Jackson
Here are a couple photos of Jackson when he was still in the hospital – just a couple days old!
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Something you don’t see in China….
This house is being moved. They just pick it up, put it on a truck, and take it to the new location. The highways are usually empty so there isn’t much of a problem with blocking the road.
Tags: moving house
Something you don’t see in China….
by emily on July 10, 2010
Bulldozing a kitty?
Spotted outside of the gift shop in the Pearl TV Tower. Poor kitty.
Bulldozing a kitty?
by emily on June 7, 2010
Did you know you can receive all my posts via email?
I know a lot of people don’t have time to come visit my blog regularly. If you don’t use an RSS reader, you can subscribe to my blog via email.
If you want to receive an email whenever I post something new, just click here and enter in your email address. Then, check your email for a confirmation email. You’ll need to click on a link and verify that it really was you that requested to be subscribed.
Tomorrow I’m posting my favorite photo from my Kunming trip!
Tags: blog
Did you know you can receive all my posts via email?
by emily on June 3, 2010
Fancy cars
Today we were having mojito outside at Cantina Agave when a couple cars that were parked on the sidewalk needed to leave. First a Lamborgini, then a Ferrari, very slowly backed out, inch by inch, through the outdoor seating area.
Tags: cars
Fancy cars
by emily on April 30, 2010
New iPhones!!!
This weekend Jon bought iPhones for both of us. Wow, talk about life-changing technology! The amount of apps available is amazing. I actually did this whole post from my phone and can access my full blog, including things like comment moderation from my phone. Awesome.
New iPhones!!!
by emily on April 20, 2010
Aomen Lu – 52 Weeks, 52 Steets Project
My 52 Weeks, 52 Steets project really got derailed when I spent 7 weeks out of the country! I’m trying to pick it up again though. I actually took Aomen Lu in January before I went to Australia.
Tags: 52 Weeks 52 Streets, Aomen Lu
Aomen Lu – 52 Weeks, 52 Steets Project
by emily on April 11, 2010
Strawberry Fields
The workers live here. We wondered if they own the land, or if they are just working and someone else gets most of the profit. Our group must have bought at least $100 worth of strawberries, so probably a really good day for them.
Weighing a basket – the weight is 500 grams (1 jin.)
Strawberry Fields
by emily on March 30, 2009
Food Photography
My friend Bonnie started her own business here, doing custom baking for other expats. I volunteered to shoot her goodies for her brochure. I got to take home samples of each of her offerings… YUMMY!
Tags: Food
Food Photography
by emily on March 26, 2009
Women’s Day – March 7
China celebrates International Women’s Day. If it falls on a work day, all of the women get half of the day off. This year, it was Sunday, so we all got to choose a gift instead. The choices: a soybean milk maker (like a soybean juicer), blender, sheets, pot, or gift basket with shampoo, toothpaste, etc.
Last year, all of the women went to the hospital to get their annual checkup. (I got my hair cut that morning instead.) I think I prefer the gift!
Women’s Day – March 7
by emily on March 23, 2009
Canvas prints
Last week at the photo mall, we printed a couple photos on canvas. It cost 120 RMB ($17) for a 30 x 40 inch print. It actually cost more to get it stretched across a custom-made frame.
I took this photo near the Minor farm outside of Nisland.
Tags: home
Canvas prints
by emily on March 19, 2009
about 80%…
I think I have about everything back in my blog. Whoo-hoo! I am so thankful I could finally access my old FTP site at work (on US internet) to get all of the photos from my blog. The guys at my host just can’t figure out that if their server is blocked in China, I just can’t get on it. No matter what.
I also uploaded the missing food chart from a couple posts ago. Check it out if you are interested in the cost of living Western-style here.
Tomorrow…. a real post.
about 80%…
by emily on March 10, 2009
blog
| My blog is still blocked in China. I also can’t get on my server at work. What a pain!
I am working on a solution and hopefully will just move servers. My website and blog address will remain the same. Soon… I will be posting more! (I hope!) |
blog
by emily on February 23, 2009
Christmas Cookies
I made a bunch of Christmas cookies with glaze for my friends and co-workers. I think they were a hit. I used this recipe from the Reisch cookbook.
Tags: Food, Reisch Recipes cookbook
Christmas Cookies
by emily on December 24, 2008
Dawn til Dusk
Photojojo has an article today about taking photos of a city from Dawn until Dusk. It’s a pretty interesting concept. http://photojojo.com/content/photo-projects/dawn-to-dusk-day-in-the-life/
I think in Shanghai you could do it all 24 hours – something is always happening. It would make a good coffee table book. Any other photographers willing to try this sometime? WoAi, Swiss James, Dingle…. I think all of you are photographers!
