April, 2010

AK and KA Home

	Grant and I experimented cutting the tops of bottles - we are not too good at it...
	Parents arrived just in time for some decent weather, and (therefore) the first neighborhood block party of the year.
	As one of our neighbors reminds us, living in Asia is simply no excuse for doing without a proper grill.

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Off to the Confucius Temple, a shrine to learning.

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We took a tour of a few sites by boat, a pleasant way to travel through Beijing (except for the whole gale).

	Five pagoda temple...
	The lovely purple bamboo park...
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Purple bamboo park, like all the parks here, is full of people practicing martial arts, dancing, playing chess, fishing, massaging feet, etc. Here is a video of a local seniors group performing everybody's favorite Chinese number, Auld Lang Syne.

	The stunning Summer Palace.
	A few hundred years ago, the Kunming lake was built Chinese-style (i.e. government enlists thousands of peasants to dig lake by hand).
	View from halfway up the hill (hill was made from the dirt dug to make the lake).

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Parents also took Hutong (old neighborhood) tour, visited Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square (de rigueur).

	Inside Hutong courtyard house.
	Means of conveyance.
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Note: remainder of parents visit is on "May 2010" page.

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Meanwhile I have accepted a US government IT job, which starts once my security clearance is processed.
And which would start faster if the US gov't and FedEx wouldn't insist on first sending all my personal identification (including fingerprints) to Moscow.

FedEx tracking info here...

Beijing to Shanghai to Guangzhou to Paris to Stansted to Memphis, back to Stansted and finally on to Moscow. My future life as a spy is over before it even began.

Well, I learned a new Chinese expression - chabuduo ("close enough for government work").