Scoot, scoot on the motorbike! that means squish squish for the frog...

*Please be warned that we have obtained disturbing photographs which may not be suitable for all reader.  Please use your discretion.

In recent months, the number of motorbike related deaths in the frog community has seen a dramatic spike.  Initial numbers suggest that the increase is due to the lack of sun and overwhelming rain this year has lead to many frogs suffering from SADD and throwing themselves in front of motorbikes as they pass through the small and twisty lanes after dark.    

Upon further investigation, the police noticed that the deaths correlate directly to when a one Sandra Pettifer took to the streets of Sanur, Bali on her motorbike.  Pettifer, who is originally from Canada, has lived in several areas across the globe and left of path of distruction in her wake.  This destruction is felt most heavily by insects and creepy crawlies but it would seem that Pettifer has up the ante here in Bali and moved on to small animals.  

A breakthrough in the case was made when it was discovered that Slugger, the Garden Slug, was brutally crushed after spending a quiet afternoon on the hinge of Pettifer’s gate to her garden.  After morbidly taking pictures of her latest victim, she coldly had her dinner in her garden.  A garden which Slugger will never see again.  

We will keep you update as the story continues to develop.

On to the next one...

Oh, hey there.  Did I keep you waiting?


My apologies.  I was moving to Bali and because it's been so long and I am an English teacher, I thought that we could do some number crunching to begin with, you know, get the stats out of the way before we head out on adventures.


Here we go...

Number crunching:

45 hours from Hamilton to Denpasar

12 hours in London

2 hours trying to check in for my flight

(and $500 for a ticket out of Bali that I will never use)

6 hours wandering around London to find a damn bank

1 hour at the bank

(discovery of $1000 I never knew I had)

1 hour to a taxi (due to the tube strike they were all busy)

2 hours wait time at Heathrow

1.5 driving time

7 hours from Toronto to London

3 hours from Singapore to Denpasar

3 hours hanging out in the Singapore airport

14 hours from London to Singapore

2 hours trying to get through customs

.5 hour to get my luggage scanned

2 hours to get out of the airport and drive to my hotel

4 airplane meals

7 hours sleep (on and off)

3 planes 

(2 with not enough leg room)

1 swift kick to the junk for the person who makes a partridge in a pear tree joke.

Longest trip of my life but in return I get to eat breakfast on the beach and drink before noon.

Take that shit outside!

I work with children so obviously, being peed on and thrown up on is part and parcel of my day to day life and I've come to accept that.  Every day I wear the same pants so I only have to throw out one pair at then end of this and none of my other clothes get infected.

The other day, one of my little Shits took a not so little shit, in the classroom.  I knew that something was up because all of the kids were pointing and yelling at Ben (and we can now confirm that he is more brawn than brain).  Of course, when I asked my Chinese assistant, she confirmed: "Ben shit...around the corner."  Ironically, I was standing in the bathroom when all of this was going on.  And trust me, it wasn't like the kid did a little squeak, then a shake and out popped a turd from his pant leg.  Luckily, I did not have to clean it up but bearing witness to the mound of poop that would make a dirty, middle aged fat man who eats nothing but greasy burgers, waffle fries and deep fried cheesecake envious, was enough for me.


Ben, making his fellow countrymen proud, strutted around with his chest out and head held high.  Such an accomplishment is quite an honour around these parts.

TianJin the city that should have had the Expo!

I can now say that I have been on the fastest intercity train in the world.  Reaching speeds of 332km/h I was far away from Beijing only to arrive...in Newcastle?...sorry, I was in Paris, no wait I was in an Italian Style Village.  Where the shit am I?  Did I reach speeds on the bullet train that actually took me to another country? Continent? Planet?

Silly me, I'm just in Tianjin.  A nouveau riche city which is 30 minutes from Beijing on the bullet train.  After walking across a spectacular train station you find yourself staring down a river, one way you can find the Eiffel Tower perched on top of a building that displays a 'Cosco' sign, the other way is the Millennium Bridge which Newcastle, UK made famous spanning the River Tyne.  Slightly further down the road, across from the Wal-mart, there are directions that will lead you to an 'Italian Style Village'.  All the money that was funnelled into Shanghai for the Expo seems a bit of a waste when the world was already waiting in Tianjin.  The personality of the city  is exuberant and eager.

We did manage to find the Ancient Culture Street which is delightfully tack and terrific tourist trap which is better then any I have found here in Beijing to date.   After a long day of window shopping, Emma and I found ourselves relaxing on plastic Budweiser patio chairs, under Harbin beer umbrellas, drinking Tsingtao beer.  All in all, it was the perfect Saturday.

Pick a language, any language!

A normal morning includes countless stops on the way down the elevator with way too many people crammed into a little space, which is really the Chinese way.

This morning, I wasn't expecting anything different.  A man got on the elevator and was very quick to ask me where I was from.  Before I even finished saying Canada, he was speaking French: 

'Parlez-vous francais?'
'Oui?'

And that was that.  The whole elevator ride was spent speaking in French.  I was digging and scrambling to come up with words that I had long forgotten about and replaced with Mandarin words, of  course.  Turns out this guy works for Peking University, which he kindly reminded me, several times, is the best University in China.  He teaches a course called 'Branding' as in Nike and Ralph Lauren and Coca-Cola.  One point that he liked to discuss was my faux Chloe bag.  Good thing I didn't show him my Marc Jacobs wallet...probably wouldn't have gotten work today.  I am proud to say that the whole conversation was in French even though I was digging to the deeps crevasses of my brain to come up with words, some of the lingo I'm not sure I even know in English!  Our conversation moved through interesting topics like marketing, branding and capitalism in China.


