Fat-Tastic

Ok, so you know that it has to be big these days if I’m posting pictures or blogging! About six weeks ago I suggested to Jocelyn that we should get a cat --  to which she responded by vehemently rejecting the idea. She hates cats, would probably sooner die than live with the majority of the cats who have crossed her path throughout her life...

Today, we brought home Fatty, our new two-year-old Tabby cat from a rescue shelter near our home. There’s a story that gets us from rejecting the idea of a cat to visiting a cat shelter, to telling off the woman who didn’t want us to have the cat (all of these are Jocelyn’s actions :)

Basically, after the fourth “spider as big as your head” that we saw in our apartment, I was losing sleep and going slightly insane looking everywhere for the next one to jump out. So I started asking neighbors if they’d seen spiders. One said she barely had any at all, but they have a cat who eats them or chases them away... I mentioned this to Joce who had tackled three of the four hideous spiders.

A few days later, she sends an email with research she’d done on local cat shelters... she decided she hated both cats and spiders, but she hated spiders more... let’s get a cat!

So we went to the Mayhew Animal Shelter and found Casper AKA “Fatty”. We instantly loved him. He crawled into our laps the instant that we knelt down and we knew he wasn’t likely to hiss at us or bite us, two of the main things that really concerned Joce.

I can’t go through all the details of how much work it took to get Fatty, but we now have him on a foster basis until we move in December, at which time, the Mayhew will be coming out again (yeah, again) to our new home to inspect it just like they did our current place.

So we picked him up today, he didn’t cry in the cat carrier or get sick on the Tube or freak out when we opened the door. He promptly walked out and began inspected the place. He rubbed up on all the walls and then plopped himself in the middle of our living room and rolled on his back.

So far, we’ve been able to cut his claws, successfully feed him, he’s gone to the bathroom in his litter box and  we’ve figured out that the more attention that we can give him the better. I also took him outside on our balcony to give him a quick hairbrush (which he loved indoors, but obviously brushing him inside is an oxymoronic idea if it’s meant to help keep down the pet hair). So I took him outside...

Previous to doing this, he’d simply purred his little heart out... Not so outdoors. He actually growled although he still let me brush him. So, I think he’s not such a great outdoors kind of cat, but maybe it was just cause it’s his first day.

Right now, we have foil on the couch so he won’t sleep on it at night and he’s fairly happily curled up on the mat in the kitchen ready for a long nights sleep. Both me and Joce have officially turned into those people who can only talk about their babies or their dogs or in our case our cat. We absolutely love him!

Spider

Ok, so I haven’t written in months and I apologize, but nothing like a good old fashioned scare to the heart to get you writing again. Today, I saw the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in my life apart from at a zoo. And no, I didn’t see it on the street or in a park or somewhere I could forget about it, it was in my room. Literally, the body of this thing was about the size of two quarters next to one another. That doesn’t count its legs, which had proper joints on them like humans. It also had fangs, real hissing fangs.

Yup, such a beast was just hanging out in my room, just before bedtime. I literally didn’t scream because I didn’t want to startle it and have it move. So I ran into Joce’s room and she came to survey the situation. She must have understood the no screaming thing as well. Since she was on the phone with her dad, she got some advice and went to get her whiffle ball bat (yup the old school fat red one, it was necessary, they don’t understand baseball in this country). 

On the other hand, I went to find a male who could properly deal with the situation. I knocked on the door of two of my neighbors. No luck. So I looked out on the balcony and saw that another neighbor across the courtyard was in his kitchen. So I ran downstairs and stood under his window flailing my arms in an attempt to get his attention. I did so he came to our flat and took a look. 

When he walked in, he said, “Oh that’s no big deal”.  But when the thing moved, he jumped so hard he broke my dresser drawers, but I couldn’t care less...

Oh yeah, he’d brought over one of his sister’s shoes with him, there was no way this heel was going to do anything for this thing. If we splattered it it would have created a huge mess on the wall. Plus, we were advised from some other Brits that Joce was on the phone with, that killing it might release babies and they would hatch (I thought that was cockroaches, but whatever). 

