Home Away From Home (*P*S*C* #25)

Welcome to our home away from home during the second part of our stay in Guangzhou! We were moved to this on-campus Foreign Experts building after being in a nearby hotel that was closing due to renovations (much needed). Truly, it felt like we were living in a movie set from one of the old movies with all the palm trees, ceiling fans, cawing birds and tropical humidity. We walked in and out of this gate many times a day. Once through the gate, you can see what our building looked like. There were about 20 dwelling units here with most occupied by visiting teachers from other countries on a long-term assignment. Our next door neighbors were from Japan, across the hall was a man from Germany. Rupert lived downstairs; he was from London. On the east side, we met a fellow American who had lived in the building with his wife and family for the past seven years. We so enjoyed being able to converse in English with these neighbors. We even were invited for dinner one night at the homey apartment of Mark and his wife, Lina.

Here you see the lobby of our building. Charming Chinese girls sat desk and greeted us daily with "Ni Hao" and smiles.

No elevators for residents in this building. We walked these stairs to our third floor apartment daily - and were grateful not to be on the fourth floor. Here we were also greeted by visiting wildlife of the eight-legged variety.

Two balconies were attached to our living quarters - imagine waking up to this view every morning! Add sound effects of exotic cawing birds and you get the whole picture!

Though the cupboards remained bare of dishes and groceries, we did have a kitchen with a refrigerator. We purchased four bowls and two spoons and this was adequate for our needs.

See that box on the upper left corner? It was our true gift in the apartment: air conditioning. The temps were in the 80s and 90s with very high humidity and we so appreciated the coolness provided by this box - and the ceiling fan overhead. The couches, however, were not so comfy.

The apartment had two bedrooms. We were a little relieved to find out that the mosquito nets weren't needed, but just in case they could provide bug protection.

The second balcony had a washing machine and sink. Notice no dryer? This means the clothes were hung out to dry on overhead pipes...which we did take advantage of one time.

I have been asked where exactly Guangzhou is located within China, so I found a map to post here. Guangzhou is in the province of Guangdong and can be found in the lower southwest corner of China. You can see that this is the tropical area of China. Hong Kong is a two hour train trip from here and Taiwan is that island to the right of Guangzhou.

How very very far we felt from our home when we were in China. But, this little apartment was a good place for us to settle in while we were in Guangzhou...and we rather miss it these days.

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Pretty Pagodas (P*S*C* #25)

There's just something so peaceful and pretty about a pagoda. I found myself drawn to finding them as we were out and about in China. Come on along and I'll show you my favorites! The one shown first was on the island of Lamma, just a 25 minute ferry ride away from Hong Kong.

This white pagoda was also on that island at its summit. It just beckoned me to come and rest from our hot, sticky hike.

Certainly the most dramatic of the pagodas was this one spotted from atop the Sky Terrace overlooking the city of Hong Kong. Can't you just imagine it as a meeting place in romantic (Chinese) comedy? Sort of like the Empire State Building in the movie Sleepless in Seattle.

Gotta love a neon pagoda! This was atop the boat we cruised in along the Pearl River in Guangzhou.

Here is a pagoda that was on a vase in our hotel lobby. The vase was about 8 feet tall. And, yes, I did bring along my Blanket Statement book to work on projects while Wes was teaching his classes.

This pagoda was on Baiyun Mountain. We hiked there with our student guide, Jack.

Every day we passed this campus pagoda as it is right smack dab in the middle of the university grounds. Students were always gathering inside, so I tried not to get too close.

Somehow, a pagoda just seems to fit right in to Chinese landscapes.

I think it would be a bit odd to find them here in our neighborhoods. Picture them in your neighborhood...would one fit in?

Perhaps pagodas were my daily visual to soak it all in, store it up in my brain, and remember when we returned to our daily life that there a whole different world out there. I like that.

Pink Suitcase Chronicles #25 to CHINA!

Pink has certainly had the trip of her lifetime --- as have we! We left for China on May 18th and will return today after an overnight delay in Vancouver, Canada. ( I am writing this from the airport.) I have been trying to keep up with a few folks via email, but this is the first time I have access to my blog and can post on the internet. China has restrictions with Google and my personal blog is powered through Google. So, you see, there will be a bit of catching up to do! Where to begin is actually quite a challenge. Do I give a chronological report? No, I don't want to repeat myself to those who were getting emails. Instead, I think these Pink Suitcase Chronicles will focus, rather, on things I observed and learned and took straight to my heart. This was the journey of a lifetime,and I will be processing it all for quite some time. Therefore, this post will focus on what I/we learned as far as dining Chinese-style. (NOT the actual ingested ingredients but how to place them in one's mouth or down one's throat.) What really helped us was having on our private dining room in the hotel we stayed at during the first week - shown here: We learned that the man or host should sit facing the door. Wes is not sitting where he should be! We'd come back from selecting our food items in the dining line, and the waitress would move us to where we should sit by placing our hot tea and chopsticks in the RIGHT places. (No words of English were ever spoken between us and our wait staff. We tried to say "hello" and "thank you" in Chinese as much as we could.)

