Happy Horidays!

(Harbin Style)

Well, its official. I'm a slacker. I'm thoroughly convinced that I will never really amount to anything in life. On the positive side, it's been another fun fulled, saliva infested month of teaching and eating strange animal parts. I did a lot this month actually. The people here actually celebrate Christmas and Western New Years...I think it's just an excuse to get wasted, I think people do the same no matter where they are in the world. So I went to several traditional Chinese resteraunts...I think that's all they have here in China. Some were with faculty and students and others were with HUST University and Cap College Officials. They were all really nice actually. They sit you at a large circular banquet dinner table with about 10 people, and there is a big rotating "Lazy susan" style glass disk in the center of it. A million different waiting staff bring plate after plate of interesting dishes to the table. Everyone uses thier chopsticks to take what they want from the center of the table and put it in front of them on their own plate. It's pretty unsanitary, and I can understand why this country has the highest rate of Hepatitis. Yay Twinrix Vaccination!!! I cooked a live shrimp and ate it whole..that was gross because its like having a mouthfull of chewed toe nails and swallowing them...whatever.

I received my Foreign Experts document early this month. It basically proves that I am a foreigner living and working in China. Have a looksie:



Christmas away from home has been the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with. I love everything about the holidays. Including the home made eggnog Jaqcuie is perfecting as we speak, thanks to unstocked shelves throughout the land. (Need some good Nog to go with the Cap. Morgans Spiced Rum) As you may have heard, we are postponing the entire Christmas experience until Dad gets home from China. I already have gifts for the family, they're going to poo clumps of silver tinsel when they see what I got them! I spent Christmas eve at a big dinner with all of my colleagues. I went to a ski resort even further north than where I am now. It was bordering Siberia. At one point I walked down to the lake and layed down on the ice spread eagle looking up at the night sky. There were almost more stars than space inbetween! In 10 minutes I saw 3 shooting stars, I have never seen anything like it. Still haven't seen the Aurora Borealis yet though. Oh yeah, and after we left the lake on the way back to the Hotel we saw and hear huge white flashes of light like bombs going off. Maybe it was North Korea stretching their Nuclear Legs. Anyways, the Christmas dinner at the hotel was great. The hotel was so secluded in the world that we had a plane fly a turkety in from Beijing. Once the turkey made it to Harbin, it was cooked at a local Hotel that had a proper oven and driven the 2 hours to the hotel where we were staying. It was worth it. We ate like kings and had a fun Kareoke and dance session afterwards... like so:



So the next mornin' we all headed over to the ski hill and had a grand ole time. It was only a single little bunny hill with a tow lift. Sad really, and nobody except me knew how to ski. So I had fun teaching everyone how. I had a little class of like 12 people.




That was my holiday season...lots has been happening at home with record snow and wind storms. More to come...the ice and snow festival!!! Peace out.