the eternal student "¥

Chicken Feet in China

It's humbling to be given an opportunity to experience something that brings you to new personal places and helps one to see how the past events have been placed to bring you exactly where you are now. I never could have planned on being here in China forging business relationships and loving every minute of it.
Most of my abstract negative feelings and fears about China are gone. I now have real people and places to put with China and it makes me glad. In many ways China is more of a capitilist and free society than the US. Yes, there are many problems with China, but the negative US media stories just don't do any justice to what is here. The Chinese people have been nothing but kind, honest, and hard working. China would survive just fine without America, but i"m not sure America could survive without China.

Okay, now to the fun stuff.
Here is my room at the Fairmont Hotel on Yangshee Lake. Needless to say I'm spoiled. The hotel has only been open six months and the staff is waiting on us at our every whim.

I can't say too much about business, but it's been another milestone in opening my eyes to future opportunities and how this world is forged and stays together.

Eating real Asian food has changed how I see food should be eaten and prepared. It makes me want to cry to think of going back to American food and its heavy dependence on meat, sugar, and starches. Asain food is full of subtetly, simplicity, vegetables, reasonable portions of meat, and creativity. I've eaten duck, pork, lotus root, dragon fruit, japanese pancakes, preserved eggs, tofu, sticky rice, water rice, vegetables I can't even name or identify, meat I can't name or identify, and my favorite -chicken feet.

Yum, chicken feet.

A fellow employee, Tim, who knows Mandarin and the area was an excellent tour guide. Below is a picture of Tim and Harry walking downtown Kunshan as well as a picture of us eating at a restaurant. I think the lights are in preparation for the Chinese New Year.

I should have been warned ahead of time that the toilets were squat-and-leave-it style.

I picked up some Chinese cartoons 'Detective Conan' for the boys as well as an official black market version of Avatar just for the fun of it. The English translation on the back is quite amusing.

Here are my feet getting ready for a foot massage. Getting massages in China is like going to the gym to workout in the US. In four days I got 6 hours of massage for $60. That would have barely bought an hour in Boise. The massagists go to 3 years of school for certification. Needless to say the massage centre we went to was not a brothel or place for hanky panky, although I did have those fears, but they were allieved quickly. It is definitely a social event and I had a great time with Tim and Harry gettinghad a backs beaten, necks rubbed, and feet massaged. Tim had a special treatment that left red marks on his back and like his skin had been ripped off. It looked painful to me but I could see Lynn liking it.

My sense of sleep is all messed up and likely will be for a couple of days after I get back.

China Surprise

Off to McCall this weekend for the Winter Carnival and then I'm off to China Monday morning for 6 days. Anybody know Mandarin?

Thanksgiving 2009

Thanksgiving this year at my brother's place in Minnesota was much like last years: pheasant poppers, homemade bread and beer, lots of kids, four wheeling, crazy long drive through Montana Wyoming and North Dakota, and much fun all around.



Be sure to check out the pics http://www.flickr.com/photos/theeternalstudent/sets/72157622976775596/

Dinosaur Bathroom Mayhem

One of the joys of being a father of 4 boys is running across random scenes in the house like this dinosaur bathroom mayhem. Those barrel monkeys never stood a chance.

Prison Break 2009 Finish

I ran the Prison Break Half Marathon two weekends ago. Lynn was supposed to run it too but got ill along with Phineas and stayed home. I finished with a decent 1:55 for my first half marathon. Oh yeah!

Thanks to Zach Smith for taking the day off and driving Gid and Ike around to cheer me on. It definitely helps to have a cheering crew!



A marathon is now in sight. My body felt extremely loose and limber two days after the race. I'm ready for that feeling again. Next time I'm going to run it with Lynn. How awesome will that be?

Cookies from Scratch

We were out last night and stopped at McDonald's to get a chocolate chip cookie for each of the boys. I mentioned to Isaac that McDonald's cookies were good, but that we could make better cookies from scratch. Isaac, having inclinations towards good cooking, got really upset when I mentioned making cookies from scratch. We couldn't figure out why he was so upset. "But how can we make cookies from scratch?" We then realized that he was thinking 'scratch' was the chicken scratch he and his brothers feed to the chickens. Yeah, that would not have been good even with gobs of chocolate chips.

Boys on Big Trinity Lake

Got in some great fall camping with Gideon, Isaac, and Phineas on Big Trinity Lake while Lynn and Atticus were at Nelie's funeral in Chattanooga. The Rainbow Basin is a gem of an area and definitely a place we will go back to. We were very fortunate to have camped next to great neighbors. They had a 4-year old girl named Sophia who got along really well with the boys.
On the the way back home we had a good time running around LIttle Camas Resevoir which is extremely low this time of year. Isaac got in some good cow patty throwing. Click on the picture to see more pics and videos.

Catching crickets.

Catching crickets at Elephant rock for Minerva Louise and Jessica to eat (We lost Emperor Zurg the other day to an unknown cause). As we were feeding the crickets to the girls, one of the crickets heads fell off and it cracked the boys up. Needless to say, the chickens loved the treat.