Mark's observations

So, y'all, here is what's been going down in my life....

Sunday at church, we had Holy Communication. Here in China one is never quite sure what to expect, and today was no different. How many times have you heard the same old words repeated over and over before you take Communion? If you have been in church many years, probably a lot. Anyway, at ours, every third Sunday is Communion. Usually a local pastor will lead it. Today, he started off the same as always, but then we had Communication instead of Communion. So, next time, ask your pastor if you can have Holy Communication.

My new haircut. As many of you know, I am beginning to go bald. To be proactive, I have just begun having my hairs cut with just the clippers, no attachments. The great part about the hair cut is that now I am cool (both literally and figuratively)! I found out recently that I am now possibly the coolest, youngest looking, gay man they know in the office. All I have to do is wear light colors and keep my head shaved! They know I am not gay because they see pictures of my family, but they still like to think I am.

As you may have read, I had no hot water in my apartment in ZJG. Typically in China, apartment buildings use a solar heater on the roof for hot water to the apartments. This is used in the summer months, and then an individual gas unit is used during the winter months. Lucky me and Ron, we rent the apartment that did not have the individual unit. He didn't think it was a very big deal, I enjoy at least lukewarm water to shower with in the morning. After much communication between our administrative assistant and the landlord, a hot water heater was installed in our apartment. Unfortunately for Ron, since I was the one doing the complaining, I was the one who got the hot water heater. They installed an electric unit in my bathroom, and only plumbed up my shower and sink. They never bothered to hook up Ron's. Now, suddenly it become a big deal for him...So, they decided to correct the no hot water problem by shutting off the cold. How many people do you think it takes to turn the cold water back on? Seven, and each one of them needed to confirm that all of the valves in our apartment were turned on. It only took an hour to get it back....

Foodage:

• I had the privilege of planning a team-building event for work. So, I had gave the information on budget and number of people to one of the admins, and asked her to find a venue. She chose a Thai restaurant called Banana Leaf. It was quite interesting. As you wait to be seated in the restaurant, they have little wooden barrels for you to sit on. While waiting, they also have a house band come out and play music for you. The only problem with this is that the house band is dressed like a Thai Village People and they sing ABBA songs into wooden spoons. They also try to get people to dance. While I was greeting our group outside the restaurant, I had the pleasure of listening to "Dancing Queen", and being asked to dance by one of the lovely waitresses (if you know me, you know I have no rhythm and no prayer of dancing!). After much ado, I convinced her to find another lame target and I quickly went inside. The food was not bad, just different. Here are some of the fine things we had to eat: fried hairy crab with curry, dried scallop soup with pumpkin, donkey meat with lemongrass (or as Natalie calls it, "ass and grass"), Thai-fried chicken feet, fish skin (looks like jellyfish, but it's not), some kind of meat-on-a-stick (satay), and those are just the things we could identify....
• Can you say, "Applebees!"? Apparently there is one here in Shanghai, and we will be trying it out soon...It won't be long before we have a "White Castle".....
• KFC: I have eaten there many times, and never been sick. Jacob's class ate there on their way home from Beijing, and half of them got food poisoning. What's safe for some is not safe for all.
  

Websites: for some reason, we have lost access to YouTube. I know, for most of you it is unimaginable to have to live without YouTube, but over here where your media choices are limited, it is a cool thing to do. However, for some reason, we can now view our blog again. We have been able to post to it, but never able to see the actual blog without using my work's VPN (virtual private network). I assuming we can only have so many freedom of expression choices and it was either YouTube access or blog access. It's things like this that remind you the whole world is not free...

Youth Group: I think I may be the first person to actually encourage a kid to do the hand-fart (where you squeeze your palms together and make the noise). A couple of them were screwing around during worship at 180, so I went over and told them if they could actually keep a beat, I would let them play a song with the band. I caught him later on outside church trying to get some repeatability with the noises...

That's it from me for now. Have a great week!