New job

Last week I just had an opportunity land right in my lap. I have been asked to write a food column for the English section of the local newspaper called the Chengdu Weekly. I was over the moon to be asked to do this and even better is the way they want me to write the column. They will give me a main raw material and ask me to make something out of it.

I have been blessed to live in an amazing expat community who has always been more than willing to share knowledge. In the past our Chengdu International Women's Club had cooking demonstrations. I had the privilege of learning many dishes from many different countries.

My first week I will be writing about a French dish my friend Benedicte Bellier taught me to make called Gratin Dauphinois. I absolutely love this amazing potato dish made with cream and garlic! It goes perfect with the Carotte Boeuf she taught me to make. It has been a while since I dusted off these two dishes, so they will mostly go on the menu later this week!

Score! My Guo Kui Bing Man is Back!

I was pleasantly surprised when I drove down Yulin Xi Jie 玉林 西街 where the infamous Guo Kui Bing 锅魁饼man parks his little cart. I had been going down this street every week since Chinese New Year dreaming of eating his soft and slightly crisp pancakes. Yesterday I got the best Valentine's gift of all, he was back and ready to make me some fresh guo kui!

He is not a local Sichuan person. He actually comes from An Hui province in the Northeast of China. He just returned from a 20+ day stay over the Chinese New Year. I told him I have never had better guo kui in China and he told me it was because he uses special flour that he buys from An Hui. I wonder what makes there flour so special???

The beautiful cakes on the griddle, sizzling in hot oil. They consist of flour, egg, scallions, and I suspect some type of leavening agent.

He prepares several pieces of dough in baseball sized balls and rolls them out right before he throws them on the griddle.

After they are fried on both sides he gives you an option to have him put a shellacking of his homemade la jiao jiang 辣椒酱 or hot chili paste. It is a perfect to this beautiful snack!

For normal Sichuan street food his cart is immaculate! The oil was fresh and clean and his cooking surface and griddle were amazingly spotless. Next time I come by to have my pancake I am going to see if he can teach me how to make them along with his spicy chili paste. I can't imagine not being able to eat these when I move back to America.

Valentine's Day Cookie Baking

We had another quiet week-end this past week-end. Friday night I made a Mexican food extravaganza and we had a few friends over to share the food. I always like making Mexican food for people who have never lived close to Mexico, they are always surprised by what great flavor it has and even though I am not proficient in this genre they always love my food.

Saturday Angus and Gemma had a birthday party in the morning and Jonny and I had a sleepover planned at the Sofitel. One of the benefits to living overseas is that we have help with the kids. Our ayi agreed to stay over night and watch the kids while we had a relaxing night, kid free. I promised the kids when we returned refreshed and recharged that we would make our Valentine's Day heart cut-out cookies that we try and make every year.

Angus rolling out the dough.

Hearts getting ready for the oven

Hearts getting ready to come out of the oven

Gemma mixing the frosting

We ended up with about 50 cookies and I sent them to school with the kids to share with their classmates. Our baking experience was a little stressful at first, but when we got to the frosting and decorating part it became much easier. I do have to say however, I think I am in desperate need to overhaul my sugar cookie recipe. The flavor of these cookies are getting a bit boring for me. I think I will have to scan the internet or better yet Pinterest to see what I come up with!

Shun Xing Teahouse 顺星茶楼

One of the things that I have wanted to do this year was to try and eat at as many new Sichuan restaurants I can before the inevitable happens and I land myself back stateside. Thanks to a little motivation by Fuchsia Dunlop's recent visit and article I had just the motivation that I needed to hit the food trail.

I was able to round up 8 of my most adventurous eating friends and hit our first restaurant. I chose Shun Xing Teahouse 顺星茶楼 as our first restaurant because I didn't want to scare anyone off on our first week. There als happened to be some extremely cold weather hitting Chengdu and wanted a place that we could all eat in comfort without worrying about freezing. I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived and a couple of the women said they had been to this restaurant before and it was extremely good.

Fuchsia had recommend the xiao chi 小吃 or snack menu, but I couldn't get buy in from everyone. We ended up ordering two of the snack set menus along with some cold and hot dishes. I took some photos of some of our dishes, but I was so excited to eat and didn't manage to write down the names of all the dishes! Oh well, next time...

