Anyone who is still subscribed to this blog’s RSS feed or who come by here occasionally to see if I’ve posted anything, knows very well that there just has not been much action here on my blog. Well, that’s not because I have not been doing anything!
Our family had the opportunity to go to the USA this summer for 3 weeks to visit our families, it was a WONDERFUL trip. If you’d like to see some photos from that trip, you can go over to my (slightly more active) Flickr site ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/webel ). If you are not logged into Flickr, you’ll just see a small handful of photos, however, if you are logged in and I have you marked as ‘friend’ or ‘family’, you’ll get to see several dozen of my favorite photos from our trip to the US.
It’s been awhile since I posted here. Partly because of Twitter and Facebook, but also partly because I’ve just been so busy with other things!
This is a photo of the family on Easter! It is next to impossible to get everyone looking at the camera at the same time… especially when you have spectators!
I’ll probably try and post on here a few times this up-coming week as Erica and Elizabeth will be traveling to HK and I’ll be at home with Anna and Nate!
Even though I’ve lived in China for 9 years, I’ve never actually been in China on THE eve of Chinese New Year. I can hardly describe what I just experienced!
All I can say is this, China just re-did that famous scene from Crocodile Dundee where he pulls out his huge knife and says “That’s not a knife, THIS is a knife!” China just said, “Those aren’t fireworks, THESE are fireworks!”
Yesterday the girl’s pre-school (which is also a music school) had their big “Chinese New Year” performance. They rented out a theater in one of the fancy buildings downtown, and when we showed up, we knew it was going to be a ‘big deal’. (You see, they never really tell us – sometimes we show up to these things and it’s one song and at parent teacher’s meeting, other times it’s like yesterday… a full-blown production.) The theater was huge and when we first arrived, Erica had doubts that they would fill it up. Well, they did fill it up, and there were even people standing!
Everyone performed, I mean everyone! Even the school’s staff did the opening act with some kind of swan dance or something. And then the piano performances started. Don’t get me wrong, these kids were amazing, some of them only 3 or 4 years old, playing really difficult songs. The thing was, there were over 75 of them! That is why the event took almost 4 hours! (Sorry to our house helper who was babysitting Nate and had to stay late!)
The girls did have their part too. We had to sit through 4 hours of other stuff to get this, you get to go right to the good stuff! Enjoy!
It seems that the best way to keep your kids from getting hurt is to get them out of the house.
According to figures from the U.K. government, obtained by the Sun under the United Kingdom’s Freedom of Information Act, the number of kids under 15 injured while climbing trees, skateboarding, and the like has fallen.
Does this mean that children have become more athletic or less accident-prone? Does it mean they have perfected their tree-climbing and skateboarding skills?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oskay/
No, it seems that they are simply staying indoors more, glued to their screens like rubberneckers to an overturned truck. You see, the same figures revealed that injuries from playing video games have gone up 60 percent since 2002.
Severely pained thumbs appear to be the main cause of kids’ visits to emergency rooms in the United Kingdom. And one can only wonder if the U.K. hospital system has developed special methods for massaging thumbs so that they can retake their rightful place in the World of Warcraft.
Perhaps soon special video game physiotherapy clinics will open, with doctors in frightening headgear making kids feel at home, even when they are away from their own frightening games.
I think that it could be big business. Soon, perhaps, your health insurance might have special coverage for acts of Warcraft, just as it has for acts of God.
There is a new mode of transportation in town, and we are pretty excited about it!
When I first moved to Yueyang (about 9 years ago) there were two ways to get to this city from the closest city with an airport. The ‘highway’, which took 3-4 hours in good weather and the train which was a pretty consistent 2-2.5 hours. Then the ‘super highway’ opened up and you could ride a bus in about 2 hours and then take a taxi from the bus station into town in another 40 mins to an hour.
Those of you who have braved the trip to come and visit us can testify to how getting to us was not an easy task!
But things have changed. On December 26th, the day after we celebrated the birth of Christ, the high-speed train started operating. It’s amazing (it’s the fastest train in the world with an average speed of 350 Kmph and a high speed of 400 Kmph)! It will take us to the capital city of our province in just 30 minutes! The city to the north of us, which used to be 3.5-4 hours away, is now only 50 minutes! This has potential to change things in a big way.
We are hoping to ride it soon – when we do, we’ll be sure to share the story and post some photos!
Erica and Nate left this morning for Hong Kong. That leaves me with Elizabeth and Anna until Wednesday!
I wanted to take the girls somewhere fun that would be special for them since they love HK so much and were sad that Mom and Nate got to go and they didn’t, so we headed out to the Golden Osprey Tower. The weather wasn’t the best, but that didn’t slow the girls down one bit!
They found a ‘stage’ so they had to do a dance show…
After we were done at the tower, we headed to McDonald’s for lunch… I know, McDonalds’s in China on the weekend!! It was crazy busy and we ate our lunch with no less than a dozen spectators / commentators at any given moment. Thankfully the girls are China savvy and they just roll with that sort of invasion of privacy with very little annoyance.
After lunch, was the ‘real’ reason we went to McDonald’s – the playground!
Welcome
Hi! I'm Steve Webel and this is my blog. Thanks for stopping by!
Happy New Year everyone!
After lunch, was the ‘real’ reason we went to McDonald’s – the playground!
Hi! I'm Steve Webel and this is my blog. Thanks for stopping by!
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