Christmas in Hong Kong

Instead of going back to the US this year for Christmas, we stayed in Asia. Neither Tom or I get the official "Christian" holidays here in China, so we were had to localize our Christmas plans. We decided to take a break from China and head to Hong Kong for some shopping and an English-speaking break! Little did I realize that in fact, many Chinese also took advantage of the shopping side of that quest and were also in HK during this holiday! Oh well! I put all of the pictures out on our updated (finally!) website. And there are a couple of YouTube videos as well, including some from her earlier 1st Grade Christmas show.

The night before we left, Dec 23, we let Natalie open a gift she had received from our driver, Zhong Biao. She got a neat game and some cut-out animals. It was very nice of him and his family to do that for her!

We arrived in Christmas eve, almost two hours late. Air traffic going to Hong Kong was cited as the reason we sat on the ground in Shanghai for so long! We arrived around noon and worked our way through the Hong Kong airport to the Airport Express station (fast train) which is right at the airport. From there we headed to Kowloon where we exited and grabbed a taxi. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Golden Mile which was close to the Star Ferry and had a MRT (subway) station right across the street. We checked in and then headed out to go to the island. We took the Star Ferry over to the island portion of Hong Kong. From there, we caught the subway and headed to Times Square. We grabbed some pizza for lunch and then went and hit the stores! We bought about $200 in books! Natalie spent ALL of her saved allowance on books. She ended up with about 15 new books she picked out. Plus Gammaw bought her a book too! After buying our books, we shopped for some new athletic shoes for Tom and Natalie and some dress shoes for Tom. Unfortunately we had to haul all this stuff back to the hotel on the subway. When we arrived at our stop, we found out that the exit by our hotel was closed due to Christmas events being held outside in the streets. Oh well! Finally made it back to the hotel around 7:30. Went and had our meal in the Executive lounge. Then to bed!

Christmas day got going with Natalie opening a couple of gifts from Mom & Dad, the book and Fairy craft that Gammaw and Pappaw had bought her. Breakfast in the lounge, and the off to Disney! We took the subway and made it there at 10.15, right at opening! Hong Kong Disney is soooooo much smaller than Orlando! It was really nice, at least from our perspective. You could easily get from one area to another with a 2-5 minute walk. Still long longs for a couple of the rides, but overall was pretty easy. Only thing we underestimated was the temperature. It was pretty warm, and our little Heat Miser was wearing long sleeves and jeans. She had pink cheeks all day. We called all of our Family once we got there. Sad to not be home this year, but that's another blog...


After a full day of playing at Disney, we headed back to the hotel. Again at dinner in the lounge and then Natalie passed out around 7:40. So we all went to bed (we share a big king size!) reading our new books! Lovely Christmas!

Finally, Friday came and we just spent the day shopping at a big mall, Harbour City, that was close to our hotel. Natalie had a meltdown in Toys R Us when we first arrived. She wanted some toy and we told her she had already gotten lots of stuff and Santa had probably delivered gifts, but she totally started crying and saying we were mean. I was pretty frustrated with her, but I guess it is understandable. She had gone for 3 days getting everything she wanted, so why not continue that! Anyway, I got to shopping by myself for awhile. I got a new pair of shoes, new jeans, and a skirt and top. Nice to find western sizes. Tom and Natalie went and saw Bedtime Stories, which none of had heard about, but was the only non-dubbed movie to see.

Then we headed back to the hotel, checked out, and headed to the airport. We got back to Shanghai and our house around 10.30. A bit late, but not bad. Natalie got to see the gifts from Santa, but we waited until Saturday morning to open. She got lots of stuff from Santa, including a new Nintendo DS. She got lots of stuff from Santa and turns out that Santa had stopped at Grandma and Grandpa Bramer's and brought some stuff with him from them!

We wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Old Man Tom

As you recall, I am an old man (just turned 43 last week) in an older man's body that tries to play basketball twice per week.

Friday, I went to an acupuncturist to try and fix an arch issue and a neck issue.

They put 12 needles in my neck; 3 in my right hand; and 10 in my arch.

Application of the needles in my neck and hand were painless. The needles in my arch stung as they were inserted. Doctor warned me that it would hurt since the feet are very sensitive.

The concept is rather easy.
The body heals itself. An example is if you cut yourself, it will heal 100%. If you cut it a second time in the same spot, it will only heal 97% - and so on and so on. Eventually your body will stopping trying to heal it because it will think that it is supposed to be cut. Acupuncture forces an injury in the area of pain which forces the body to start to heal that area

Here is the process.
I had to lay on the table on my side. They put the needles in my neck first. Then my hand and finally my feet. The needles in my hand were needed as there are a couple of points in the hand "connected" to the neck. The needles are 4 1/2 inches in length and varies in diameter.
After he put all the needles in he then swirled/spun the needles while in my skin. After that he was done. I had to stay there with the needles inserted for 15 minutes. A nurse came in and swirled/spun them again. She left again and then returned in another 15 minutes to remove them.

That was it.

Doctor instructed me to visualize the pain in my neck and my feet and let the pain flow through my body and out my fingers and toes. Pretty corny but I did it and I could feel the pain leave my arch and neck when I did it. I did NOT feel it travel through my body and out the fingers and toes.

Doctor said it would take 2 or 3 treatments to fix my severity of injury (minor). I have to admit, my neck and my arch has been pain-free for 30 hours now. This is great since I have had this pain in my arch for 4 weeks and in my neck for 5 weeks. I even played basketball this morning which typically leads to a great amount of pain for several days in my feet. Today, I ran well - played well - all without any pain. Even 12 hours later I can walk up and down the stairs with no issues.

All in all - pretty amazing

I have two friends who had a co-worker and a father quit smoking via acupuncture with no relapse (both over 1 year cold turkey). Previously, they had tried every trick in the book to quit.

Natalie's 1st Grade Christmas Program

This past Tuesday was Natalie's 1st Grade Christmas Program, Grandma Visits Santa. She was an elf! The program was actually very cute. The elves all wore their parents white shirts and striped or Christmas color socks. They held this year's in the Rittman Center which is a really nice auditorium that they built last year. I was so surprised at how bold Natalie was this year! She walked right out for her part, no real hesitation.

We had a hard time finding socks for her costume. Seriously, I think I looked in at least 20 stores and the fake market twice looking for knee-length socks in a Christmas color. We ended up borrowing Abi Spofford's fuzzy pink socks. Abi is the daughter of our friends, Deb and Tim Spofford. Abi is a Senior at Concordia, so wearing her socks was quite the cool think from Natalie's perspective. She was really cute about it. She put them on and said "Mom, I think I actually kind of pretty in these." Out of the mouths of babes!

