Oh Canada?

I went to Daqing, Heilongjiang on Monday to visit a company to determine if it was real for the purpose of a visa application (it wasn't) and I saw this awesome road sign. Daqing sits on a giant oifield, so I guess they might have some kind of relationship with oil companies from Calgary.
Anyway, 卡尔加里 = Ka Er Jia Li, which kind of sounds like Calgary and is apparently the Chinese-ification of the city, which is not ridiculous at all.

A Family-style Thanksgiving (minus the family)

For Thanksgiving dinner this year, the Intercontinental Hotel - where I live - prepared a dinner for all of the Americans at the Consulate. It was a really great meal, and afterwards we all played Apples to apples. :)

Mike here is mesmerized by Danielle's story, while Jon's fork is nothing but a blur.


Beth and Alan amused probably by something Mike said.


Delicious: turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, roast beef, stuffing, smoked salmon.

the demise of plate #2:

This is my awesome hot pink Christmas tree. I bought it and all the decorations and ornaments at the local wholesale market. I bought the tree and a trash bag-full of decorations for my entire apartment for about $60. There are little glittery Santas all over the tree, or as the Chinese call him, "the old man of Christmas."

After the ball...

After the Marine Ball on November 21st, I flew from Beijing to Harbin on Sunday night. On Monday I went to the Harbin Institute of Technology and the Harbin Aircraft Manufacturing Corporation to talk about the visa process. I had some downtime in between the talks, so I visited the St. Sophia Cathedral, which was built in 1907.

Here's the link to a short description:

http://orthodoxwiki.org/St._Sophia_Cathedral_(Harbin,_China)

There was also a choir performing folk songs, but I have no idea what they were singing about.

I didn't take any pictures at the talks in Harbin, but the next day I did another talk at China Medical University back in Shenyang.

This picture is of me and Beth, another consular officer, while I'm doing the presentation.

Our captive audience. Mainly phd students and professors.