Just a quick note to say NIHAO FROM CHINA again! The Summer is over and we’re back from our wonderful vacation in Manila where life was like being at a country club. But I think that after living in China every thing is like being in a country club. I had no idea how physically and mentally exhausting it was to live here until I removed myself from the situation and allowed myself to slip back into my former life….now the difficulty is to switch back INTO China mode.

China mode being…

• You will not be able to understand anything: ACCEPT IT!
• You will not be able to reason with people, explain yourself, question anything: ACCEPT IT!
• SHIT (poo-poo, tae, feces, scheisse, crap, ka-ka) landed on the patio the other day: refer back up to #2 and ACCEPT IT!
• Taxi drivers believe they are Michael Schumacher: ACCEPT IT!
• The Locals never fail to gawk at you like you have 3 eyes: ACCEPT IT!
• Non-Chinese food is verry expensive: ACCEPT IT!
  
• The you-know-who confuse their brains for their asses: ACCEPT IT!
• You will order ketchup, and be given yoghurt (true story!): ACCEPT IT!
• Crossing the street is like being in a real live video game: ACCEPT IT!
• Going to the local Walmart is so harrowing that they should make it a part of the reality TV show “SURVIVOR” or “AMAZING RACE”, but such is life here: ACCEPT IT!
• Spitting (loudly please!) and whipping out the air-hankie are normal: ACCEPT IT!
• Common sense is not so common: ACCEPT IT!
• Our Apartment building smells like Binondo: ACCEPT IT!
• Local women have kili-kili hair: ACCEPT IT! (Matteo struggles with this one - he can’t get over that the teachers assistant in his class has hairy pits.)
• There is no such thing as personal space and people will come up as close to to as they possibly can while standing in line. (Note: most have bad breath, sticky skin, long dirty fingernails, and will eventually start spitting): ACCEPT IT!
• Driving vehicles on the sidewalk is always an option: ACCEPT IT PEDESTRIANS!
• more more more to come…
  

But yes…once you get past all this life is great! =)

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!)

Together with some friends, we planned an Easter egg painting activity that was supposed to be held at Haiwan park. But due to the weather being very “mamahuhu” (so-so/comme ci comme ca) this morning, Heike offered to host this actiity in her living room instead - which was really great because we would have been sitting on wet grass and ff-reezing our butts off had we gone ahead with our picnic idea. This venue was *much* cozier - but we still ended up at the park after lunch run around and burn off some energy.

The Knipfelbergs have a fab place, with this fab view!

I would have had all the kids in this photo if I had my way, but it’s not easy rounding up 10 kids that all have their own agenda once let loose. Yup! you heard me TEN kids…We ended up being 9 boys and 1 girl. Poor Luise =(…it’s incredible how there is a dearth of little girls in this place. If ALL the kids who were invited would have come there would have been 13 boys and ONE girl!

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.

This photo is just too precious not to share!

My neighbor Karin came in the day after St. Patricks days and noticed me in my green shirt and gloves (that we’re on my HANDS)…but we thought they would be more fashionable on my head.

…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

This literally means we wish you a happy lovers day, and is also celebrated on February 14…Davey and I have no plans though…maybe I’ll cook a yummy dinner if I’m feeling particularly industrious (souffle perhaps?), but most probably we’ll have a nice valentines brunch on Sunday instead- with chocolate souffle for desert! Yes yes…that’s a plan!

Advanced Happy Lovers Day to all of you…I hope you all have something romantic planned - unless you’re on of our parental units, because that would be just gross! *blush*

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Since returning to our holiday, I have been such a lazy Hausfrau. The laundry pile is so large it’s taken a life of it’s own, my Chinese lessons have been postponed 5 times, the fridge is perpetually empty…BUT…I have been spending lots of time and money buying plants, shelves, organizing cabinets (read that as doing scrapbook paper inventory), and just generally doing FUN stuff that I really shouldn’t be prioritizing. Here’s the latest product of my procrastinatory streak (yes, that’s a word)…a valentine’s garland to go with the new shelves over our dining table! I know it’s really corny, but I love it!

1. I have to have fresh flowers in the house. They make me happy, and they strangely motivate me to do housework and keep everything looking pretty.

2. I don’t drink wine, and will only drink beer when it’s really hot. I’m a tanduay coke girl through and through.

3. I really hate my short hair now. When my hair is long I tell Dave to remind me never to cut it short, but somehow I’ll sneak off and do it, again and

again. It’s a nasty cycle. Have I mentioned yet that I’m also rather forgetful?