I also uploaded some videos from the show to Youtube. I apologize for the bad video, I was taking pictures with my Nikon and video with the Sony! Thank goodness Tom got a better version off of the real video camera.

That's Not My Name.... That's Not My Name....

On a daily basis I am reminded of the Ting Tings' song "That's not my name". Why you ask? Because here at work most of the folks I work with call me Shirley. Don't think that I am making fun of my peers here, I know that the whole "ER" sound is VERY difficult to make for most Chinese. Heck, in Mandarin, it took me 3 months to make the sound associated with the Pinyin for "c". It sounds like "ds". Try that for a while. No that is not the problem, it is that Shirley seems to have been accepted as my name, not as a poor pronouncement! How did that happen? I guess because I stopped correcting anyone to be polite. Unfortunately every time I think of Shirley I immediately think of ReRun, Dwayne, Rog, and Dee. C'mon. You know who I refer to, right? Of course, it's What's Happening!! Now don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with being associated with a black, overweight, waitress. No it's not that. It's the idea of supervising Maurice (played by crazy Martin Lawrence!) during the "What's Happening Now!!!" series. Frightening...

By the way, have you ever noticed how listening to the song "C'mon on Eilieen" always makes you smile??? Why is that? Those Dexy's Midnight Runner's knew how to write (one song).

One last thought for the day...

This morning I woke up from a dream with Natalie in it. In this dream, she was a flower. yes a flower. A pretty yellow flower, sort of like a Daisy, in a pretty blue pot. We were in some room with tables and stools. She was sitting on the table and was signing Queen's Bicycle Race. She was entertaining the whole room and was smiling and enjoying herself. I looked at her sweet, smiling face, thinking about how her voice was just about the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. I glanced around the room and saw that everyone was listening but more importantly, they also had serene smiles on their faces. I turned back to Natalie and bent down to whisper encouragement, and then... My alarm went off.

December 2008 Update

Wow, my blogging is pretty bad! Quite a while since I have taken the time to come out here and update. So, let's see what has been happening? Not much I guess.

Natalie started 1st Grade. She is doing well. She has had to adjust to a male teacher who has a good deal of sarcasm in his humor. You think that would have been easy for her considering the levels of sarcasm she has dealt with her whole life! But she just now is feeling comfortable. Luckily Concordia has a policy of combining 1st/2nd grades for some subjects and so she is actually doing quite well in the 2nd grade math class. But, she considers it boring. We keep telling her how boring it would be if she was with the rest of her class doing 1st grade math, but she doesn't see it that way.

Tom's parents came to visit in October. We did a grand tour of China during their visit: Xi'An, Jiujigou, Chengdu, Beijing. They said it was a trip of lifetime. And we had a fun time showing them everything. Natalie had a nice time with them while they were here.

Halloween was fun. We have some YouTube videos you can check out.

Thanksgiving meant a couple of Turkey dinners. The first was Thanksgiving evening at the Vizcaya clubhouse. It was good food, but interesting entertainment. A Filipino band played Muzak for us. Weird. Then that Saturday we all went to Fansetts to enjoy some real turkey and lots of friends.

Tom and I are both busy at work. With the economy the way it is in the US, we are pretty lucky to be homeless and overseas. Hopefully things will look better in the spring. Our plan is to come back to the US in December of 2009, but who knows what will happen? Tom's division is for sale (got any cash?) and so we have to just wait and see who buys it up.

Ok, I know this was a lame catch-up, but this will let me move forward without a lot of guilt!

Hong Kong Trip, or Was it???

This past weekend was the last weekend before Tom came home. So I had planned to take a little vacation to Hong Kong with my friend here. Sort of a Shanghai Girl's trip. Kathy M, Angie, Deb, Raquel, Rebecca, Karen, and I all were looking forward to shopping, eating, and maybe more shopping. But, we forgot to plan on the unplanned. Tropical Storm Nuri. It blew through on Friday afternoon. Three of us (Raquel, Rebecca, Karen) took an early flight Friday morning. They successfully left at 8:40. Unfortunately that was the last flight out that. Boo Hoo. And in fact it took most of the afternoon to figure out if we could even get there on Saturday. But we were able to rebook for Saturday morning at 9:45. We four got on our flight and headed out. All was looking good until the pilot came on and said that Hong Kong was currently overwhelmed with flights and that our flight would have to wait a bit until we could receive clearance to land. After 45 minutes, he came back on and said there might be a chance that we would be diverted to Xiamen (an hour and half away). And another 45 minutes later he said we would in fact land in Xiamen for fuel. It was supposed to be about a two and half hour flight. At this point, it had already been 4 hours. We did land in Xiamen, fueled, and then the pilot again informed us that we had not received clearance from Xiamen Customs. I guess they thought we had smuggled a bunch of HK migrant on or something. We were almost 3 hours delayed on the ground in Xiamen. Then we took off and landed in HK about 3 hours later. We basically were on the plane for the same amount of time as it would take to fly from Tokyo to Minneapolis, US. And none of were prepared for that long of a flight. But we did entertained ourselves with hangman and drawing pictures.

After we finally got to Hong Kong, it was 8:30. And there were huge lines at immigration. We had originally made plans to join up with the other girls at the Felix at the Paramount hotel, but we were all wiped out and decided to just head to the restaurant in the hotel. We stayed at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, on the island, near Happy Valley Race Course. After eating, a few of us headed to Lan Kwai Fong, which is on the island as well. I felt pretty old. It was sort of like going to Mardi-gras. There were several blocks of restaurants and bars. Open containers and people walking around with drinks. And the girls all seemed so young and vastly under dressed. We didn't get back to the hotel until after 1 a.m. What a long day...

Sunday, some of us headed to the Peak. The weather, believe it or not, was great. Hong Kong is so much cleaner the other big cities we have been to in Asia. It is nice to be able to breathe. The Peak is at the top of a mountain and has a tram that goes up and down. The views were great. Then to shopping at Times Square. That was nice as there was a huge English bookstore. Nice to shop with such a nice selection. Finally to lunch at the big IFC Mall where the Central station is. You can check in to your flight there, check your bags, and then go back to shopping.

All in all, a nice getaway. If we had not had the logistics issues, it might have been perfect.

