Tenth Anniversary

On the day we were married, Brandon's uncle Richard said he bet we would divorce within two years. I'm not sure if he was joking or not, but either way I am glad we proved him wrong and were able to celebrate our tenth anniversary.
On our actual anniversary I surprised Brandon with some Reese's peanut butter cups and Dr. Pepper. These are nearly impossible to find in China, so it was a nice surprise. Brandon surprised me with flowers after work.
We celebrated our family together with the kids and went to dinner at a Muslim restaurant by our house, which had been recommended by Brandon's co-worker. The food was ok, and we had a nice time as a family until a big vermin ran by our table and into a glass food case. There has been much discussion in our family on whether it was a rat or mouse. Brandon and the kids all said the tail wasn't big enough to be a rat, either way it was disgusting and anyone who knows me, knows that I am deathly afraid of mice. I was trying to not freak out and had to take deep breaths but we got out of there as fast as we could.
On Friday night Brandon arranged for a babysitter and he and I went to the Tang Dynasty, Xi'an dinner and theater. It was a fun night out.
During dinner we enjoyed traditional Chinese music. Dinner consisted of a seven course meal: the first course was salad, hash browns and chicken. Second course consisted of a black mushroom consomme, for the third course we had delicious shrimp and  honey cashew nuts. Fourth course was a tender beef and rice dish and fifth course was a cold orange soup. The sixth course was a platter of Chinese desserts. I'm not into green bean and red bean pastries but Brandon liked it. the Seventh course was coffee and tea.
After dinner was served the dancing and music performance started. The dance segment was spectacular. They did four dances: a white ramie cloth costume dance. This is the dancing where the women have long sleeves and they spin the sleeves around in cool designs. They next did a dance that represented the concubines taking a bath, then there was a rainbow costume dance and warrior dance. The warrior dance consisted of a lot of acrobatics. While the people danced, there was an orchestra playing.
The next portion was primarily instrumental. They played a happy spring song and a spring orioles song. The orioles song was played using an instrument that looked like the flute Peter Pan plays. The notes it makes sound exactly like the orioles bird. According to legend, an emperor ascended the the throne and a flock of orioles flew overhead during his coronation. To remember this momentous good omen, the emperor had this song written and performed.
The Tang Dynasty lasted from 618 AD to 907 AD and is distinguished as the post prosperous and progressive era in China's history. The performance really captured the grandeur of this time period and was definitely worth the $83 a person price.

                                                White Ramie Cloth Costume dance

The Tang Emperor graced us with his 

presence 

Xi'an Expo Park

We spent our Saturday at the Xi'an Expo Park. It was unbelievably huge and beautiful. The park includes Guangyan Lake, which was an important ancient Chinese port. In total, the park is about two square miles. It's so big that we paid about $5 a person and rented a golf cart to take us around the park.
The park included a European garden, a bronze garden, traditional Chinese gardens, a modern garden and gardens reminiscent of Thailand and the Philippines.
We saw a lot of couples taking wedding photos at the park, and there were a lot of photography businesses located in the European section.
My kids really liked the maze garden and "the garden of 10,000 bridges" it was a path surrounded by bamboo and it periodically had beautiful red bridges that took you above the tree line. It was a beautiful view, but I almost passed out walking up those stairs!
The park also included some carnival rides. We went on the Ferris Wheel and the girls and I went on a roller coaster. Brandon's back is still bothering him so he had to sit that one out. Middle daughter loved both of the rides and laughed throughout the roller coaster. Oldest daughter had her eyes closed the whole time and told me it was horrible.

Candy Land

Because I am a true blue American I need my sugar fix and I've found a lot of good options. Xi'an has some great candy to buy off the street.

                                                          Cotton Candy in the shape of a flower.
                                                          Youtube how it's made. It's amazing
                                                          to watch. The vendors are artisans.

                                                      Peanut and Sesame Candy. They pound
                                                       the peanuts, then turn it. This process is
                                                       repeated many times. The candy has a
                                                       dry texture but is good.
                                 

Homemade candy cane type candy. The

metal counter top is heated to allow 

the workers to pull and cut the candy. 

These are called 

Fruitips. They

are made out of a 

fruit called 

black currant. They

are addicting!

Oreos come individually wrapped, are a 

soft cookie with frosting and are missing

the cream filling.

法门寺 Famen Temple

We took a day trip to the Famen Temple which was just outside of Xi'an, China. This Buddhist temple has 1, 700 years of history! It is most famous for housing the finger bone of the Sajyamuni Buddha, and is considered a holy Buddhist pilgrimage site for that reason. A world conference of Buddhism was held at the Famen Temple
The temple was built during the Easter Han Dynasty (25-220 BC). The temple was at its peak during the Sui and Tang dynasties when it was an imperial temple.
The temple was rundown  until 1987 when the government fixed it up and built many new statues and the cool futuristic gold building that houses a huge Buddha. During rebuilding of the Famen temple relics such as a tea set from the Tang dynasty were found and are now on display.

