Transitions

Well a new year is upon us, school finally ended (much to the joy of Spencer) and we have officially transitioned into the second half of our time in China: the internship.

The Flagship program ended the semester with a farewell banquet complete with weird Chinese food, awkward awards, funny games, and going way over time.

Fancy Chinese dinners are always served on a lazy susan. You
just use your own chopsticks to take whatever you want to your
plate.

The conference room where they had
all the Flagship activities.

Musical chairs. I totally would have won if Chris
hadn't THROWN the last chair to the other side of the
room.

Musical chairs are dangerous.

Baha, Spencer being "hugged" by seven other people.

 And some of the boys sang for the talent show! We have awesome husbands :)

Spencer and his tutor, Jialiu. Spencer really liked him and we really
appreciate all the time that he spent with him!

A few other things that have happened:
The year started with a bang (literally) as we partied until 2:30 am with some of the other Flagship couples on the 43rd floor of their building. (remind me to never stay up that late ever again!)

We said goodbye to our awesome friend Samy and her cute little boy (she had to go back to the States to fix some visa issues)

And said HELLO to our newest Flagship baby!

And Sister Brigette Bowen returned from her mission to San Bernadino, California! We LOVE being able to talk to her and laugh at (whoops, I mean "with") her :)

The transition to the internship period has been a little rough, mostly for me, with Spencer being gone all day but we are getting through it. I know, I know, cry me a river, right? Well this last semester he was only gone for an average of 5 hours a day, and I LIKED it. So being home for 12 hours, all day by myself, doing the shopping and cleaning and errands all alone with no Chinese speaker, has been tricky. But I think I'm finally getting the hang of it.    Except for yesterday when I didn't answer the door when a yelling Chinese lady was banging on it who turned out to be from the gas company to read the meter but then turned the gas off because no one answered so I couldn't use the stove but had people coming over for dinner in a few hours and I didn't know how to call them to turn it on so I had to take pictures of the notice they left on my door and email them to Spencer at work so he could call them and then they still wouldn't turn it on for a few hours so I had to reschedule dinner....phew. That might sound melodramatic, lo siento, but I had a slight meltdown yesterday. Nothing major, but definitely not one of the best days I've had in China. Now I know to answer the door to the yelling Chinese lady. She just wants to read the meter.

Anyways, Spencer is enjoying working again and I'll have him tell you more about what he does for his internship soon. He is still rejoicing that the "Flagship portion" of his China experience is over. Hallelujah!

Holiday Recap

I have been extremely lazy and extremely spoiled the last few weeks. Spencer has pretty been home all day every day since Christmas, so please pardon my break from the blog.

Just wanted to tell everyone about our awesome Christmas, more than just our brief Christmas greeting at least.

First of all, I LOVE Christmas. Every year I have to wait until the day after Thanksgiving to start listening to music. But not because Thanksgiving needs its moment in the sun, oh no, it's because once I start listening to Christmas music I don't listen to anything else. It becomes nonstop Christmas bells and carols. This year I cheated and started the day after Halloween instead, but hey, I'm in China and I can do what I want.

But back to Christmas. I love the lights. I love the tree. I love the decorations. I love candles and presents and caroling.

And I love pretending like we have a fireplace...

The Saturday before Christmas our church branch had a Christmas dinner, complete with ham, potatoes, and some AMAZING desserts. Honestly, I ate more dessert than real food that day. While usually I would feel totally disgusted with myself for that, I make no apologies to myself or anyone else because it was GOOD and it was Christmas. And what church Christmas gathering would be complete without a nativity?

P.S. This is what Chinese people think Christmas trees should look like:

Haha, love it.

Anyways, Christmas Eve we got together with the other Flagship couples and did a gift exchange, played games, and sang carols. Did I mention I love singing carols? Caroling is a huge tradition in my family, and I bawled like a baby when we sang the "Packard traditional" carols. I loved having our "Flagship family" together, and I'm so grateful for the friendships that we have formed here so we can be family to each other.

After everyone left that night, Spencer and I pulled our mattress into the front room for a "sleepover". I really wanted to sleep in the glow of the Christmas tree and Spencer loves me enough to indulge me. It was so much fun to fall asleep next to the presents and feel the giddy excitement that always comes with Christmas Eve.

OOOOlala ;)

Christmas morning I woke up just before 7 and started poking Spencer. My dad would have been proud, as I whisper-yelled "Spencer, SPENCER! Wake up! Santa came!". I love opening presents, and I loved watching Spencer open his. It was a wonderful moment to see the thoughtfulness that went into each gift, to know how much he loves and knows me and for him to know how much I love and know him. It was perfect.

After opening gifts we took our Christmas morning picture by the tree, which you saw in the last post. But it took some work to set up the camera, so here are some fun shots of Spencer waiting...

Good morning darling

Our friends came over for a big Christmas breakfast of pancakes, bacon, hashbrowns, and eggs, and then they headed off to the hospital to have a baby!

Last family picture before the new baby!

Goodbye kisses

We watched their little girl for the next few days until the baby was born, so we spent the rest of Christmas day playing with dolls and balls, reading books, and taking walks around in the hallway.

I melt.

And the next morning, it even snowed! A (day after) Christmas miracle!

We hope everyone had a GREAT Christmas and that you are all enjoying the new year!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from China!

