first snow of winter

i woke up this morning....well at 1230 b/c its my day off....and i looked outside and saw snow falling.  ahhh.  the forecast had said it might snow, but i didn't believe them.  my friend erik and i went to get lunch and then went around and ran a few errands.  we took his scooter...the snow was now falling harder after lunch.  the snow felt like lil needles going into our faces as we drove around.  we went to see the avocado lady.  she sells imported goods for cheaper.....amazing! i got flour tortillas, cheddar cheese and 3 avocados for 70 rmb ($10)  super amazing.  i cant wait to make a quesadilla for dinner.  i am now sitting in my apartment watching the snow fall..glad today is my day off :)

here is a video from the day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmgGgy1iHOA

snow on a palm tree!

a night of making dumplings

friday night was my friend alison's bday.  our friend ali invited us over to learn how to make dumplings.  the night was amazing.  we got to ali and fernando's apartment...which overlooks many lit up bars in the french concession.....and ali had made some gluwhein(spiced hot wine).  delicous!  ali's parents lived in shanghai for a bit and they had an ayi(maid) named anna.  ayi's cook, clean, do laundry, sew, pick your kids up from school, become part of the family, etc.  anna and her daughter lin lin (about my age) came over around 730 and took over the kitchen.  anna and lin lin have such sweet souls.  lin lin can speak english...even though she says she is not that good....so chinese!  anna knows a lil bit of english......when we were all chatting she would just smile and nod her head...she is soooo cute.  in the kitchen,  green onions were being chopped up and added to pork that was in a giant bowl.  after the onions were done...we moved into the living room and the table was cleared off.  the rolling of the dough was now beginning.  lin lin rolled each dumpling so fast.....and she was very kind and patient to teach us.  we then learned out to take enough meat with the chopsticks and place it in the dough and then pinch the sides to seal the dough.  mine looked pretty awful next to lin lin's and anna's.  we had quite the factory going on at the table.  making the dumplings was quite the social event.....i can see why families gather around and do this.  we had our mulled wine, flour filled hands, me taking pics, chat, music, good times for sure.  anna and lin lin were only suppose to bring the dumplings...but in true chinese generosity....they brought more.  we had eggs and tomato(very traditional dish) shrimp with veggies and then ali made some green chicken curry with veggies and sticky rice.  we also made potato latkas b/c ali is jewish as well.  we grated some potatoes and onions and fried them up....lil taste of home :) as the cooking went on, our stomachs were getting hungrier and hungrier.  we didn't get to eat until about 9 pm.......reminds me of italy :)  once dinner was finally ready.....oh the goodness that was about to be eaten.  heaven heaven heaven.  it was truly an amazing homemade meal, all in good company and yummy wine :)  i am so grateful to have a wonderful group of friends here in shanghai.  we truly had an awesome cultural experience. enjoy the pics below.

 pork and green onions

 anna and lin lin

 lin lin teaching me how to roll the dough

 megan rolling some dough

 alison's turn

 adding the filling

 pinch

 trying to look like a pro, ha

 badly shaped finished product

 back at it

 anna and i.  she is such a sweet woman

 lin lin, alison, megan and ali

 megan adding some filling

 alison starting the potato latkas

 more dumplings

 anna and lin lin cranking them out

 almost done

 my turn with the potato latkas

 eggs/tomato, shrimp and dumplings

 green chicken curry

 frying up the latkas

 dinner is finally served

HAPPY BDAY ALISON!!!!!!!!

Nanjing

My weekend is tues/wed at work bc the normal weekends are crazy busy at our school.  my friends and i decided to go to nanjing for the two days we had off last week.  we took a train there and back.....so fast...1.5 hrs on the way there and 1 hr 15 min on the way home..i love it!  i slept most of the way on the train b/c i was super tired.......and then i woke up to amazing green hills and tall trees..  i miss green hills and tall trees!  

this is our high speed train

once we got out of the train station we quickly found the lake and walked around it.  we had a slight agenda of things we wanted to do during our trip...but it was nice to just wander and stumble upon things.  it was pretty hazy out....so the colors are a lil gross in the pics.

 the lake

 fishing

 bamboo

 city wall

 cool bridge

me in front of the city gate

after wandering around the lake for a bit we stumbled upon an old part of the wall where we could go up and walk on it.  so, we paid 15 rmb and ran around the wall.  no one else was on it.....very cool!

 phil, megan, me and erik on the wall

 no one around!

 each brick has names of the people that built the wall

 cartwheel time

 pagoda

entrance to part of the wall

after the wall we ate some lunch at a random lil spot....luckily erik is fluent in chinese so he could read the menu and order for us :)  we then took a cab to dr. sun yet sen's mausoleum.  he is buried at the top of this mountain.  we had to hike up a lot of stairs...but it was worth it.

relaxing before the hike up

view from the top..amazing.  lil hazy....but still gorgeous with all the trees

we made it to the top

we checked into our hotel, dropped off our backpacks and took the metro.  now the metro only has 2 lines, so we had to ride it!  we got these cool lil blue tokens as our tickets.  we decided to just randomly take the metro somewhere and then walk to where we were gonna go.  we ended up walking about 1.5 hrs to get back to where we were going...but we saw so much of the city.   

  candied hawthorns

lights at night   

crazy lady that wanted a million pics with us and then followed us around to buy pics from a professional guy

 the art of jenga at a bar

wed am we got up, had some curry and then headed over to the nanjing massacre museum.  it was pretty interesting.....for sure had a cheesy and bias aspect to it.  we then headed over to the presidential palace where both sun yet sen and chang kai-shek both lived for a bit.

 massacre museum

 entrance to presidential palace

 the gardens

 thanks for a great trip!

 yay hibiscus

fun rock maze