Macau

While Natalie is gone (boo hoo), Tom and I decided to take a weekend trip to Macau. Our spur of the moment activity for the year! We decided on a Monday to go that upcoming weekend! So we flew in on Friday afternoon. After we arrived and figured out the local currency situation (they use the Pataka generally and the Hong Kong Dollar) we headed to the Rio, where we stayed. The lesson learned with the hotel was that unless you are staying at the Wynn, MGM, the Sands, or the Venetian, go cheap! While our room was nice (see picture from the window), because the idea of a "Strip" doesn't really exist yet, there was not much at the Rio. The casino was awful, one blackjack table, slots mostly with "blue screen", and no real life there! I saw better Casinos at the Denney's off-strip in Vegas. It is definitely the place to go to escape the "mainland" either. But that is primarily due to the fact that 75% of the money made in Macau is from the big players who play in private casinos or rooms. But really, it is not really fair to compare to Vegas right now. There are lots of casinos, but only the four I mentioned are run by guys with Vegas experience, so it is just different!

It was also our first trip to Southern Asia in the summertime. Let me tell you, I will no longer complain about Shanghai being hot. In the picture on the right, you can see the heat haze. You practically melted walking to far.

After we figured out we would not be playing in our Casino, we headed out to the Wynn. And it was a mini-version of the one in Vegas. They had this big gold tree that "grew" in the lobby. After entering we walked around. No video poker (my fav!) to be found! Many Baccarat tables, some Black Jack, no Keno, no free alcoholic drinks??? What was up with that? And it took me half an hour to find a place to have a drink! The bar was tucked way in the back. Weird. We then headed back to the hotel and then on to the Sands. The layout was nice with a stage with live entertainment right in the center of the casino, open to the rest of the casino. And a big bar wrapping around it. The entertainment was so-so, with the funniest thing being the Filipino band singing. It is totally acceptable in Asia for the bands to use sheet music. Sometimes I guess that is because the bands are just a step above Karaoke. Even when the band is playing, people still think it is karaoke! Hilarious. And that was the Case this night. Many of the guests were singing right along with the band, and really loud too. The funniest part was that the most rocking song was "Ret's Get Roud". Oops, I mean Let's get Loud, by Jennifer Lopez.. But that is not how they sang it or what the audience sounded like singing with them. How funny is that song selection? After the band, the next entertainment was 3 sets of ballroom dancers. No kidding. How do you end up with that job??? Anyway, it resulted in most of the crowd dispersing.

Saturday we headed early over to the Venetian. It is on the Cotoi Strip which is on the two small islands of Macau. That Friday night the US Olympic Basketball team had stayed here and played some non-Olympic team. So, there were many more foreigners at this hotel. We enjoyed this one the most I think. And not just because we both won there. We watched a band play in the Bellini Bar in the casino. Mostly jazz with a decent trumpet player. Tom enjoyed a drink and funky little cigar while we relaxed in the bar. I focused on more interesting things such as making art out fruit and thinks from my purse. There was lots of shopping and so many things to do there. We ate dinner that night at the Morton's Steakhouse. Wow, it was delicious. Of course we ate too much and felt miserable, but it was fun.

I noticed a big difference in that there were not a lot of attractive women here. Part of this is due to the fact that Shanghai in general seems to have more attractive women. But it also seemed to be a different mix of people. There were quite a few Malay, but many were hard to place in term of ethnicity. Another big difference was that we saw people looking on the floor for dropped chips. I saw someone doing that and wasn't sure what it was, but Tom confirmed later that it was a chip searcher! Another thing you would never do in Las Vegas is to put chips on someone else's hand. If you are at a table with other players, you can play money on their hands. Kind of freaks you out. But I guess if a player is hot, you can win long with him! At the end of the day, Tom and I both lost what we had won Saturday. But we had a nice time and enjoyed our adult weekend.

Olympics - From a Shanghai Perspective

8/08/2008 at 8:08 pm night was start of the XXIX Olympics. Watching the ceremonies from a location in China was a special treat for us. Really, who didn't think that it was awesome? We made a reservation for about 10 of us at Malone's in Thumb Plaza to catch the excitement. And it was exciting. Albeit in Chinese! One downside to watching live here was that meant we watched the CCTV feed, not a nicely translated, and as it turns out, interpreted, opening ceremony. I had many favorite parts, with the opening drums probably being one of my favorites. I am sure you have heard by now that many of the synchronized scenes were conducted by soldiers. Your country can do that when you are not fighting wars around the world! (sorry, political commentary not intended!) . It was interesting to watch in a location with about 50% international and 50% Chinese. Let's just say that the crowd was not overwhelmingly for the US. You can get a sense of that watching the video on You Tube of the US team entering the stadium. They were clapping for the team, but booing at the clip of Bush! And you have also heard about the scandal of the two-girls-one-song situation. Oh, and the footstep fireworks (which really was my favorite euphemism, "walking through history", that was great!) were taped the night before to ensure clear visibility. But com'on, really, besides those little things, it was an awesome display. You can see from our pictures that we all had a great time. It did take a quite a long time though! Finally, many Tiger beers later, the finale of the Lighting of the Torch. Tom and I rode the scooter (it is about 3 miles from our house) so we had a bit of a wobbly ride home (someday I will blog about drinking and scootering). By the way, Tom and I purchased a DVD of the opening ceremony. Pretty awesome to re-watch!!!

Since the opening night, we have been watching table tennis and badminton non-stop! In Chinese. Here, you get a totally different set of sports to watch and you get to see about 5-6 different CCTV channels (who says controlled media is bad???). In the US, it is probably the basketball, volleyball, swimming, etc. Plus since it is usually only NBC, CBS, or ABC, you are limited to the edited version! Here, we get to watch hours of rifle shooting and weight lifting. And as of right now, China is pretty solidly kicking our butt overall. But, the track and field events have started, so maybe we will draw a bit closer soon. We are missing a lot due to the language, but we simply augment with Internet updates.

Final comment regarding the Olympics was a funny comment made by Natalie. She was watching with family in the US and stated "I don't know who to root for, the US or my country". And recently she told my mother that it was kind of like cheating: She wanted both the US and China to win, so whoever won, she was happy!

Natalie with Gammaw, Pappaw, Uncle Angel, and Aunt Eyeball

Well, Natalie spent some time with her other grandparents, my parents, and my sister and brother law, Angel (aka Uncle Angel) and Tony (aka Aunt Eyeball) Smith, after we left. She got a chance to play in her little house, which was a birthday gift from Gammaw & Pappaw when she was only 3. Pappaw built it and Gammaw painted it! It was at our house in Ohio, so we moved it back to Indiana before we moved. It is such a cute little thing.

But the big thing for her this year is that Gammaw put in a small, above ground pool. I think that Natalie has spent more time in the pool than out of it! Besides these pictures, I put some videos out on You Tube. Check them out!

My sister Angel was also in Fowler for part of the time. Angel borrowed a tent from my cousins and Natalie and Angel stayed out all night in the tent. Oh, and Nikki was with them! I think they had lots of snacks and luckily it wasn't too cold.