Spencer and I had a perfect first Christmas. We woke up early, opened our presents with the enthusiasm of children, then spent the rest of the day playing games, skyping with family, watching Christmas movies, and watching Little Miss (our friends' daughter) while her parents went to the hospital so that her little brother could be born. Turns out the little man won't actually end up being a Christmas baby, but we can't wait to meet him tomorrow instead!

We are so grateful for our wonderful last few months in China. We have loved (almost) every minute of it, and I love creating fun holiday memories here!

A Day in the Life

Dislaimer: This is Spencer writing. So don't blame Alisha if it's not up to par.

Since our life in China has just become life--rather than some grand adventure--I figured it would be good to write a little blurb on what I do. Before you get too excited, please know that it's really not that exciting. Essentially, I just go to school. I'm taking a total of four classes. My two Chinese classes boil down to a very straight-forward writing class (not difficult) and an analysis of the past 60 years of Chinese history as reflected in Chinese media (even less difficult since it's mostly just attending the lectures).  My other classes are the two chemistry electives that seemed most relevant to me as an engineer: polymer structures research/analysis methods and separation science.

Fortunately, both of the chemistry classes are fairly relevant even if the professors are focused on the parts that are mostly irrelevant to me. I guess that's what I get for taking Chemistry classes for first year masters students when I'm an undergraduate Chemical Engineering student who plans on working in industry. Aside from going to class, I meet with an assigned tutor 5 hours a week to ramble about whatever we find interesting that day. (Ostensibly, the purpose is to cover what we go over in my Nanjing University classes. Which means that I ask for clarification on maybe three or four terms, and then we need a new topic of conversation. So far, we've covered the basic rules for football, racquetball, rugby, cricket, chess, RISK and fantasy football. He has also taught me Chinese chess.) That's about all I do for flagship this semester. Super enthralling, right?

Anyways, Alisha would be ashamed of me for having so many words with so few pictures. Ergo, I'll put up pictures of the part of my day that generates better pictures than sitting in class: my walk to and from school. So here goes.

We live in Nanjing, China. It's a city of 8.1 million people (for reference, New York City has 8.2 million people. More people live here than in 39 of America's 50 states (individually, not combined)). Lots of people. I know Alisha has already put this picture up before, but this is the view from our window.

Since Nanjing is an important city to China, it is fully modernized--albeit not entirely westernized. This is what a parking lot looks like here:

And here is a sidewalk:

Most people drive electric bicycles and scooters. This is where they park.

The traffic laws here are theoretically about the same as they are in America. Then again, China is not a country that is actually ruled by law. There is a legal principle that if everyone breaks the law together, none of them can be held accountable. Cars typically don't run red lights, and all of the other laws are really just guidelines, right?  This is what crossing the street looks like on my way home from school.

Step 1: Walk into traffic. (or wait, but that's not as fun)

Step 2: Let traffic move around you.

In case you can't tell, the picture below is of a one lane one-way street. There are usually cars parked on both sides, and one moving in the middle. That leaves enough room for pedestrians to either walk along the outside (as in the picture), or sometimes I just walk in between the car in the middle and the parked cars. (Usually a little less room). It's times like that I'm glad I don't ride a bike. It would be much slower.

Besides from traffic, there are other subtle hints that we're not in America anymore. Like this:

Pretty sure the potstickers made in the shop in the
background use this meat. (They're pretty good)

They sell all sorts of things on the side of the roads here. 

This rack was on the back of a bike

Lots of cabbage

Sometimes they clean the fish before they sell them

Dinner?

Lots of steamed foods

This is the back alley/side street where we get fruit and other food.

And this is home sweet home.

So that is the excitement of my typical day. The end.

We'll be here in Nanjing through the end of May, after which we'll move to South Carolina for my next (and final!) internship.

By the way, this is what my commute looked like 4 months ago.

This Little Piggy Went To Market

There are grocery stores in China, but they usually don't have very good produce and it's usually more expensive. So Spencer and I go to the wet market each week to get our fruits and veggies. They are delivered every morning from the local farms and I really love having so much fresh produce to choose from. Granted, we mostly get the same things, but someday I will be adventurous and try something new. Some day...

Anyways, welcome to the market!

There are multiple vendors inside, and in the very back is the meat vendors. No pictures from back there, I avoid it. It smells like you would imagine looks just as bad and the meat sits there all day so we buy our meat from a grocery store instead.

Our favorite vendor. There's usually a different lady here though...

Strawberries have made a recent appearance, but they are
EXPENSIVE. I'm thinking we'll buy some soon anyways.

But my favorite thing about going to the market is seeing what is just outside the entrance.

There are always bins full of the "catch-of-the-day". And most of them are still alive when we go in the morning. My little brother wanted me to take a video of the eels wiggling around, but for some reason it my camera didn't want to take video yesterday, so you don't get to enjoy that stomach-turning sight today (sorry Adam!)

Lots of fishies and shrimp, and until recently
there were also lots of crabs

BIG squid and eels

And you also always know what produce is in season by what people are selling out of their trucks and vans on the side of the road. And I know Thanksgiving is over, but I'm thinking sweet potatoes sound really good right now...

Cabbage and what we think are radishes

Sweet potatoes! Yum.

So when we get home everything has to be washed, because you never know what might be on food here. Running it under water doesn't do the trick, but vinegar does. So the fruits and veggies get a nice spa treatment in a bath of vinegar water and then they are ready for eating!

It varies in size and type, but this is about an average weekly haul
(actually I'd already eaten a couple tomatoes and oranges)
(and the 2 bananas)
All for about 4 dollars!

Hurray for fresh produce!