4. A dog bit a part of my upper lip off when I was 5, and I still carry the scars. It’s a great thing I have no hang-ups about it.

5. I’m a certified Stott pilates instructor that has yet to market herself properly here in Xiamen.

6. I want to have more children. (But am already struggling to get Dave to agree for a 3rd.) I really love it when my kids have all their friends over, and I see them all so happy together.

7. I have been with my husband for exactly HALF my life. Amazing!!

8. I like to think of myself as a creative person and am in my element when surrounded by paper, scissors and glue. One day I will learn how to sew. I

9. I talk too fast, and often too much!

10. After breastfeeding the boys, I have had serious thoughts about getting a boob-job. But instead, decided to love (or at least LIKE) myself just the way I am. After all, us girls are never really happy anyway…it if wasn’t the boobs it would be the thighs…or something else right? *sigh*

11. I HEART nutella!

12. I love the smell of coffee much more than the actual taste and would actually rather drink tea or hot chocolate.

13. I’m a REAL flake when it comes to going out at night. Getting me to go out is like pulling teeth, and I have no shame in using the LAMEST excuses to stay home.

14. I really don’t like making a big deal about my birthday.

15. My cooking isn’t all that bad – although it’s not my favorite thing to do. I also cook in my undies with the curtains wide open sometimes. This happens when I’m trying to get dressed/or bathe with something on the stove.

16. The wallpaper in our living room has giganormous pink polkadots on it! I wish I wasn’t dead serious about this, but I am. (let me clarify that we are RENTING this apartment and we had no choice in this matter.)

17. I complain about having a small home, but I honestly don’t think I’d have it any other way. (okay, so a few more sqm here and there wouldn’t be bad, but you get my drift!) Cozy is the name of my game!

18. I really enjoy my own company. Must be the result of being an only child. I also really like silence.

19. I never leave home without my sunglasses and camera.

20. I once seriously considered home-schooling my children Waldorf style here in China – until reality kicked in. I do have fantasies of living on and off the land though- but not in a granola-ish kind of way. I believe in sustainability and really think we should all do as much as we can to go GREEN!

21. I truly believe in alternative medicine, detoxification and eating VEG! I must admit though that I could use more discipline on the going PURE VEG part myself. I really really want to!

22. I can make cheese, yogurt, ice cream and bread.

23. Keeping surprises from David is one of the hardest things in the world for me and I have only successfully done it once – when the kids and I flew to China to visit Dave (we did the long distance thing from ‘07-’08) without his knowing. I was bursting from excitement for 3 months –but it was SO worth it.

24. I once slapped a waitress. (Needless to say, I was drunk off my ass!)

25. I don’t understand people that claim g-strings are the comfiest things ever.

26. I used to only decorate my home in monochromatic colors, (except my walls) but now I use crazy amounts of pattern and color. This happened after Mirs and I discovered the dingy alleys of Divisoria, and fell in love with fabric!

27. I enjoy listening to music only when I’m alone. When I’m with others I find it a real distraction, unless it’s really quiet.

Oops! I have more than 25…oh well!!…

28. I have chopped onions with swimming goggles.

Our patio provides me with constant entertainment here in China. I mean…please raise your hand if ANY of you out there have ANY of these: (Bet you don’t!)

1.    A neighbor with a myna bird that does the HAWK-A-LUGEE sound! Oh yes he does!! It’s Hilarious!
2.    Panty liners falling from the sky. (Which grossed me out SO much that I took it and THREW it into my other neighbors plants!)
3.    Clumps of hair falling from the sky.
4.    The remains of eaten watermelons falling from the sky and smashing into a gazillion mush pieces and covering everything including my laundry. Yum!
5.    My neighbor slaughtering a chicken on his patio (adjacent to ours.)
6.    My other neighbor having done the same thing but adding the extra attraction of flattening it out and hanging it to dry on his clothesline.
7.    Dave once found a dead chick skeleton. Apparently it escaped from one of the neighbors hid behind our washing machine…only to die eventually.=(
8.    But the piece de resistance that I have for you is that used condoms fall from the sky here in China too. Incredible! (And I thought the panty liner was disgusting…)

I have pictures of the condom…but do you REALLY want me to post it? What I CAN post is this though…I also occasionally have this on my patio too. *grin*

For those of you that don’t know what a lugee is, here is a definition c/o Urban Dictionary. Lugee: The wad of phlegm that comes up when one is coughing, or hocking.