Chocolate dreams

Did you ever wonder what happens if you fall asleep at night eating a 5 pound bag of chocolate chips that you sneaked out of the refrigerator unbeknownst to your parents?

I didn't think so.

We'll here's what it looks like anyway. Courtesy of 3 year old Ethan Woodward.

Bali

We are moving to Canada soon so we're taking our final family Asia trips now. We went to Bali about a month ago. I love Bali because it’s sort of a mix of Hawaii type developed tourism, Hindu culture with a very pronounced boho element of scraggly Australian surfers and random European college-ish kids. The later part pleasantly reminds me of my younger years when I was able to float around South America a bit with a backpack, $15 a day and a high tolerance for very risky looking eating establishments.

The older kids also got to do their first surfing. Private lessons, one hour, board included - $10. This was my kind of place. Both Abby and Ben got up quite a few times. They are so small that they could pop right up, even on a 6 foot board. Anyway, here are some pictures from Kuta Beach.

More Bali pics to come.

Shaolin temple

I went to the Chinese city of Zhengzhou in early December of last year to speak at a conference and figured out after I was booked that it was near the Shaolin Temple – the birthplace of Kung Fu. Zhengzhou is a 3^rd tier Chinese city in the middle/northern part of China with aspirations to be something more. It sits in the middle of the Yellow River valley and has a large agricultural area around it. I thought if had an agricultural feel despite the fact that it had a large urban area and pollution that shows the presence of surrounding industry. I admit that I could hardly wait for my speech to be over so I could get out to the temple. The temple was about 1.5 hours out of town and the ride was nice enough once you got out into a little more of the countryside. At that point some rather large mountains jutted up abruptly from the Yellow River valley that Zhengzhou sits in and they were very pretty. Near the base of one of the mountains was the Shaolin Temple. It was hardly isolated and rather small, but it was pretty and there is a large cemetery outside with tall pillars marking the burial spots.

The funny thing was that there were tons of Kung Fu schools all over the place. There were literally hundreds of kids sparring in school yards on the sides of the roads. Later I read that there were something like 100 Kung Fu schools there. The kids looked to be about 8 to 18 years old. They had sticks, shield, boxing gloves and sparring helmets. Some had these swords that were more decorative than sharp, but still, they were swinging them around like crazy.

The big question that came to mind for me was what do you do after Kung Fu school? Sure, China is a big country, but what are all these wannabe Bruce Lees going to do when they grow up? We can’t all be Ralph Maccio.

Kyoto

I went to Kyoto in late November of last year on a stopover from Singapore to Miami between meetings. I was on a red-eye out of Miami and they originally had me going through Tokyo and then spending a day in Miami. I changed it to go through Osaka. When I got there, I got a bus to Kyoto, which was about 1.5 hours away. The ride was mostly city, until you got a ways out of Osaka. I actually always liked flying through Osaka. The airport is right on the water and you can see the ships and port well and I liked the maritime feel of the place. Anyway, the mini-bus took my right to my hotel, which was actually a small inn. The place was nice. All tatami mats inside so you had to leave your shows at the door. I had no bed, but at thin futon on the floor. I put on a fleece, bought a bus pass and a map and started walking. The day was beautifully cool and clear. I walked through a fairly normal neighborhood until I reached an older neighborhood with smaller streets then I walked up a hill and began going in a series of temples.

This was the Asia you dream about and you see in movies and postcards. Red, yellow and orange maples covering the hills and walkways. Bamboo groves nestled in the foothills. Raked zen gardens next to ponds filled with slow moving koi. The buildings were lovely with the large thick roofs with the rounded eaves. You took your shoes off in many of the shines and temples as you walked along in their open raised platforms above the gardens and ponds. By mid-morning the large Japanese tour groups had arrived, but with them the touristy geishas wandering the small streets. The streets were full of vendors selling different snacks. I tried quite a few, not knowing what almost any were. Most were good. A few a discreetly chucked when I got to a trashcan out of view of the seller. I saw very few non-Asian tourists. I ate at this little ramen bar at night. Gyozo and udon from this giant steaming pot that was almost vat-like in dimensions

The striking thing is how different it is than China. So clean and orderly. None of the pushing, pollution and dirtiness that characterizes so many Chinese tourist locations.

In flight meal

Next time you complain about the lack of a free in-flight meal on a U.S. airline, just look what you're missing. In China they generally still serve some sort of snack. Here's one I had on a recent flight to Guangzhou.

None of it stands out as particularly good, or for that matter edible. The "squids lice" (zoom in on the upper left hand package) tastes about as good as it sounds.

Birthday Carnival

Here are a few pics from today's double birthday party for Abby (8) and Ben (6). We invited all the kids in each of their school and church classes and we ended up with over 50 kids! We hired a local streetside cotton candy guy to come for the afternoon. Since cotton candy is about 10 cents a pop here, this is quite feasible and it was a huge hit. Zachary fell down on the street right before the party. He seems to have fallen directly onto his nose, since he had no scuffs on his hands, knees etc. Everyone had a great time and the weather turned just in time for the party.

More birthday pics

More birthday pics

Chinese nursery school

Ethan attends a local Chinese nursery school where he is the only non-Chinese kid in his class. Check out the poster of his class and see if you can pick him out. The room is not really heated much so you can see the kids all wearing their coats while eating a morning snack. He loves the place and they are really nice to him.

Dubai continued

Here are some more Dubai pictures. The stinky camel farm, out on some sand dunes, Indian tourists taking pictures with our kids, shopping for curly toed shoes.

Dubai

I'm trying to catch up on some posts. Here are some pictures from a trip we made to Dubai as a stop over to see my parents in Brazil. We went to this amazing water park next to the Burj Dubai, the fancy hotel you see in all pictures of Dubai. The kids loved it.

Brazil

Here are some pictures from a cloudy day we spent at the beach near Sao Paulo while we were visiting my parents. Oh, and plus a picture of a python skeleton - a highlight on everyone's Brazilian itinerary.

Suspension bridge

This place is in North Vancouver, over a deep, but narrow gorge over a river.  A very pretty place, but it freaks some people out.  Here’s a picture of Jenny and Natalie. 

British school

The kids recently started school here in Shanghai at a British school called Dulwich College. Its a branch of a British school. The kids are each assigned to one of four "houses" that compete against each other in different contexts, which they think gives a Harry Potter-ish feel to the setup. Anyway, the uniforms are a bit different than the Batman shirts that they might be wearing in the U.S.

Promotion

Here's a spelling error that you wouldn't see at home.

A Hot Liver trustworthiness

I recently bought some prescription eyeglasses at an enormous eyeglass mall by the main train station here in Shanghai. It was a big building, about four stories high and every floor had probably 20 different glasses shops on it. If you want eyeglasses, this place is definitely the place to go and its very cheap. I ended up buying some glasses at a store and they gave me an English business card that they had proudly printed. Just yesterday, I was flipping through some papers and came across the card and noticed the text on the back for the first time, which you can see below. This is probably the roughest translation I've seen since I've been here. I don't know about you, but I generally don't associate Hot Liver trustworthiness with anything as mundane as eyeglasses.