Cucumbers with a soy-hoisin sauce

Tea smoked duck

This was my absolute favorite! It is this green, leafy vegetable Tong Hao Cai 桐耗菜 that looks similar to rocket/arugula. They served it in a lovely, sweet, vinegar dressing.

This was a beef cold dish with garlic shoots, cilantro and red chilies. It had a nice sweet dressing to cool it down.

A spinach dumpling from the snack menu

The restaurant was absolutely beautiful with a small photo museum in the back of the restaurant with old photos of Chengdu. In the evening they also have a Changing Mask performance, but reservations are a must as they are always fully booked. The other thing that I loved about the restaurant is they had men coming around to your table asking if they can clean your ear or give you a massage. I look forward to returning to Shun Xing Teahouse in the very near future with my family and visitor.

Happy Lantern Festival!

My veggies and tofu from my trip to Yulin wet market.

Today is the last day of the Lunar New Year, which is also known as Lantern Festival 元宵节. I was hoping to make tang yuan 汤圆 from scratch, but when I went to the market I decided to also make a Sichuan feast for dinner and completely forgot the ingredients for tang yuan! Actually it wasn't such a bad thing, I was able to focus completely on making my Sichuan food without worrying about making something too different than norman and without the assistance or instruction of my ayi.

I took my Sichuan Cookery book to the market with me and decided to make something heavy on the vegetables. I decided on our family favorites of fish fragrant eggplant 鱼香茄子 and dry fried green beans 干煸四季豆 and added a couple of new dishes to my Chuan cai 川菜 repertoire. I added flowering chives with smoky bacon 腊肉抄韭菜花 安定 and homestyle tofu 家常豆腐 as they were in season and we needed a little more protein in this meal.

I decided for once that it would good to do mise en place with my dishes. I learned this in culinary school, but for some reason I have always fought this procedure. This time I did a mise en place with every dish and it made things so much simpler, and looked beautiful. Who would have thought?

Homestyle bean curd mise en place

Fish fragrant eggplant mise en place

Flowering chives with smoky bacon mise en place

Dry fried green beans mise en place

The finished product!

I have to say that my dry fried green beans were the best of the four dishes and the best I have ever made. I used ground Sichuan pepper this time and it added so much to this dish. I wish more restaurants used it in their dry fried green beans. My personal favorite, fish fragrant eggplant was a little heavy on the black vinegar. Must work on this one! All and all I was really pleased with the meal and happy Jonny and the kids couldn't stop eating it.

Happy Year of the dragon!

Veggie Dinner Winner

Thanks to tip from my dear friend Reed I found this recipe on Fat Free Vegan. Now I am not a vegan nor do I believe in fat free, but we are striving to eat less and less meat and this website is very helpful. It has been a bit of a challenge to find recipes that I find satisfying, but I am starting to find more and more that go over well in our house. The only thing I changed about the recipe was that I used homemade, full fat yogurt instead of soy yogurt. I served it up with sweet potato fries with rosemary! A perfect pairing and absolutely delicious!

Back and ready to start again

Finally, we have all of our holidays behind us and now can try and get back into a routine. I know, I shouldn't complain. A 3 week Winter Break followed by 2 weeks of routine and then a 1 week Chinese New Year break sounds nice. It is....but it is so hard on all of us to get back into our groove. I have already missed my exercise routine 2 days because of catching up I needed to do.

I am however buckling down and wrapping my head around the spring. I am already doing well on my New Year's resolution of reading more. I have read 5 books since the Christmas break which is more than I have read in the last 3 years combined. I have to say that I am quite pleased with my reading and hope that I can keep it up although I am sure the holidays had something to do with it.

I am also please to say that this is my ninth post of the New Year which is more posts than the past 3 years combined. I am constantly thinking of new ideas about what to write about, new places I want to try and new things I want to cook. I am so happy to have a couple tidbits that I will be writing about in the near future, one which will be about the beautiful food in Burma and the second thanks to the recent visit of Sichuan food expert Fuchsia Dunlop, I have this wondering article get me back on the food trail again.

On the Road Again

As I sit here writing I am listening to the pre-game fireworks. This year, I am sorry to miss the show on New Year's Eve, but at least we will be back for the last 8 days.

We are heading to Burma for a week. It is an exciting time to visit this country that is going through so many changes very rapidly. I will be offline for the week, but look forward to getting back at it when I return from my travels. I hope to have some photos of the beautiful stupas, temples, and food from this exotic location.