So this guy gets a Tupperware container, slams it over the thing and then closes the lid on it. Takes it home with him and puts in on its porch to basically suffocate...

I can’t sleep, because I’m sure there will be another one. There is a good reason to have screens on your windows. Why is England like a third world country? Even worse, Africa has nets everywhere, why does it seem so hard for these people? That thing was too big to get in through a crack in the wall. It just waltzed in from my big window that we keep open because they don’t have air conditioning here. Oh geez, screens people, screens.

Leaving China

I’m on the plane now headed back to London. Shanghai was incredible. The people, the culture, the food, all so different from anywhere I’ve lived or travelled. I don’t know that I could ever live in China, but I see why Querston likes it.

Thanks to her, Omar and Sly, I’ve now been on three continents in this world! Hopefully we can meet up again in London or even in a more exotic beach town... Lord knows we all need the sun!

Jade Temple

After considering walking around yet another Chinese temple, clueless to the significance of what we were seeing, hearing and smelling, Querston and I did the smartest thing we’ve done yet, I think... we asked for a tour guide! Welcome to finally understanding what the hell is going on.

I even took notes on the whole thing. I really wanted to remember everything that we were doing. Since this was a Buddhist Temple, many people were praying to the statues, bowing on the pillow stools, lighting incense, etc. It was hard to know when we were being respectful or disrespectful, what was a good god for them, what each statue meant. The temple was fabulous, so many bright colors, things to see and the history was incredible.

the temple was also the unraveling of my good sense. Heretofore I had done well, spending very little about $130 or £65. Not bad. But all that good bargaining was lost nearly at the door of the temple. I noticed that lots of the tourists (anyone with a white face - I call them Gringos in my head for some reason on this trip) had these little gift shop type bags. I was instantly intrigued because it was about the first time that we’d seen such a thing. 

Then, as helpful as our tour guide was, he was a salesman. He took us to an upstairs jade room where I spent $150 on a jade bracelet. Now, I don’t ever wear bracelets. I’m not that into jewelry, I’ve never been a jade connoisseur. But, again, my good sense left me at the happy buddha downstairs. 

The bracelet would probably have been ok, if that was my last purchase. My friend Samira had me intrigued about this eastern tea she buys in London that is supposed to clear you out and help you lose weight. So we go for a tea tasting... $150 later ($50 for me, $100 for Samira) I have some marigold flowers that the monks grew out back in my possession. What in the world made me buy $50 worth of TEA, no actually herbs, for myself. I don’t even drink tea that often and I certainly don’t go the rigamarole that this stuff takes. 

I tell you what, my four-month supply of tea better... well I better look about like Eva Longoria by time October rolls around...

I can’t ever come back to China with money again! Someone remind me to never buy anything at the temples. They have it at the fake market, they have it at the fake market.

Click here to see the gorgeous pictures from the temple!

Confucius Temple

My handy guidebook says that Shanghai’s Confucius Temple is in the southwest quarter of Old Town. It was restored and reopened in 1999. But the most important detail is that the ground are tranquil and seldom crowded...

Well they weren’t kidding. In the most overpopulated country in the world, Querston and I were two of only 15 maybe 20 tourists at the Confucius Temple (hence the above photo). 

The Temple is beautiful, but again, Querston and I were aliens in a world we’d seen from afar but really knew nothing about. We were great at taking pictures, but as you’ll see in the captions, we weren’t really sure what we were looking at. 

The gardens were very quiet and peaceful, but we wish that there would have been more placards to give us some of the history. Sadly, my guidebook only offers about a paragraph for each general site, so it was no help either. 

That has been a bit of the theme on this trip, but we are learning from it. No more strollers on outings, taking pictures is good, now let’s see about learning some history at the temples. The saga continues...

Click here to see the pictures from our Chinese lunch and Confucius Temple.

Chinese Lunch

Oh gosh, how to describe our traditional Shanganese lunch... Querston’s Mandarin teacher was gracious enough to take us for lunch. Querston and I knew that we were very likely to be in trouble, but I had no idea just how hard it would be. 

