Life, Lately

Birthday Sunset, view from our rooftop

As spring rolled into Wuhan these past few weeks, we've done a number of fun things aside from our usual teaching. 

We celebrated Inga's last birthday before the big 3-0 on March 27th. The day included sampling a 'toffee' birthday cake from a Chinese bakery and watching a take-your-breath-away sunset.

Chinese Cake (FYI, that's white chocolate on the right, not cheese)

The air quality has been decent (for Wuhan, at least) so we've taken lots of walks in the sunshine. Inga especially got a kick out of the new music-themed art in the walking street behind the nearby Wanda Plaza mall:

Is that what you'd call an eighth rest? And how about the bongo drum trash cans?

Over Easter weekend, we took the fast-train to Hunan Province to the city of Changsha. Our time there included a meaningful visit with a friend, visiting a fantastic zoo and Trevor's first experience eating 'stinky tofu.' One great surprise near the zoo exit was seeing a photo of WSU Cougar football on a poster display about animals as mascots. Go Cougs!

Eating "Stinky Tofu" in Changsha: Yes it really stinks (like an open sewer), but tastes good
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WSU Surprise at the Changsha Zoo - "Go Timberwolves!"(?)

Trevor had some classes to teach the week after Easter but Inga enjoyed having a more than a week off for spring break. What happens when teachers get time off? Well, they wear silly matching shirts like this out in public: 

Inga and her best fellow-teacher friend:  "I'm not going to teach"

Besides plenty of tree blossoms around Wuhan, we heard there were imported tulips. So last Thursday we took advantage of a free afternoon and beautiful 70-degree weather to head across-town to the East Lake area. (And when we say 'across-town,' we mean riding buses for about an hour and fifteen minutes--we usually catch up on reading on these types of bus rides). 

The first garden we visited actually didn't have tulips, but still was a beautiful change of scenery from the usual construction cranes and traffic detour fences. That day we saw several couples getting wedding photos taken in these gardens. 

East Lake "Plum Garden" - Chairman Mao approves of this garden (upper right)

East Lake Botanical Gardens - Tulips (a bit out of their element, and fading fast, the flowers that is)

At the East Lake Gardens

Two-thumbs-up Tulips

Finally, this past Saturday we took two friends with us to begin some exciting 'projects.' Stay tuned to hear and see about those in a few weeks. Any guesses?

Thanks for catching up with our adventures lately, and we hope spring is lovely where you're at!