Working Hard...

It's been a tough week what with keeping up with work and missing Emily and being so far away from family... but can we complain when this is our lunch break. :-)

Scene: Bahamian Customer Service

Lisa: Oh no Mark - the internet is down.

Mark: OK - I will re-set the router.

Mark fiddles with the plugs a few times... nothing.

Lisa: Uh oh - Last time this happened they had shut us down for not paying the bill. I'll check the cable. (please note the bill was only not paid because they never got around to sending us one - details, details)

Lisa turns on the TV... there is nothing.

Lisa: Looks like you have to call Cable Bahamas

Mark gets on the phone.

Mark: Hello. It looks as though our cable is down can you cehck our account for me please?

Customer Service Agent: OK - Can I have your account information please?

Mark goes through the usual rigamarole of trying to find the account.

Customer Service Agent: No - there is no problem with your account your area has been shut down by Bahama Electric Corporation for servicing.

Mark: They just turned it off?

Customer Service Agent: Yes

Mark: Was this a planned outage?

Customer Service Agent: Well - they called us a little while ago and told us they were going to do it.

Mark: OK - well we run a business from our house so we really need the internet. Can you tell me how long it will be down.

Customer Service Agent: No -it varies.

Mark: OK - I guess we'll just wait for it to come back up again.

Customer Service Agent: OK. Bye.

Mark turns on the TV and waits for sound so that we will know when the cable is restored.

Kamikaze Swallow

We have much more to say about China and many more pictures but as we recover from our trip we can't seem to get ourselves organized enough. To be honest, getting out of bed in the morning has been a bit of a trial this last week. Since we aren't sleeping during the night sleeping during the day is tempting - but not the way to cure jet lag. Anyway another story...

See these?

Tough to spot I know... but if you look closely you can see the wide open mouth of a baby swallow. Remember when we told we had new family members? Well said family members had babies.

Cute right? Not so much. The Daddy swallow takes his job of protecting his babies very seriously. As soon as either cat steps out of the house that bird dips in to a screaming dive-bomb and flaps his wings so loudly they sound like bullets firing. Needless to say the cats don't like it. In fact they don't like it so much that Ow has stopped going outside... ever. Colonel takes the occassional risk. We think that he is hoping (being the incredibly lazy cat that he is) that the bird will fly directly in to his mouth so that he can prance back in the house and show off his "hunting skills" to Ow. Well that plan isn't working. About 10 minutes ago Mark had to crawl under the chaise lounge and rescue Colonel. He was stuck under there shivering, mewling... terrified. Mark had to carry him back in to the house and shoo the kamikaze bird away.

This isn't going to help our "clean up the fireplace" quest as both cats were going to the bathroom outside.

The excitement never ends.

George and Lenny – Revisited

Here’s the thing….we have 2 cats that tend to act strangely like the characters from John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” One is a lumbering brute that plays dumb at every opportunity. He looks at you at food time with those “cow” eyes and blunders into the most obvious of situations with complete abandon. If his food wasn’t stuck under his nose every morning I don’t think he’d ever eat again. The other one is sleek and calculating with an air of confidence that lets everyone around know he is the smart one. He’s timid, hides under beds and things, but knows the time every morning and evening when its meal-call and he leads the way (and the nose of the other one) into the kitchen. They are The Colonel and Ow – can you guess which is which?

So which is to blame for the mystery? The mystery? Well, on our return from our China odyssey we were greeted by the news, and smell!, that our fireplace area (yes, we have one even though we are in Nassau and the last roaring fire here was when the Colonial Hilton burnt down in 1911) had been used as a public urinal for the last 2 weeks. So you can imagine the repulsion we felt, let alone the dismay on Mark’s face - as it was evident that he, and he alone, was going to have to deal with the situation. Dealing with the situation means cleaning up and ensuring no further occurrence, and identifying the culprit (and doling out punishment). To give you a flavor of the cleaning up – this involved Mark on his hands and knees under the fireplace with a bucket of vinegar and water scrubbing the stones followed by a treatment with a solution of Hydrogen Peroxide and washing up liquid topped by a good dousing with baking soda. A true and tried concoction. Of course this whole process needs to be repeated 4 times to ensure the smell is eradicated. If not then he will need to resort to bleach! Having diligently gone through this process you can imagine (or not) Mark’s disappointment (not sure if that’s the right word!) this morning when he was reviewing his good work and there in plain view was a little overnight puddle to greet him. Upon inspection, you’ve guessed it, it was clear the culprit had struck again.

