Apartment Tour

Apartment de Logan & DA from Nitro on Vimeo.

New Name

Today our teacher gave me a name.  She desired it to sound similar to my real name, and although that wasn't my first desire, she actually found a name w/ a meaning that fits me more than other names that have been given.  

At first I saw that it meant gentle and flexible.  Yeah right.  But upon further reading, I saw that it also means "firm but gentle, an iron hand in a velvet glove."  I feel like that hits the nail pretty much on the head.  

So, Dai Rou it is. 

-da

代柔

New Place

I know it has been a while, but things have been crazy busy. We officially are moved into our permanent home and almost completely settled in. It is perfect for us. We are having a lot of fun with it. We don't have internet so access to us may seem sparse for the next few weeks, but hopefully that will clear itself up soon and we will once again be electronically connected to the west.

A team of seven from Oxford, England are joining us for around two months. They are great and we are having a ton of fun learning some British English.

Anyways, we will do our best to keep you in the loop.

LH

P.B.J. & C.?

This morning in class we somehow got off on the subject of our favorite foods. One of my first responses was the classic Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich. Our teacher had never heard of this first-class food, so I then presumed to explained the process of making a PB & J in great detail. Her first response to the simplicity of such a delicious delicacy was... a blank stare. Followed soon there after with a sharp "Can you put some cabbage on it?".

No wonder why "western" food made by Chinese is... lets just say interesting.

Chinglish #3

first trip out

Traveled a bit last week due to our teachers needing days off to give oral English exams to high school students.  Worked out well b/c we had some friends here visiting.  

We traveled out the countryside and got to go to one of the highest ariel bridges in the world, or so we were told.  We skipped the bridge, but the view from the ground wasn't bad either.  We kind of felt like we were on an island (Lost) due to the tropical sounds/lush vegetation.  It was really pretty fun.

The next day we traveled out to a less touristy area...Logan had the camera and took some pictures of a banana orchard...sometimes it is banana trees as far as you can see!  And this picture is of a village right outside of the small town that we went to that day.  The houses in this village, as well as a village that I explored, are built on stilts....and they even fence off a yard and park a car or motorcycle under the house, kind of like a garage.  It is like an Asian suburb, except all the poor (minorities) live in this suburb area.  We enjoyed our trip out, despite our limited language, and look forward to our next trip.  For now it is school for the next two weeks, and then maybe another trip.

down south of the border

Made a little trip down south, but we didn't start in California.  However, this license plate was present in Laos...go figure.  These are just a few pictures of Laos that we got.  It was a fun "quick" little trip.  We spent more time on a bus trying to get there than we did in the actual country.  However, once there, we did partake of an awesome lunch!  Seems like a poorer country, but the people were incredibly friendly and helpful.  

Chinglish #2

Chinglish #2....

"Natural beauty will do you justice."

Promised House Pictures....

So, as most of you know, we've been living it up in YX.  Currently we are in an on-campus apartment that has 2 bedrooms, a dining room, kitchen, and bathroom.  The blog only allows me to post 5 pictures at a time (if any of you know what I could do about this...maybe pass that info on), but really it isn't too much of a problem b/c our house is small, and there's not much see.  

This first picture is of our spare bedroom...it holds our books, extra luggage, a tv we don't use, and this room is also where Logan practices his mandolin!

Here is Logan working hard in our bedroom!  There is no technical living room, so we do most of life in this room.  You can see the bed, Logan's closet and Logan's desk.  I have a small desk (more like a dressing table) on the opposite side of the room and my own closet as well.

Here is the dining room.  Our lovely table and fridge...the opening and windows that you can see go to the kitchen.  Taking this picture, I'm standing in the bedroom, and the front door would be to my left.

Here is one side of the kitchen.  Stove top and water dispenser...need I say more?

I'm standing at the stove now....looking towards the opposite end of the kitchen.  The door is to the bathroom, that's my washer on the left, and our kitchen/bathroom sink!  Yay...no dishes in this picture.  The windows on the left w/ the ugly curtains are to the outside world, and the windows on the right look into the spare bedroom/mandolin room.  Also pictured is a Drumgoole's apron...that is for Liz and Karl...

I guess that's about it for now.  Sorry that the layout for this blog is kind of boring, but at least you got pictures!!!!!

--da

Script.

This is the script that is used by the people we are living among. All the businesses in our city are required to post the name of their businesses in this script ABOVE the Chinese name. I have no idea what it says, but I think it looks cool.