Visitors by Diana

Sorry we have not posted in a while. We've had visitors and/or house guests almost every weekend. Although this might seem draining, Lei & I really enjoy sharing life with others-- especially when folks visit and stay with us. Here's our tally thus far: an English teacher from New York, a university lecturer from Boston, a self-employed businessman from Boston, Lei's cousin from Beijing, my college classmate from Hong Kong, a family of four from Boston/California, Beijing friends

Food we like to feed visitors (aka the best shao long bao)

We are looking forward to Lei's parents visit next week! They will stay for about a month and we'll go on a mini-vacation with them outside of the city.

A funny thing happend on the way to... by Diana

A funny thing happened the other day. There is a huge mall nearby our home that I typically walk through every day to get to another destination (subway, gym, grocery store, etc.) As I made my usual journey through they mall I was approached by a woman from English First. She asked in her native tongue, "Do you want to take one-on-one English lessons?"

I couldn't help but smile. =) It made my day. As some of you know, I have been studying Mandarin and trying to embrace the culture here. So, my optimistic outlook likes to think that it might be that I am "fitting in" with the local folks here....I look like I need to learn English! On the other hand, it could just be that I am an easy target for sales people. Either way, I was thoroughly entertained by the situation.

Valentine's Day Brunch & Glamour Shot by Diana

On Saturday, we invited a few of Lei's friends from work over to our place for an American brunch. I ended up making quiche, deviled eggs, chicken sausage and french toast. Here are some foodie shots...

No crust shall go to waste...so I made a few mini quiches.

Not bad for a glorified toaster oven?
(FYI: Chinese apartments do not have real ovens)


UNO jenga + friends = serious fun

Afterward we went to an event at our local mall called "What is love?" It was organized by some folks that we know here to "spread the love" on Valentine's Day. Two significant things happened: First, Lei got picked to go on stage and bust a move. Then, we celebrated by taking our first ever Valentine's Day glamour shot (below).


After all the festivities, we finished off the evening on a date.
Lei surprised me with pasta & chocolate.

Spinach Gnocci


Tiramisu & Hot Chocolate

Happy Valentine's Day!

Chinese New Year in China by Diana

For Chinese New Year we spent some time in Hong Kong and on the mainland. In Hong Kong the malls and parks were decked out with CNY decor. On the mainland, there were a lot of fireworks (every day for 15 days). Lei was quite excited when he was invited by a friend to light somefirecrakers together. It's totally legal here!

Consequence: one morning Lei woke me up to turn off the alarm clock (oops...I usually don't hear it). When I went to turn it off, I realized it wasn't the alarm rather the fireworks outside!

Hong Kong

Mainland: Lantern Festival in Yu Gardens

Since it's the year of the Ox, many kids walked around the Lantern festival with glow in the dark Ox horns. It reminded me of Halloween.

Imagine having to perform at a company holiday party. Well, apparently that's the culture here. At the company CNY party, Lei put on his emcee skills...

Yes, those are pom poms!

To eat or watch?

Holiday Momentos by Diana

I love Christmas and I don't like taking down our decorations. So here's one last look. This year we got creative with our tree when our US stuff did not arrive. We invited some friends over to make ornaments.






Also, thank you for sending cards through snail mail. They really warmed our home. =)

When working in China...by Lei

Below is a phone conversation with technical support at my company...

Agent: Hi, how may I help you?

LZ: I got a problem… I am a Chinese employee located in China but I CANNOT read Chinese. When I log into our company Intranet, the language setting is in Chinese. Can you change default setting to English for me?

Agent: Well, you'll have to change it yourself.

LZ: How do I do that?

Agent: Click on the My preference link under my account information

LZ thinking to himself: I can’t read Chinese!!!! How am I supposed to find “my preference” link among the many links on this Intranet page?

Eventually I figured out how to change the default setting to English. It wasn’t too bad since I can recognize enough characters to get it done but this is just part of my daily struggles of working here.

Our fellow friend said it best when she said “it is a very humbling experience to go from a very highly educated and independent individual in one society to another in which I can barely read a street sign. Oh the little things in life we take for granted! =)

Ringing in 2009! by Diana

Happy New Year! Since Lei had some time off from work we decided to visit his extended family in Beijing. Basically, we ate our way through BJ. As many of you know I'm a foodie and I love documenting it. Enjoy!

We were invited to spend New Years Eve with Lei's relative who grew up in Switzerland but now lives in BJ. We enjoyed a truly delicious European meal. It was a memorable night of playing Taboo in French & English!

Of course we had more family to meet and ate a lot of Peking Duck...yummy!

To combat all the eating, we got some inspiration from Fido (above) and decided to get some exercise (below).

We're jumping into 2009!