The food here is simply nothing like I’ve ever eaten. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I’m a picky eater, but it wasn’t even so much of a taste thing as it was a preparation issue. 

We started off with what I like to call clammy chicken. It was set down on the table cut into pieces with the head cut off, but still on the plate. The waitresses, undoubtedly seeing the distress in our faces, quickly removed the head, giggling a bit to one another as they did it. 

Side note: I was pretty sure they were laughing at us the entire time, but Yvonne assured us that they weren’t. 

The chicken still had it’s blood, bones and skin, which wasn’t so much the issue as was the cold, uncooked sort of texture and taste the chicken had. We determined it must not have been cooked in an oven, rather steamed or something. It didn’t go down very easy, two bites tops.

Next was the soup round. It was a crab tofu soup and was the most edible thing besides the vegetable that we ordered. It was hot and good, but there were some small bones or scales or something that I was constantly picking out of my mouth.

Steamed dumplings were next. Thankfully, I got a pass on these as they were pork, which I don’t eat. Querston suffered through one, but it wasn’t to her delight, I’m sure. Asparagus was next and it was good. Although they gave us the bottom part instead of the top, comparatively, it was what we ate the most of.

Lastly came our actual meals that we’d ordered. Querston got sweet and sour pork and I wanted the same thing with chicken, but no go, so I got it with fish. Let me back up and qualify how the Chinese serve your fish. First they brought the fish out to our table in a big bucket. I wasn’t quite ready for it, so my reaction probably didn’t match decorum. Then it’s chock full of bones. Although it didn’t taste bad, I’m just not accustomed enough to eating around the bones. Three bites, that’s it, can’t take the bones.

My strategy was to simply talk throughout the meal to avoid eating too much and looking rude for not doing so. Querston suffered more than I did, I’m positive of that. All in all, the food actually didn’t taste too bad, it was just prepared very differently.

Click here to see pictures from lunch as well as Confucius Temple.

Haungpu River

Why do I ever forget to save? I’m writing this blog again because I forgot to!

So Querston, Omar, Sly and me went down to the Bund today and walked around and we went on a cruise down the Haungpu River. We had a huge boat and it gave us the opportunity to see both sides of the city. Shanghai is split by the river into the Puxi side and the Pudong side. Since Querston lives on the Puxi side, it was nice to see the Pudong side. 

I took a ton of pictures and we even met another group of people from Indiana. This makes our second in four days. So I have officially met more Hoosiers in China than in London. 

Sly seemed to love the boat and I’m pretty sure that we went all the way to the mouth of the Yangtze River. Again, the tour guide aspect isn’t that great with my little Berlitz book that I bought, but it gets me by!

Click here to look at the photos!

Yu Yuan Park

So, Querston and I decided that we would go to Yu Yuan Garden. Everyone suggested seeing it and we thought it would be fun to see the flowers. We decided we could bring Sly because it was outdoors, so if he got upset, it wouldn’t really matter since we weren’t inside...

Our first mistake was deciding not to bring the Baby Bjorn. We decided instead to tote around Sly in his stroller. Well, it would be an understatement to say that China isn’t exactly stroller-friendly. We spent more time in the park determining how exactly we’d get through crevices and down walkways than we did actually learning anything about the park. 

So mostly, we’re pretty sure we missed the historically significant things, but we did take some cool photos! Click here to check them out!

China

Oh to actually understand what day it is?!? I think I’m actually writing this on May 25, but I can’t actually tell with the time difference here... It’s 5 a.m. and jet lag has me sleepy really early and this morning, up really early as well. It gave me a chance to see why it’s dark here in China at 7 p.m. in May! It’s 5 a.m. and it has been light for over 30 minutes!!! You’d need to be up and going at like 7 a.m. to get the maximum impact of the day. Just a muse, don’t think I could handle that. Thank God for 9 p.m. sunsets in London.

Ok, so having safely landed and entered Shanghai, I have entered an alternative universe where the driving is INSANE, the people are wonderful and the food has been American (is it bad that I’ve had Papa John’s on three different continents now?)