Papparrazzi

I always wondered what it would be like to have swarms of people taking my picture, or asking to give me a hug or hand shake. That is my life now. Wherever we go, my kids are the talk of the town. We are constantly stared at, pointed at, said hello to, touched and asked for pictures.
Oldest child loved the attention at first. She said she felt famous. Now she will politely let people take pictures. She had a school mate ask if she could touch her hair. Oldest child replied only if she could touch the other girls hair. She said the Korean girls hair is more corse, while hers is more fine. When I trimmed her hair this week she wanted to save it in a bag to give to"a lucky Chinese person". Thinking this was weird, I threw the hair away.
Child #2 will stand still for pictures but is usually scowling. She will kick and scream when they try to pick her up.
Child #3 will usually wave at people and will smile for pictures.
Brandon has told me people say they want to hug my kids, this has never happened until this week. The girls and I were walking to the market and an old man approached us with his arms open and totally went in for a hug. The kids eyes were as big as 50 cent pieces and they started to back away so I put myself in between them and the man, gave him an awkward hug and talked to him for a minute.
If WeChat ever gets facial recognition, I think we are going to get hundreds of notifications of being tagged in photos. These are a few pictures I snapped of people taking pictures of my kids or gawking at my kids.

                                                              I think this picture is so tender. Both girls

had huge smiles on their faces, like old

friends reuniting. 

Toilets

  

The toilets are definitely different here! This is a typical "squatter toilet". You stand above it, squat and do your business. Some toilets are flush-able,  others are not. This bathroom is actually pretty clean.

After you use the bathroom, you put your toilet paper in a waste basket which is beside the toilet. Toilet paper is not provided so we carry little packages of Kleenex in our back packs. I don't trust the water here, so we always use hand sanitizer after we're done. 

My kids were really freaked out when they first saw the toilets, but they've gotten over it, so we've seen our share of squatters.

Dance Party

The Chinese love to dance. Every morning the park is full of different  groups of people dancing. Whether dancing with fans, as a couple or doing what I call ballet Zumba, there is something for everyone.
Each evening, hundreds of people stand in lines and do coordinated dances. People like to wear white gloves while doing this dance.
I've attached links to my Youtube channel so you can watch the different types of dancing.

Couple Dancing

Chinese Fan dancing

Chanting.

I call this ballet Zumba

Line dancing

Umbrella and fan dancing

Qujiang Aquarium, Xi'an, China

On Saturday our family went to the Qujiang Aquarium. The aquarium is one of the largest in China. It had live dolphin, seal and mermaid shows. Besides having dolphins on display there was a beluga whale, polar bear, sea turtles, sharks, crocodiles and numerous fish. The aquarium houses China's tallest aquarium. We estimate it to be thirty-five feet tall.
Imagine my surprise when we came to the alien display. I had only heard about them on Sci-Fi shows but to see some in real life, and at an aquarium was quite shocking and hilarious.
The kids had fun feeding koi fish with baby bottles. I don't know what was in it, but the fish loved it, they sucked and pulled on the bottle really hard.
One of the highlights of the aquarium was a touching pond with sting rays, turtles and fish.
The aquarium was very Chinese meaning there was no air conditioning and there were random Mayan and alien themed displays at the park, but the kids had a blast and can't wait to go back.
Oldest child convinced us to pay $2 so we could pet a peacock and have our picture taken off it. She said she's always wanted to do that. I'm glad we could help her check it off her bucket list.

Alien display

                                                               Feeding koi fish

Pets

My children love pets. They were sad to leave our salamander and goldfish at home but have been excited to buy goldfish and turtles for our pond.
We bought 13 different goldfish. They weren't given names but they are fun to watch.
The kids talked me into buying turtles at the street market today. Oldest daughter named hers "Scarlet" because it has red on its cheeks. Middle daughter named hers "Spidery" because she likes scary things.
When middle child put Spidery into the pond she plopped it into the water instead of placing it on a rock like instructed. She said Spidery sunk and she couldn't find it. I spent an hour dredging the pond but couldn't find it either. Her father may be coming home with a new Spidery that will miraculously appear on a rock.
The mosquitoes are so bad here. I currently have twenty bits on my legs. Youngest daughter has eight bites, including one in her arm pit. I've ordered a bug zapper for the house and have been hitting up flower and plant markets looking for herbs and flowers that deter mosquitoes to plant in my garden and around the pond.

                                            Spidery is a smaller turtle and is on the left. Scarlet
                                            is on the right.


***Update: Scarlet has been renamed Alison after a good friend from Boise. The original Spidey was found. We had a rainstorm this afternoon, after it had passed the girls went to find Scarlet/Alison. They found both Spidey and Alison on a rock and both were alive so life is good. 

Water Problems

We got an email Wednesday informing us all running water in our neighborhood was being shut down for pipe repairs. They also suggested we could use a bucket to dispose of waste. This means I could 1. go to the bathroom in the bucket and throw it out or 2. Fill my bath tub with water prior to the water being shut off and use it to flush the toilet. The moment I read the email I knew I was no longer in Boise.
Wednesday afternoon I was washing dishes before the water was shut down and the pipes under the sink started spraying water everywhere. I checked the pipe and found out it was plastic and was disconnected from another plastic tube. I was able to put them back together, but decided having the water shut off probably wasn't such a bad thing after all. 
As far as flushing the toilet, I opted for optiion #2. By Thursday evening we had ran out of bath tub water. Luckily my husband is a problem solver. He used pond water to flush the toilet. It wasn't ideal but a better smelling option than waste sitting around.

