Gong Xi Fa Cai 恭喜发财

Happy Spring Festival/Chinese New Year! This year is the year of the pig, so if you are a multiple of 12 this year, be careful... and wear something red to protect yourself from the evil spirits!! The last two years, I spent Spring Festival with Winnie and her family in Beijing, eating far too much food, drinking far too much beer, watching far too much CCTV, and listening to far too many fireworks being set off around her apartment, and having far too much fun. Since that wasn't really possible here, I decided at the very least, Rich and I would order take out from a Chinese restaurant in Oxford for the first time since arriving in September. The picture above is what we ordered: 1 order of Spring Rolls, 1 order of beef with broccoli, 1 order of chicken with nuts, and 1 order of chao mien with mixed vegetables. If we went to one of our local restaurants in Beijing, this would have cost us about 60 rmb (4 pounds/8 dollars), but it cost us almost 14 pounds here. Oh well. Rich thought it was absolutely disgusting (fair enough), but I so wanted to have Chinese food that I didn't really care... but in all honesty, it wasn't very nice. Surprise, surprise!


The good news is that the weather is nice again. I still think it's funny how much chaos a few inches of snow can bring here. Check out how moody this place has been lately.


This is me at a pub two weeks ago. We ate lunch outside on the patio.



This is a picture of the snow storm last week that was so bad (relatively speaking...) that my classes were canceled for the day. Minnesotans: refrain from laughing.



This is a picture that was taken of Rich yesterday, standing on the street where he used to live in Birmingham.

And people say I'm moody. Spring, Winter, Spring, Winter... which season is it? Make up your mind!! (Actually, in all honesty, I don't mind not having to trudge through slush and snow and battle the fierce winds of Beijing or Minnesota!!)

The reason we were in Birmingham yesterday was to check out the venue for our fourth and final wedding party that will take place this summer for Rich's family. It ended up being just a few miles away from Four Oaks, which is where Rich grew up. Coincidence? Hmm... Anyway, Rich thought he'd try to remember how to get to the places he used to go, and I was pretty impressed that he found them all, even though he only lived there until he was 8 or 9. Impressive. Here's the tour:



Rich's grandma lived in the first house on the left with the blue door. Next to it, was the corner store and a house that his uncle used to run and live in.



This is a picture of Rich's elementary school.


Rich's first childhood home (for Americans- this is an attached home; they lived on the right side).

I would bore you with more pictures of the places Rich showed me, but I had to quit taking pictures because every time we took one, the people that lived there gave us looks that said to me, "If you don't leave soon, I'm going to call the police". Maybe that's not what they were thinking, but that's what it looked like to me.

So, anyway, happy new year!! 恭喜发财 Gong xi fa cai! (May you be happy and prosperous!)