Bain Family Visit

Andrew and I were fortunate to have his mom visit for a few weeks in May. We had a great time hanging out in Dalian, and sightseeing in Xi'an & Beijing. Andrew's brother Travis and his girlfriend Kerstin joined us in Beijing and Dalian for a few days as well. 


Deborah was a trouper, quickly adjusting to the way things work in China. She even conquered the squatty potties, something not all can do. I think the thing that surprised her the most was how chaotic the roads are. She quickly learned that you can't trust the walk sign and a lot of Chinese drivers don't follow all of the driving laws, e.g. you can't drive on the sidewalks, you shouldn't drive the incorrect direction on an exit ramp, you shouldn't stop in the middle of the highway and take a pee, etc.


Having family visit makes you realize how much you miss family, friends and "home" when you live so far from where you previously considered home. (I now refer to Minnesota, Arizona and China as my "home.") Although we miss the comforts of the U.S. (and the food), we miss our family and friends the most. It's difficult to miss out on a lot of celebrations, parties and everyday life with family and friends. There are definitely sacrifices, but most days we think it's worth it.


Here are some photos from Deborah, Travis & Kerstin's visit:

Deborah playing mahjong with the ladies.

Deborah & I overlooking the sea in Dalian.

Visiting Andrew at Intel.

Celebrating Cindy's Birthday with the girls at our apartment.

Touching the bell at the Xi'an Bell Tower for good luck.

Family photo at the Terracota Warriors in Xi'an.

Delicious traditional jaozi (dumplings) meal.

Deborah using chopsticks. 

Deborah & the boys at the Forbidden City in Beijing.

Deborah & I at Tian'anmen Square with Chairman Mao in the background.

Traditional Peking duck dinner.

Travis with a large box of fireworks.

Andrew & Travis attempting to light the fireworks with a laser.

Deborah with her boys.

 

Tanya "Two Goals" B. Gaelic Football Professional

As you may be catching on, we are a bit behind on this blog… Back in April we traveled to Shanghai for the All China Gaelic Football Games so that Tanya could have her semi-professional debut with the Dalian Wolfhounds and earn her new nickname, Tanya "Two Goals" Buchholtz

 

What is Gaelic Football you might ask? Well its basically like soccer mixed with rugby, with a kind of basketball like dribbling mixed in. Basically I have come to the conclusion that the Irish were drinking and reading the rules from a number of games and came up with this as a result.

Here are some links that might explain better than I do:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_football
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEAbWrdB9XU

Anyway, now that we have the game somewhat explained, I’ll give you some background on how Tanya became a Gaelic football semi-professional; basically playing Gaelic football is one of 7 things you can do in Dalian and the local Irish community invites everyone they can to come play. Now from there you actually have to be good to be on the team, but Tanya was able to prove her worth in a few practices and group cross training outings. I went to training as well, but they quickly explained that if I were to play they would be disqualified for bringing in a ringer due to my outstanding athletic prowess. (Nothing to do with almost puking at circuit training).

Each year the club travels to play against other teams in the "All China Games" in the spring and the "All Asia Games" in the fall. The All China Games took place on Saturday and about 20 teams participated in all. They had 4 fields and both mens and womens teams played in a standard bracket single elimination format with 7 minute halves. Tanya's lady Wolfhounds got off to a rough start losing their first game, but got stronger by the moment and were completely dominating by the time their 6th and final game came around. At the end of a harrowing day they found them selves the winners of the the plate for the 2011 All China Gaelic Football Games. (I will abide by local Dalian Gaelic football tradition here and not explain that the Plate is a 3rd place prize).

It was a great time and both players and spectators had an excellent Day. 

It was also a great opportunity to get out of Dalian and get a little taste of Western life. It is amazing how we can go to Shanghai, China and and it feels so noticeably more western than we are used to that you can feel your body relax into normalcy. Tanya had never experienced this before, but very soon came to agree with my assessment.

Here we have Tanya enjoying her first glass of Sangria in Cantina Agave, the 1st  real  Mexican food we have had in months (excluding what I had back in AZ)

I found a place that brewed their own beer

The Chinese have chosen to celebrate May Day or Laborers Day (International Workers Day etc.), one of the historic holidays of socialism where "all Social Democratic Party organizations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on May First for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace." by having a giant sale at the mall along with outdoor pavilions hawking the latest electronics. 

Now to the football... here is the Ladies Team

Tanya moving around an opponent and about to pass

The ladies play "no contact"

The men play contact

It looks like ball is going to go in because it did... Buchholtz domination.  

Team Celebration

Tanya with "The Plate" which they took home for their epic victory

I was obviously a very integral part of their victory.

