Matteo was totally beside himself all week anticipating the slumber party he was having yesterday with just HIS friends. You see, we are actually a veteran household for holding massive sleepovers (9 boys is the current record we hold) but…they were always Nick’s buddies. So finally, it was his turn and he was wound up like never before!!

Now that the weather has gotten really pleasant and the days are getting longer, my group of mommy-friends decided that we would get together after school on Fridays instead of Saturdays at noon…we also moved our venue from the bouncy castle to the skatepark which we ALL really enjoy since this breezy, late afternoon seaside venue also really lends itself to enjoying cold beer and pizza as an early dinner treat.

I just realized I dont have a single photo of Nicolas here…I wonder where he was hiding? He was probably on one of his many trips to the sari-sari store buying gatorade…or ice cream…or water…or chips…

One of the kid’s household chores that they really dislike is keeping the water pitcher full. Why? Because the dispenser is sooo slow to dispense!! So one of my clever children came up with an ingenious system to NOT have to stand around and hold the pitcher and getting arm strain…check this engineering marvel out! =)

With last minute tickets, a random hotel booking via tripadvisor.com, and our Lonely Planet guide-book in hand, we left for Xi’an for the Labor Day holidays - and what a terrific surprise we were in for!!

Our hotel was great and we totally recommend doing what we did! We Stayed at the Grand Mercure on Renmin Square which is pretty much a compound for the hotels of the Accor Group. (Sofitel, Mercure, Grand Mercure) Basically, we stayed at the cheaper hotel, but enjoyed the restaurants of the Sofitel for breakfasts and dinner which we could still charge directly to our hotel. The Grand Mercure (we suspect) used to be old communist government building that they renovated into a hotel, but Dave and I thought they were so beautiful in their communist art deco style. Quite interesting, centrally located and actually very reasonable!

Homemade noodles…sooooo yummmyy! Matteo couldn’t get enough of this meal! I think we went back to eat here 3 times.

Little portable aquariums with either fish or salamanders…the kids naturally wanted to buy these but thankfully allowed themselves to be convinced otherwise.

These two ate their way through Xi’an from the moment they got there.

Beiyuanmen or Muslim Street: This is one of the main pedestrian streets of the muslim quarter and just totally fascinating. Yes, the crowds will run you over. Yes, the pedicabs will run you over…but DAMN going there and eating our way through all those food stalls makes all the chaos worth it! (Please note that I am NOT a foodie, so the food is really THAT good!) Plus of course there is shopping to be had, so I couldn’t have asked for more. Even the kids enjoyed this bustling street - Nicolas was right behind David in trying all this Muslim street food…while Matteo was fixated on buying everything else!

This man was “THE” farmer that dug the well and discovered the first warrior…

Visiting the Warriors or “bing ma yong” (Literally meaning “army horse figures”): Somehow, we miraculously managed to stick to our schedule of leaving the hotel at 8am to find the bus and make our way to this historic excavation site around 1 hour away from Xi’an. We weren’t expecting anything else in particular (except the warriors of course) so we were surprised to see that the museum grounds/gardens that surrounded the actual halls that covered the warriors were lovely and very well maintained…really well done, and simply walking from building to building was pleasant. (It was pure madness in the bathrooms though…never in my life have I seen buckets lined up against the wall in front of the bathroom stalls for people to pee in if you’re really desperate and your pee can’t wait! I saw many a woman pull her pants down and whizz in the buckets right beside me.) Back to the warriors…they were AMAZING!! We hired a guide to walk us through the halls and feed us with trivia which we really appreciated. We also got to see the actual farmer that discovered the very first warrior while digging in his field…he now works at the museum, and signs books. Very cool!

Big Goose Pagoda: Laziness almost got the better of us as we debated on whether or not to see this place, but we’re glad we went. The fountain show that they have infront of the pagoda was nice (but probably better at night) and the Baskin and Robbins there was refreshing as well…But back to the Pagoda…lovely, lovely, lovely! We spend a few hours leisurely walking around these 1000 year old grounds which felt almost more Shinto to me than Chinese…very relaxing! I definitely think it was worth the 30 minute tuk-tuk ride to get there, especially since we already boycotted climbing up the Bell and Drum tower.