Seriously, I have never in so many near-miss car crashes as I have here in Shanghai! We have almost hit cabs, other vans, people on mopeds, people on bikes, we’ve even nearly maimed a few pedestrians, although it didn’t seem to phase them. I almost got hit by a cab while standing out in front of Querston’s apartments. And no I wasn’t in the middle of the street, I was in the entranceway! 

So far I’ve seen the Pearl TV Tower, but I didn’t take pictures as we were simply driving by it and I’ve seen the people. It isn’t quite the mass of people I was expecting, but there are a ton of people here for sure.

Today we are going to the Yu Yuan Garden and I am so excited. The guidebook said it would be fun and Rick suggested it too, so hopefully I will love it. Of course I will post pics as well.

I also went to the fabric market here in Puxi where Q lives. I got three suits made, a linen skirt and five dress shirts for 1540 RNB. That shakes out to $198.45. I’m hoping that they will all fit and not fall apart and that I like them, but if I really get all that for under $200, well I’m a happy camper. Going back on Monday to check out the results.

Also plan to go on a river cruise and see the Bund and hopefully the museum with the replica of Shanghai that Linda mentioned. Also plan to go for drinks at the tallest hotel in the world, Grand Hyatt. Will write all about it later!

Best Day

Today was the best day ever. My computer said that it was 75 degrees, which was incredible considering that if I was in the states, it would have been 45 degrees. I was able to sleep in and had nothing on my agenda.

So I applied for a few jobs and sent a couple of emails. After that, I got dressed in a wrap dress and heels. Then, I decided to go on our balcony and read. So yep, I got dressed to go on our balcony, but it was what I wanted to do and I didn’t have to explain it to anyone.

I got my music out, made a glass of iced tea and kicked up my feet. After about 90 minutes, I got bored and went over to see Drew and Jocelyn. Took a walk through the neighborhood and was simply smiling the entire time. No reason, just wearing sandals and relaxing in London, can’t really complain about life when it’s like that. 

After going back to reading Good in Bed for another hour or two, Audrey called to invite me to a drink in Covent Garden. As much as I wanted to go, I’m scaling back the booze money, or spending money on anything, so I skipped. 

I moved inside as it was getting dark. Almost at the end of my book and it was really fun to still be reading and not be bothered. Athena called and invited me for pie. Since I was almost done with the book and technically pie is a necessity, not a luxury, I conceded. I put on the dress and heels I was wearing earlier and caught the bus to Oxford Circus. We walked, talked and got Ben & Jerry’s. Mmmm, chocolate chip cookie dough and fudge brownie!!! Plus catching up with Athena was great.

After about an hour relaxing and being amused in Picadilly Circus, we headed home. Back here now, showered and ready for bed. Relaxed and ready to greet the day tomorrow. Here’s hoping I can get some equally wonderful sleep!

Dehumidifier? Are you kidding me?

We have a mold problem in our house. So the inept housing agency which is Pathmeads Property Management sent over “extractor fans” to rid us of our mold problem. What they didn’t tell us was that they would be sending industrial strength dehumidifiers... 

If you can even imagine, this thing was one of TWO they thought we should have in our two bedroom, 600 sq. ft. apartment. Are you joking? There was even a separate voltage converter for the thing that was about as big as a paint can! 

The guy told us that we’d need to move it from room to room about every two weeks. And since it was so heavy, he’d come back to do it...every two weeks. Sure that sounds like fun! I’ll just stay home from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. every two weeks so you can wheel around our dehumidifier.

Just another day with our property management, whom I’m sure would have been sued blind if they were working in the US. Makes me miss home...

Sanjaya

So, thanks to the internet, I can happily keep up with my American Idol obsession that is being regulated by medication, but started immediately after the first season started when I was in undergrad.

That being said, I’ve always rooted for the belter. The person who can sing with such incredible power that you are sure she or he can take on any song as long as it requires a good singer. 

