Shenyang Team Miller: 8 Jan 2012: Happy New Year!

Greetings everyone from sunny, cold Shenyang! The Chinese tell me we are in the 3-9 period of the year...I've tried to find out how this is organized in the lunar calendar etc...but no luck, so I've just had to accept that it's the way it is! 3-9 means there are three consecutive periods of 9 days, each period of 9 days getting colder...and so far, it seems they are right! We are currently in the 2nd of the 9, and it was -2F this morning at 8:00am...so I'm sure it was colder in the night...brr! Can't wait for the 3rd nine at this rate! The good news is that our apartment is warm, we have warm clothes and can dress to stay warm outside!
Rod & I stayed here in Shenyang this year for Christmas and New Years so that we didn't have any risk of snow delays either coming or going...and from a work stand point, it was very efficient for me to be here while most of my expat colleagues were out of the country! We spent New years with our Chinese friends, who invited us for a nice lunch at a vegetarian restaurant.


Ying Jia (momma), Rod seated, Zhou Min (Daisy), Sarah (seated) and Zhou (daddy) at the New Years 2012 lunch in Shenyang


Momma and Daddy getting the left overs ready (it's always a fight...they want us to take them,we want them to!)

This week at work was a tough one...the Chinese New Year comes early this year (22 Jan 2012) and so all the stuff that needs to be done by the end of January, must now be done by the 21st...so everyone is scrambling to get it done. This includes the appreciation dinners..it's China tradition that the employers give a group dinner for everyone in appreciation for all that was done last year and give a little speech about what is to come this year...and then of course to have a toast at each table. As the team for my project is getting bigger and bigger, we have alot of dinners to schedule and in order to build a good team atmosphere, I want to be at all of the dinners...so last week and this coming week are full of dinners...and toasts! As most of you know, I don't drink, so I toast with various fruit juices...this past week it seemed to be peach nectare (that stuff is so sweet..has to have a bazillion calories in it...I started watering it down 1/2 way through the week!) It's the right thing to do, but somewhat exhausting! I was happy when Saturday rolled around!
Speaking of Saturday...we went to the fish market and to my surprise (Rod already knew) the market has been temporarily transformed into an inside azalea market...(most of you know, I have never met an azalea I didn't like!). What a feast for the weary eyes in this cold, long, dark days of Winter here in Shenyang!

Sarah with the Azaleas...couldn't take that smile off my face!

Sarah & Rod with the azaleas in Shenyang

Rod playing around in a very special azalea...that thing has been trained to be like a basket with a bow on top...that is all 1 plant...unbelievable! The guy said it took 8 years to get this looking like this!

Sarah playing around in the azalea basket!

Thought you might be interested in the price tag of this braded azalea...blew us away. This is 50,000 RMB..that equals 7917.28 USD at today's exchange rate...yes, you read that right...right at $8000.00 for a very special azalea! Someone here has some money...not in our league...but we did get a photo, which was much better than bringing the thing to our apartment for it to never bloom again...azaleas are not inside plants...they need that good sunshine!

Beautiful colors of azaleas in shenyang...ready for "Spring festival"

More beautiful azaleas..and orchids in the background in Shenyang

As I've mentioned several times that it's cold here...and in my last post, I showed a picture of the city park just down the road getting an ice wall built around it...I went up there one night after work and took a few pictures at night...didn't go inside the wall, but did get a few pictures from outside. The big ice park is just outside of town...and the biggest one in the world is north of here in a town called Ha'erbin..up on the Siberian border...havn't made it there yet (on my list, but not Rod's!(

The gate to the ice park here in Shenyang

The wall around the ice park here in Shenyang

In addition to the colorful sites here in Shenyang during the cold weather...Rod noticed the loader that puts the coal in the boiler of the hotel was "dressed for the cold"...he had to get a picture with it. Notice the insulation is old army cold weather coats...wrapped around the intake breather to keep the cold air from coming into the machine! Pretty sure this is not how it was designed to work..but when you have very little, you make do!