Good-bye Year of the Rabbit, I am looking forward to the year of the Dragon!

You Know Chinese New Year Is Upon You When...

Your kids come home from school and tell you they brought a live rooster home. Huh? I have lived in China for 6 years, so this shouldn't surprise me, but for some reason it did.

This was the first year that my ayi actually brought a rooster into the house. She had gone outside for some reason and it coincided with the kids return from school. The kids came running upstairs shouting "Mommy, Mommy we brought a rooster home." I thought they were lying, but both my kids are terrible liars (like myself). So I went to investigate.

I guess the rooster had to use to the bathroom?

I asked them if they had touched it because I wanted them to wash their hands and they both said no. Two hours later I was freaking out on Angus because he changed his story and was actually the one who carried it home. My kids thought I was a freak and I yelled at Angus telling him could get Avian flu and die by touching a chicken and then sticking their fingers in his mouth (like he always does). I seem to be in 'be afraid' parenting these days. Maybe I over reacted, but I made my ayi put the bird outside until it went home with her. Lucky for us we have a dog kennel for the rooster.

Avoca Love

Today I decided that it would be one of those days where I didn't eat any meat. I really didn't feel like I needed any and like I said I am trying to have meat less than 1 time per day. Tomorrow will be a different story as we are having people over for dinner and dining on New Mexico cuisine which requires lots and lots of pork!

When we were in Northern Ireland at Christmas I was told by my mother-in-law about a fantastic cafe called Avoca. She said it was the perfect place for someone who loves to cook and loves trinkets for the kitchen. On the way out of Belfast I took the kids there for brunch and it was the most delicious brunch/lunch I believe I have ever tasted. We opted for the 'cafeteria' style cafe with communal tables and bench seating. There was a smorgasbord of items to choose from and I was finding it difficult to make a decision. Gemma had ordered a berry and cinnamon scone and homemade yogurt with honey, while Angus had a fruit salad. They both had the most amazingly rich and chocolaty hot cocoa to go along with their brunch. I ended up with the Tuscan roasted vegetable tart with goat cheese and a frothy cappuccino to get me started for the day. This food was so amazing I needed to figure out how to recreate!

Lucky for me it was Christmas and Avoca has a wide range of cookbooks. I decided the Avoca cookbooks would be a great addition to my collection and would make a nice, easily wrapped Christmas gift for me.

This evening I made my second attempt this year to make a recipe out the Avoca Soups and Avoca Salads. The first attempt was a Potato and Herb soup that turned out better than I anticipated although it wasn't a huge hit with the kids. Tonight I tried their Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper soup and the Carrot with Roasted Sesame salad.

The soup was perfect, but one recipe was not enough for our family. I will have to double or triple it next time. I added some crusty bread to it to make it more hearty since one recipe was so scant. It was a huge hit with the kids! Unfortunately they were not so hip on the carrot salad, but Jonny and I were over the moon about it! I followed the recipe and also added more seeds such as pumpkin, poppy, and sunflower seeds. I cannot believe how much those seeds added to the overall flavor of the salad. The recipe required the Avoca French dressing which I made 800 ml of to use on this salad and future salads. The best thing about our meal was that everything we completely vegetarian! I will be doing more experimenting from these cookbooks in the near future! Avoca is my new love!

My New Year's Resolutions

I love the New Year and it is even better living in China because you get to celebrate two of them. This year the New Years are about 3 weeks apart, so it seems like January has been one big party especially with Gemma's birthday right smack dab in the middle of them. One of my favorite things to do at the beginning of the year is to make a few, very achievable resolutions. I am not into setting resolutions about weight loss or exercise, I am more about setting resolutions about how I can make a difference on this earth.

I was thinking about setting a New Year's resolution about becoming a vegetarian, but I thought that was a bit drastic. Just last spring we started eating meat only 1 time per day because of all the reading I have been doing online about plant based diets and also to help Jonny with his health kick and weight loss regime. Now this is coming from a girl who was raised in Nebraska from parents who attended the church of corn-fed beef. I wanted to make the goal obtainable, so I slightly increased the goal to eating meat less than 1 time per day. This means that maybe we eat meat 1 time per day or maybe we skip it altogether. I hope that I am able to share recipes in my journey to cut out more meat throughout the year my blog on new vegetarian dishes or recipes I manage to concoct.

