Daily Discovery

January 31: End of January is here, and I think that it is about time to put the finishing touches on that humongous pile of snacks that my students gave me for Christmas. So, one of the final treats that I saved was a Chinese version of Pringles, which comes with its own little surprise and innovation - the plastic scooper-dooper. It's superduper. It is actually clever despite being a waste of plastic, as you can progressively pull it out of the tube and latch it on the rim to keep your Pringles at the perfect height for binge eating. Not that I binge ate them, of course...

January 29: While I was in Chengdu for IST training, the weather was quite warm, even though my friends from southern (warmer) sites thought it was still a bit cold, if not as humid cold as they were used to. On my last day in Chengdu it actually snowed a little bit - scattered flakes that melted as soon as they hit anything, but my host mom and her friends were thrilled, for snow is about a once-in-five-years occurrence in Chengdu. In Wuwei? Well, it was full of snow on the streets for the last few weeks through until today with a light dusting from last night adding a bit more.

January 27: Today was a bittersweet day - not just because I ate another dirty dirty bao... because I did, and it was great, because as the trips to Chengdu always end, I boarded another train to head back to Wuwei. This train, surprisingly, had a different layout for the hard sleeper cabin, and I actually preferred this style of enclosed rooms for the six bunks with inner luggage storage... though, it surprises me that it took me 218 hours on a train to come across this arrangement. Yeah, 218 hours on a train is a bit more than 9 days, for those of you considering the mental math. Trains (and training!) are part of my China experience.

Though I also realized that I haven't ever shared much of a different type of China experience with you all, yet. That is, my classmates and language classes, so as I leave Chengdu and my friends, I wanted to share a picture we took on our last language class day with you all, and to give thanks to our amazing teacher, Qing Laoshi, who was truly the best language teacher we could have asked for during these last two weeks. 谢谢，老师！

January 25: Today is my sister's birthday! Happy Birthday, Hannah! Beyond being unable to celebrate with her in person, I am especially sad that I can't be there to join in her 21st birthday celebrations... though, I think we will postpone it for the next 19 months or so, and then we will be able to really celebrate it.

So, while my sister is out discovering her favorite drinks, the daily discovery on my end today? The lovely amount of paperwork and reporting associated with Volunteering for a government agency and ensuring that the stakeholders (Congress, and the Chinese partners) understand the amount of work and impact that we (and yours and my tax dollars) are having both at home in the US and in our Chinese communities.

January 23: This afternoon held a very special event for us here in Peace Corps China - the swearing in of our Peace Corps Response Volunteers. What is a Peace Corps Response Volunteer (PCRV)? It's a great opportunity to put your specialized skills to use through Peace Corps in a short-term assignment. These PCRVs are joining us for just the second semester to help fill positions in Universities and colleges throughout our region of China while we wait for the next group of regular 2-year PCVs to arrive in summer just like our cohort arrived in June.

Interested? Want to learn more about being a PCRV in positions and countries throughout the world? Check it out here!

January 21: On this Sunday, which is the only day of rest during IST, I didn't actually end up getting much rest - my Chengdu host family invited me to hang out with them, eat some delicious food, and check out a lights festival.

What is a lights festival, you ask? I asked the same, but didn't really find out until I arrived this evening. It was a lot of fun and it was filled with very fascinating lights that covered the little streets and walkways throughout a little residential apartment area in Chengdu. Many of the lights and decorations are of the animals from the traditional Chinese lunar calendar. Spring Festival (Chinese Lunar New Year) is less than a month away!

January 19: One of the definite perks of coming back to Chengdu for training is that we were able to stay in the same hotel as we stayed in for PST (pre-service training) in the summer. The hotel has a great buffet breakfast every morning filled with cold vegetable dishes, hot vegetable dishes, porridge, toast, coffee, fried eggs, boiled eggs, and a few little sweet bites scattered in between. Great for the morning morale, but perhaps not so great for my doctor's appointment this week... and the scale that is waiting for me.

