Friday, November 14, 2008

Ma Lin's Birthday

I have fallen a little behind on the blogging. Sorry for that!

I have a few things to share about, but I'll share about two of them for now.

Firstly, On the 10th I got the opportunity to go to a Chinese friend's birthday party! He had invited the both of us to go, but Levi wasn't doing so well, and Jenny told me that I could go, since we've started to become good friends. I met up with his wife and we went to a restaraunt. It's my understanding that when it comes to parties, they are typically done at restaraunts, because people usually can't fit many people at their apartments. We met up with him, and we all got the chance to enjoy a hotpot meal.

These meals usually consist of a circular table with a pot in the middle, which has a type of meat (we had a whole duck in there), and they turn the heat on from underneath the table, and the meat boils in the broth they have. It's a great experience. When it starts to boil, they give you cups so you can scoop some broth out and drink it almost like soup. Then when the duck starts to boil more, you start to pick at it with your chopsticks and eat it that way. When you've had a bit of that, they throw more meats or vegetables in there, which you eat, or have some more broth, etc. It's great because the taste keeps changing. It's a great meal. It's a little more on the expensive side because they expect four or more people to be eating it. It's around $20.

A nice cultural difference. When you go to birthday parties at restaraunts, the birthday boy/girl pays for the meal! It's just best to bring a gift! (We brought him cookies homemade by Jenny, since he loves sweets so much.) They don't have desserts like those cookies here, so it's a good experience for him; he loves them.

Secondly, we finally have heating in our apartment! Here in China, (at least in Xi'an) all the apartments are without heating until November 15th. The heating is on until March 15th. The thing is, the heat is on constantly, and you cannot change the temperature. Needless to say, it gets TOO hot, we hear. It's just starting to turn on now, so we don't know that feeling yet. We are very glad the heat is coming on though, as spaceheaters don't work the best. We hear we'll most likely need to have our air conditioning run sometimes, and let our heating and air conditioning fight it out. :)

Until Next Time!
Jeremy

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