Grand Opening

One of the joys for the foreign community here is to rejoice when another Western comfort comes to our city. When I (Dave) was here is '02, I was able to see the first Broadway play in East Asia (Les Mis). In '05 we were able to be here for the first day of Burger King. Last night we joined the opening night festivities of the first 7-eleven in our city. But alas, unlike Singapore and Thailand, I was disappointed to find out that there are no slurpees.

Getting Ready

We leave in just under 5 weeks. I can't believe it. We are in the process of figuring out what we're bringing home and what we'll sell/give away. I already packed up 2 of our 6 suitcases. It's mostly winter stuff and books.
It's so weird that only 7 months ago I was at Ikea spending money on things like plates, glasses and sheets and now we are getting ready to sell all of those things. We'll have a house sale at the end of the month to people we know like other expats here. People have already put dibs on things!
It will be fun to go back to the States and look through our own stuff! Everything will seem like new again.
We'll live with my parents in Dublin, PA for a while until we can get set up and buy a place of our own in Philly. We plan to be with them until at least the baby is born, mid-October. I am not up for seeing 3 different doctors throughout 1 pregnancy!
Living in rural Dublin will be an odd change from the hustle and bustle of our major city. Instead of cars honking, we'll hear cows mooing.

The Brindleys go to the Zoo!

Are you serious?

This girl was wearing skin tight leather pants and can you see her heals??? They were about 2 inches high and very narrow.
All day at the zoo we probably walked at least 2 miles. What was this girl thinking?

A unique bird. I believe a Chinese Pheasant.

The Zoo

We had an amazing day at the zoo yesterday. I LOVE the zoo here. It's HUGE! It is really a very large park with animals throughout. The foliage was beautiful. It was the first time I've really felt like I was out of the city. The animals weren't just sleeping either. Most of the were playing and active.
The monkeys were our favorite. They were swinging and putting on a show for us! Lilia loved it. She squealed with excitement.
Lilia got to feed goats and pigs too.

The bears were doing laps & the lions were awake

Ball pit at indoor play area

Lilia jumping

This is at an indoor play area. Lilia would jump down the ramp over and over again. She's fearless.

Playing with mommy's makeup

Free Music

Google is attempting to be the default search engine for East Asia. In order to do that, they know they need to be able to let users listen and download music for free. They have just worked out a deal with the 4 major labels to offer most of their music for free for people with an East Asian ISP.

Needless to say I (Dave) have been enjoying legally downloading this past week. They do not offer as complete a selection as iTunes, but they do have the entire catalog of Coldplay, Keane, Bob Dylan, Ryan Adams, etc.

There are some really nice parts of living here.

Where Daddy Be?

One of the games Lilia loves to play is hide and seek. While looking for me (Dave), she walks around our apartment saying "Where Daddy be? Is he in the kitchen....no....Is he in Ilia's bedroom....no. The game has its limitations though.

1) Our apartment is small and not well furnished.
2) After Lilia finds me, she hides in the same spot. If she hides first, she will only go behind a curtain or under bed sheets.
3) As for as I can tell, she would play this game forever.

So how did today end???

Lilia and I finally got outside around 2ish. I pushed her in the stroller because I know if she's tired enough she'll sleep. Well it worked and she slept for an hour! I'm a bit pooped though.
Once she woke up we went to the playground where she burned lots more energy. I'd like to say that's relaxing for me, but it's "Why did you push her," and "Get that out of your mouth."
Then the ever dreaded dinner!!! I made a simple meal of spaghetti, bread & salad. Lilia does prefer raw veggies over cooked, so that was in my favor. Or so you'd think.
She pushed away the bowl of spaghetti & the bowl of salad. She had some bites of bread. We tried everything to get her to eat...coaxing her, encouraging her, feeding her on my lap, ignoring her, but NOTHING worked!!! It's SO frustrating being a parent of a toddler.
Finally I made her a smoothie and she drank most of that. I just prayed that God would sustain her through the early morning so we wouldn't have to do today all over again tomorrow.

CALLING ALL MOMS OF TODDLERS: If you have any advice or encouragement, Dave and I would really appreciate it!!! She only loves peanut butter and yogurt. Email me at
daweiinzhongguo@gmail.com

"You mean that's it!"

