After Five months of life in Beijing, we are finally feeling settled in. We've had our first visitors, we celebrated our first Thanksgiving in China, went to our first wedding, and we just had our first snow! However, what really makes us feel that we have created a home here was the arrival of Tango, our goofy dog, and his best friend, Merlin the Cat. They had a five star voyage to China through a specialized pet transport company. After three days of travel, overnights in Frankfurt and in Hong Kong, they arrived on our doorstep, none the worse for wear. Anne-Katrine and Lars were very happy campers. Both dog and cat have settled happily into Beijing life--and they get to talk to Gramma and Grampa over skype on a regular basis!
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| Tango hanging out on Lars' bed | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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Argentina Connection:
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| Lincoln reunion: Jolene, Jenny, and Nan |
In October, our good friend, Nan Shorey came through Beijing and stayed overnight with us. Nan taught with us in Argentina, and just retired from Lincoln school in June. She is now on the ultimate world tour, visiting folks in international schools all around Asia, including her own daughter, Julia, who just moved to Xiamen, China. What a testament to international schools teaching careers--you literally have friends all over the world. Another good friend from Buenos Aires is actually living right here in Beijing: Jolene Brister also taught at Lincoln with us. She and her wonderful husband, Julio, and son, Max, just moved here in August as well. She is teaching at the other big international school, ISB, and lives right around the corner from us in Capital Paradise. So good to have a friend close by! We had a fabulous Lincoln reunion. Nan blew back through again about a month later, this time along with Julia. We plan on seeing them both again soon.
More Visitors:
In October, just in time for Halloween, we had three wild women from Norway show up on our doorstep! Joergen's Aunt Turid, his cousin Hilde, and "cousin-in-law" Jenny (cousin Thomas' wife) all came to Beijing on the ultimate girls weekend. They shopped til they dropped, we hiked on the Great Wall, and went out for Peking Duck, a specialty of Beijing (Peking is the old Colonial pronunciation of Beijing).
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| mmm, cockroaches! |
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Joergen took them to the Night Market, a daily outdoor extravaganza featuring traditional Chinese foods. There they found an abundance of sheep penis, seahorse, cockroaches, and scorpions. ( I was busy with the kids at a Halloween party, so unfortunately missed out on this special feast!)
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| Joergen and Hilde |
First Chinese Wedding
A colleague at school invited to our first Chinese wedding in October. She asked Anne-Katrine and Lars to be in the ceremony, as "flower children." Their main duty was to walk behind the bride, and hold hands of some of the smaller children. It was a Christian wedding in a local Chinese church downtown--a mix of Christian ceremony and a traditional Chinese reception. We were very honored to be invited and to have our kids included in the day.
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| Lars and his buddies--Chinese, Singaporean, and Canadian |
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International Day
WAB (Western Academy of Beijing) celebrated International Day
with a parade of nations, a fabulous
international lunch, and lots of fun and games.
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| Norwegians! |
Lars was in a ping pong tournament at school. Ping Pong, or Table Tennis, is a huge sport in China. People take it very seriously. Lars had a ping pong unit in his PE class and became hooked. He used his allowance to purchase his own competition level ping pong racket for the tournament--believe it or not, there are many varieties. At the tournament, we hosted over 150 children from 6 schools in Beijing. There were 40 ping pong tables set up in the gym, games going on constantly for four hours. Some of the parents were really intense--And you thought soccer moms in the US can be over the top!
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| Boris, Lars, and Adrian (and my finger!) |
First Snow of the Year!
Ta shi leng! It's cold! ...and it's only going to get colder. We've had some very high levels of pollution lately; the snow was beautiful, but probably not very edible. Next week, we are traveling to Norway, to spend Christmas with Joergen's family. It won't be any warmer than Beijing, but we are looking forward to a beautiful Christmas season, and the kids are hoping for lots of snow.
