General update

Hey all! So, I updated the blog's appearance just a bit but we haven't written in a while.

Not much to report. Our biggest news is that we bought a rice cooker. The salewoman at the supermarket was very nice and patient with us. Surprisingly enough, there is an aisle full of rice cookers to browse when you're in the market for this small appliance. They range in price from 49- 500+ kuai, but we were definitely looking on the lower end of the spectrum. Even so, we had 5 or 6 to choose from. Most of the cheaper rice cookers are white/pink and covered in flowers. Steve told me that he didn't really want a flowery rice cooker to bedeck our kitchen and I told the saleswoman as much. Lucky for us, the model we were interested in came in two designs! So we decided on a 79kuai (on sale from 99), white with pink swirlies beauty. And boy can she cook some rice! Just throw some rice and water in there and don't even worry about it, cause the cooker has it under control. This purchase came after several attempts to cook rice in our paper thin pots and burning it every time. I make a lot of rice back home (it's a staple in Braun dinner fare), but I'd never had this burning problem before! So the rice cooker is a bit of a cheater system, but worth the dough we shelled out. Now we have fresh, delicious, perfectly cooked rice anytime we want it.

On a very unrelated note, there is a great art display comparing Western and Eastern life that you can see here (or click on the post title). These were done by a Chinese woman who grew up in China and moved to Germany when she was in her early teens. A strikingly simple concept that really nails some of the differences between Eastern and Western culture. There are a few I don't quite agree with, but see for yourself and let us know what you think. If you have no idea what's going on in these pictures, click on the Will-Excel TESOL blog link on the right. One of our co-workers who has lived here for a few years and has a Chinese wife posted a few of the pictures with his personal commentary which should help you to understand the meaning a bit better.

Also, several people have told us that they've had trouble leaving a comment on the blog. We can't figure out why, but it seems that if you post as Anonymous it works better than trying to post from a google/yahoo/whatever account. Just sign your name in the comment if you want to let us know who you are!

Thanks for reading! 再见 (zai jian) !