One thing I will miss about living here is the incredibly cheap cost of labor.
This week Dave got a zipper on his coat fixed for 15 cents.
I had a big hole in the band of my maternity pants and I needed two dresses to be stitched due to minor things. That all together cost me 30 cents.

It's Never what you imagine

Today is a day that has gone the opposite of how I thought it would go in my mind. Lilia was up at 5:15am saying, "I'm hungry." Well if she had eaten any of her dinner, then this wouldn't be a problem, now would it! So I got up, got her yogurt, juice and crackers. I put on Winnie the Pooh and went back to bed.
Dave got up around 6:30 or so. By 7am I hear her crying in the other room. Dave is working on oatmeal and she's hungry. I yell, "Make her a bowl of cereal." He does, she doesn't want it! So he gets the oatmeal ready, she again doesn't eat it! I yell, make her a bagel. I just wanted her to eat something! She's not plump by any stretch, she was tired and hungry. Nothing was working. So I got up after still needing to eat something before I'm vertical. We put on Pooh again and I sat next to her and fed her whatever she would eat. She ate some bites of oatmeal and about 1/3 of a bagel. The cereal was never touched.
I thought she would nap around 10, 10:30 and then I would shower. Then we'd spend the afternoon outside because today is really beautiful. Well she still hasn't napped and it's 1:30. Granted she is pleasant still, but we'll see. Oh, and we still haven't left the house!
It's just one of those days where you throw your hands in the air and say, I give up!!!

Quick add on

If you look below at the pictures under "dress up" you'll see the bathing suit top Lilia is wearing. Well that day I couldn't get it off her so it became her outfit. Luckily she let me put pants on her. That night she insisted on wearing her bathing suit top in the bath tub.
The next day she again wanted to wear her bathing suit top. Luckily it was a hot day and I had to put it in the laundry. I'm not sure how many days she planned to wear it!
She does love to swim, so maybe she's gearing up for swim season! Unfortunately there's no place to swim here. We'll have to wait another 6 weeks till we're home.

Best Friends; Lilia & Ryan

Play time

Hudson (left), Ryan (middle) and Lilia play with side walk chalk at the playground. A young Asian boy watches.
Thanks Jess & Zac for the chalk! The kids love it!

Playing with stickers

Dress up

Lilia wanted to put on her swimmy diaper and her bathing suit top. Then she went for her winter boots!
It's quite an ensembles!

What a Great Easter!

First of all the weather today was PERFECT! I think it was in the low 70's and mostly sunny. Great Easter weather. We had lunch at a great restaurant with friends and then explored on our own as a family.
Lilia got to play a lot! She loved every second of it. She was up at 5:40am and had only a 1 hour nap, but you would never know it! She had a blast!
We do have it really good because we live in the same complex as other families with kids her age. It makes the holidays nice because the kids love playing together!

Nemo Balloon!

The restaurant that I was mentioning where we got the turkey sandwich & the sandwich Dave couldn't finish had events going on for Easter. They offered an egg hunt, face painting and a set meal. We got there later in the afternoon, but the balloon/bunny man was still around.
Lilia watched very skeptically as he worked his magic.

Egg Hunt

One of the moms arranged an egg hunt for the kids. The dads hid plastic eggs filled with little candy or coins. Then the kids went and searched for them. It was so awesome! It totally reminded me of my childhood Easters of going to my grandparent's house and searching for eggs with my cousins.
I had to point out almost every egg to Lilia because she would walk right past them. Funny!

All the kids together & Some looking for eggs

Happy Easter!

These are the eggs Lilia and I dyed on Friday morning. There was one that she just threw into the green dye. It splashed everywhere. Good thing I put down plastic!
We had an amazing dinner Friday night at a bakery. I had real turkey (impossible to find) with cranburry sauce on a poppy seed bun (also very rare.) Dave had a sandwich so flavorful, with peppered steak, roasted peppers and blue cheese, that he couldn't even finish it! I don't think we've EVER said that about the food here.
This bakery also made the chocolate bunny in the bowl. I had to buy one. This is one of the very few places that had something for Easter. It was very exciting.

Dying Easter Eggs with Friends

Grocery shopping...what do things cost?