For the 4th of July, they went to the parade in Fowler and then went to the park to watch the fireworks. On a side note, I thought I should share that I never missed a 4th of July in Fowler Fireworks show until I was out of college! Here in the picture she is sharing some ice cream with Pappaw!

Finally, she got a chance to the Children's museum in Indianapolis. They met all of her Uncle Tony's family there. she had a great time. In this picture, she is digging for dinosaur bones!

And don't forget that she has been watching Fox news with Pappaw. It helped to determine her preferred presidential candidate.

Working in China

Last week, I had a chance to go to travel for work. We had a 3-day management meeting in Hangzhou, which is about a 3 hour bus ride from Shanghai. Let us just say that it was a total immersion into Chinese culture! In the group, I was the ONLY western face! There were a few American Born Chinese (ABC), but you can't tell they have more of a western background. Also, 95% of the meeting content was in Mandarin. I exhausted quickly trying to comprehend the conversation. I quickly learned that comprehending casual conversation, which I typically can at about 50%, is much harder when listening to business presentations. The words they use are definitely NOT in the small vocabulary list I have in my head!

• I thought it would be interesting to highlight some of the main business differences between China and the US.
  When travelling for business events like this type of meeting, it is very common for businesses to book two travellers into a single room. This is the second time I have had to stay in a room with another co-worker. I NEVER in the U.S. did the same thing. Americans are such private people, I don't think the whole room-share thing would go over well. My roommate, who thankfully I actually knew, ended up leaving a day early, so I had the room back to myself for one night. Whew...


• There were no name tags and no effort into introducing the employees. Keep in mind that this event was for Roche more senior employees (150 or so) from all over China, so many employees did not know each other. Nor did it seem there was effort to get to know them. Not one person asked me who I was or where I worked! I think in the U.S. it is much more common to use meetings like this to get to know each other and that starts with names and organizations.
• The Senior Management team for China presented overviews of the results and upcoming activities, but there was NOT 1 ORGANIZATION CHART in any presentation! I find that really weird. There is not a real sense of organizational awareness here.
• The Chinese workers tend to have interactions ONLY with their own small departments. During the three days, I observed very little interactions between the various business areas. Contrast this to the US where may individuals embrace the networking opportunities associated with a get-together like this.
• There were many secretaries who appeared in the hotel. Hmmm... In the U.S. most managers do not even have secretaries supporting them, let alone the flexibility to have them travel with them! And the implication of observing a manager who had to have his secretary come with him was that she was travelling with him for more "aesthetic" reasons!
• The idea of team building is a bit reversed here. The smaller break out groups I participated in had more trouble expressing individual ideas then they did expressing a group opinion. Asking a person for the thought on something almost always resulted in them looking around the table for an ally, who was usually sitting next to them, and then they collaborated on the answer. Weird. In talking to some Hong Kong-born Chinese, they shared that this is normal.
• I don't feel that the younger employees have a real sense of what it would take to be deemed successful in the long-term. Right now, it is all about the money. they define success in terms of how much they make or can make. Contrast that with the U.S. where we really are made to understand that our career decisions have to about the end-game. I would guess that if you asked many Chinese employees where they want to be in 5 or 10 years, it would have nothing to do with the company they are working for! It would be about money and status. When I was younger, I felt that that I needed to find ways to move up the ladder and worked to get that next big opportunity, but usually it was inside the same company. Maybe the younger American generation has the same view as their Chinese counterparts!
• Professionalism is totally different here. From the clothes to the behaviour in meetings. Women in particular do not seem to be particular interested in dressing in a Western-style professional way. Now, the standard dress for the event had been determined to be "Smart casual". Their 4 inch stilettos and short skirts did not exactly call out "future executive" to me! However, there were a handful of women in very smart suits and conservative shoes! And many employees chatted away during most of the meetings. That drove me crazy! several got up and actually just started having a normal volume level conversation right in the meeting rooms! In the U.S., many speakers or presenters would have asked for some respect. But the speakers at the event just tolerated it.
• Our dinner events involved going to a restaurant and eating a Chinese meal. That meant groups of 8-10 sitting around big tables. And of course, the same people sat together for both meals! There was no Happy Hour, which is more conducive to mixing and getting to know everyone.

I think that some of this differences probably sound negative, but really, it is just in contrast to the U.S. I am betting that if I had worked in the U.S. in the 60's and 70's, the contrast would not be so great. China business will mature rapidly, they know they have to to survive. But I hope I don't get another immersion for a few months...

2008 Presidential Elections - Who is Natalie voting for?

Funny story regarding the "influences" that Natalie is under while in the states...

A couple nights ago when George (Tom's Dad), Sara (Tom's Mom), and Natalie were returning from Church, Natalie was in the backseat and she asked George who he was going to vote for in the presidential elections. George replied that he didn’t know and jokingly asked Natalie who she was voting for. Much to George’s surprise, Natalie said that she was voting for McCain because Obama was on TV too much.

After George and Sara quit laughing they assumed that Natalie picked up her political position from influences in Fowler, where Shelly's parents live.

Know any other 5-year olds who are involved in politics as much as Natalie?????????

It was requested that for the best interest of everyone – the Johnson's (Shelly's parents) should NOT let Natalie talk to her radical aunts about politics!!!!!!

The Oympic Mascots - Who Knew???

OK, I admit that while I am living in a country that will soon be hosting the 2008 Olympics, I haven't really absorbed a lot of the details associated with it. Pretty much like it was when Atlanta hosted! However, I was talking to someone the other night about the mascots and the fact that there was a lot of symbolism involved with the Fuwa, very typical of many activities here in China. I felt pretty silly not being able to actually summarize the symbolism, especially after living here for a year and a half. So I jumped online and learned a bit. I have only in the past 4 months started learning Chinese characters and I find them totally interesting, so I was very surprised at the symbolism just in the characters. Thought I would share my learning's for any interested!

First of all, I am sure you have all seen the mascots, right? Each of Fuwa has a rhyming two-syllable name. Using two words for proper names like this is very typical with children is a common way of expressing children. Beibei is the Fish, Jingjing is the Panda, Huanhuan is the Olympic Flame, Yingying is the Tibetan Antelope and Nini is the Swallow. When you put their names together, Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni, it translates to "Welcome to Beijing". Chinese: "北京欢迎你", I'll not argue with that, though the literal translation (with my simple 14 months of mandarin lessons) would actually be Beijing Welcomes You. Weird, huh? And the position in which the Character are standing are somewhat in the same design as the characters of their names. The characters each loosely translate to prosperity, happiness, passion, health, good fortune.