The other resolution I set was that I wanted to get back to reading books. This is one of those 'for me' resolutions. For the past 2 years I have maybe read 3 books in total. That is very sad for someone who started a book club back in Arizona (that is still running strong although I have a suspicion there is more drinking than reading going on these days) and attended book club in Chengdu religiously for the first 4 years of living here.

I started reading over the Christmas holiday and managed to finished 2 1/2 books over the holidays. The first book I read was "11 Minutes" by Paulo Coelho which then made me what to read his book "The Alchemist". I have never had the pleasure to read anything written by Mr. Coelho, but I definitely will looking for other books by this incredible yarn spinner. I also managed to finish "The Paris Wife" by Paula McClain. It was the January pick for our book club and since I recently watched the movie "Midnight in Paris", which was a movie by Woody Allen about the 'Lost Generation', it motivated me to read this historical fiction book. I am happy to say that I have made it through 2 books this year, "11 Minutes" is registered in the 2 books read last year tally. I have already started my third book and February book club selection "Tall Grass" by Sandra Dallas.

I am feeling really good about 2012! My this is my fifth blog post of the year, so I am keeping up in all my resolution categories!

Baking for Gemma's Birthday

This week my sweet, beautiful girl turned 10 on January 11th. I was reminded by my dear friend Nancy, not only was it the day my daughter was born, but it was the day that I first became a Momma! I honestly had never thought of it that way and it made the day all the sweeter for me. Thank you so much Nancy for giving me the opportunity to think a little bit deeper about January 11th.

This week I have been under the weather and not feeling like doing much of anything, but laying in bed and reading a book. We all seemed to contract the same bug while we were in Thailand and then pass it around the house. I really had to push myself this week to get the job done when it came to the all the birthday preparation that I was doing in the kitchen for my dear Gemma girl, but so far I didn't disappoint her.

Her first request, which she made last year, was that we would do something special the day before her birthday to celebrate her last day as a single digit. She made the decision to stay at home and to pick any meal she would like to have on her birthday cooked by yours truly. I made her favorite dish of lemon chicken, broccoli, and rice. This recipe is a Western-style dish although it sounds very Chinese which was made with chicken breast pan fried in a lemony sauce. This was an old stand by recipe from the early years before we had kids and since we have not been eating very much meat, especially chicken, in our house I was a little rusty in making this. The chicken turned out quite tender, but luckily the kids didn't notice I forgot the chicken stock in the recipe. Oops!

On the day of her actual birthday Gemma requested that I make homemade lemon bars and deliver them to school for her classmate to share. I used Ina Garten's recipe, which is a family favorite both here and back in Nebraska. I highly recommend this recipe if you are a connoisseur of anything lemon and especially love extremely tart tasting desserts. I was so surprised that all but one of Gemma's classmates finished the lemon bar. I thought for sure they would be way to sour. I had one boy say to me that "they taste like Skittles" which I first was offended, but then realized it was more of a compliment.

I had a couple days off from preparing birthday dinners/treats, so I had a couple meals out, but that is for a different post with a couple new restaurant reviews.

We found a great idea for a birthday party for Gemma last year and decided to give it a shot for her big double digit birthday. She absolutely loves to sing and dance, so what better thing to do in a city with a gazillion KTV (karaoke) bars, give her her dream party. I had Jonny check out the KTV and see if we could find a room large enough to squeeze 25 screaming children into. We were happy to find out that we could have the party early in the afternoon to avoid the busy time where business men and scantily clad women came after their business dinners.

The next step was to ask Gemma what she wanted for a dessert. She immediately said "lemon meringue pie". I about choked when she said it. I just kept thinking of all the crusts I would have to make and how ugly they would all be! I told her that yes, I could make 2 pies, but it would probably only feed 12 people, so she would have to pick something else. By the end of the week I was at my wits end with the thought of making the pies and I had to let her down. I tried to talk her into lemon cheese cake, which is one of my specialties. She didn't want to serve that because most of her friends do not like cheesecake. One of the problems living in Asia, most Asian do not like cheese! I told her that I would make Christine Tosi's Milk Bar Crack cookies (Not really the name, but I have read so many people online refer to these cookies as 'crack' and the corn flake crunch alone is enough to give you an immediate addiction!) and she could pick something else too.