We learned that using chopsticks is pretty darn tricky! But, by having our own dining room, we could practice, practice, practice.

Wes actually is the better chopstick user of the two of us.

See that little white bowl? That is meant for eating all of the food out of. Do not use the plate for anything but meal waste (bones, wrappers, and stuff you just can't stomach) and the tea cup.

Chopsticks can rest upon the plate in between bites.

Napkins do not come with the table setting. Diners provide their own little packs and pass them out to others.

No need to use a tea strainer! Really! The tea leaves are thrown in there and they expand. The tea starts out light with the first cup, and is quite dark by the time you have your second or third cup. Sometimes only hot water is placed in the pot first, meaning you first rinse out your food bowl and rinse off the chopsticks before continuing - an ancient ritual that is still practiced these days. And the tea water is very, very hot!

The Lazy Susan is the answer for passing food between table members. The bigger the table, the bigger the Lazy Susan..

Dim Sum is the popular eating style in the Cantonese area where we stayed. Small bamboo baskets have 3 or 4 duplicate items inside. Rice dumplings wrap up the "goods" and porridge has many ingredients included inside. Some items defy explanation.

The concept of dessert at the end of the meal is quite different. We were served watermelon slices at the end of nearly every meal, which we quite liked.

All things noted, we tried our best to get it right. Certainly our hosts must have been amused as we tried with foods falling from our chopsticks, items being consumed with bones and figuring out how to remove of them discreetly, and just the way we conducted ourselves in general.

And, by the way, they say forks and knives are difficult for them...

Green Travel Accessories (Copycat Challenge #21 & #22)

The green wooly blanket keeps on giving - this marks the over halfway point of the blogging project using the book Blanket Statement by Vicki Haninger. Two little projects are going to make their way across the ocean with me as we soon travel to China.

For project number 1, I used the Dainty Slippers pattern on pages 76 and 77 - not to make slippers for myself, but to use as a bookmark as I know there's a lot of reading to be done on this trip!

The "tweak" on this pattern was easy! I simply made the two slippers and sewed a ribbon end to each slipper and voila it became a handy bookmark. Little slipper flowers were made by coiling up a leftover scrap of green wool and sewing it to a fringed scrap of rose-colored fabric.

Just for kicks, I thought I'd try to vary the pattern a bit on bookmark number two. This one would be perfect for taking to the beach as it features a pair of flip flops. And what better beach book than The Shell Seekers by one of my favorite authors Rosamunde Pilcher?

For project #2, I was thinking about my travel jewelry. The Valentine Needle Case on pages 30 and 31 would work splendidly to hold onto earrings when stuck through the inner felt heart. Even clip-on earring would work here - not that I wear those.

How well I remember the days when my mom wore those clip-on earrings! Usually they didn't last long on her ears and she'd take them off and place them on a tabletop nearby. Her hands would rub her earlobes as if in discomfort. As a girl, I couldn't understand why she removed this bling ---to me they seemed like the height of glamour! Eventually, though, Mom got her ears pierced.

There you have it. On my wish-list-to-purchase-while-in-China are some more books (children's) and jewelry (pearls or jade) to go with these new green accessories! Wish me luck, please. In reply: m goi or do ze.

"Nailing" Melatonin Comparison

Knowing that the temperatures we are soon going to encounter are in the 90's, and knowing that my toesies are sure to be exposed, it was apparent they needed help! The "reverse" French

pedicure I have been sporting was due for an extreme makeover. (Check out the feet on the left.) Do you care to guess who my pedicure partner was on the right? I'll give you a clue: she is tan after only minutes in the sun, she's a Grandma to four (with another "in the oven") and she is my City Nest neighbor. Give up? She's my wonderful sister. I just love how she is up for spur-of-the-moment adventures! And, no this is her present skin tone, not anything from a tube or table!

Here is our before picture.

So many nail polish colors from which to choose...but typical to our sisterhood similarities, we ended up picking almost the same color.