Dawn til Dusk
by emily on December 9, 2008
Back to blogging
It’s been a month since I updated, and two months since I actually wrote anything substantial. I will make an attempt to get back into it a little bit. Please do keep coming back…
My friend/co-worker Steve who is moving to China said his mom checks my blog daily. Hi, Steve’s mom! I see my counter is still going up so I guess some people are still interested. Steve said that my blog was a reason some of his friends and relatives had a realistic view of what Shanghai is like. That was pretty much my purpose in blogging – to share some of my experiences with everyone back home.
The bad news is that my blog is blocked in China again. What a bummer. I hosted it on my own domain (emilyminor.com) instead of blogspot.com because blogspot used to be blocked. The only thing that I can think of is that I said “p r a y e r service” in a post about Jared. I can’t think of any other reason that the internet censors of China would find my blog suddenly a threat to the Chinese people. My whole domain is blocked so no one can get to www.emilyminor.com either.
Tags: home
Back to blogging
by emily on December 8, 2008
American Food
One of the best things about being home is the FOOD! Jon said, “Even the bottled water here taste’s better.” (I agree.) Things I have really enjoyed so far:
- A thick steak grilled to medium-rare over a charcoal grill, along with corn on the cob (thanks Dave!)
- Mussels, crab, and calamari at The Fransiscan in Fishermans Wharf
- Blue Moon beer (enjoyed in the sun at a restaurant overlooking the harbor in San Francisco)
- Broccoli cheese soup in a breadbowl at Quiznos
- A turkey-swiss with ranch croissant at a local coffee shop
- Chicken strips with ranch & BBQ sauce, a baked potato with cream cheese, and cottage cheese
- Indian taco (that was Jon’s)
- Wheatables (crackers)
- Milk! (non-tainted)
American Food
by emily on September 30, 2008
Fun with Airport Codes
Sept 26 – PVG to SFO
Sept 28 – SFO to DEN to RAP
Oct 5 – Drive East
Oct 13 – BKX
Oct 17 – FSD to LAS
Oct 19 – LAS to SFO to PVG
See many of you in the USA soon!
Tags: home
Fun with Airport Codes
by emily on September 25, 2008
the Grocery Store
These are all photos that Esther took. We stopped by our local grocery store for a peek at some differences in Western and Eastern cuisine. She has been living in Thailand for 10 months, working as a tour guide, so I didn’t think these things would surprise her but they did.
This is from a male pig. Enough said.
Chicken feet
Not the pet store…. frogs. (yep, alive.)
Soft-shelled turtles – I’ve had them before.
A fish no one will pick – they need to be alive and well. It is very important to pick out the freshest and best animal, which is why the meat counter is so interesting to me.
None of the meat counters have glass in them. You can slap, pinch and poke each piece of meat before picking one. Then the next person slaps, pinches and poke each one too. The process is repeated all day (remember most public toilets do not have soap or hot water.) This is why we don’t buy meat at the local stores. (Probably, cooking the meat would kill any germs. Our western ideas of how meat should be treated still prevents us from purchasing it though.)
Durian – the famous fruit that is supposed to be wonderful if you can get past the awful smell! Most hotels even ban it. I haven’t had it.
Tags: Food
the Grocery Store
by emily on September 8, 2008
The Blarney Stone
Friday night Jon Settingsgard and Steve Gokie and I went to the Blarney Stone for supper and some drinks. Jon came later after he got back from Hong Kong. At 1:30 AM they rang the bell for last call. Soon after than, a large group of girls came in. A couple had on Canada shirts and
all of them had Olympic passes. The soccer events are held in Shanghai.
all of them had Olympic passes. The soccer events are held in Shanghai.
A quick Google search on my cell phone brought up the headline “Canada falls to US in women’s soccer.” The team was there to drown their sorrows or else celebrate just being at the Olympics. They certainly livened up the bar!
Jon, Jon and Steve
Jon hanging out – don’t you love his new glasses?
They put on some great American music… I miss this!!
Me and Christine Sinclair, the team captain. We think she looks bit like our friend Jen Connors, but not in this photo.
Jon then bought a bottle of vodka for them. They were pretty excited, but got his name wrong. :-)
Needless to say, the bar stayed hopping long, long after closing time. One of their coaches told us that this was the first time in over a year the girls even drank.
Tags: bar
The Blarney Stone
by emily on August 17, 2008
Happy 4th of July!!
Well, it’s the 4th and all of our friends back home are probably grilling, drinking and playing lawn games. *sigh* Wish I was there too!!
Dan and Wendy came over tonight and somehow we started talking about Schoolhouse Rock. (YouTube has about everything you can imagine on it, so we jumped on to show them some clips.) It just so happens that each of the things we played were pretty patrotic.
Enjoy the trip down memory lane!
and one of the most popular ones…. Conjunction Junction!
Tags: home
Happy 4th of July!!
by emily on July 5, 2008
Grilled over disabilities?
Yes, the literal translation is correct. None of my Chinese friends were able to figure it out either (a Korean word, I think). 
