the girl friend.

Let's just say that the fish was very, very fresh.

The next day, we went to our friend's house.  These are parents of friends that we also know in the USA.  They are super grandparents and just really interesting people.  Plus, they speak Chinese slowly so that we will understand!  

Our little guy got to hang out on the blanket.

He was "spoken" to sleep.  The grandma held him and spoke Chinese to him until he was memorized to sleep.  I wish I had taken a picture- it was so sweet!

I thought I didn't have my camera so I didn't take a picture of the incredibly fantastic meal.  But this is also very traditional Chinese- snacks of fruit and nuts.  Plus tea served in a glass.

Peeling the apples.  I am not sure why but the apples here are fantastic.

The sweet grandma.

After lunch and spending the afternoon with our friends, we took a taxi home.  Paul had coal dust all over his pants and we needed to get them soaking in hot water.  After changing clothes, we put our little guy back in the stroller and walked over to our friend's house for corn chowder.  These are American friends who also foster a special needs little guy.  They also have three other children that we like very much.  So it was a good evening. After dinner, we wrapped up our little guy and walked him home under a cold night.  It was a good day for visiting.

Going on a date in China.

Our lives have changed pretty dramatically since we have had Mr. Cuter than cute foster son.  My life in particular is much more circumscribed.  I am home  a lot.  When I was studying Chinese at the university last fall, we had a helper come in for part of the day.  That meant that I could go to class, run a few errands  and just get out a little.  However, I am not studying at the university this semester so we let our helper go.  So right now it's just me and the little guy at home most days.

But today, we asked a fellow foster mom to watch him so we could go out for dinner.  It was wonderful.  So this is how it went.

First we had to get our little guy in his big blue puffy suit and walk down six flights of stairs to get him to our friend's house.  He gets excited when he see the puffy suit because he knows he is going out.

Every door in our building has these dui lian over their doors. These are put up on Chinese New Year and stay up all year.  The meaning is this- the red scares off the monster Nian and the words are usually blessing. This one is hand painted.  The character in the middle is "fu."  It means something like "abundance."  If you turn the character upside down, it means something like "arrived. "  So abundance has arrived in the new year.

There is lots of alcohol consumed over the new year.

There was a little crying when we dropped our little guy off.  Apparently this went on most of the time we were gone.  But we left him in good hands.  He is very cute when he cries.

We took off on our bikes and stopped for a phone call with Hu Xian Sheng.  We are having lunch with him and his wife this week.  Yes, it is still winter in our city but look- the snow is melting.

We stopped off at the bank to get some cash.  This is a New Year decoration combining a rabbit (it's year of the rabbit), a fish (meaning abundance)  and the character "fu" which means riches and blessings.

These gold mannequin legs have been outside this store forever.  I finally got a picture.  I have no idea why they are there.

Chun Bing!  The best food in China is in small, hole in the wall places.  To those who worry about germs and food poisoning by eating in such place, I say you don't know what you are missing!  Cheap and really good food.

The peppers from the pork.

This is outside the restaurant.  Those are our  trusty bikes.  The sign says "Don't forget to eat Chun Bing for Chun Jie" or don't forget to eat Spring pancakes for Spring Festival.

Off we went to the big super market to buy some stuff.  I know, I know- we are the master's of the romantic date!

We rode our bikes up this road to go and look at this.

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7279519.html

Big fire near our house because of fireworks.  It was amazing to see the destruction.  We can't believe no one was killed.

We rode our bikes back along the river.  There is still some ice on the river but it's definitely heading towards Spring.  It was fun to ride in the semi-darkness and see the lit up buildings on the other side of the river.

We got back to find our little guy in fine hands.  It was good to go out!

That's a date in China in a snap shot!

新年卡了！

Happy Year of the Rabbit!  We spent the evening with dear friends who live on the 14th floor.  My camera isn't really good enough to take pictures of the fireworks so I might steal a few from my friend. 

Spring Festival or Chinese New Year is really a family thing.  So we will have lunch with Chinese friend's on Sunday and then again next Monday.  But on the actual holiday, foreign guests are rarely invited.  So we had tacos and fajitas for dinner!  We also had jiaozi (dumpling) made by a Chinese friend.  This is really important on Chun Jie.

Here are a couple of pictures as we walked over to our friend's apartment.

The streets were empty.

The red lanterns were up.

Firecrackers were set off.  It's interesting to me that there are no children outside watching the fireworks.  It's really an adult thing.

Lots of fireworks and lights.

On many street corners, spirit money was burned.

Of course, this morning, it had to be cleaned up.  Every bag on that truck is full of firework leftovers.

And in the Philippines...some orphans are getting a good night story!

Not much happening

around these parts.  The streets are deserted and most stores and restaurants are closed.  We can hear fireworks going off (yes, China is a little boy/man dream when it comes to fireworks!).  Chinese New Year is a family event and people rarely invite guests over.  It is so important to be with your family that my tutor traveled 10 hours standing up in a train to get to her family.  She couldn't get a train ticket after many attempts and so decided to just board and stand.  This isn't uncommon in China- there are often people standing on the trains.  But 10 hours is a long time!

So we'll be spending Chun Jie evening with our foreign friends who live on the 14th floor of their building and have an amazing view of the city.  We'll be eating taco's and fajita's and jiaozi - multi-ethnic Chinese New Year food.  According to our friends, the fireworks lit from their courtyard below explode right about their window level.  So it should be a fun evening.  It's a balmy 30F so that makes it even better!

Our little guy has a mixed relationship with our cat.  Mixed in the sense that the baby is totally fascinated by the cat and the cat can't decide if he likes him, is jealous of him or wants to scratch him to pieces.

To touch or not to touch- that is the question.  The cat was lying on the floor and our little guy rolled over to him.

Oh, so tempting!

Loss of interest on both sides.  Eventually our little guy rolled away and the cat walked away.

Elisabeth seems to be having a good time in the Philippines.  Their project has a website and they are posting about their days.  I won't post the link here for the kids privacy.  Let me just say that these kids are working really, really hard with people who truly are the least of these.  They are moving garbage, feeding street kids and playing with orphans.  I am proud of them.