A few other random photos from the weekend:

30 Isn't So Bad

Yes, it's true; I turned the big 3-0 on April 26. I wasn't exactly looking forward to it, but I have to say, 30 really isn't that bad. It's the new 20s, right? My sweet fiancé and wonderful friends Leon and Cindy threw me a party at our favorite local hangout, Obsidian, the Saturday before my birthday followed by lunch with with friends and dinner with Andrew on the actual day. Fun was had by all. 

Chinese Surgery

Unfortunately our good friend Kevin was injured playing Gaelic football on Saturday, April 9 (I know we're behind again on updating the blog), when he collided with another player during a practice game. After two days of pain, Kevin and Leon made a trip to the local clinic and after the doctor there showed Kevin & Leon information about his condition using her iPad they visited the hospital. The hospital, doctor through a hired interpretor, that he fractured and dislocated his shoulder and tore all of the ligaments and as a result would need to have surgery the next morning.


On Wednesday, April 13, to provide moral support, I accompanied them to the hospital where he would have surgery to insert a metal plate into his shoulder to connect the fractured bone. When we arrived we were assigned a room in the VIP area which is attached to the regular hospital though an underground tunnel. The room looked very much like a 4 star hotel room; it had two large twin beds, a flat screen TV, and a refrigerator. 


Shortly after we arrived a male nursing assistant came in to prepare Kevin for the surgery by shaving his chest, underarm & arm. He and the nurses thought it was very funny that Kevin had as much hair as he did. The nursing assistant came back several times after a nurse inspected Kevin and decided that the nursing assistant hadn't shaved enough hair. After Kevin was shaved we anxiously waited in his room for him to go into surgery. He was instructed not to eat or drink, even water, from 10:00 p.m. the night before in anticipation for his 9 a.m. surgery, but he didn't go into surgery until 7:15 p.m.


When the nurse finally came to get him we were surprised to see that they simply took his down comforter from his bed and placed it on a dirty gurney. They then asked him to lay down on the gurney. The nurse was very concerned that he didn't have a hat and tried to place a hand towel on his head because they said that he would catch a cold if he didn't have anything on his head. Kevin wasn't too keen on this idea. When we got to the hallway we discovered that myself, Leon and our friend Cindy were expected to physically push him through a dirty dungeon of a basement to the operating department. When we were in the elevator almost to the operating department the nursing assistant escort turned to Kevin and asked if he was nervous. Kevin responded, "No, are you." The nurse responded, "Yes, it's my second day." Thankfully we assumed that she wouldn't be allowed into the operating room.


Once we reached the operating department, our friend Cindy translated the legal paperwork Leon had to sign since none of the personnel spoke English. Then they indicated that Kevin would be awake for the surgery. Of course this was a bit alarming. Kevin and Leon quickly responded indicating that he didn't want to be awake for the procedure. Thankfully Cindy was there to translate or Kevin may have been awake for his three hour surgery. 


Cindy, Leon and I were lead to a waiting room for friends and relatives of people having surgeries. We noticed it was a bit different than Western waiting rooms. There were individuals smoking and a family has pounding hard alcohol. We also noticed that there were two TVs built into the wall and they were labeled TV 1 and TV 2. After awhile, on the screen on one of the TVs was a view of a man laying on a hospital bed, seemingly still under. We learned this was the other group's family member coming out of surgery after having a "bowel full of tumors removed from his head."


After about three hours we could hear the word "Westerner" over the loud speaker and decided that they may be referring to Kevin so we went to the first floor of the hospital searching for Kevin. Luckily, as we were frantically searching, the elevator opened and we saw Kevin who was wide awake and moaning in pain. We were alarmed since we had expected him to be out of it and comfortable. Now two other nurses and a doctor were pushing him back through the dungeon basement tunnels to get him back to his VIP room. Interesting enough they didn't have any clue where to go and Leon and I had to run ahead and look down hallways to figure out how to get back to his room as they pushed the gurney and knocked Kevin's shoulder into the walls. When we reached the room Kevin was lifted into his bed and the duvet was placed on top of him. He was in an incredible amount of pain, but the nurses couldn't be found. Finally after 20 minutes the nurse gave him a shot of pain medication in his butt, but we didn't know what type of medication. He was then hooked up to several monitors. Over the next two hours we begged and pleated with the nurse to administer more medication and some water, but she said in broken English that this was the only medicine and he couldn't have any for 2 hours. The nurse said he couldn't have any water, but could be given ice chips. We asked where we could find the ice chips and she said they didn't have any. It must have been the longest two hours of Kevin's life. While Kevin was in horrifying pain, the nurse asked Leon to sign some paperwork, which included that someone would be with Kevin 24 hours a day while he was in the hospital. During this time we did get a hold of our friend Cindy who conveyed that they had given him morphine, the best pain medication that they had. Not knowing what to do, did my own internet research to see if they gave him enough, (although I'm not sure what we could have done if we thought he could be given more, I'm not a doctor). Later Kevin told us that he could hear Leon & I whispering about the amount of medication he was given & thinking how crazy this situation was. Exactly two hours later we went to the nurse to administer the additional medication and his pain began to wain just a little.