But who…the docile, buffoonish Lenny or the stealth-like, calculating George? Mark is watching their moves very carefully and to ensure his clean fireplace is no longer defiled he has assembled a barricade (see below)…more to follow….

The Wheels on the Bus

We took many bus journeys on our trip to China as it was often the only mode of transportation to some of the rural locations on our list. Without Maggie the bus trips would have been an impossibility. As you can see from the photo below nothing in the bus station was in English.







During our entire journey we did not see another Westerner at any bus station or on any bus. You can imagine that we were kind of an oddity and a bit of a circus attraction. At one station a security guard approached Adam and I who were waiting while Mark and Maggie got the tickets. He stood perhaps a foot from my nose and shouted, "Hello", with a huge grin on his face. I repeated the greeting, then he didn't move. For about 7 or 8 minutes he stood with his face a few inches from mine, staring at me and grinning wildly. It was very unsettling. Maggie thought it was hysterical and launched in to fits of giggles every time I said, "Hello" (add funny sing song voice) to her for the rest of the trip.

Not since we moved in to Water's Edge have I wanted a bucket of hot water and bleach so badly. Give me that and a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and I could have had this bus ship-shape in an hour. And sadly I'm not kidding. Had they given me the tools I would have done it. It would have been so satisfying.






This lady was having a very loud and angry fight with her husband on the bus. After they were done yelling she turned her face in to the window and cried for the entire hour journey. The husband tried to make amends but she was having none of it. Without understanding what they were fighting about it is impossible to say if she was justified. But we were on her side anyway.

Home at last!

Our trip became so packed full of work that posting daily summaries was simply an impossibility. Now we are home at last. Back to the sounds of the ocean lapping gently at our patio through our bedroom window. Back to the chattering of the dive-bombing sparrow who lives in our palm tree. Back to quick dips in the pool to cool off during the day with our heads stuck under the gushing water of the fountain. And back to this...

Yes it is a tarantula. Yes it's dead - very dead. It was lying on our patio.

After much squealing and running (and yes we mean both of us) and frantically calling Cindi for confirmation that it was indeed a tarantula, we calmed down enough to consult the internet. We discovered that the Bahamian tarantula is in fact harmless to humans. It's still horrible.

Cindi said don't worry they don't come inside... phew!

Anyway - we are home and happy, yet extremely jet lagged. Last year when we came back from Hong Kong Lisa was like a walking zombie for 3 weeks. Let's hope that we are getting better at it.

China was, so far, a great success. We found two great factories with wonderful people that we can imagine long relationships with. The trip was incredibly hectic and all blurred together, so instead of daily summaries we will be posting snippets and pics over the next few days.

We spent a long time on the phone with Emily yesterday and she is having a wonderful time. She phoned us just after spotting a moose and her moose babies (which Mark insisted to Emily were called Meese) and was on her way to their campsite in the Grand Tetons. While we were on the phone they spotted a bear... much better than a tarantula.

Nan King

Today began with a flight to Nanking. Made famous by the 1937 Japanese Inavasion and subsequent atrocities known as the Rape of Nanking. We learned how realiable local Chinese flights were... not very. We were delayed on the runway after we boarded the plane for over two hours. We knew we were in trouble when they started serving us food before the plane ad even left the gate. We had hoped to have have time for extensive sight-seeing as Mark particularly wanted to see the Rape of Nanking memorial and related historical sites, but we didn't get in until quite late so we ended up not having any time. Instead we took the subway down to the river district where we enjoyed a lovely walk. It was absolutely insane how many people were out enjoying themselves so late on a Sunday night, the streets were packed.

