our last few weeks by the numbers

over the past couple weeks, while all of our friends have been on vacation or home with families celebrating the new year, most everything we have done has been out of our house. along with every campus being closed, every restaurant and market vendor was also closed for awhile, which meant a lot of meals were eaten at our own dining room table. and since our evenings were pretty free, i got a ton of things checked off my to-do list for our apartment and life in general. here's a recap

home meals cooked: 18

new recipes tried: 16

number of recipes actually followed exactly: 4

number of recipes i just made up: 3

completely new foods i tried: 2

number of new foods i made jarred eat: 3

number of new foods i think he liked: 1

number of recipes i wanted to make that jarred claimed sounded like something buddy the elf would make: 1 (coca-cola pork chops)

number of loads of dishes done by hand: a whole lot

number of loads of dished jarred did by hand: a whole lot +1

sewing projects completed: 2

number of sewing projects completed in my life before 2 weeks ago: 0

number of sewing projects successful upon completion: 2

number of sewing projects still successful after 1 use: 1.5

number of sewing projects completed for my by the tailor in our complex: 4

number of sewing projects i wanted completed by the tailor in our complex that he told me was impossible: 1

painting projects completed: 1

painting projects from which i have finished cleaning my brush: 0

rooms in our house (re-)decorated: 2

plants potted: 13

plants that lived past a week: 11

most dogs living at our apartment at one time: 2

most dogs i could handle living in our apartment at one time: 1

number of hours dog-sat dog remained in our house before i told jarred she had to leave: 20

years from now we will again dog sit another dog with max in our house: 100+

number of nights max woke us up throwing up: 3 (don't worry, he's better now)

number of socks max found and chewed: 4

number of said socks that are from separate pairs: 4

total number of articles of my clothing max has put holes in: 7

total number of articles of jarred's clothing max has put holes in: 2

number of people in our family that are happy about this ratio: 1

nights jarred read cesar milan's website and thought about giving max away: 3

phone calls to america: 11

friends talked to for the first time in months: 4

number of nights fireworks were set off outside our apartment: 19

number of fireworks we set off: 0

number of mothers that are very thankful and proud of us: at least 1

number of trips into town: 5

number of trips into the big city: 8

normal number of trips per week into the big city: 1

weeks of p90x officially completed: 4

number of times i ever want to do the core synergistic workout again: 0

movies watched: 5

movies we watched that i really liked: 1, maybe 2 (disappointing percentage)

books i finished: 4

books jarred finished: 2

times i have ever read more than jarred: 1

books started: 2

papers jarred wrote: 2 (to give him a little consolation)

days of pleasant sunny: 18

days it was cold february weather: 3

number of times people asked me "you aren't going home to celebrate the new year?!": countless

so in the past couple weeks i have basically become rachel ray, martha stewart (minus the prison sentence and billion dollar empire), and every talk-show host on hgtv. jarred has become cesar milan, a contractor, and a food network taste-tester. most people have returned, most places have reopened, and normal life kicks off tomorrow.

Happy New Year!

As Shelley mentioned at the end of our last post, we are in East Asia this year for the holiday of all East Asian holidays- the Lunar New Year, otherwise known as the Spring Festival. This is our first time ever celebrating New Year's Day in East Asia. We have had to make several trips into town to purchase food at the market, to register Max, etc... and each time we went into town we noticed it got busier and busier. Well last Friday, we had to make a trip into the big city, and so we enlisted our driver Mr. Zhang to take us in. He was born and raised in our small town, and he knows it well. When I mentioned to him how busy it had gotten on the days leading up to New Year's, he said "Yes. It is because we are in the farmer's village. In the city, they cannot celebrate like we celebrate in the farmer's village. At 12AM New Year's Day, every house will shoot off fireworks (that actually happened). They will shoot fireworks and celebrate from 12AM until well into the day (that actually happened as well... 6AM while I was walking a rather skiddish dog). They don't do this in the city. Look, the town is very busy today. Instead of taking the freeway, we will go into the town and you will see all the traffic and how many people there are." So, as if he was driving the Magic School Bus, Mr. Zhang took us into traffic instead of around traffic to show us just how much traffic there was. And we pay him to do things like this...