If I negotiate, can I have the daughter and father too? Once again, the literal translation is correct as far as anyone could tell.
Tags: Food
Grilled over disabilities?
by emily on June 4, 2008
Cowboy food
When the SDSU group was here, this was one of the snacks served. Cowboy food is good for the SDSU group, I guess!Cowboy food is a literal translation. Yvonne explained that it meant something like “on-the-road food”. My interpretation would be “trail mix.” It was sunflower seeds roasted with a sweet coating.
Tags: Food
Cowboy food
by emily on June 3, 2008
X-Games Asia
The X-Games were in Shanghai and we went to check it out. It was a pretty small crowd – the schools gave out hundreds of tickets to students. It was a little funny watching little old Asian ladies walking arm in arm, huddling under their umbrellas – just not the typical X-Game crowd as I imagine it!
It was the first REALLY sunny and hot day of the summer, I think. We both got a little burned, but not bad at all. Our chiropracter (who told us about it) and his wife were working there and they shared their sunscreen with us. Whew.
Chinese people are very concerned about letting any sun on their skin! (Ok, she may be going to extremes though.)
X-Games Asia
by emily on May 1, 2008
Office set up
Yesterday Jon and I went to Best Buy to finally get a monitor for our home computer. The screen on our Vaio doesn’t go to a large enough resolution for me to easily use Photoshop, so I’d been using my work computer a lot. We got a 22-inch widescreen ViewSonic monitor, which is just perfect. So our office is finally getting used! We also got a free Best Buy China mug (is there any way to tell if it’s been painted with lead paint?)Tags: home
Office set up
by emily on February 8, 2008
Paintings
A month or two after we moved here, we finally got around to buying something for our walls.
About 2 weeks ago, we got around to getting them framed.
Now, we finally have them up!
It is really nice to have something on the bare white walls.
Tags: home
Paintings
by emily on December 28, 2007
Reading
Christianne sent me three books a few weeks ago, after I mentioned how much I miss reading English on a daily basis. She is an avid reader too and also works at Dak. We actually worked together at DCS (Dakota Communication Solutions) as supervisors before it went under. She left for Dak about a month before I did.
Last week I read Salem Falls and this weekend I read Water for Elephants. Both were really good. I love reading. Yes, I read a book over the weekend. Yes, the whole thing.
Next week it will be Nineteen Minutes, another book by Jodi Picoult. I read “My Sister’s Keeper” by her a while ago and love her writing style.
I used to be in a book club in Brookings. It was a small group of women who worked at Dak. We spent a lot of time discussing things other than the book, but it definitely was a highlight of the month to get together.
Reading
by emily on November 25, 2007
Archive fixed!!
I finally took a few hours to figure out what was wrong with my archive. It’s fixed, so anyone who wants to look at any old posts can now do it!! The links are to the right, on the bottom of the list.
Sorry for the previous inconvenience.
Archive fixed!!
by emily on September 24, 2007
September 11th
A show called “The Flight That Fought Back” was on tonight on the Discovery Channel, about Flight 93, the fourth hijacked plane on September 11th. It’s been six years. SIX YEARS. That hardly seems possible. When I think about it, all of the emotions and memories of that time come back very quickly.
At that time, everyone said we’d remember exactly what we were doing when we heard, like our parents recalled the moment they heard JFK was shot. It’s true. I was driving down 6th Street, in my red ’88 Oldsmobile, going to my first class that day which was Mass Media Law. It really sunk in what was happening when I was turning left on to Medary Avenue. In class, our professor talked about how that day would affect the media. My next class was Spanish, and the advanced class before us had been watching the news in Spanish. That teacher turned it to English for us and we watched the screen in silence, shocked. Our teacher came in and said it was sad but class had to go on. I wanted to walk out then and I still wish I would have.
The next few days were spent glued to CNN, trying to make sense of what happened. Friends skipped work, class, and going out to watch the replay of the second plane smashing into the tower over and over. Cars lined up for hours to fill their tanks with a gas; people were afraid there’d be a shortage. It was impossible to buy a flag anywhere. The newspaper printed flags and I believe there are probably still some of those up in Brookings yet today. On Sept 12th, Megan and I drove to every convenience and grocery store trying to find a national newspaper. We were finally successful at one of the hotels across the interstate. I still have it.
Exactly three months later, I flew back from a weekend in Florida with Jon. I wondered why my flight was so empty, but Jon didn’t tell me that it was because it was December 11th until I arrived home again.
We’re flying home on September 12th for Brad and Niki’s wedding. Now, I’m kind of glad that it’s not on Sept 11th. It’s not something I’d really care to think about for hours over the ocean. I wonder if plane ticket sales still decrease on that date now. I bet they do.
Tags: home
September 11th
by emily on September 9, 2007
Just for fun
Jon and I have been sitting on the couch on our laptops, as usual. This time it’s been fun though, not for work!
This site is even funnier if you work with digital billboards every day.