January 17: Did I mention that I had a dentist appointment? My first dentist appointment in a year, and the first since arriving in China and experiencing a very substantial change in diet, so I was a bit concerned about the number of cavities that the dentist was going to find - but luckily, it was a smooth experience with zero cavities. Though, I think I earned that after being locked in the small lead-lined x-ray closet for almost a minute while the techs were standing outside confused about whether or not the x-ray machine (that was pointed at my head) was working correctly...

January 15: Another month, another visit to Chengdu, or so it has seemed to be for the last few months here in China - which means, another trip to visit my Chengdu family. Today was a relatively free day before training starts tomorrow (arrive, check in, finish preparations for the beginning of training, and visit the dentist - one of these is the most scary task of the day), so I had a little bit of free time to visit my host family. What was the first thing that happened? Well, my host parents prepared for me the authentic rice dish (粉子醪糟，fen zi lao zao) that I ate in Lanzhou, because that, too, is apparently Chengdu food, so of course I had to try the real one as soon as possible for breakfast upon arrival - I have to say, it was good, but I liked the one with milk and a less-runny egg just a bit better. I'll keep that secret to myself, though, while in Chengdu.

January 13: This week has gone by so quickly and now it is about time to head back to Lanzhou to take my dad back to the airport to go home while I catch a train to Chengdu for IST starting next week. But, first, we will have two nights and a day to explore a bit of Lanzhou, so naturally, we started off our first night in Lanzhou with a trip to the night market. We tried a bunch of different snacks - potatoes, rice desserts on a stick, a beef sandwich type snack for my dad, and a local specialty: 牛奶鸡蛋醪糟 (niu nai ji dan lao zao) or as my dad calls it, rice pudding. No matter the name, it was delicious and something I'll be trying to mimic in the coming months.

January 11: I've taken my dad around the city to explore a little bit in my free time between grading and other school and PCV commitments, but he loved the market, as I knew he would - a real traditional Chinese market is a must see-visit-taste place if you ever are lucky enough to come to China.

What else did he like to look at? The school campus, of course! We discovered a huge color rendering of the plans for expanding the occupational college here into a massive campus at least two or three times as large as it currently is, though they definitely seem to be a bit behind schedule in construction... but, the buildings currently under construction are definitely incredible and have a very 'modern feeling' as my dad said.

January 9: My Wuwei host family invited my dad and me out for dinner tonight - a chance for my dad to experience his first 'real' hotpot; the 'real' is in quotes since my Chengdu host mother would scold me if I didn't put some kind of mention in this post that only Chengdu hotpot is real hotpot, since it is, of course, the best tasting food in the world. Either way, the food was delicious and we had a great time chatting and trying to teach my dad how to use chopsticks once he realized he left his fork in my apartment...

January 7: My dad came to China, but he brought with him tons of snacks from home! Today, in the suitcases I discovered a huge bag of this caramel-nut-pretzel-ChexMix that my mom makes; it was just as delicious as I remembered, and despite my China-induced decrease in sugar tolerance, lasted just as little time as the old batches at home would.

January 5: The fresh snowfall has continued its (apparent) New Year's Resolution to keep falling, as more snow accumulated overnight. This morning I managed to make it out of my apartment early enough, beating the students out of their dorms, to head to class and see the playground full of untouched snow in the early hours of the morning. It's usually hard for me to get out of bed in the morning when it's dark, but the snow is helping me sneak out a few minutes early to enjoy the beautiful winter that has finally arrived.

January 3: It is just the beginning of the new year, but today it felt like the beginning of winter! Why? Snow! It snowed here in Wuwei for the first time since October 8, which I definitely don't think counts as winter. It was really beautiful and relaxing to see the snow today, even if it made walking around town very very slippery today. I loved it, and it was even better to have it snow on a day when I don't have class, so I had a few extra moments to enjoy it... snow has definitely been one of the things that I have missed this winter, and I realized just how much I missed it this morning when I woke up to a very thing blanket of snow out the window.

January 1: One of my goals for the new year is to learn how to make more Chinese food - not only to improve my skills and knowledge of Chinese culture, but really just so I can eat a little bit better tasting food every day. I took notes during my night with the host family last evening, so I decided to try and recreate a few of the dishes that we made. My first attempt? 茄辣子 － eggplants and peppers, with a fried egg I added on the side. It was pretty good, and I am satisfied with this start to the new year!