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.)

Whee! The tree is up and anchored by lemons. Now, were just waiting to collect enough eggs to paint on the weekend. So far we’ve eaten omelette twice this week, and I predict that we’ll be having pancakes soon…

*Oh, and for those of you so inclined (like Mirs perhaps)…the tree is potted in a tin can that I covered with scrapbooking paper. Literally took 5 minutes.

…but not in China! Our Easter ritual unfortunately will be changing this year as Easter is not celebrated here, and will therefore be falling off the calendar. This is a huge shame especially since it offers a week long holiday, and a much awaited break for us Filipinos. Normally, it is our family tradition to head towards the beach, paint eggs, prepare our Easter tree, and organize the egg hunt that evolved into a treasure-hunt as the kids got older and hiding eggs was not enough! We’ll be missing out on all that beach activity this year, but we are trying to keep some aspects of it alive…so, i’m happy to announce that we have managed to prepare the tree so far…and eat lots of eggs!

I wish I could say that I made these cute little thingeys, but I actually bought them on Gulangyu!

Next weekend, we plan to get together with some friends for some egg painting, so I expect that my cheeks will be very painful by the end of the week from blowing out (and eating) all those eggs…so keep checking in as surely there will be lots more pictures of this to follow.

*sigh* …Allow me to reminisce for a bit…here are some pics from Easter ‘06

We just hosted a brunch yesterday, and it was wild to say the least! Imagine this…6 kids, plus 5 adults, on a mission to bake and decorate as many Christmas cookies as humanly possible, and then make as many felt tree ornaments as well. It was like mission impossible, especially since in the back of my mind I was wondering how this was all supposed to happen in our liddle home…but then again, I love these kinds of challenges since they give me an excuse to decorate and re-decorate depending on what the exactly the brief is.

In this particular case, space was the issue (as usual)… so I asked David to donate one of his old make-shift showroom tables to transform our laundry area into a functional and cozy space as well. I had already bought this fabric I wanted as a table cloth weeks and weeks ago (and had matching cushions made) for just this very purpose and was just too happy to see that it came together as quaintly as I hoped it would. It certainly turned this laundry space into something so much more, and we even had a candle-lit dinner out there the very next evening to celebrate it.

As for the inside of the house, I managed to convince Dave that it was high time I bought this (supposedly) antique side table for our sofa that I had been oggling for ages. I can now honestly say that there is no wasted space in this home - we are complete - and Kat, the housewife, is happy!

Back to the party…I had invited our guests to arrive at 1030 and since they are all European I just knew that they would be punctual and was getting stressed since I was in my undies up until 10:27 - with Nicolas standing by the door loudly announcing how many minutes were left til the doorbell would ring! I was ready to pull my hair out! Luckily, our guests got a little lost which bought me enough time to get dressed but not to brush my hair or put on some make-up. This was my look for the rest of the day.

The chefs Dave and Nicolas prepared a delicious brunch which was gone just about the second it hit the table. The french toast especially was a real winner - thanks to a Nigella recipe Dave saw the evening before on TV. Talk about coincidence!

Right after our appetites were satisfied, we started with the baking but first had to turn our dining table into a usable work surface by literally wrapping it with cling-film. The kids then huddled around the table and worked like little machines at an assembly line. Roll the dough. Punch the shapes. Glaze. Bake. Put icing. Decorate like crazy. Lick fingers. Start again. Too too cute!

At the same as we were doing this, the husband of one of the Mommies brought all these yummy ingredients to make his winter specialty - RHUMTOPF! Literally translated as RHUM-POT! That’s sugar, fruits, and dark rhum. This concoction then sits around for 3 weeks while infusing the fruits with all this rhummy-goodness. I believe it all gets somewhat syrupy in the end and is best consumed over ice-cream. Our pot is now sitting patiently in my office closet…tomorrow I will open it up just to take a whiff to see if it smells as good as it looks.

After this, (the day was still far from over) we moved the whole bunch outside to do some crafting with paper, felt, glitter, glue and that kind of stuff.  They made ornaments, painted pinecones, painted the floor, painted the wall…while us adults drank sangria and watched on. Kids happy. Parents happy. Fabulous!

This is a cute video about a bunny. Matt and I both want a bunny after watching this.

Today after i came from the park my Dad showed me this video

 it’s so cool how the guy build that for his Hamster.

I’m in China now and my Dad gave me my own blog.

Come read my blog every now and then.

My Dad found this video on the web today and it’s really funny.