I made the crack cookies a little small this time. They are supposed to be massive, but the amount of butter and sugar plus the number of kids attending the party made me decide that the smaller the cookie the less sugar they would ingest which would keep me saner at the party. Here is a photo of the crack!

Gemma then decided that she wanted a lemon poppyseed cake from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. I had never tried it, but usually I have the good luck that things turn out the first time. The good thing was that the cake turned out, but the bad thing was that it was way too small to feed the army of kids that were coming to celebrate Gemma's big day. Therefore I had to make a second cake.

Here is the first of the two cakes I ended up making. I will glaze it in the morning and hopefully I have have a very happy 10 year old tomorrow!

Eat Me! Not literally...

I had to make a separate post dedicated to one of my most favorite restaurants in the world "Eat Me". I stumbled across this restaurant on Trip Advisor on one of my two visits to Thailand last year. I ate there one night and it was love a first bite! I first fell in head over heels for the fennel and fig bread with an olive oil and cashew/kaffir lime dry dip and then raved to anyone I knew about how delicious the food was at this fine establishment

The ambience is incredible with candles and dimly lit lights. The owner is Australian and the last I knew the chef was from New York City although I didn't see him there on this visit. The wait staff is amazing and our waiter, who is Thai and married to a Scottish woman, remembered us from the time we visited last April. The menu has a subtle Asian flair to it with cocktails, salads, starters, mains, and desserts that make it difficult not to order the entire menu.

On this visit I started with a Marrakech Bellini (instead of peach juice it had pomegranate juice) while the kids had a watermelon and mint juice and mango juice. Gemma ordered her favorite rocket, pear, and parmesan salad with black truffle dressing and homemade penne in a tomato sauce.





Angus ordered a black chicken salad that had the most amazing shavings of freshly, toasted coconut in it (it also had red onion, so when you took a bite you weren't quite sure what you were getting) and New Zealand black green lipped mussels.



I ordered the heirloom tomato salad with olive oil ice cream, shaved parmesan, mint, and basil (which was divine) and Thai barramundi in coconut milk.



I was a little disappointed that we didn't get the normal fig and fennel bread and dry dipping sauce, but they had a lovely garlic and rosemary foccacia as a substitute.

Our dessert was the highlight of our meal and something we were all looking forward to. I had to order what we usually ordered which was a deep, dark, chocolate extravaganza of sweet which included the dark chocolate flourless chocolate cake that was so moist in literally melted in your mouth and the spicy chili and chocolate ice cream.

They make their ice cream homemade and I have never tasted such a subtle taste of chocolate to chili ratio. The kids absolutely flip over this ice cream because of this as your taste buds are rewarded by a bittersweet dark chocolate taste followed by the slow burn of chili. We balanced our chocolate craving with the pavlova with bananas, passion fruit, and cream. I prefer this to pavlova with berries and cream as they passion fruit is the perfect sour compliment to the meringue.

I am looking forward to my next trip to Bangkok, hopefully later this year!

The most indecisive woman in the world! ME!

Jonny, the kids and I returned from Northern Ireland on the afternoon of December 31st. Jonny and I thought it would be a great idea for me to take the kids to Thailand for the first week of January since they had one week left of their Winter break. Now, I never turn down an opportunity to go to Thailand. It is my home away from home and it makes me smile the minute I step of the plane into this steamy environment.

Originally I booked a yoga retreat in Koh Mak, but unfortunately getting there and paying for the retreat were a little bit too difficult. I invited a friend and her two boys to tag along with us as they spent the Christmas holiday in Chengdu. I thought it would be fun for all the kids to play together and for the Mom's to relax on the beach. My friend and I opted to make the decision on where to go when we arrived in Bangkok. Luckily for me my friend is very easy going about these things which balances off me being a total freak about these things.

Last night we spent 3 hours researching every beach and hotel in Koh Chang trying to make a decision on where to stay, but I was still not happy. Honestly, location and the service of the resort are what is most important for me, but when you are looking at pictures of places to stay it is quite for me to make a decision. After reading lots of Trip Advisor and Agoda reviews I was still unhappy with the choices in front of me. We decided to sleep on it and make the decision in the morning.

Gemma woke us up at 10 am and said we had to get up and have breakfast. I looked at the clock and saw that we slept through the 2 alarms that I had set for 9 am. I slowly made my way to the bathroom and got myself ready for the pool. Our friends were already in the pool splashing away.