This was one of the most spectacular conversations that I have had with a Chinese person.  The interesting thing about China is that the more educated you are, the more prejudice you are.  It's a strange concept to a Westerner but it makes sense, just have a think...
The last time that the Chinese government was faced with a rebellion, it was students who were the rebels.  How do you fix that problem?  You teach students, grasshoppa.  You teach them how great China is; how great the government is; how great all Chinese are.  You teach them that everything from the West is bad; how wrong we all are; what evil comes from the West (more specifically America...but not Canada which is marginally better than America - thankfully). They openly use the term 'propaganda' when talking about these things.  The don't see a problem with it.  In fact, most communities have 'Propaganda Boards' littered about (and what I wouldn't give to read them bad boys!).  All of these teachings, does create some problems when speaking to people because most people that can speak English are educate and are bombarded with the fact that we are all but evil and only good for practising English.  I would like to note that this is a generalization and there are of course some people here that are not at all like that, I know because I call them my 'friends'.

This man that I spoke with had open, honest and most importantly, realistic points of view on China, the West and the economy.  He was educated and spoke 4 languages and had a calm presence that I haven't felt in I don't know how long.

At the end of the French conversation he asked: 'Can I call on you some time to practice my English?'

Chinese Goods are for Export ONLY

As most of you know, it was recently my birthday.  We had a massive celebration in my class.  Full with a mountain of food brought in by the kids, who then made another mountain dumplings.....oohhh yeah!

I even got presents!  A great little surprise, if you ask me.  All of the kind folks that got me a present let me know that these presents were top quality and made in Korea.  None of these people seem to want to be associated with their own products.  Even in the fake markets, all of the products are "straight from Hong Kong!" (hey, it might seem like the same country but you have to go through immigrations to get there even when you are already in China).

I even got a lovely plastic souvenir key chain from Singapore...Made in Korea.

NEW POLL! When in China, do as the Chinese do

I am technically on a Cultural Exchange Program.  I came in search of whatever bits of history has escaped the Cultural Revolution of the last century, for pearls of wisdom direct from Confucius disciples and learning what it is like to live in a modern communist China.  I ended up with tourist traps for whatever bits of history is left in Beijing, Confusion, and Capitalism.

Obiviously, China is not what I expect but I'm resiliant and I can roll with the punches.  People either love or hate Westerners and if they love us then they real love us!  They try to copy everything that is Western and they hyperize it and turn it into some sort of cartoon version of what once was.  They are always trying to be whiter, they wear anything with a designer label, and they will buy cars for the status of owning a car, just to prove that they can.

One of the side effects of this is that there is this Bedazzled middle class that like to show off what they've got.  From shoes to nails to t-shirts to underpants all of it is Bedazzled and all of the folks who wear anything Bedazzled are Masters of the Ghetto Fab style.  This means having eyelash extensions...

so, do i do it?  Do I act like most of the other girls in my 'hood and get the fake eyelashes? Or is that too risky?  I'm going to end up going blind?  Or do you think that I'll look like a hooker gone wrong (which would be hilarious)? 

A Homecooked Meal?

It is hard to dine out in Beijing.  The most glaringly obvious reason for that being that I can't read the words so I have no idea what I'm getting.

It's always fascinating to see how other cultures interpret other cultures food.   Like Westerners misinterpreting Chinese food, the Chinese have misinterpreted Western food.  Of course there are McD's (which offers 24h delivery) here but there are way more Pizza Huts and KFC.  Just about every corner has one or both of them.  With an itch for some home-y food I ventured off to Pizza Hut for what they promote as 'Erotica Pizzas'.  My tastes have changed since being here and it was what I needed but still it wasn't quite right.  The cheese was, well, not so much cheese and the crust was bang on for a Jacob's cream cracker and there were some canned peaches involved.

Take 2 at Western food.  Round the corner from Pizza Hut is the latest fusioin style restaurants The South American Restaurant and German Microbrewery.  Not a combination that I would have instinctively put together but it sound like a combo I'd like to have a crack at!  I'm thinking Argentinian steak and a beer.  Now that's good food!  A 20 minute wait...good start.  Means that there is good food.  They take us up stairs to our seats (right beside the window so we are on display) and they and us a menu.  This lovely restaurant has less then 20 things on the menu all of which seem to involve chicken feet, pork belly, pickling or a combination of all three.  There is nothing South American or German about this place.

In a last ditch effort to find something that isn't Chinese, we found a Turkish restaurant.  It turns out to be some of the best food I have had since being here.  The tomatoes are of perfect ripeness, the falafel is perfection and, best of all, there's no pork.   Our meat of choice is a lamb kebab, juicy and tender, it is nothing short of delicious.  We meet one of the owners and we mention that we wanted a break from Chinese food and the meal was more than we hoped for.  The owner thanks us and says he felt the same way, which is why he opened the restaurant.  Beijing food starts to taste the same after awhile but this was the change that we had searched for.

Democracy for all!

It has been brought to my attention that the 'Brothers and Sisters' post might be misconstrued by the Chinese Governement.

What do you think?  Should I take it down?  Blogs are for free speech.  But, then again, I live in China.