A loaf of bread...$1.25
A quart of milk...$1.25
8 eggs...$0.75
1 package of boneless, chicken breast...$3
1 bag of imported pasta...$2
1 large can imported pasta sauce...$3
2 large carrots...$0.50
Zucchini...$0.40
A bunch of bananas...$1
approx 5 Apples...$1.25
5 Kiwi...$1.50
Bag of oats...$1.75
Land-o-lakes block of cheese...$5
8 oz sour cream...$3
Bag of shredded mozzarella cheese...$6

Things we sometimes splurge on...
Lenders frozen bagels, 6 pack...$5
Eggo frozen waffles...$6
Imported Brownie Mix...$4
Tortilla wraps (for soft tacos)...$4.50
Pepperidge Farm Goldfish (when they have them)...$3.75

(We don't buy the following items b/c I can't justify purchasing them!)
Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice...$9
Tostitos salsa...$4
Tostitos chips...$8
Cheerios (and most American cereals)...$9.50

Unsafe East Asian Workers, Part 2

Window Installer. Taken from our 9th story kitchen. I just missed him with only his right shin inside the building.

Unsafe East Asian Workers

The center of gravity on this car only allows it to drive straight. The car must be abandoned at its first turn.

Some more Tomb Sweeping Day Pics

Tomb Sweeping Day

Monday was a national holiday, Tomb Sweeping Day. It is exactly as it sounds. Since we do not
have any deceased relatives here, we decided to take a stroll through the old French part of town. Here is what we saw.
















The man on top sells lamb on stick. The pile of sticks are all used. He lets them pile up to show how popular they are.

Every day it's something funny..

This morning before our "family time" we went to McDonald's for breakfast. Don't worry mom, we hardly ever do this! I love getting pancakes and breakfast sausage because you can't get b-fast sausage here and I love it! We ordered so much food and sat down at our table. As we began eating more and more people started filling up the place.
I even said to Dave, "It's a good thing we got here when we did." Well the funny thing is that we were one of the few people eating! Dave got up and subtly counted heads. There were 36 people in McDonald's and only about 4 people had actually ordered food!!! We looked around and laughed. We said to each other, "What are these people doing here." They didn't even order coffee! Funny stuff.

Winnie The Pooh

Lilia has a new interest. Don't get me wrong, she still talks about Finding Nemo everyday!
We were shopping at Carrfoure this week and she started talking about Winnie the Pooh. So I decided to find something for her. We found a DVD, a legitimate one, and came home and watched it. She's asked for it almost everyday since Thursday when we bought it.
This morning was like every morning...Dave or Lilia is up first. This morning it was Dave. I was laying in bed eating my toast and drinking my water so I don't get sick. After about 1/2 hour after she was up she came in our room and said, "Mommy get out of bed. Can I help you? Lai ba." (Lai ba means come on.) Dave got up and she had the TV on and Winnie The Pooh in the dvd player, it was all ready to go! She was stuck at a menu and needed our help. We can't help but laugh at this girl!

Stuck in a tree

As you may or may not remember from previous blogs, we hang out laundry out to dry. We don't own a dryer so we're going green in our own way! Well I did wash yesterday morning and hung it out on our balcony to dry all day. Depending on how warm it is it's dry by night. You don't want your clothes out overnight because they get this awful stink to them that's just in the air. So I asked Dave if he could help me gather our clothes before going to bed.
It had been a bit of a windy day. I put a pair of Dave's boxers on a hanger to dry on the end of the rod. Well the wind had taken them and the hanger over on a ledge. Dave was able to reach it with a pole, but the wind took it and they flew 9 stories down and into a tree.
Dave had to run out anyway so went on a search as well. It was dark so he asked a guard to help him. The guard had a flashlight so they could see where they were. The boxers were a little high up so they got a large bamboo pole to retrieve them. Success! Dave came home with a jug of water and his boxers.

We're Headed Home

Dave, Lilia and I are officially leaving the country June 1st! We are very excited to have about 2 months left. We can't wait to be reunited with our family and our friends.
This date was picked so that we could transition well into our next adventure in Philadelphia. We look forward to seeing you all soon. We're counting down the weeks till then!