Terracotta Soldiers

Our family took the opportunity to visit the Terracotta Soldiers, which are located a hour out of Xi'an if traffic is good. Because the freeway was closed we got stuck in a traffic jam for three hours but finally made it.

The terracotta soldiers were made for the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. During his reign, people believed that you needed to take things into the afterlife with you such as food, clothes, furniture, and even a fake warrior army.

Generals, archers, foot soldiers, horses and chariots were all buried at the site. Archaeologists have also unearthed life like government officials, musicians and acrobats although these forms were not on display.

The soldiers were sculpted out of a local clay called yellow clay, which is abundant in the area. We learned the head was the hardest part to sculpt. Each part of the body was made separately then assembled after being fired in a kiln. The warriors were then painted bright, vibrant colors which has worn away with time. Each soldier had a weapon of some sort, a sword, bow and arrow, etc. 

After completion, wooden beams and then wooden mats were placed over the soldiers. The mats were then covered by dirt. The warriors were lost to time until 1974, when a local farmer discovered them while digging a well. 

Some of the site was excavated in 1978 and was covered up until 1988 when extensive excavation began. Three different pits have been unearthed, and more work is still being done. So far 10,000 warriors have been unearthed. 

Besides the terracotta army the museum houses a large collection of ancient bronze statues. 

I loved learning about the history and seeing the artifacts, and the kids did too, for the first half hour. 

                                                            Many warriors have broken and
                                                            are being reassembled.

                                                         Excavation is ongoing. Each piece is 

                                                         recorded and tagged.

Health Check

In order to obtain residency and work in China, Brandon and I had to get health checks.  I was misinformed and told  I could get a health check in the US and bring an official letter and health file to China and avoid a Chinese health check. I would like to ring the person who told me this by the neck.

We first had to wait in a long line to get health forms and then I filled them out. It just asked basic health history. Then we got our picture taken and attached it to the form. Pictures cost $6.66 each. We couldn't smile in the picture, but who would smile being at this place?!

We then got into another huge line to turn in our paperwork and paid $100 USD each  for the health checks and got different forms for the nurses to fill out as I went through the health check. We got into another line and had our blood drawn. After they drew blood they didn't give us a band aid or wrap it with a cotton ball or tape. They handed us a q-tip and told us to fervently press for 3 minutes. Yeah right. With three kids? Of course my q-tip fell off so I started squirting blood everywhere. A few nurses ran over and helped me out.

We next had to get a urine sample. We had to pee in a little cup that was the size of a 1/8 cup. It has hard to squat, hold the cup and then wipe and zip up my pants but I got the job done. Then we had to pour the urine into a beaker and place it in a tray.

We then went upstairs and go chest x-rays. I asked a lady what they are looking for. Her reply was awesome: "nobody knows".  I'm pretty sure I was glowing when I left radiology as they didn't give me the lead cover to cover up the rest of my body.

At this point Brandon was done with his check up because he had correct paperwork so he and the kids went to the car to wait. I then you guessed it, got into another line and had a ECG scan.

They had me lay on some sheets, the same sheets everyone else had been laying on that day and probably days before and hooked me up the metal things. After a minute I was done and they moved the curtains and had another person come in.

I then went to another level and got an ultrasound. They had me lay on my back, sides and stomach. It was kind of sad to get an ultrasound and not see a heartbeat or find out the gender of a baby.

I then went and stood on a machine that told them my weight, height and body fat percentage.

After that I was supposed to get an eye exam but the nurse shewed me away and my escort told me they just put on my form that I have 20/20 vision.

I didn't see reports but I guess I passed because I am still here. The whole experience wasn't as bad as I imagined. Someone told me that they were going to have me strip down naked in front of everyone and that wasn't the case.

Front of form

Back of form

Urine beaker

Height, weight and

body fat machine

Room where we filled out the first forms

the long lines we waited in for the form

is to the right. 

Xi'an Zoo

While Brandon worked the girls and I went to the Xi'an zoo. It was awesome. We took a bus ride through half of the park. The zoo had gated areas with different animals we went to an African area that had gazelles, water buffalo and deer. The bus then went through gated areas which held lions, tigers, wolves and tri-colored dogs. The zoo housed animals such as: alpacas, elephants, lions, jaguars, leopards, peacocks and other animals.
Highlights of the zoo had to be holding a snake, watching a seal show and a live circus performance.
Asians love my children. They would stop us and take pictures with or of them. The oldest thinks it is pretty cool and feels famous. The middle child liked it at first but quickly grew weary of it while the third loved showing off.\

                                                        This is a view from the zoo. It was
                                                         spectacular.

People taking pictures with my kids.

                                                                   Circus act

Dancing bears