Airplane Info

I was cleaning out the computer desk drawer (Now that I've got a working gig, I have to keep a presentable computer desk for when my editor drops in check up on the direction the layout is headed for our magazine, and for the end of the month meeting with the printer!)

I found the same cute little note I always find when I sort this drawer. And, because I can't bear to part with it I tuck it back under the pen tray to smile about the next time I sort the drawer.

The note is written on an Chinese airline air sickness bag -- something we always have ready for Eliza our resident car sickness/airline sickness girly. The thing that we know about Eliza is that she has excellent aim, and remains beautifully composed before vomiting, which makes it far less unpleasant than with a child who panics, or doesn't get what's about to happen until after its too late. (Bea for example, shoves the bag away, gags, and somehow manages to cover herself and anyone in the vicinity... fortunately this happens very rarely with #3.)

Unfortunately, I failed to date the note. But, I'm guessing Eliza was about five when I transcribed her dictation about airplane info. The words on the airsickness bag are cute, they read:

Rules of Airplane Travel (as a five-year-old interprets the card):

For Blasting Off

No computers. No video cameras. No DVD. No computers. No cameras. No listening to music. No calling somebody. No toys and no smoking.

• Please put up your tray
  
• Please put your seat up
  
• and please put your tray (that you can slip out) back in your arm holder
  
• Please buckle your seat belt
  
• (and if you want to take off your seat belt look up and see if the seat belt sign is on or off. If its on... then you cannot take it off.)
  

The Swing

How do you love to go up in the swing, 

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

Ever a child can do!

from A Child's Garden of Verses

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Book Week- Parade of Characters

Last week the girls' school celebrated Book Week, which culminated in a "Parade of Characters" on Friday. Each child was instructed to dress like a character in their favorite book. One prize was given for each class.

Eliza won for her interpretation of Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus Series (Insect Invaders). Eliza was very pleased with her costume... ayi had carefully fixed 10 3D butterflies to her jumper with thread, but modest Eliza, who rarely likes to be in the limelight, was really uncomfortably embarrassed by the wig!

Millie was Kit Kitteredge (Meet Kit: an American Girl). Millie/Kit didn't win a prize... which was okay with her, except as a purist she doesn't think that Sharpay from High School Musical (the winning character from year 5/6) is actually very literary in nature! Kit, has of course become a movie, but High School Musical is a movie that apparently has been turned into a book.

Bargaining with Miao Women

These Miao women (a minority group in Guangxi Zhuang known for their heavy silver jewelry, and the interesting way the women wrap their hair around their heads) waited in the parking lot for tourists returning to their coaches.

The Johnson girls put on a pretty good show. This was not their first rodeo... they are master bargainers!

Peaceful Ping An

Our guest house in the sky

The village of Ping An

(Which means peaceful)

Rice terraces above the village

the porters waiting to load our luggages

Other porters far below us

The Chinese name for terraces is 

Ti Tian

Literally "Stair Fields" which is spot on

Long Shen County

Last Sunday night at this time we were exploring the heights of the terraced rice fields in Long Shen county about 3 hours from Guilin city at an elevation of about 800 meters. We took a large charter bus from Yangshuo to near the base of the terraces. The road was windy, and narrow, and although our driver was well traveled on these narrow ribbons of road we still had a car-sickness casualty!

When we reached a point where the road was no longer navigable in the large tour bus, we transferred our luggage to smaller shuttle buses that hugged the mountainside as we slowly wound higher into the clouds. When we arrived in a large parking lot where traffic was forced to stop (the road could no longer support vehicles) we were met by small spry porters with hand-woven baskets fixed to their backs, prepared to schlep our possessions up narrow foot paths in the midst of sudden bursts of rain. 

A tiny woman whose height was somewhere between by elbow and shoulder prepared to hoist one of the Johnson's four suitcases up to the Ping An guest house. She was fifty, and partly toothless, and deep wrinkles made her look older. But her physical ability was like that of someone half her age. She and the other porters took off up the slippery hillside, and disappeared.

Our going was much slower... and it is certain this is not a trip we could have done a year ago. The girls were troopers, climbing the winding walk ways, but the views and encounters we had with the inhabitants of these carved-out hills was worth it in all our minds. 

There was just so much to see:

• We walked past supper prep: a chicken, freshly killed and recently blanched in scalding water was being plucked in front of our eyes (photos in previous posts)
  
• Sweet local grandmas peddled fragrant mountain tea and deep red dried peppers. 
  
• Traditional dress of the minority peoples were beautiful and unique. 
  
• Hand embroidered baby carries kept young mountain mother's hands free.
  

And the scenery... amazing! Lush greens, nearly constant fog, and the centuries old terraces carved out with manual labor in order to increase the amount of available space for crops. The weather literally seemed to change every five minutes! Fog to sun to rain to crisp clear, where the terraces snaked slowly out of sight... and then more fog, rolling slowly in until visibility went to five feet!

Weisswurstfruehstueck mit Brezeln und Weizenbier

Is there a surer sign that spring has arrived than dining alfresco? I think not. Today dawned warm and bright and the fact that now it has turned overcast this afternoon is a moot point, because this morning (and right on through noontime) was gorgeous. 

Earlier in the week we received this invitation:

Weisswurstfruehstueck mit Brezeln und Weizenbier
DEfA will open its outdoor season with a Traditional Bavarian White Sausage Breakfast
When: Saturday, April 18th.  Starting 11:00 am
Where: Outside Defa Shop in Haian Rd.1, Jingyuanfu (Eldo View) Shopping Center
Bavarian White Sausages are eaten with sweet mustard and fresh Brezeln.
A cold wheat beer is not a must, but highly recommended.
We will also provide Bratwurst, other sausages, sandwiches and soft drinks.

Late this morning the Johnson crew piled in the family van and trekked over to DEfA, our new favorite shop in QD. Its a butcher shop with hams and worsts and sausages galore. They opened about a month ago, and I am convinced they will be responsible for creating an increasingly obese expatriate community in our fair coastal city. 

In the years we've lived in QD the thing we've longed for the most is a good sandwich shoppe. In reality just the ability to make a good sandwich would suffice. We have trouble locating decent bread, and once a nice bread shop opened we struggled to find something to put on it. Enter DEfA... their cooked ham, sliced thin and piled amply on a ciabatta or a kaiser roll from the Austrian bakery is like finally scratching an itch we've been trying for too long to reach.

We arrived at DEfA and climbed out our silver bullet of a van, joined the throng of other expats, many of whom were Da guo ren (Chinese for Germans). We sat outside in the sunshine happily growing fatter was we dined on cheese krainer, weisswurstfruehstueck, big soft pretzels (brezln) and a hot potato dish that is sure to be artery clogging. In the bright sun, under unusually vibrant blue skies the expats came together alongside Chinese neighbors who also share a similar affection for good pork products. 

We smiled and nodded as if we understood when we addressed in German. Our fair haired children could pass for being a variety of nationalities other than American, and today it was like we'd successfully pledged into a prestigious fraternity, and to be considered an insider was nothing less than a compliment. 

It was barely noon, but big, cold bottles of Weizen were being cracked open and enjoyed out of tall pilsners easily over a foot long. I liken the Weizenbier to a loaf of bread in a glass. On normal occasions (that would typically be after 5 p.m. and not barely noon) a sip from Mr. Johnson's new favorite bier would be more than sufficient for a non-beer drinker like myself!

There was one die-hard expat from the South of Germany who could not contain his excitement for the Weisswurstfruehsteck mit Brezeln and Weizenbier event. He showed up in lederhosen complete with suspenders and wool socks!