The doodles are weird. They have a bizarre fixation/love of singing that manifests itself in the strangest ways. The first clue should have been the widespread popularity of the KTV (karaoke), but I missed that and so was not at all prepared when most of my classes asked me to sing a song on the [...]
Archive for the ‘Adventures’ Category
Singing for the Doodles
Posted in Adventures, tagged China, singing, teaching on January 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Giant Gob of Noodles
Posted in Adventures, China, tagged China, cooking, food, living, noodles on December 6, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The Chinese noodles have perplexed Chris and me since we first tried to prepare them. Mouth drooling in anticipation, we boiled, strained, ready to eat and…huh?
One giant gob of noodles.
Every single one of them had congealed into a hard to eat mass. Adding the oily vegetables helped loosen a couple but there was [...]
Me Want (Chinese) Food!
Posted in Adventures, China, tagged China, Chinese, cooking, food, living on November 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Our kitchen wreaks of Chinese food. After multiple failed attemps over the previous two plus months, I was finally able to achieve something that resembled real Chinese food, not the tasteless concoctions two clueless Americans throw into a wok.
The stumbling block was the spices. It’s easy enough to buy mushrooms and garlic and broccoli from [...]
Hamsters in Entropy
Posted in Adventures, China, Travel, tagged bus, China, Kaifeng, train station, Travel, Zhengzhou on November 12, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Chris and I arrived in Kaifeng late Friday, just in time to make our 9 PM reservation deadline. Our emotions had us wound in exhausted knots and all we wanted to do was curl into a bundle and forget that we were in Doodle Land.
After several people, including our tutor, Robert and another Chinese teacher, [...]
What You Have to Go Through to Buy a Sweater
Posted in Adventures, China, tagged China, fashion, shopping on November 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Today was the first day I went shopping- clothes shopping- by myself. The weather is finally starting to feel like autumn and I have mostly thin and short-sleeved shirts. Not good when it’s 40-degrees when you leave for an unheated class room. And live in a solid block of concrete (it’s now warmer outside than [...]
Volleyball China Style
Posted in Adventures, China, tagged China, volleyball on October 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Well, China did it again. It took away our Internet for a few days, but with the assistance of a kind and clever Chinese teacher who lives above us, we have it back! Ho ho!
Anyhoot. On Monday, Chris and I were conned into playing volleyball with some other… people. We’re not sure who they [...]
No, I Don’t Mind Walking Down the Hall with an Open Cup of Urine
Posted in Adventures, China, Musings, Travel, tagged China, Foreign Expert Certificate, hospital, Visa on October 6, 2008 | 1 Comment »
“5:17 AM. 72 degrees. Time to get your asses out of bed so you can get your Foreign Expert Certificates!” the loud, robot-woman voice announced. 5:17. What a terrible time to be alive. Chris, myself, and one of the other new foreign teachers had a 2+ hour drive to the capital of the Henan province, [...]
Timber Tramps
Posted in Adventures, Travel, tagged Fred Schees Lumberkack Show, Hayward, lumberjacks, Telemark, The Pavillion, Travel, Wisconsin on August 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Today, the parental units and I went back to Hayward for the Lumberjack Show. I’d been looking foward to this all week and can say this is the one thing I actually wanted to do here in the Northwoods. I don’t know why I was so captivated with this. I suspect it tapped into that [...]
A Journey on the High Seas
Posted in Adventures, Travel, tagged Cable, Garden Lake, kayaking, paddling, Telemark, The Pointe, Wisconsin on August 29, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I succumbed to the pressure and went kayaking with my father. After my first experience, I had reason for trepidation. And then it happened again when I took a kayaking lesson: I fell out of my boat. Spilled, humiliated into the frigid waters of some lake around Skokie. Even though I’ve kayaked a handful of [...]
A Jaunt Up Mt. Telemark
Posted in Adventures, Travel, tagged Cable, Hiking, Nature, Telemark, Travel, Wisconsin on August 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Today I understood that nature and I will never be best friends, but, at times, we can get along.
Last night, I was finally ready to get on board with this outdoorsy, nature thing when I looked up into the night sky and saw the Milky Way. The Milky Way! It looked like a thin layer [...]