The next morning, after a sleepless night, Kevin was told by a laughing and English speaking nurse that he wasn't very strong because he needed so much pain medication... Lesson learned, the Chinese don't have the same philosophy about pain medication as Westerns. 


Later in the day, the nurse asked Kevin when he had received his last dose of pain medication instead of tracking his medication on a chart. Over the next week Leon was told to get out of bed at 6:00 a.m. after only several hours of sleep, so the nurse could make the bed. The nurses also instructed to keep the room very clean because the nurse manager may stop by. Each day while in the VIP room, Leon and Kevin were given a bill and asked to pay for the previous day's services and in advance for the night stay. The entire surgery cost 19,292.16 RMB equivalent to less than $3,000 for surgery, treatment & 7 days in hospital. The interesting thing is the anesthesia was less expensive than the surgery itself. Again, very different from Western hospitals. 

The actual bill for the entire hospital stay & surgery. Notice the name is just "Kevin."

Kevin being shaved by a nursing assistant.

Kevin trying to rest after surgery.

Kevin sporting his nice hospital issued pajamas.

The scare.

*All photos courtesy of Kevin.


Update: Kevin's doing well. He returned to week after 4 weeks recovery and the doctor said his bone is almost completely healed.

Naked Spa

Over the past couple of months there’s been a lot of talk about a hot spring spa, a.k.a.the naked spa. The spa is attached to a hotel within a 10 minute walk from our apartment. From all the hype, all I really understood was that you had to be naked, no swim suits allowed! Many of my Western friends aren't too keen on a naked spa.  A couple of weeks ago my friend Cindy, who is Chinese, asked if I wanted to go with her. I thought a day at the spa sounded wonderful, naked or not.

When we arrived, I was surprised that we didn’t need to check in. We simply were handed a plastic bag, which contained a white hand towel & were escorted to a locker room. Cindy began taking off her clothes & I realized there wasn’t any warming up to this naked spa thing, you walk in and take off your clothes… so I took off my clothes.

 

After getting naked, we went to the pool area where there were many naked Chinese woman. There were multiple indoor pools in varying temperatures. There was also an outside hot tub and a wet and dry sauna. It was nice. We headed for an indoor hot tub. From the hot tub I noticed that there were small cubical type stations at one end of the room where it appeared women were scrubbing, with a towel, the bodies of other women. It’s not something I've seen in the U.S. From there we went to a special area to get a body scrub from an employee of the spa. The employees in this area were wearing matching bras and underwear. The underwear had the word "Rosy" bedazzled on the front of them. I guess that was their work uniform. The area had a number of large cubical type areas with 3 foot walls and large doorways. I lied naked on a massage table and had an employee used the white hand towel I was given when I arrived (so that’s what the towel is for), to give me a full body scrub, or at least that’s what I thought I was going to get. After a short bit my friend translated that the employee was stopping the scrub because I wasn’t “dirty.” Instead I agreed to a full body milk massage. The milk massage was $5.80.

After the milk massage we were issued pajamas, which were pink flannel shorts and matching tops, so we could leave the woman only area and have lunch. We enjoyed a delicious hot pot lunch Hot pot is where customers choose raw meat, seafood and vegetables and cook them in a pot with either spicy or bland broth at their table. After lunch we went to a lounge area where we got a 2 hour head, shoulder, leg and foot massage for about $21. We also checked out the communal sauna where both men and woman can lounge in there cool pajamas (men wear the same pajamas, but they are blue). Six hours later we left the naked spa. I’m a fan.

Needless to say, there are no photos associated with this post...

Old School Chinese Wedding

We recently attended a traditional Chinese wedding. Our friends Preston & Maria are American, but have lived in China for several years managing an English school called Jayland Learning.  They decided to go all out and have guests dress in traditional Chinese dress and follow many Chinese wedding ceremony traditions that most don’t follow any longer. We had a great time.

Here are some photos from the day, which includes Andrew wearing a dress:

The procession. The bride was carried from her home to the venue
with the groom walking in front.

Firecrackers shaped in a heart, notice the guy lighting
the firecrackers has a cigarette.

 

The groom relieving the beautiful bride.
The bride's face was covered most of the ceremony.

Andrew's dress was a favorite among male guests.

The bride & groom & us.

Andrew posing with his lunch crew.

The banquet style reception.

Enjoying the dinner.

Trying a cold chicken foot (a favorite amongst the Chinese) & Andrew's look of disgust.

Andrew not enjoying what he just placed in his mouth.