Some other interesting notes about the characters. In traditional Chinese culture, the fish represents prosperity, as the character for fish (魚) sounds the same as that for surplus (餘 / 余). The Chinese character for swallow (燕) is also used in Yanjing (燕京), an old name for Beijing; thus the swallow alludes to Beijing.

Anyway, I better get back to surviving without my little girl!!

Summer is Here! Week 1 at Bramer's

Tom and I are here in Shanghai now, but we did make it home for a some R&R. I thought I'd post some pics from our first week. Natalie will be in the U.S. all summer! I think, based on all the stuff she did in just the first week, she is going to have a good time this summer.

Natalie started the summer by learning how to drive the tractor. I am not kidding!

She talked her Grandpa George and Uncle Ted into letting her drive the new tractor around the barn lot. She actually got pretty good. One of the pictures shows her dumping a load of rocks.

One morning I went out to see what Tom and Natalie were up to and was a bit surprised to find them on TOP OF THE GRAIN BIN!

What were they thinking???

Natalie helped her Grandpa Bramer and Uncle Ted paint the barn. I think she was actually a pretty good helper.





So all this in the first few days. I didn't even put pictures of her palying in the sprinkler and driving the boat (well, the tractor was pulling the boat). More later on her next week with Gammaw and Papaw!

OK, So I am a little behind!

Just returned from Summer trip home and realize how many people keep in touch with us here by reading the blog. So, I will have to do MUCH better at putting updates out here! Sorry to all of you who are feeling out out of touch. Here is a quick update of what has happened in the last few months:

• I participated in the 2008 Great Wall Marathon. Well, it wasn't pretty, but I did it! I did the half marathon and did it with a combo of run/walk. My goal was to finish in under four hours, which I did. Check out the final results here. I think there is a video somewhere, if I find it, I will put it on YouTube.
• Work for both Tom and I is going well. Tom has a decision to make regarding staying with Delphi or going with the new company that will be buying the brake business from Delphi. Both appear to be good opportunities, we will just have to wait to see what the final decision is...
• Natalie finished Kindergarten. All good stuff! In fact, they would like to have her move up to 2nd grade math (only math, the 1st and 2nd grades at Concordia are already combined for some classes). So, now she has to do math worksheets this summer!
• We all traveled home to see family in the States in June. Very short visit as I am working now and don't have as much time as I used to. Sorry to all I didn't get a chance to see!
• Tom and I went to St. Martin in July to celebrate our 20th anniversary this year (it is in August). Stayed at the Alamanda resort which is right on Orient Beach. Took another Random Wind tour (highly recommend) and basically just laidon the beach! This was our first vacation of more than 7 days. Very nice!
• Spent the last few days in the States with my family.
• Said goodbye to Natalie for 6-weeks! We felt it best to let her stay in the states rather than come back here with us working every day. Plus, Vizcaya is a ghost town right now! Nothing for her to do without me home all day. I am sure there will be more to come in the future blogs regarding my loneliness for my little girl!
• Went to Indy to catch my flight back, then had to reschedule for following day due to flight delays. rented a car, drove back to Fowler, then turned around and drove back in 15 hours. I HATE TRAVELLING!

Which brings me to my only rant for the day... Travelling. When did travel become such an awful activity? If you have travelled by air lately, then you know what I am talking about. The whole activity stream, from booking travel all the way to actually executing the travel plans is just not a pleasing experience anymore. I know it is an industry wide problem, but come on, surely there is some what for someone to figure out how to get people from A to B without all of the hassles. Anyone have any ideas???

Great Wall Marathon - I DID IT!!!!

Well, it wasn't pretty, but I did it! I did the half marathon on the Great Wall. My goal was to finish in under four hours, which I did. Check out the final results here.

We left Shanghai on Friday around 11am. We got to Beijing and started looking for our driver. We had arranged for a driver to take us from the airport to our hotel, which was about 1 1/2 hours from the airport. But alas, no driver to be found! So we started our calls to the travel service and the coordinators. Luckily we found our driver after about half an hour. Not bad for Asia travel! And so we were off. We made it to the Pinggu Yuyang hotel around 4pm. The lobby was filled with tourists who had flown in for the marathon. Some were expatriates in China, but many were just visitors who had flown here just for the race. Crazy. So we checked in and got our first look at our room. Not bad, though they called it a 4-star, and we agreed no way! We did agree though that the beds were absolutely the HARDEST beds ever. All joking aside, all of us had a poor night's sleep. I guess we might as well of chosen to sleep in the Farmer's Hostel at the race start and slept on straw mattresses. They would have been softer. Anyway, after we checked out our rooms, we took a stroll around the area (we were in Pinggua which is northeast of Beijing). It was really different from Shanghai in that they must not see many westerners. The children in particular seemed totally in awe of seeing Westerners close up. They were very friendly and welcomed us to their city. One interesting thing we observed while out shopping for some fruit and water was a food item that all of had only heard rumors about: chicken embryos cooked in the shell and eaten whole. It is actually hard to explain. But the chicken eggs contain really baby chicks that are 1-4 days away from hatching. They are boiled whole and then pealed and eaten whole. We saw them and then were lucky (unlucky?) enough to see a woman buy and eat one. She peeled away the shell, grabbed the chick embryo with chopsticks, poured some red sauce on it, and proceeded to eat it's head. Yuk!!! We thought of some good names: Chicks and Salsa & Chicks on the Half Shell. Back to the hotel where we taught Ceyda to play Euchre (she did great!). Then up to our HARD HARD HARD beds for no sleep!


Our alarms went off around 4 a.m. Packed and to the lobby by 5 am. We are a bit perplexed by the process of what to do with our luggage. The bus we could fit our luggage onto did not have room for us. The coordinator was trying to tell us that our luggage would show up at the hotel we were staying at, but he didn't understand that we had made our own arrangements for Saturday night. We finally decided to take the risk of leaving our luggage on another bus and loaded up into another one. We got to the Wall after about an hour. The race is held at the Huangyaguan section of the wall. We had another panic moment trying to figure out what to do with our luggage during the race, but we drug it up to the square where the race starts and got it checked in. Once we ditched the luggage we had to find the toilet. And then we experienced another first. We have all had to use a squatty potty before, it is pretty common around China. But we had never had the open room squat pot experience! There were 5 slits in the floor with no separations. So we had a group pee! Interesting...