To that end, this season I’ve happily been rooting for...well the black people. Jocelyn’s mom called one night (she loves Idol as well) and said in a thick Boston accent, “Those black girls are wicked good.” And Mrs. Keith I agree. Melinda, Lakisha, Sabrina, Jordin and Stephanie rounded out a group of people who were actually fun to listen to because you were fairly certain that it would be beyond their singing ability that would be a challenge. The judges weren’t going to constantly talk about how they sounded, more about challenging them in other aspects of the contest. 

I too love a good challenge, so I think that I’m going to start rooting for the antithesis of these girls -- Sanjaya. I think it would be so cool to have my kids come home from elementary school one day and show me the chapter in their American history textbooks where it said the nation truly fell apart and went nuts. Forget the Iraq war, Sanjaya Malakar won American Idol as one of the biggest, most cohesive jokes American’s ever played on themselves.

How this kid is still on the show is beyond me, but I think it would be great for him to win. Simon has promised to quit (awful - but I’d love to see if it would happen). Fans are begging for the voting to cost money to stop power voters and people like Howard Stern are now weighing in on this show, which just ups it’s street cred in my opinion.

So, in hopes of seeing hell freeze over, or pigs fly or all the other crazy things that can happen, here’s to Sanjaya winning... thank God I watch Idol the next day so I can’t vote! 

Sick

I’m home on a sick day today :( Sad, I think that I could blame Nolan or Thabi and Edu, but instead I’ve taken it out on the growing mold problem that we have in our apartment. On the upside, I was really productive today, which is extremely exciting. 

Hopefully, our landlord will decide to have the mold tester come sooner than later, not holding my breath (although I probably should). I looked up a bunch of home remedies to get rid of the mold. It looks like we’re stuck with either keeping the windows open at night or getting one heck of a dehumidifier. Since I don’t want to spend £150 ($300) on anything at this point, looks like we’re going to freeze our butts off til the weather gets nicer. 

On that note, it was 56 F here today! Can’t wait for spring (Mom, don’t forget my flip flops!)

Anyone else got any good mold remedies? Weather stories? Ok, back to watching downloaded television!

Valentine's Day

Ah Valentine’s Day -- A single girl’s favorite day of the year. American’s might think that they can get away from this Hallmark holiday by coming to England, but unlike Halloween, Brits actually understand this one and practice it in the same way.

So, in order to have fun on V-Day, Sandra, Meagan, Joce, Jo, Drew and I all decided to go to an Italian place for dinner. The food was amazing and the company a perfect accessory to each of our entrees. 

Afterward, our trip to the newly opened Globe Bar, was the perfect dessert. We all went home, happy and 364 days away from another Valentine’s Day!

Snow Day in London

So this was the big snow of ’07 for London. As you can see, that Thursday was a big deal. It even made the teaser for the local London paper, The Evening Standard. 

I thought those of us from the less sunny parts of the US might find these pictures funny. Above is a picture of Dibdin House (AKA - where I live). You can see just how snowy it got. It’s a wonder we all made it anywhere.

Joce and I got up to go to our normal workout class only to get all the way there and it was cancelled (not surprised are you?) The Tube was an absolute disaster, people were late to work, college classes were cancelled, people just didn’t know how to work in this sort of weather.

Just another funny day in London!

Weekend with Sam/Blue Man Group

Yeah, yeah, so Sam came to London, stayed at the flat, we had dinner at the Elgin, watched the Super Bowl...all good. 

This blog entry is more about the Blue Man Group outing we took on Sunday before the game. First of all, don’t try to get 1/2 price tickets for plays on a Sunday in London. There wasn’t a lot of options for us. I couldn’t wait to see a wonderful musical - maybe Chicago or Mary Poppins or even the politically incorrect Avenue Q. Instead we basically had three choices. I can’t remember the other one, but we could choose between Stomp and Blue Man Group. 

Remember how I wanted to watch a story? Didn’t happen. I couldn’t bear the thought of listening to a bunch of banging on drums, so we decided that the Blue Man Group was for us. Denae went earlier this year and wasn’t impressed, but perhaps she was wrong...

