Adult Halloween in Chengdu

Last Saturday night a group of us got together and went to the Shamrock's Halloween party. The places was definitely buzzing and it was a ton of fun!



Me, Amy, and Angie. They are both wives of Jonny's co-workers who have lived in China for the past 3 + years.



Bruce, Jonny and Matt.



Reed and Amy.

The fun thing about the Shamrock is that you can purchase a whole bottle of liquor. For instance we purchased a bottle of Bombay Sapphire Gin and they brought us a bucket of ice, cans of tonic, and the entire bottle of gin. It is much more economical than buying it by the drink, but not too fun when you go through a whole bottle between 3 people!



Brad, one of Jonny's co-workers dressed up like a porn star. The funny about his costume is that it took me about a 1/2 an hour to figure out who he was!



Jonny had to try the wig. I am so glad I didn't meet Jonny when he had hair. It just looks so wrong on him!



Brad took off the wig and then his wife Angie gave it a try.

We have flitted!

My mother-in-law said to to me when we were in the process of moving from one house to another back in AZ that she would come over to help us 'flit'. I finally figured out what she meant and hence the title of my blog.

Everyone has been dying to see pictures our our house. Now without further ado the grande tour of Casa Dallas, Chinese-style!



You walk in the front door and here is the living room. It is huge! The Chinese are very proud of their televisions. There are TVs in every foot massage place and every house we looked at had a massive TV!



You walk up three stairs to the dining room. Notice the floors are made of granite. It is everywhere here, on the sidewalks, driveways, etc.



On the main floor there is a guest bed for our company. Doesn't it look comfy! Jeannete, Brian, Pam, did you book your tickets yet????



Here is the guest bathroom. Notice the urinal, any ideas to either hide it or make a piece of art out of it?



Here are the stairs. I have only fell down them a couple times.



Miss Gemma's room, pretty in pink!



There is an office off Gemma's bedroom that we are making into the kids playroom.



Angus' room patiently awaiting for his crib, which should arrive on November 10th along with our other belongings from AZ!!



Our master bedroom, where it all happens!



Here is the master bath tub, which has been tons of fun for the kids. It is like a mini-swimming pool in our house. It also fits the four of us in it very nicely!



The office off the master bedroom, where I am typing from now!



The view from the kitchen, a nice little play area for the kids.

We also have a garage, basement storage area, upstairs bathroom for the kids (it was in use when I was taking the photos!), ayi's bedroom/storage and a kitchen. I would have loved to post a picture of the kitchen, but it is so small I couldn't get a good angle for a picture.

I hope you enjoyed the tour!

Hot Pot the Cuisine of Sichuan!

Hot Pot with Chicken Broth and a very Spicy Broth.

I am doing a bit of back posting as we have been very busy with the move. A week ago I was able to try Hot Pot, a very famous cooking style in the Sichuan Province. Reed's cousin Molly was on her last night in Chengdu and wanted to try this delicious delight. They heat the broth/oil in a pot in the center of your table and add whatever you order to the pot, similar to fondue with more intense flavors. Reed, our professional orderer, ordered mushrooms, two types of tofu (one was this fabulous spongy type), chicken, lamb, beef, and some greens. It was so yummy! I haven't tasted anything quite like it.



Jonny with Molly and Reed.



Here is a family shot for the folks back home!



Here we all are after a fine meal!

Girls Nights Out and Chinese Food 101

I forgot to mention in my last post that I attended book club. We read the book My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Piccoult. I rated the book about a 7 out of 10. It was very sad and I could really relate to the character of the Mother and Father. I really thought that they were so much like my own parents. It was very nice to talk about the book, but I did miss the banter of my old book club at home where we would talk about the book for about 2 minutes and then get down to more serious things like our love lives and kids. There were about 15 women, mostly Americans, 2 Canadians, 1 German, and 1 Estonian. The funny thing was that one of the Canadians has a house in Scottsdale, Arizona!

On Friday I got to enjoy another evening with girls. A couple of the wives of husbands from Jonny's company went out for a yummy Chinese dinner. I thought I would make you salivate and take a few shots of our meal. Unfortunately my favorite dish, which was cold cucumber in a scrummy garlic sauce was not one of my snapshots, but check these dishes out!