Needless to say, there was a lot of traffic in our little "farmer's village" and there were a ton of people. Mr. Zhang said that we should come see the town on New Year's Day because everyone will be there. Shelley and I typically avoid crowds whenever possible because East Asia redefines the word "crowd" by about 1.3 billion, but in this case, we thought we would go and check out the New Year's festivities. We may only get this opportunity once! What we found was a carnival like atmosphere in our little town, and it was a lot of fun. Dragon dancers and drummers put on shows in the main square. People were dressed in their very best, and everyone was happy to see foreigners with their little dog out celebrating the New Year. Here are some pictures:

It is difficult to see the end of this crowd. This is what the streets were like for a half mile.
Everybody got treats on New Year's Day. I chose the delicious pineapple on a stick.

Shelley got gerber daisies (It was also Valentine's Day afterall).
And Max got a deep fried sausage on a stick. These things are gross, and people eat them, but not this person. I figured Maximus deserved a treat for braving the crowds. He sniffed, licked to test the temperature, and promptly ate it in 3 bites.

I am observing a chess game. In East Asia there is a saying that 2 men play chess and 12 men watch. It is true. When observing a chess game, you must look very focused and intelligent. Got that memo. You must also wear navy blue. Didn't get that memo.
And of course, no New Year's Day celebration would be complete without fireworks. Some lucky child would get to light these babies.
After the crowd, we went home to enjoy a Valentine's meal of homemade pizza and salad, courtesy of my gourmet chef wife.

With all that said, our break alone here is quickly winding down. In a few days our friends will start to come back in. We have really enjoyed the time here by ourselves, and feel as if we are even more a part of this up-and-coming community. We look forward to our friends' return, but will certainly look back on this as a sweet time in East Asia.

an explanation

less all of you think we are obsessed with our dog and just wanted to post a billion pictures of him, here is the story that was supposed to accompany those pictures. we have just been really busy and i haven't had a few minutes to sit down and write it down.

anyways, so a few days ago we took max to get his immunizations and get registered with the police. we first attempted this process about 2 months ago right after we got him but they said he was too small for any shots and we would need to come back later. so we showed up at the dog registration office in the town near us. this may seem like an easy process. however, the place is too far to walk, which meant that max had to ride our scooter. 2 months ago max used to ride in jarred's backpack, but since he is too big now he has to sit on the front of the scooter. throughout this whole process max had to ride on the scooter 3 days in a row: day 1- jarred stopped the scooter and max promptly leaned over the side and threw up. day 2- max peed on the scooter as we rode down the road. day 3- max decided the scooter wasn't so bad afterall and rode the whole way with his head sticking out around the scooter in the wind.

we get to the registration office and the only lady that works there is sitting at her computer playing a game (i'm pretty sure she has the most low-key job of anyone i've ever seen). she turns around and after we tell her we are back to have max registered, she begins to say a bunch of unintelligible things. ok, so they are probably quite clear, we just didn't know the words. the conversation went like this:
lady: blah blah blah blah blah
jarred and me: i'm sorry, we don't understand.
lady: blah blah blah blah blah
jarred and me: we have to do what?
lady: passport pictures
jarred and me: we brought our passports. you need pictures of us?
lady: and the dog
jarred and me: pictures of the dog? where are we supposed to do that?
lady: any normal picture place. there is one in town.

so off we head to the picture place we know if in town to have passport pictures taken of max. no, i'm serious. it was certainly new information to us that it is completely normal to have pictures of a dog taken at a photo shop. oh well. but to be fair, i'm not sure why we didn't assume beforehand that we would need to bring a set of passport pictures with us. if you want anything done here, you have to have a set of passport pictures attached to your paperwork. seriously, they are about as abundant as red stamps in this country. i think we currently have about 10 each sitting at our house in different sizes because it seems that each bureaucratic office requires a different size. it's unreal.