After relieving ourselves of our worldly possessions and our morning hydration, we were ready to go. They left in two groups. Then it was the first group of the half marathon. Then us, the 2nd group of the half marathon. And we were off at 7:51! We were only walking so the large pack left us pretty quickly. The first part of the race was about 6k uphill to the wall. Very hard. The next part was on the wall itself. Frankly, I thought that was not too bad. Very beautiful. Our group separated into two packs: Myself and Raquel, and everyone else. The wall section was about 6k. After that, we headed to the road and through a small village. The village area was very interesting. It was really small but I am sure that this is the big annual event for them! Once through the village we headed back to the start. I ended up running the last 5k, I had planned to run more, but decided not push it. Plus my knees were pretty sore already.

I finished in 3:52:26 (11:02 min/km 5.45 km/h)!

After the race was over, we grabbed our bags and loaded into a bus heading back to Beijing. We had decided to splurge and stay at the Crowne Plaza! Nice splurge. The damn bus ride back took almost 3 hours. We had subway sandwiches after the race, but we are all pretty exhausted. After we got to the hotel, we all showered and shed our stinky clothes. Then to the bar for some post-marathon drinks! We ate dinner across the street and headed hope early!

All in all, a big accomplishment! Not sure I will do it again, but it was well worth the experience. I think I will check out the Polar Circle race in 2009...

Jinqio 8k & Upcoming Great Wall Marathon

OK, I am bit behind in reporting news! Last Sunday, April 20, the Bramer's and the Miller's participated in a local event, the Jinqiao 8k. At 9:00 am there was a funwalk that the kids and Tom participated in. The walk was 2k which was basically around the block. Kathy and Brian Miller walked the 8k and I actually ran it. Since 8k is the MOST I have run at one time since high school, I had low expecations. My goal was to finish in 50 minutes. My results were:

• 45:36
• 90th woman overall (out of 197 women)
• Not sure where combined overall since the mens times on the result sheets showed that ALLL men finished by 42:03, yet I know that there were men behind me. Bu there were 557 Male entries, combined to a total of 754 entries. I surely finished in the top half anyway!

So, not too bad. I felt ok, but was very tired by the time we came back and ate. I slept hard for 2 hours that afternoon.


So why all the running? Well, we have the Beijing Great Wall Marathon coming up on May 17th. We are actually doing the half-marathon. The half-marathon is 13.1 miles or little over 21k. My friends, Kathy Miller, Raquel Thueme, Ceyda Yuce, and I are heading there on a Friday, walking Saturday, and returning home on Sunday. We have been walking for several months leading up to this. The race is partially on the Wall itself, and partly through the local villages. Kathy and I headed to the Radisson Hotel, which is a couple of blocks away from her apartment, to walk up and down the stairs as that part of the trainin has been the hardest to duplicate. Of course, heading to a Chinese hotel to train was interesting in itself. It took us 15 minutes (not kidding) to figure out where the stairwell was! We asked several employees, but they would guide us back to the escelator or elevator. Probably should have learned the chinese word for stairs before we went! Regardless, we did find our stairs and after about 35 minutes of huffing and puffing, decided our hearts had enough! I want to go and do this a couple of more times before we go. I have been afraid to put my time goal as I really don't know what to expect. However, I have been thinking of shooting for less than 4 hours, but not sure if this realistic. If you analyze prior year times of women my age, I think that 4 hours is probably realistic. This race does not necessarily draw a lot of "walkers" and I think that will be what I will be doing most of the race. For sure the plan is for Kathy, Raquel, and Ceyda to walk the whole thing. But I hope to walk to three hours and then run the final hour. That is the plan anyway. More to come...

One week and Three days

Meant to get this out here this weekend, but this weekend just seemed to be filled up. Anyway, it gave me some time to gain perspective on the events of the week and to see if this week was also going to be as interesting!
Day 1
I covered some of the first day already, but thought I would share some thoughts. The week started with Tom flying to Beijing at 6:00 a.m. That meant that my first few dys of my new job were spent flying solo with Natalie. But that turned out to be no problem. Plus it meant the driver was available to take me to work and pick me up and night. Much more convenient. We headed off to Puxi around 7:30 after dropping Natalie at the gate to catch the bus. It was a bit melancholy to see all of the mother’s walking their kids. But, it was a decision I made to give up so I have to learn to adjust to it. Then there was the minor accident on the way to school. Check that summary out here.. So, the first day was interesting as it always is when you start at a new job. HR takes 2 hours of your life away by explaining all the things you can’t do, how not to get fired, and that your annual salary is so high already you will never a pay increase on their current compensation programme. Different country, same story! Sorry to all my HR-professional friends out there!

Then to my desk. Which didn’t exist. Nor any equipment. Oh, and no supplies. Luckily I brought a pen and my “professional management note taking device” (known as an account book for those of you in the know). And I was off and learning! I will admit that I had a huge headache at the end of the first day. I probably should have stretched my brain out a bit more before I made it run for 8 hours. Home to the house and Natalie. Oh, and the Ayi. She had dinner ready and Natalie had already eaten. So we ate together while Natalie chatted on about her day. Natalie did ok that day though she told me she missed me. Truthfully though I think she tells me that because she hears me say that to her. Anyway, we both survived. And we were both in bed by 8:00. I was so tired. And I slept like a log!

Tuesday was more of the same, but no headache this time. I did realize that navigating the roads at rush hour in Puxi is not a fun thing to do. But I knew that I was moving transportation mediums soon anyway! It is hard to describe the mass of humanity that exists the businesses here to head home at the end of the day. So few people live near where they work. But more on that later..

The third morning I had the driver drop me at one of the subway stations that is not too far from our house. It was about 7:45 when I got there. I got my ticket and headed downstairs. . I have ridden the subway quite a few times, but never at this time of day going to the heard of Shanghai. Not too many people waiting around, so I felt good about maybe it not being too crowded I was lucky enough to get behind one other person waiting, so I was pretty close to the front. Then the train came. OH MY GOD. There was so many people already on that train. I felt there was no way that the the 10 of waiting to get into that particular car would never fit. But then the rush of the other 8 behind me pushed me right into the car. I have no idea how it happened, but soon I was crammed into the middle of the car. No need to hold onto anything to keep from falling since you are so jammed in, there is no way to fall. And it got worse. We had three more stops before we even crossed the Huangpu river and 5-10 crammed into our car at each stop. The good news was getting from Pudong to Puxi in 15 minutes. Finally we got to People’s square, where I had to change trains from line 2 to line 1. I have decided that streaming of people moving from one train to another would be fabulous to watch from above. The throngs of people ebb and flow and rarely do large collisions happen. Anyway, two more stops on Line 1 Shaanxi Lu. It took me only 40 minutes from subway station to subway station to get a block and half away from my building. Pretty nice! Plus there is a Starbucks across the street from the subway so I treat myself to an American favorite as a reward for transporting myself in a very Chinese method! Don’t get me wrong. The first few days of riding put my personal space issues to the test. But, it is not too bad and it really was a matter of finding the right times of day to take advantage of it. After I got into the office Wednesday I had a laptop. So another half day of figuring out how to change some of the applications language to English.