This is a scallion pancake and it is very yummy!!! They prepare it on a grill right in the middle of the restaurant.

I think the veggies are the best part of the meal.

They all have amazing flavor!

This veggie had a nice soy-tasting sauce.

Here is a very famous Sichuan dish, Ma Po Dofu (we call it Tofu at home). It is very spicy and very yummy.

This is what we call in the U.S. Kung Pao Chicken. It doesn't have waterchest nuts like home, but it does have this numbing spice called 'star anise', which I think is very cool. It makes your mouth feel like you have had a few shots of Novocain.

With our dinner we also enjoyed a dish called Bo Bo Ji, which is a chilled, cooked chicken in a sesame sauce, this great dessert which was taro root dipped in a batter and deep fried with sesame seed on the ends, and we had this warm, yellow liquor that is very similar to port, but lots more alcohol that perfectly tied the meal together. It was the best meal we have had so far since we moved to China and it cost us less than $8 a piece!!!

After dinner we headed to the local Irish pub for a change.

The girls having a few drinks.

Part of the reason we were all out is because the husbands had a work party. They really whooped it up and joined us for a drink after their festivities ended.

Jonny and Rock looking very cute with their mask on from the masquerade party.

Jonny, David (the Australian owner of the Shamrock), and Brad. Brad had a little mishap at the party and has a gash above one of his eyes. We are not sure what eye it is because David was a little 'band-aid happy'.

Rock, Sadie and Costa Rica Antonio.

Molly and Reed waving their 'pinkies' at the camera.

Here is my lovely husband with me after a night with the boys.

Chengdu in pictures

Last night Jonny and I went out without the kids to meet some friends at the local Chengdu Irish Pub. We had a great time visiting with friends and learning more and more about life in Chengdu.



Jonny and myself enjoying our night out. (Yes, I am in desperate need of a haircut!)



Rock and Sadie who moved to Chengdu about 3 weeks ago. I recently found out that Sadie is a hairdresser! Just my luck!



Molly, Reed, and Bruce. Molly is Reed's cousin visiting from Chicago, Illinois.



This is Joseph, our Driver. He is a very nice man and excellent with Gemma and Angus. Gemma calls him JoJo for short, which just so happens to mean uncle in Chinese.



And to my delight today I found a yarn shop that actually had yarn that didn't look like thread. I found some nice, bulky weight yarn that was about 7 RMB a ball, which is less than $1 dollar. Are my knitting friends jealous or what!

I also found an adorable little boy who had his crotchless pant on. You can kind of see them, but it is a little difficult. He did appear to have a cloth inside his pant, which I have not seen most babies where.



I commented on one of my post about when I was furniture shopping the agent fell asleep on the job. Apparently that is very common around here.



I also took a picture of children at a school today. It was really cool, the kids all had metallic pom-poms and they were doing drill team type routines. A woman came up to me as I was snapping my shots, but I walked away before she could say anything. I got in the van and they chased us down and asked Joseph if I was with the media. Very odd. I would share the pictures, but it makes me a little nervous.

And last, but definitely not least a picture of the front of our new pad.

I went over to the house to see if they were still painting today and to try and take a few pictures of the inside, but they had already gone for the day. I will try and drop by again tomorrow to take interior pictures.

Yeah! My laptop is fixed!!!!!

I was so happy today when I found out that the computer guy would be delivering my laptop. I could have kissed him! It took them over 4 weeks to fix, but it is finally working. That means I can post pictures! The sad part is that I haven't taken very many since we have been here, but starting tomorrow I will be on tourist mode. I do have a few pictures of us to prove we are alive and well.



Jonny, Gemma and Angus walking down the street outside our hotel after we first arrived in Chengdu.



Gemma on her first day of school at QSI.



Gemma, Angus (snoozing) and me enjoying our coffee at one of the new Starbuck's in Chengdu.



Angus being his cute self!



Angus and Gemma with our ayi, Xiou Yang. (Taken today)



Gemma and Angus before bed tonight.