at the photo place jarred had to put max on this little bench while the photographer took a number of pictures of him, finally settling on her favorite to get printed. so then we sat outside of the picture place waiting for the pictures to get printed after which we could return to the registration office. the 2 daughters of the photographer played with max for awhile and then this really old lady walked up and started talking to us. we definitely couldn't understand anything she was saying with her thick dialect. the 12 year old girl tried to help translate into standard east asian language, but the poor girl could barely understand anything the lady said either. after a few minutes of telling us how beautiful max is, she then requested/demanded that we give him to her. to have. for good. i tried to explain in a really respectful way that he was our dog and we weren't just going to give him to her. and i also added that a few months ago we just found him on the street and she could probably keep her eyes open and take in a stray dog and be just as happy. she didn't seem pleased. i decided that i had to have a picture to remember this crazy lady, and i think that she was then actually flattered, so we parted well.
back at the registration place, the lady once again looked up from playing her computer game to take our pictures and create max's passport. all went well as she typed in the information we had filled out, except for 2 minor problems. 1. she wasn't so skilled at reading/recording the name Maximus and wanted us to be sure that he didn't also have an asian name. and 2. it was unacceptable that we left the box empty under "type of dog."
lady: what kind of dog is he?
jarred and me: well he isn't any kind. he's a mutt (literally- mixed blood).
lady: he must be some kind of dog.
jarred and me: no, he isn't a certain kind of dog. he's a mutt off the street.
lady: i think he's a tu-gou (english- formosan mountain dog). so he'll be a tu-gou.

(aside- a tu-gou is a famous dog breed from taiwan, of which there are now only a very few purebred ones left. we researched it online and found out there is only 1 true breeder of them worldwide and they cost thousands of dollars each. they are also "the most precious dog" of east asia. therefore, we think everyone is eager for us to have a tu-gou, but honestly he's a mutt. to be fair, the tu-gou puppy pictures we found online do look exactly like max as a puppy, so we'll see).

so we left the registration office on day 1 with max's official registration passport, this huge bling silver necklace that shows max has had his shots (which 1. at this point he still hadn't gotten and 2. the lady said for him not to wear all the time because he might lose it, which to me defeats the purpose of having it), and a needle with a chip in it.

day 2 we had to return to the office for a vet to come and give max his rabies shot and put a chip in his neck. i didn't really have a lot of confidence when the vet got there and opened a room that looked more like a messy closet. and since he had no one else to help him or an actual vet table or anything, jarred had to hold max while he got his shots. the rabies shot went fine. then the vet tried to take this huge hollow needle and stick it 4 inches into max's neck to shoot the chip in. as soon as that thing went it, max shrieked the most blood-curdling scream ever and flipped out. the vet pulled the needle out and said max was moving too much and he wanted to do it again. maybe it's just me, but if you are going to stick a long and extremely thick needle into any living thing you've really only got one try. i guess the 2nd time worked better. we did realize later, however, that max's blood-curdling scream is about the same scream we hear every few days from him when he gets a bath and that is ridiculous. for the whole 10 minutes of the bath. even a puppy should be able to distinguish the terrifying level between having a needle jammed in your neck and just getting wet. unbelievable.

max left a pretty happy dog, as you can see in the picture. that's all for us, we're back to celebrating the new year over here...

Max gets official

So the other day, we took Maximus to get his shots. It was quite an adventure.

Fireworks

So the Spring Festival is less than a week away here in East Asia. This is their Christmas, and so just as the store fronts are transformed for Christmas in America, the shops and street corners here are also prepared for the holiday shopping extravaganza that takes place each time around this year. Only, instead of fir trees, lights, chocolate, and cards, the East Asians purchase the bad combination of a lot of liquor and a lot of fireworks. The other day Shelley and I were at Metro, a store that requires a membership card, like Sam's Club, where you can buy a lot of imported food products in bulk. We love shopping at this store because it is never as busy as the other supermarkets in East Asia like Wal-Mart or Carrefour (imagine Wal Mart in America on the day after Thanksgiving EVERY DAY and that is what Wal Mart in East Asia is like, except with none of the goods that you like to purchase at Wal Mart in America.) However, even Metro wasn't immune to the Spring Festival crowds. The beer and wine aisle had no more beer or wine, but it did have about 200 people beyond fire code looking for beer and wine.

