Happy Birthday Brian! 39!
Brian's birthday cake this year: "Almost Better than Anything Cake". And we had his favorite for dinner as he wished for as well. Tacos! The Williams joined us to help celebrate. His birthday gifts all haled from Sam's Club. Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, Dark Chocolate Covered Acai, Mixed Salted Nuts, trail mix, dried mangos and Cherry Coke. Spoiled boy!
The "3" plus nine single candles represented the "39".
Outside of church in the front yard. This is unusually warm weather for us this time of year.
We ate noodles at the La Mian shop near our house for an easy meal during the holiday. Each bowl is just over $1 USD. Crazy! The noodles are freshly made right in front of you. They are really good at what they do and make it look really easy. It's fun to watch. And tastes great! The kids love these noodles as well. You can add chili and vinegar. They can add a fried egg or slice of beef. These noodle shops are ran by uighur families from North West China and they are Muslim Chinese.
Happy Chinese New Year! Year of the horse. I can't believe that next year we will have completed an entire zodiac and lived in China for 12 years. Coming up on 12! The Characters above say: "Congratulations Happy Year 2014"-- Translated by Brian. We went to the West Lake during the holiday with the Williams. It was a beautiful day and mostly clear. You will see in the pictures below that the West Lake is a popular tourist destination for Chinese people. It is said and believed in China that Hangzhou is where heaven meets earth. Shang you tian tang, xia you su hang. Above has heaven, below (on earth) has Hangzhou.
West Lake! Wait until Spring. The foilage will be green with lily pods and lotus.
I love Kristy. She makes every picture even better. Cute girl and cute smile. And cute family too...
These kids definitely draw a crowd. This picture is floating around on many peoples phones and cameras now. We think they're pretty cute too.
We tried out Slims, a new burger joint near the lake. Fantastic! It's a massive burger. Under $10 for that bad boy pictured right. That's the blue cheese one there. Brock's showing us how to eat one. He's eating the "petite". That one's like $6. Still massive.
He caught me taking his picture! So cute. I really wanted to get a shot with him and that baby on his back. I love how Chinese men adore children. And he's carrying his baby on his back.
I enjoyed turning the tables and taking other people's pictures this day instead of everyone taking ours! I love Chinese people. They were more than happy to let me take their pictures! I can't say foreigners are as easy.
This is one of my favorites. I love these beautiful women and I don't even know them. Someone was taking their picture and I asked if I could take one too. There's so much said in this shot about who these beautiful women are as women. The hats definitely help. Love it!
It's common for people to come to the lake and rent bikes. This is one typical Chinese family all on one rented bike dealio. Son with dad and mom.
The guard hollered at me to get Chael down. Sure thing! But not before I snap my shot. Western children are extremely coordinated and good at climbing. And it just freaks most Chinese people out!
I love this shot of Elliot making a run for it.
Brian worked with Mr. Yao in the past and he still wanted to take us to dinner for CNY with his wife and two daughters. Callie, Brock and Dash all ate duck tongue (which they really liked) and cow tongue (which they ate before they knew what it was.) They were spoiled with lots of coconut milk and juice. A real treat at our house. This is a very traditional Chinese thing to do. Vendors will typically take you to dinner and "la the guan xi" ("pull" the relationship). It's all about developing relationships. Mr. Yao has several businesses and furniture just happens to be one of them. He's building a Sheraton in Bin Jiang as well. Chael went over to the Mrs. and gave her a big kiss. She was touched. He knows how to work it.
Another tradition is to give red envelopes (hong bao) filled with money to children for CNY. Brian is not even currently buying from Mr. Yao and they still took us to dinner, loaded us up with boxes of fruit like cherries and kiwi and gave the kids a hong bao. This time the money in each hong bao was equivalent to about $33 USD. Crazy! Normally (as in if we were actually doing business together) it would be $133 per child. It's nuts. And we have four! When Brian brings us to one of the factories the owners go crazy like this with the kids. They love to do it and they love children. (And they like to develop business relationships!)
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