Tom returned Wednesday night and Thursday Natalie had Student-led Parent / Teacher conferences. So, after three days at the grindstone, I took a half a day! What a life, right? After her conference I had plenty of time to take the subway at a much better time of day! I ordered my supplies. This consisted of looking at pictures of supplies that the admin took with a camera. The pictures all have the product number and description in Chinese on them and I just copied that file info into a form. So, it was not too hard for me, though I accidentally ordered a case of coke!

Friday morning, the driver dropped me at a different station where I purchased a transportation card (called Jiao Tong Ka). Now I felt like an official Chinese worker. I just scan my card and it automatically debits against the amount I placed on it. I keep it in my purse and I just wave my purse over the reader. Also, we changed to this other station for pick-up and drop off as it is much smaller and quicker. Though on the other hand the other station also had a large fake market in it where I could shop a bit after a hard day of work (Ok, I only bought 2 bags that week).

First week was pretty good. I love my job and what I am doing. The people are nice, though I feel uncomfortable about my inability to speak their language. Probably 95% of the communication among the rest of the staff is in Chinese. And I miss my girlfriends here. I am still on the email chains and see all of the fun places they are going and things they are doing.

Visa or Not to Visa, that is the Question
This week started with another visit from HR. Apparently there is “minor” issue with my Visa. The HR manager asked me if I could fly to Hong Kong this week and get “a Hong Kong” visa. Needless to say, I was more than a little unsettled. I was actually so confused, I wasn’t able to get stressed out. I always keep in mind that this is China, and you never hit a wall, you just have to be prepared to meander through situations. So, I listened to HR and told them I needed to check with Delphi as my visa is currently being sponsored by them. Anyway, long story short: I am now getting an official work visa, but it by no means resolved yet how I am going to do that. And yes, I keep coming to work anyway!

France Sucks
Also this week there was an email circulated by a department employee (for all I know he sits right next to me!) that contained pictures of the protests occurring around China at the Carrefour stores. I heard a little about that from Tom, but was not that familiar with the whole issue. Everyone in the office stood around and chatted about it all day. I couldn’t really understand what they were saying, but I picked up a lot of angry tones. For or against, I do not know. I will admit to currently being immersed in a culture that I do not always understand. This sense of nationalism is just not something that we experience in the U.S. At least not on the scale that they do here.

Natalie’s Emergency
And finally, Tuesday came. Natalie has gone to school now for 8 months. And in that 8 months never once did I receive a call from the school nurse. But today, on my 7th official day of working, the nurse calls at 2:55 to tell me that Natalie has fallen in P.E. and acquired a large bump on her head. I am at last an hour away. School is out in 15 minutes. Do I send her home on the bus and have the Ayi deal with it? Do I call Tom and see if he can get her? Do I run out to the street to catch a cab to head there? Whew. I talked to her on the phone and she said she could ride the bus, but then she started to cry again. She was trying to be sooooo brave. What a trooper. I decided to call Tom, and he of course was able to leave work and get to the school in 30 minutes! I also headed home a bit early as everyone know that father’s can’t be trusted to truly assess a child’ health. But she was fine. She talked at dinner as much as she always has, so I took that as a good sign that she felt alright.

Summary
Going back to work was the right thing for me to do long-term. So far the hardest adjustment is missing the extra time with Natalie and not getting to see my friends very often. I feel like I am growing personally by making myself use the public transportation and to try and be as self-sufficient as possible. Don’t get me wrong. It was wonderful to have a year off and to totally de-stress. It is up to me now to keep that balance and try to learn how to work without letting stress build up!

First Day of New Job for Shelly

Today was my first day of work at Roche Diagnostics Shanghai Limited. Yes, I have finally gotten my lazy self back to the grindstone. I am helping Roche start up a PMO within the Shanghai business area. I came upon this opportunity through a friend's husband (xiexie Mike!) and was lucky enough to be qualified for it. I have known for a few months that I really needed to get back to work. Not that I was not having fun with my friends, but I came pretty quickly to the realization that I was not ready to give up my career permanently and so I felt I needed to take any good opportunities seriously. Ideally I would have gone part-time, but that didn't work out this time.

My office is in Puxi on HuaiHai Lu. That is pretty far from Pudong. This morning Tom had to fly to India so I am lucky enough to have the driver available these first few days. So this morning, I dropped Natalie at the gate to catch her bus and headed on the long ride to work. Right before we crossed the Nangpu bridge, a car slightly brushed our van. Man, was Zhong Biao pissed! He told me later that the other driver was newly licensed and didn't know anything about how to drive. So of course after the van was hit, he put the van in the park right there in the middle of the bridge entrance and started arguing with the other driver. Too funny! In the U.S. you would exchange insurance, take a picture and be on your way. These two guys argued about how much the other guy needed to pay. Zhong Biao wanted 800 RMB. But he ended up settling for 600 RMB. It was just so funny to watch the exchange. We had one and a half of the two lanes blocked for at least 15 minutes before they pulled to a median. It took a total of about 20 minutes to resolve since the Police showed up. Which meant that I was 5 minutes late to my first day of work! Ta da. How to really impress your new company on the first day of work: be late! But it turned out to be no big deal as HR was still making some final tweaks to my final contract terms. Of course I feel bad now about the car and feel like I need to pay the 200 difference. Though later this evening when I looked at the mark, I could barely even see a scratch!!! Such is life here in Shanghai...

When I got home, the house was totally clean, the Ayi cooked my dinner, and then picked up all the dishes. Needless to say, that made transitioning back to work WAY easier than it would have been in the states. I did have to spend most of last week working with the Ayi to transition cooking responsibilities! Of course in reality she is probably a better cook them me, so I really have no worries there. In fact, Tom is excited about eating Chinese more nights during the week. Natalie usually dictates our meal content, but I have decided that she too must learn to adapt her palate. And Natalie behaved well for the Ayi which I guess I expected though 5 year-olds are very good at MANIPULATION. Just ask her grandparents...

Well, I am pretty tired, so I guess I better get this posted and up to bed. More to come....