Living in the Bahamas, we are used to being a minority. But on these streets we truly were the only white people to be seen and became a bit of a tourist attraction ourselves. A Chinese girl came up to us and asked if we would take her picture. Lisa agreed and instinctively reached out her hand for her camera to take a picture of the girl and her boyfriend by the beautiful riverfront. A misunderstanding - she wanted a photo with us, not her boyfriend. After they left we asked Maggie what it was all about and she told us that we were the only white people they have ever seen in real life and that we look like movie stars. Not sure what movies Maggie has been watching?!!?

We stopped for dinner and Mark enjoyed his first ever "Bean curd and Duck Blood Soup". Don't worry I won't be posting the recipe. The meal was only "so-so" compared to the other Chinese food we have enjoyed so far but we still enjoyed the spicy fish and ribs.

Some photos of our day...

My yummy breakfast - rice ball from the street.

The canal area of Nan King - there were lovely little boats touring passengers around.

Maggie and her bean curd noodles. Adam wishing desparately for Pizza Hut. He doesn't like Chinese food so we are starving him.

Mark having second thoughts about the duck blood.

Lisa as the local freak show on the streets of Nan King (see Maggie waving in the background)

Maggie and Mark

Mark and Pagoda

Mark on the streets

China

So we arrived in China after over 20 hours sitting on a plane. Mark, of course, slept the entire first flight (13 hours) while Lisa stared, wide awake, at the "TV-less" back of the seat in front of her. It may be cheaper but North West stinks! Even if we could have seen the TV screen you couldn't hear a thing through the headphones anyway - and they wanted $5 for a glass of wine. On a 13 hour flight! We were picked up at the airport by Adam's (our guide) assistant Maggie. We didn't know it then but Maggie becomes our hero very quickly. She muscles through lines, barks at agents and spend most of the time with her phone attached to her ear smoothing the way ahead so that we journey from place to place without a hitch.

Here's Mark, Maggie and Adam



We get a cab to our hotel and then pop out to an Irish bar (?) for a quick drink to see if we can get tired. It's midnight and we are wide awake. Back to the hotel to sleep on our dining room table, sorry I mean bed (it felt like sleeping on the dining room table.) We are able to get internet access which doesn't help much since the Chinese government blocks half off the sites - including Facebook which means Lisa can't answer any of her messages on Facebook.

Mark on our hotel balcony...



In the morning we head off to the bus station to take a local bus on a two hour journey to Shen Zhen to go on our first factory visit. On the bus the driver walks the isles prior to leaving handing out little red plastic bags. We have no idea what these bags are used for so we don't take one. All becomes very clear when we start the journey. The driver believes he is in the Indy 500 and veers all over the highway at 85 miles per hour, blowing his horn every 5 minutes. We figure out soon enough that the horn serves no actual traffic purpose but is used to alert the passengers that they should hold on to something as the driver is about to do something incredibly dangerous. The little red bags? Puke bags. I kid you not. The women in front of us began using hers about 5 minutes in to the trip. The women behind us didn't bother taking one and simply threw up on to the floor under our seats. Lovely.

The little red plastic bags...



We visit two factories on our first day. The first factory takes us to an amazing Canton lunch of huge garlic shrimp, sizzling ribs, sauteed duck, fried goose liver, etc... yum!

Henry the factory manager orders our lunch. Note the chicken feet appetizer in the foreground (needless to say we waited for the entrees)...



Workers hand-painting furniture at Henry's factory...



Back on the bus. Mark's journey is made even more frightening at this point by the fact that his seat isn't quite attached and he spends the ride with the entire seat sliding drastically to the left or right every time the bus makes the slightest turn.

