Tis the Season!!

Yes, once the Starbucks Christmas cups are out, it is time for us to decorate our house!! It seems to be getting earlier and earlier! Our first year here, we were anticipating being in China for the entire Christmas holiday, so we didn't rush the decorations. However, last year and this year, I have put up the decorations much earlier so we can enjoy them for a bit since the children and I leave December 14th for the US!!

Since I only brought about 1/3 of our Christmas decorations from home, we had plenty of space to fill this year! The kids loved decorating and are now begging me to watch the Christmas Story - I haven't given in yet! They have even written letters to Santa already!! They are hoping that Snowflake (our elf) will deliver them because none of us are too sure how to post a letter from China to the North Pole!!

Even Jenny Lou's is helping to spread holiday cheer this year! I went last week and found loads of Christmas treasure, chocolate treasure that is!! I did spend a small fortune on it, but it will be worth it when I devour those silly little bells!

It is truly the little things that we are finding joy in this year! May you and your family have a safe and joyful holiday season. We know we have so much to be thankful for this year and we are not going to take our many blessings for granted!

Sweet, sweet voices!!

I mentioned in a previous post that Ethan's class sang a Chinese song during their Family History tea. I finally got it uploaded to youtube!! Here is the link...

I Love My Family

Also, Ethan's class now has a blog! His teacher has asked that we share it with our family and friends. Please feel free to make any comments on it - Eens told me his teacher reads all of the comments to the class!

1R Classroom Blog

I'm still trying to catch up on all that has been happening in the lives of the St. Martin's!! We seem to be quite busy day to day, however sometimes I'm not sure what I have accomplished during that time!! Hopefully I will be all caught up in time to capture our Thanksgiving dinner!

Visiting with the Aunties!

On Danny's parents final day with us in China, they wanted to invite the aunties (my mother-in-laws mother's brother's daughters - aunties is much easier!) from Beijing for a lunch in Tianjin. We booked a private room at Din Tai Fung! This turned out to be a fantastic idea because the kids could play their DS's while the adults talked!

The youngest daughter had lived in Canada for 9 years, so her English was excellent. Her sisters seemed to understand English, but they did not speak it! We all had a wonderful time enjoying a huge lunch and listening to stories about my mother-in-law's uncle who was a prominent professor at Peking University. It is not every day that you get to spend time with your relatives while you are halfway around the world, so I am sure it meant a lot to my in-laws!! I was also thrilled to meet them. It is nice knowing we have family in Beijing in case we would ever need anything! Even though we don't know them very well, family is family!!

This was a perfect ending to a great visit with Danny's parents!!

Up close and personal with the Pandas!!

If you are willing to part with 1,000RMB!! On our second day in Chengdu we visited the Panda Breeding and Research Center. We took a taxi from the hotel because it was only a short drive out of the city center. There are fewer than 1,000 giant pandas left and about 80% of them are in China. This research base was built to resemble the pandas natural environment as closely as possible, in hopes that the pandas will breed. There was bamboo growing everywhere you looked!! In my opinion they do an excellent job of taking care of the pandas!

The base is huge!! We got a lot of fresh air and walking miles in during our visit! Our first stop was the nursery. It is here where one can pay 1,000 RMB to hold a toddler panda and maybe a baby panda (we're not sure because they take you inside and visitors cannot see!). We were able to watch those who chose to pay with the toddler pandas and it was quite entertaining. There was a western lady and a Chinese lady each in different stalls. The western woman was put with two very active pandas who she constantly had to remove off of her leg! The Chinese woman had a very pleasant little panda who let her rock him/her the entire time. Part of me does think that maybe this was a bit set up that the western woman was unable to control her pandas, but the other panda was perfect for the Chinese!! I'm sure they both got wonderful pictures and we appreciate the entertainment value!! This is one of the more active pandas - it climbed all the way up the bars and put on quite a show!!

After we watched the littlest pandas for quite a while we made our way up hills and across bridges to view the adult giant pandas. We arrived soon after the opening of the park, so most of the pandas were active or eating. We were told by friends that this would be the best time to go and we weren't disappointed!

Our new motto: Love me, don't bother me!!
We had to reward the children with a little ice cream for all of their hard work walking!!

As most of you know, I hesitate traveling in China because it is not always easy and you have no idea what you are getting yourself into! I guess we are either getting smarter and know to have everything booked and planned in advance (including restaurants) or we are becoming very good at overlooking some aspects!! Regardless, Chengdu was a great destination for our family!!

Welcome to Chengdu, China!