So what goes better with liquor than fireworks?! There are plenty of them around Spring Festival. Every street corner in our little town has a makeshift fireworks stand:

Fireworks here are very different than in America. First off, they aren't regulated here in any way. I can walk to a corner and purchase anything from sparklers to show grade shells for anywhere from 50 cents to 15 bucks. They have stuff here that South Carolina can't even sell. Homemade dynamite? Not a problem in the land that invented gun powder and fireworks. Check out the size of these shells that you can buy right on the street corner:

Also, there is no "safe age limit" to shoot off fireworks. See this little guy here making a purchase:

I have seen toddlers walking around with Roman Candles, firing them right at apartment buildings as they are distracted by a leaf in the grass. I guess the theory here is as long as the hand is developed enough to grip things, it is developed enough to blow off 2 or 3 of its own fingers. Along with no safe age limit, there is no appropriate time or location to shoot off fireworks. So last night at 11PM, someone decided that right outside of our apartment was a great place to launch a couple. So for 5 minutes, we were shot wide awake thinking that our apartment had been transported to Beirut, Lebanon. Those fireworks that people go to see on July 4th where some trained professional is shooting them from 500 yards away... imagine how loud and bright they are when some drunk guy decides to light them right outside of your apartment window. I am pretty sure Somalia has better safety regulations with AK-47s than East Asia does with fireworks. The great news is that this is sure to go on for at least 2 1/2 more weeks! We'll try to get video and pictures to post so you can see the craziness. No better way to ring in the New Year!

lonely, oh so lonely

2 days ago we came back home from being out of town for the 3rd week in the past 5 weeks. it was so nice to come back and we definitely missed max, but the sad thing was that none of our neighbor friends were coming with us. around this time everything slows down a little. spring festival is only a week away and so most east asians have headed home to celebrate with their extended families and most foreigners here get the heck out of dodge. however, since jarred and i are headed back to the states (you know you live overseas when you call it "the states"- who in america would ever call it that?) in april for jada's wedding, we are saving our precious vacation time and spending the next few weeks here. alone. just us. it's so strange. and i would say relaxing and peaceful, but then again a 10 week old puppy occupies our apartment with us and that strips all peace out of the picture. we are excited for all the travels that our friends have ahead of them, though we are eagerly awaiting their return so we can see their pictures, hear their stories, and just hang out with them again. have fun, friends :)

P90X

My wife is a kind woman. She loves me better than I ever could have imagined. Sometimes love hurts worse than I ever could imagine. Rewind to Christmas morning 2009. I am awake and overjoyed at the prospect of exchanging gifts with my blushing Christmas bride for the first time as husband and wife. The package looked harmless. It was small and rectangular, and I eagerly unwrapped its contents to discover this little gem:

For many of you in America, I need not say more. P90X is apparently the workout program right now. Well, last week I started this program. And that is where the whole love hurts part comes in. Let me just start by explaining that I am not new to working out. When I graduated from UNC, I had a double major in business administration and Lenoir Dining Hall where I proudly gained a chunky 39 pounds. My doctor informed me that apparently 189 is not an appropriate weight for 5'10" unless you are a high school football player, and so started a long process of working out. I joined a gym, read Men's Health, tried a LOT of different workout programs and lost the college weight. After I moved to East Asia, there were no gyms or workout places, so I picked up running and biking and lost even more weight. All that to say I'm not new to working out and nutrition. Never have I tried anything like this.

Luckily, Shelley has decided to join me for this ride through all 7 layers of Hell, and we hurt together. Let me give you the rundown: Day 1, do a billion pushups and a billion pullups (neither of which I can do a billion of...) for an hour. After that is done, immediately do an insane ab workout (which I confess Shelley can smoke me in). Then go home and cry. Day 2, a fancy term called "plyometrics" which basically translates to jumping and squatting until your legs fall off. That way you can make sure to not only not be able to lift your arms to shampoo your hair in the shower after day 1, but now you can't bend OR lift your legs to wash your feet. Day 3, arms and shoulders for an hour, followed by watching your wife smoke you in said miserable ab workout again. Day 4, my least favorite day of the week- yoga. Who knew that skinny people in stretch pants with Eastern mystic mantras could make my life so miserable. Now all those parts that I couldn't move earlier are permanently disfigured from stretches that a human body was never designed to do. Day 5, legs and more pullups followed by the crazy ab workout to remind you that day 1 is only 3 days away. Day 6, kenpo karate for an hour. Day 7, a rest day to reflect on what you just put your body through and what's still to come. We still have 12 weeks on this nonsense to go.

"It is guaranteed to change your body." Well no joke! If you can just survive 90 days of this. We would put up before and after pictures, but that would just be ridiculous, so we'll just say that after one week, some friends here have decided to purchase the DVDs and try the program themselves. We must look goooooood. Now I'm going to crawl back into the fetal position and wait for week 2 day 3.