We head to the subway to get back to our hotel and see an old women pulling a crate piled with about 30 puppies and kittens inside. Maggie says people will buy the dogs to eat but she won't eat them as it is unlucky since she was born in the Year of the Dog. Lisa is glad that she was born in the Year of the Dog too!

Maggie and Lisa stop on the way home to get a 70 minute "foot massage" (which actually turns out to be a whole body massage sitting up) for $10 each. Maggie's masseuse chatters away to her in Mandarin the entire time asking Lisa for input on important matters like why the Irish guy she met at the massage parlor hasn't sent her a text back since she texted him 3 days ago - was it because of the time difference?

We go out to dinner at a local dim sum restaurant. Dinner for the 4 of us costs about $20. This ain't no Bahamas!

Happy 90th Farver!

Lisa here. This Saturday is my grandfather's (better know as "Farver") birthday. Farver will be 90 years old. Here he is with my brother Con and my Nan (I swiped this photo off of someone's Facebook - I think my cousin Tina's). Nan and Farver have been married for 66 years which is pretty amazing.

Nan and Farver live in England and don't travel as much anymore so we don't get to see them as much as we would like. But I know they read the blog so here's to you Farver on your 90th birthday - we are thinking of you out here in the Bahamas.

Here's some memories of Farver...

Bringing us our very first colour television down from London.

Visiting him in his scrap metal yard in London where he would give us huge steel ball bearings (we thought they were marbles).

Farver falling asleep on our front lawn in England and Dad crossing his arms over his chest and putting a cross made of stick in the ground at his head while us kids sprinkled him with daisies. He lay like that in the front garden for ages.

Mowing the lawn for hours at my Parent's house in the States becuase he likes the ride-on mower.

My Dad catching him climbing up our roof when he was in his 80's because he needed to get some work done up there.

Regaling Mark with his stories of being in the Army during the 2nd World War. Most of the stories I can't repeat :-) But I did find it sweet that he kept going AWOL from where he was stationed. He missed Nan too much so he kept going back to London to see her.

Happy birthday Farver!! We miss you!

Hello Bertha

It's that time of year. The time when all of the Carribean starts thinking about Hurricanes. Well here's Bertha. She's not a hurricane yet but she is expected to become one by tomorrow. Her temper must be on a short fuse. The locals are claiming that this is the year for the big one - let's only hope they are wrong. We are preparing by cutting down the bushes in front of the windows to make room for the hurricane shutters. Now we need to ensure the generator is filled with gas and get some one in to cut down our abundance of coconuts lest they become dangerous missiles. Lisa is going through all the rooms in the house trying to figure out which one would be the safest :-)

The skies are a lot darker than usual some days - the gorgeous Haitian sloops will have to make sure they are home and safe.

A photo just doesn't cut it...

$450 later we have our Visas in our passports, which are nowhere to be found. They were fedexed on Thursday from Detroit and they were supposed to arrive yesterday. They didn't get here yesterday and Fedex is closed today. Knowing The Bahamas as you all now do - what do you think the chances are of them arriving any time soon?

Little Things

There are days when Emily's absence is felt very strongly. Today has been one of those days so far. Two things have happened that she would have really enjoyed.

Whenever we walk to the end of the island Emily always stops on a little beach between houses as it has proven to be an excellent spot for harvesting sea glass for her growing collection. This morning the ocean had to delivered an even more exciting gift to that little beach. You can never have too many conch shells - and this one is a beauty.



The second event involved the arrival of the long awaited "Dolce" - the new baby of our friends Sara and Thomas.



Dolce means "sweet" in Italian and also references Thomas's love of D and G. Sara arrived this morning for her English conversation with teeny, tiny Dolce in tow. She is truly sweet and Emily would have loved to spend time with her.





Colonel, on the other hand, did not love her. He launched at her with a hiss and Dolce went scampering across the living room to hide under my desk crying her eyes out. They always say that bullies are insecure and Colonel certainly showed his true wussy colours being scared of a baby the size of a mouse!