While I sat by the pool reading my new book I avoided the subject of where to go because I was not sure where to go and I was thinking that we should just try to make it to Koh Mak because it seemed like an easy solution, or better yet just stay in Bangkok for the week. Finally my friend broach the subject and said she had found some hotels she thought would work. I agreed to come to their room and bring my laptop to discuss the options.

After we left the pool the kids and I went for showers and I did more research. There was a hotel that wasn't available yesterday that had rooms magically appear on the internet. I thought this was a great place and met all of my needs. We went down to their room and looked at the hotel with my fried and decided it was a go. We both simultaneously booked our own rooms, but I got a funny message saying something to the affect that my credit card may or may not have been declined. I couldn't believe it! After finally making a decision I was going to have to start all over! I thought there was something wonky about my credit card because I had used it in 3 countries in 3 days, but basically there seemed to be only one room with that particular booking agent.

I went back to our room and called the hotel and tried to book directly with them, but they were quoting me a price double the price I had originally found. I told them that there was a cheaper price on their website, but they could only give me a small discount. The woman on the phone was very nice and suggested I try Booking.com. Lucky for me they had one room left at a cheaper price and promptly booked it! I have used Booking.com twice in two months and have been really pleased with them. I think I may have to bookmark them.

Koh Chang here we come!!!

Happy 2012!!!

A friend of mine gave herself the Christmas present of starting her blog again. I decided to follow in her footsteps.

There are many reason I wanted to do this, one being that I really wanted to do something for ME and do less for others. That may seem quite selfish, but I feel that I deserve a pass. I am a Wife, a Mother, and a Community Organizer. Three of the most underpaid, thankless jobs that you can have. I am not complaining, but instead of being a martyr I decided to rise to it and do something that I enjoy doing.

I was thinking about changing my blog's name, but the name is still extremely brilliant (thanks to Melanie Parkes-Spatgen) and I still live in Chengdu. The only thing that may change is that content will become broader since we have now lived in Chengdu for 5 years.

One of my main passions in life (besides being a Wife, Mother, and Community Organizer) is food. I love to cook it, eat it, play with it, look at it and read about it. I am hoping to discuss food topics such as cooking in China whether it be Sichuan cuisine or food I am adapting to local ingredients, food I am eating while traveling, restaurants I enjoy and anything interesting I am doing in my day to day diet.

Wish me luck in 2012 that I take the time to do this for ME!

Back in Nebraska and Back to Blogging!

After quite a long hiatus from blogging and about a year since I was last stateside I am back to blogging. I would love to use the excuse that the country in which I reside cut off internet access to both Blogger and Flickr, which is entirely true, but I was so busy in the spring that I do not think it would have been possible.

We returned to Nebraska this past Monday and I am so happy to be here. I think the most exciting thing about being here (other than seeing my Dad) is that I am bound and determined to take it easy and have a relaxing 4 weeks here. I have caught up on reading my friends blogs, practiced yoga and started reading "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society ". I just keep I can keep on the relaxation route for the next 4 weeks. So far so good!

Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper by Fuchia Dunlop

Tonight I am over the moon with excitement! I have been asked to moderate the book talk of Fuchsia Dunlop the cookery book writer from England. As most people know food is my passion and I have found a new affinity for Sichuan Cooking! Although I have dabbled a bit in Sichuan cooking the past 3 1/2 years since we have lived here "Shark's Fin & Sichuan Pepper" by Fuchsia Dunlop has given me much inspiration for this sassy food. I have been on an eating adventure the past month while reading this book and cooking many recipes from her "Sichuan Cookery" book. I looking forward to spending the next couple days at moderating Fuchsia's book talk and attending a lunch at her favorite Chengdu restaurant Yu Jia Chu Fang (Yu Family Kitchen). This will be my third trip there and I am looking so forward to hear an in depth discussion on what we are eating and how it was prepared.

新年快乐！

Chinese New Year is just around the corner and we are getting ready to head to Koh Tao, Thailand for a week of rest and relaxation. Koh Tao was just listed in the new Lonely Planet's 2009 World's Best places as one of the top places to visit in the world. From what I understand from others who have been there and the Lonely Planet is that this little island is unspoiled and excellent for diving and snorkeling. The kids are looking forward to it because you can snorkel right from the beach.