Thailand Vacation

We just got back from our family vacation in Phuket, Thailand. What a great trip! It was my first time traveling in Asia outside of China. We left on Tuesday, March 25 at 8:45 a.m. and got back Sunday around 4:30 p.m. The only bad part of the travel was that both Tuesday and Sunday were full travel days. The flights we had were on Singapore airlines and went through Bangkok. Be prepared for a long day of travel if you decide to make the journey from Shanghai! It takes about 5 hours to fly to Bangkok and another hour to Phuket. And we found out that Natalie still gets a bit air sick, though she didn't actually vomit this time! We stayed at Laguna Beach Resort. There is also several other hotels really close that are part of the area referred to as Laguna Phuket. The beach there is called Bang Tao Bay. I would guess that all of the hotels there are nice.

The hotel is a 5-Star hotel, but again, in Asia that does not mean the same thing as in Europe and America's. The hotel itself was beautiful and the rooms were nice. But our room smelled overwhelmingly of mold. There was very little hot water in our shower, which really didn't matter after coming in from the 90-degree beach. And there was a woman in the room above us who we referred to as the "Clacker" as she apparently wore high-heels all day and all-night long. We could hear her before she left for the evening around 9pm and then again when she returned around 3:00 a.m.! Too funny.

We really liked the beach there. It really is nice. And the food was good, though I had enough lemongrass by the time I got back. Natalie loved the pool at the hotel as it had a big water slide. She must have ridden on it several hundred times. Unfortunately she was a bit too small to be in the pool all by herself. There were too many other kids and people. She played in the ocean a lot too. She loves the ocean! She only got wiped out by the waves a couple of times. I had to admit that we didn't leave the Laguna Phuket property. We hung out at the pool and beach at the hotel and grabbed lunch and dinner at the cheaper restaurants right on the beach. We thought about going and doing some sight-seeing, but frankly it was nice for Tom to just lay around and do nothing. Maybe if we go again we will venture away from the tourist location. Every day, the hotel had two small elephants brought to the property for the kids to ride. Natalie didn't ride (surprise!), but she did touch them both a couple of times. Tom and Natalie had a sailing lesson one day. Unfortunately it was during a time when there was no wind. So, the guy teaching them did a lot of paddling off the front of the boat. After the sailing they took out a kayak and rode around the the lagoon. Tom was pretty tired by the time they got back. It seems that Natalie did NOT do a lot of the paddling.

I did get a chance to play around with the camera. It was quite fun trying to capture good pictures of the sunsets. You will have check out all of the pictures on shutterfly. I added a few videos out to youtube as well. Enjoy!

Natalie's School Homework

OK, I take a risk on publishing this blog entry and offending all of my family and friends who are even a bit religious, but it was just too funny to pass up. So BIG apologies up front!!!Natalie brought home some work she had completed in class the other day that stated the following:

Jesus Helps at a Wedding (John 2:1-11)

One day Jesus, His disciples, and his mother attended a wedding. All of them had fun until the wine ran out. Jesus' mother knew He could help and He did. After Jesus told the servants to fill the water jugs with water, a miracle happened. The water became wine! The wedding guests were very happy.

We can always take our problems to Jesus. He will help us, just as He helped the wedding guests.

So, what do you think the five-year old said to me, the wine drinker? She said "See mommy, Jesus can make you happy!" So I decided that it was interesting choice to use on a kindergarten color by number page.

Out of the mouth's of babes...

Harry Connick Jr. Concert

My husband is awesome. Most of the time. Ha ha. Seriously, he got us front tickets for a recent Shanghai visit of Harry Connick Jr., one of my favorite artists. Maybe you know him from the music in When Harry Met Sally, as Grace Adler's boyfriend (and later husband) Leo Markus on the NBC Sitcom Will & Grace, or from the Broadway revival of Pajama Game. Not only did he get us tickets, but we got FRONT ROW tickets that were right in front of the his piano. No better seats in the house, unless you count the view from the saxophonist's chair. The concert was in a smallish stadium, the Shanghai Gymnastics stadium. Maybe there were 2500 people there. So it was rather intimate. The concert itself was only about an hour and a half. Pretty short. But I loved it. And Tom liked it too even though some of the jazz standards were a bit slow for him.

Sorry, the pictures are a bit unfocused. Tom had to sneak it out the best he could. Check out the YouTube videos that I added. Pretty cool!

Oh, and before we arrived, we went to dinner on the 57th floor of the JinMao building. Does my husband love me or what? It was a pricey evening out, but I think I must be worth it because Tom did not ask for his money back the next day! I will let you think about that for a while...

Recipe: Oven Roasted Cauliflower

This recipe is very simple and low in calories. It is a quick way to prepare a side vegetable for your lunch or dinner. Also, it tastes good room temperature or even chilled. You can add the leftovers to your salad the next day! The parmesan and chives or spring onions are essential to achieving wonderful taste in this recipe. And be sure to keep your oven hot to get the nice golden brown color!


_________________________________________________________
Oven Roasted Cauliflower

Ingredients:
5 to 6 cups cauliflower florets, about 1 1/2 inches in diameter (from 1 medium cauliflower)
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon sliced garlic
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan
Chopped chives or Spring Onions, 2-3 tablespoons

Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F.

Place the cauliflower florets in a roasting pan or a glass baking dish. Whisk the olive oil with the garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Drizzle over cauliflower and mix well. Place the pan in the oven and cook for 15-20 minutes until fork tender, stirring occasionally to ensure even roasting. Don’t over cook! You want the cauliflower to be a bit firm. Remove from the oven pour onto a serving platter. Sprinkle with the Parmesan and garnish with chopped chives and serve immediately while still warm.

New Career: Cooking Classes???

A week ago, Friday, February 22, I held my first "mock" Cooking Class here at the house. What a hoot! I am seriously considering hosting a few friends here occasionally for a class or two. I had four of my friends, in the picture Deb, Sherie, (me), Angie, and Kathy, come over as guinea pigs to see if I could actually do it! By the way, thanks to Kathy for the beautiful hats! It actually turned out pretty good, though I definitely need to prep each item a bit better. And if the Ayi had not been here to help wash dishes between, it would have been quite a mess. I think that just takes some practice. Plus, I am not a clean cook anyway and need to improve that anyway!

So the menu was:

• Soy-Lime Chicken
  Chicken Breast - marinated asian-style, served with the marinade sauce on top
• Sautéed Brussels Sprouts - Simple sauté of brussels sprouts with honeyed walnuts
• Asian Slaw - Cabbage, radishes, and snow peas combine for a great side dish
• Zucchini Bread - American classic! Moist and tasty, especially when served warm

I am not a very good dessert maker, and the oven I have to work with is not very helpful! The Zucchini bread sunk a bit in the middle, but it still tasted OK.



So, now that I have tried it, I am going to try to hold my first class in March. I have organized my recipes as a result so even if I don't hold a single class or make a single RMB, it was worth if for that! I will post the recipes and progress out here as well!