Towards the end of my in-laws visit the children had two days off of school. Since both of Danny's parents had been to China before we even moved here and then again two years ago, we attempted to find a destination that we all wanted to visit within China while the kids were off of school. We settled on Chengdu in the Sichuan province. In 2008 this area was hit by an 8.0 earthquake which caused massive damage to nearby cities and villages. The city of Chengdu only suffered minor damage because the buildings were built to withstand an earthquake. The main attraction for us to visit while we were there was the Panda Research Base, we all agreed that everyone would enjoy this!

We arrived on Thursday at lunch time and checked into the lovely Shangri La! I've been so spoiled over the past 2 1/2 years and unfortunately have gotten used to being whisked off to the business center for check in and then escorted to our rooms with no wait times! That is definitely a perk of being a foreigner in China...almost all of the 5 star hotels we stay in completely cater to us! We decided to have lunch in the hotel because it was quick, convenient, and a buffet which meant the kids would eat well! We were not disappointed, my mouth still waters just thinking about the lunch. I'm pretty sure we sat and ate for 1 hour!

We definitely needed to walk off our gigantic lunch, so we went to a walking street called Jinli. There were many, many stores selling local handicrafts lining this street, including a Starbucks, which seemed a bit out of place. Of course I wasn't complaining because I was able to pick up my mug which we try to collect from every city we visit (you can only imagine that we have quite a collection at this point!)!

The kids and I love watching the locals make things. This lady is making clay cartoon characters. It is amazing because she is so fast, yet at the same time so accurate!
I love walking through these old streets, however I'm sure I am missing the meaning of so many things because of my lack of understanding any Chinese characters!! I take lots of pictures, but have no idea what I am taking a picture of!!

The kids enjoyed watching all of the fish and the black swans swimming in the river! And of course, we had some spitters who were thrilled to watch the fish come even closer! Honestly, if I never see another person spit I would be a very happy person!!

After our afternoon of exploring the city (it is very manageable because it is about half the size of Tianjin!) we went for hot pot. Hot pot is a specialty in the Sichuan province. Danny loves it! We had to get two pots of soup - one spicy and one mild. I couldn't go near the hot one - it was soooo spicy! Danny and his dad enjoyed it, but they did sweat a bit!! I think the kids had a fun time - they all like the chicken because it was so tender!

After a very busy day, we were eager to get back to the hotel and have a sleep before we went to see the pandas!!

My Family History by Ethan!

While Danny's parents were visiting, Eens had a special treat for them...a presentation on his family history. We went to school first thing in the morning where we enjoyed Grade 1 singing my favorite Chinese song (this may be because I only know a couple!!), the English translation is I Love My Family. Ellie's class performed it when she was in Grade 1 and I got teary eyed then too!After the children sang to us, Eens took us to his presentation area and showed us a couple of projects that he had been working on during the Family History unit! I loved listening to Eens explain how our family works, apparently Danny has a sister and Steph (my sister-in-law) is my sister and Robby just married in!! I have included some of the drawings that he did for his timeline! He loves to draw and I enjoy discovering all of the details he discreetly includes. I had a good giggle about the nice shirt Coop's doctor was apparently wearing when Coopie was in the NICU!! My sweet boy has quite the imagination!!
After we listened to Eens we enjoyed his friend's family histories, which were just as interesting!! Then we were able to enjoy coffee, tea, and cakes with Eensie!! It was a great morning and really fun for Danny's parents to see what the children are learning at school!

Surviving the Subway!!

Finally, after two and a half years, I can finally say that I have been on the underground subway in Beijing!!! I was extremely excited to take Danny's parents into Beijing to explore public transportation (no worries, there was also shopping involved!)! We took the fast train into Beijing, which is so easy to do. We arrived in about 35 minutes due to some random stop on the tracks - we never did get an explanation, but we probably don't want one! We then proceeded to cause mafan (trouble) while I attempted to buy tickets for the subway. I didn't realize that the subway costs 2 RMB (about $.30) regardless of where you go! I now know for next time!

I was shocked at how clean the trains were(this is a subway, but it was much better than some I have been on in the US)! Even the walking areas were fine. We had no trouble finding the trains we wanted thanks to a trusty little Starbucks subway map and the fact that all stops showed both the Chinese characters and the English name. It was brilliant!! As you can tell, I am quite proud of us for navigating the system.

We ended up in Sanlitun just in time to shop before a delicious lunch at one of my favorite Beijing restaurants, Mosto!!

I am very adventurous, but I can only take so much, so later in the afternoon I had my driver pick us up at the Silk Market. I'm pretty sure my in-laws think I am completely crazy for making my driver drive 2 hours to pick us up, but who wants to lug packages on the subway?!