Side by side we sat and chatted while our toenails were pampered.

I'd like to thank Melissa for recommending this place on Peterson Avenue. She was right about how the staff would pamper us, and would give us a back massage as we waiting for the nails to dry.

And here is our after picture.

Funny how a little thing like a pedicure can put you back in a "happy" place as you are forced to sit while the feet are fretted over. Funny how a little thing like sitting side by side with your sister makes you forget all the items on the monumental to-to list. Funny how genetics gave her more melatonin (by far) than me, too!

Thank You Very Much, Mr. JT

Have you ever had a song in your head that just won't let up? You know, where one particular phrase keeps looping through your brain and won't even let you sleep? Especially when you really need to sleep?

My thanks go out to a certain Mr. James Taylor - one of my favorite singers, by the way - for singing the song My Ducks are All in a Row. Here are the lyrics I can't seem to shed at present:

In line, in line, it's all in a line

My ducks are all in a row

They do not shift, they do not move

They have nowhere to go.

Obviously, my ducks-in-a-row on the home front are presently not in a nice line-up formation. My brain is crackling with a lengthy to-do/to-go/to-remember list. Maybe the song playing in the cerebellum is meant as a helpful voice to keep me on task?

What do you do when you can't get a song out of your head?

Most Entertaining Commencement Address to Date

Over the weekend, we hosted the family of a graduate, and attended North Park's 2010 Baccalaureate and Commencement services. Congratulations to Kiera, Laura, Alli and Katie are especially sent out! These young women have worked very hard to come to this point and we salute their many achievements and accomplishments. Check out their cords!!

Here we have our first graduate, Kiera, with her family (minus Sommar) in front of 4th Presbyterian Church where, for the first time, North Park held its Baccalaureate service.

And here we have Alli (with Anne) who went back after her first degree at NPU to earn her Nursing degree. You go, girl!

Next, the Johnson family sisters with the Youngmans - Laura, the world is awaiting your passion for learning and teaching as you go forth to inspire! Katie, the graduate on the far right, is passionate about people and music and will soon marry into the Rholl family, esentially becoming a part of our family, too.

And now we come to what I found to be the most entertaining Commencement Address ever - and I have heard a lot of them in my tenure as the wife of an academic man. This was presented by Kevin Leman and the NPU website had this synopsis of the event:

An honorary Doctor of Humane Letters was presented to psychologist and popular author Kevin Leman. Leman, most famous for his books on the role of birth order in developing personality, humored the audience with comments about his children and his own academic difficulties at North Park. He was admitted to the school on academic probation and expelled after three semesters. He later turned his life around and credits the school with making a significant spiritual difference in his life. Leman also told the graduates that their family and friends who jammed the gymnasium were “really not here to celebrate your accomplishments as much as they’re here to celebrate your life.”

His speech was called The Turtle on the Fencepost and the point was made that, again, we don't get to places in our lives without the help of others. He certainly was challenged in his academic life, but his sense of humor in prevailing until he got it right had the audience in laughter the whole time.

I'm thankful that Kiera, Alli, Laura and Katie had all the support from family, friends and faculty to get them perched on this latest fencepost. And now as they are done with campus life at NPU, I wish them nothing but the best, no matter what is to come. WE CELEBRATE YOUR LIVES!

May Showers Bring May Flowers (Copycat Challenge #20)

Hoo Boy...that was some shower overnight with a thunderstorm to match! Good thing to know that showers always bring flowers, right? In this case, the flowers just happen to be green and filled with beans. In the book BLANKET STATEMENT by Vicki Haninger, the pattern is for a pincushion, but I think that would be far too dangerous for Miss Ellie for now, so we'll have to settle for tossing these flowers at her Grandpa instead - when she gets old enough to toss, of course! A word to Grandpa: RUN! The pattern is found on pages 60-61 of the book I am blogging my way through. It is actually one of the easiest patterns to follow as it is really just three pieces - the two large cirlcles for the top and bottom of the flower, and a smaller stuffed circle for the flower center. I chose to add French knots on the flower center to give added texture to the project. Little chain stitches on the flower petal "lines" further secure the long stitches taken to form the petals. Again, I visited my friendly neighbor's yard for this photo shoot. The little blooming bush appears to be an azalea in my thinking. I thought it would be unkind to place a heavy beanbag on a tender branch --- and my neighbor was looking, so I had to behave. But, I really did want these flowers on that bush branch! Imagine that if you will --- wouldn't a beanbag bush be the coolest thing ever?