Nope, don’t go see the Blue Man Group if someone gives you tickets! The inane entertainment includes some drums and basically mimes in blue faces who do stupid things like stuffing paint balls into their mouths and spitting them back out on canvas...the best part of the entire show was when the audience pulled about 200 rolls of toilet paper from the back of the theatre, where they were suspended, to the stage. It was like being a kid again and doing something that your mother was going to yell at you for, but it was still worth it. 

I’m not sure what the point of the paper was since it just sat lifeless near the stage while Larry, Mo and Curly continued to do stupid crap...not impressed and never want to be involved again!!!!

Click here to see photos from our weekend!

Bath Road Trip

So when I found out that Samantha was moving to Bath, England, I thought it would be the perfect time for Jocelyn, Drew and me to check out Bath. Unlike normal people who would book a train ticket for all involved, we shunned that idea, opting for the much safer mode of transportation -- driving. 

Hmmm, Krystin, you don’t know how to drive on the left side of the road, neither does Jocelyn. Drew just got his drivers license a few days ago, what makes this a good idea? Well nothing probably, but it was so much fun. We had the obligatory disagreements about music (thank God for Sam and another person with good musical sense). We also went through a McDonald’s drive-thru on the wrong side of the building. 

We were saved by the fact that we had a GPS in the car. We named her Bessie and she did a lovely job of getting us to Heathrow, to Bath, Bristol, back to Bath, back to Bristol, back to Bath...you get the idea.

You’ll notice that most of the photos on my Bath Road Trip page are from the car. Since we had a car, four iPods and a GPS, we didn’t feel a grand need to get out of the car very often.  Drew also felt the need to test his ability to circumvent the speed cameras that line English highways. He was caught at least twice, but since he actually rented the car on his American license...well, let’s just say his parents are looking for any suspicious things in their mailbox.

Click here to see photos from our Bath Road Trip

Super Bowl Baby!

I called it from the very beginning of the season. I just knew that since it was the one year out of my entire life that I decided to live outside of Indiana...this would be the year that the Colts made it to the Super Bowl. 

Joce, Drew and I went to Sports Cafe starting at 8 p.m. to catch the Chicago v. New Orleans game. I really wanted Chicago to win - two black coaches and two midwest teams in the Super Bowl...couldn’t be better. 

As the Chicago game ended and the Bears and Saints fans left the bar, I realized that the Colts fans were outnumbered about 20-1 (including Drew - who has never lived in or near New England!!!). That was ok though, I knew it was our year, we were going to win, Peyton couldn’t have three bad games in a row and the defense had too much to prove to let this one go. Our city has supported the Colts and the Pacers for years without ever getting past divisional championships. We’ve now paid for two stadiums -- it was our time (BTW it was 11:30 p.m. in London at this point). 

I talked a little bit of trash before the game, but choose mostly to rely on the scoreboard as my bragging right and let everyone know so just before the game started...

21-3

WTF -- How could we be down right from the start and by so much? It was crazy, it didn’t make sense. Didn’t Dungy remind those guys about how the fans have stood by them, how we deserved a win, how they deserved a win, how we couldn’t choke one more time? I was nearly sick to my stomach, but I told my dad in a call before the game that I felt good about it and I stood by that feeling all the way to 38-34 with 1:00 to go. I just knew that somehow they wouldn’t let the Patriots get into the end zone. They might score a field goal, but there was no way that the Colts would be up with one minute left and lose.

I couldn’t sit in my chair anymore. I’m sure most of you couldn’t either. I was absolutely DYING of heat in the Colts fleece pullover I received for Christmas, but I refused to take it off. I gathered around with the other seven Colts fans and we knew it was coming, we were jumping up and down, sick to our stomachs with scratchy throats thinking of the magnitude of our city finally making it to the Super Bowl.

Colts Interception!!!

I was in tears, hugging everyone around me. Colts fans came running from everywhere. We’d finally made it to the big game. I don’t think any of us actually care too much if the Colts win the Super Bowl, we are so proud that they finally broke the Indy curse and made it to the championship. 

I’m seriously thinking of coming home for the game. It could be once-in-a-lifetime -- I mean if they go the same amount of time, I’ll be 48 before they make it back...If I don’t make it, enjoy the game for me. I am so happy -- GO COLTS!!!