Biking on the city wall: This was definitely cool and we recommend this if you feel like punishing your ass by biking for 14kms on this cobble-stoned wall with somewhat crappy bikes. It was strangely relaxing though (the peacefulness-NOT my numbing behind), plus you see Xi’an from a completely different perspective (unless you have Matteo riding behind you on your tandem bike complaining away…I eventually got so tired of listening to him that I traded him for Nicolas.)

I joined Dave at the Canton Show last week and as much as I was impressed with the merchandise on display, the new buildings will just blow you away from their sheer size and organization. Best part though was that they offer FREE YUMMY CHINESE FOOD in all their buyers lounges! God I wish Manila’s “FAME” show could just pull themselves together…

As David says…”The Mothership has landed!”…mind you this was only BUILDING A!

These are the walkways that connect the buildings together….with walk-a-lators, glass floors, etc.

* My ulterior motive to going to Guangzhou was of course to go to IKEA…I can’t lie. And yes, I spent 3 blissful hours there. Heaven.

This was my attempt at a solution to get rid of these pink pimples on the wall. What do you think? I like it.

I have had many (and I really do mean MANY - ask Dave.) sleepless nights thinking of what to do about this psychedelic wall, and since we aren’t allowed to repaint it, hammer into it, remove it…all that’s left is to lean something BIG on it. So here we are.

Update: Now that we have this mirror, and the room appears bigger and brighter (YAY!)…I also get to see myself full-length every other minute and my thighs indeed seem to be getting bigger. I knew my jeans couln’t have been shrinking! GRR!

For 9 months now we have wanted to build this thing to finally get our ogling neighbors off our backs when we hang out on the patio…but little did i imagine though that while we were building it, we would have spectators ga-lore! (The most EVER!) We imagine that they mist be thinking that these laowai (foreigners) are some straaange people! I really can’t imagine how fascinating they think our foreign ways are, but somehow there are glued. Either that or there was absolutely nothing on China TV yesterday afternoon.

Anyways…Dave was home by noon yesterday, so after lunch we went to B&Q, pantomimed for the materials we needed, and rushed home to get started on our first ever DIY project! We weren’t awesome, but weren’t crap either, so after breakfast today, we’ll be building a second one just like it! =)…oh and yes we used our new drill again!! Whoohoo! =))

From Xiamen to the world…the four of us wish you all a very happy Easter weekend!

The Kiddies have been very creative these last few days…Enjoy their paintings, eggs, and OH YES!…see the cute little white vase on the right side of the table that Dave designed? It’s now ceramic! He just brought it home for me this evening and is adorable! I can’t wait for him to bring home other pieces from his new collection! (Manufacturing certainly has it’s perks!)

Since my mom is here for a visit, we decided to do something new and FINALLY visit the Hakka “tulou” Round Houses in Yongding - about a 3 hour drive from Xiamen. We have been talking about taking this trip for ages, but never really knew how we would do it…would we take the children?… would we spend the night?…so will all these decision to make, we just never bothered. (One can also call this being lazy.) Anyways, as you can see, we managed to pull ourselves together and booked a day trip with Apple travel that included a private van, driver, and English speaking tour guide which was just GREAT! Many “tulou” clusters are now under protection by UNESCO as they are getting rarer with less young Hakka wanting to live there, so we were soo excited to get going on our first field trip into the Fujian Province.

Some history: The Hakkas’ who settled in Fujian province many hundred years ago developed unique architectural buildings called “tulou”, literally meaning “earthen structures”. Because they were latecomers to the area, The Hakkas set up homes in often undesirable mountainous regions and were subject to attack from bandits and marauders, which is why their dwellings were designed as a fortress and apartment buildings in one.

Some “tulou” trivia: Out of the 20,000 “tulou” in China, this is the largest. It measures 87m across, and houses around 350 member of the Lin Clan. IN-credible!

This particular “tulou” was our favorite as it was the most authentic in terms of use. Our really enthusiastic guide Juan (he chose a Spanish name) figured that we would really appreciate the “real-ness” of it and he was totally right. We saw coffins hanging under one of the roofs for their elderly…buckets with pee outside the bedrooms…etc.

More Info: The structures typically had only one entrance-way and no windows at ground level. Each floor served a different function - the first hosts a well and livestock, the second is for food storage and the third and higher floors contain living spaces. A round house like this will typically be home to an entire clan  - that have lived here for generations and generations…

Not all tulou were round in shape - these here are square.

What do you think she uses?…colgate? crest? or salt?

This is the littlest tulou…it has dreams of grandeur but is no where near as impressive as the large ones.