Angus has 2 weeks off from school so the two of us are staying on a bit longer and heading to Yoga Thailand for a few days. If you haven't gathered by the amount of Thailand pictures from my blog I call Thailand my home away from home away from home!!! I can't say enough good things about Thailand and highly recommend putting this amazing country on your travel list! Especially for those of you who are foodies like myself.

Swimming with the Fur Seals on New Year's Day

Happy 2009 to everyone!!! We have been really enjoying our time in New Zealand and I hope to get my pictures and commentary posted sometime when I return to Chengdu next Monday.

Today we were scheduled to go whale watching at 11:45 am. It was beautiful outside, but when we arrived at the place of departure they told us that children under 5 were not allowed on the trip. We were pretty disappointed and rescheduled for later in the day. We decided to check out what other activities we could do instead of our whale watch and we found out that we could go swimming with fur seals. I had already seen some of these beautiful creatures on the way down from Picton and was able to get up close to these friendly seals. I was thrilled to hear that we could swim with them and the kids could go to.

We all suited up in wet suits for the trip. The kids actually had to wear 3 suits to keep them warm and buoyant in the water. We took a 10 minutes boat ride to the place we were going to swim with the seals and it was quite bumpy. Angus was quite freaked out by all the splashes and bumps, so this didn't really get him in the mood for the swim. Gemma didn't mind the boat ride, but as soon as we got in the water both the kids were too cold to swim. We put them on the raft and they were able to see the seals on the rocks and swim by them in the water. Jonny and I were able to take turns snorkeling and checking out the sea life in the ocean. The seals were incredibly playful and they would come right up to you as if they were going to swim right into you. One of them got really up close to Jonny and grabbed his flipper with his mouth as if he wanted to play.

After swimming for about 20 minutes the seals seem to get bored with us, so we tried a new area. Unfortunately I think most of the seals were bored with us and we didn't see anymore in the water. It was really great to get so up close and personal to nature and to have the kids see it first hand.

Tomorrow we are hoping to go on our whale watch, but it all depends on the weather. We heard that after we were turned away today that the cancelled all of the tours for the rest of the day due to rough waters. I hope it is smooth sailing tomorrow!

The Agrodome, Rotorua

After our trip to Te Puia we headed over to the Agrodome to see the Sheep Sheering Show. We knew there would be other things to see, but we didn't realize how many entertaining things there would be at this attraction.



Gemma and Angus jumped on the sheep dog as soon as we arrived.



And then on the Kiwi!!



Angus was waiting patiently for the farm tour to begin.



Our first stop was to feed the ostriches and emus. I have to say interacting with the animals is always a highlight of any trip for me.



They also have an organic farm in the Agrodome where they grow kiwis, olives, and feijoa. This picture is of the kiwi vines. It is summer here, so you can see the small fruits on the vines which will be ready for picking in a couple months.



We also got to see this deer which has over bred itself in New Zealand. They now raise them for the velvet from their antlers to make medicine and for their meat. Here are a few of the deer resting in the pasture.

On a side note it has been wonderful to see all of the sheep and cows in the pastures grazing across the country. I rarely see that even in my home state of Nebraska.



Angus and Lily checking out the sheep and alpacas.

They also had alpacas which I absolutely adore! Their coats are so soft and it makes the most divine wool for knitting. There was on alpaca that was quite friend and I was able to run my fingers through its wool a few times.



Three very sweet alpacas.



We also saw several varieties of cows. The black one is none other than the Black Angus!



Here is a gorgeous Highland Cow that came to New Zealand from Scotland.



The sheep sheering show was extremely entertaining and also a tongue twister (you don't even want to know what Jonny kept calling it!). The sheep shearer brought out 20 different varieties of sheep to the stage. I didn't even know there were that many and that probably would explain why I thought all the sheep in Ireland looked so different from our American sheep! The sheep that was in the top row center was a Merino sheep, which has almost as divine of wool as an alpaca.



The Sheep Shearer and his victim. They put them on their back to shear so they cannot get away.



It took him about 2 minutes to shear one sheep and he will receive US$1.75 for the wool off 1 sheep.



Jonny and a Drysdale.

I was extremely impressed with the Agrodome and would highly recommend it to anyone who was visiting Rotorua. I think as a knitter you really can appreciate a place like this, but it is also great for city kids to see how things are done on the farm.