Updates from the Far East

Introducing the first baby on the Peng side of the family!

2007-05-26T07:11:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Mei Mei and Dirk on the birth of their beautiful baby girl ...

MIKA PAUSCHERT

Even from Day 1, she's looking pretty cute, huh?

Looking even cuter on day 2 when she's sleeping and all snuggly looking. Since Val already posted her "I'm an Aunt" blog, Tanya felt that she had to add an extra picture as an excuse of posting her "I'm an Aunt" blog. :)

Mika, we can't wait to see you when we get back!

Wanna take a field trip? Let's explore forestry, architecture and fish

2007-04-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

FIRST, a trip to visit some friends who study horticulture at this famous forestry university. They have a nicely landscaped university with some beautiful BJ Springtime moments:

NEXT, Tanya shares her interest in architecture. Here are two work-in-progress "sightings" she gets to see while riding on the bus around the city:

1) 2008 Olympic Stadium. Personally not too impressed because it looks like a huge metal donut, but nevertheless an iconic structure for this city and it's been amazing to see it being built. On our view from the freeway, we can even see the tiny workmen on the top of it!

What it currently looks like:

What it's supposed to look like in 2008:

2) CCTV Headquarters, designed by Rem Koolhaas, one of my favorite architect/designers. My sister and cousin saw the design for this building on display at MOMA NY, and here it is in the flesh.

What it currently looks like (view from the freeway)

What it's supposed to look like by 2008:

LAST but certainly not least, a marketplace that was like fish heaven for Rich.

A saltwater tank that was so PRETTY (can you see Nemo?)

Richard's favorite fish: The Pleco, a.k.a. cleaner fish (like in Finding Nemo, but in real life they are freshwater tropical fish). They are the ones sucking on the filter in the back right corner, with polka-dots, leopard print, zebra print, etc.

The king of all plecos (hint: it's not the bright fish in the front, but the one stuck to the back glass). This beast's head was bigger than Tanya's, and even Richard's also! Here Tanya poses in horror. Can you guess how much this fish costs?

50,000 RMB!!!!!! That's about $6,500 U.S.! For a fish!

This week is May holiday week, which is a labor holiday. We get a whole week off! So stay tuned cuz we'll definitely be posting some more stuff soon.

Missing you all!! :)

2007-04-17T00:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, so we thought we lost blogspot too, but today it is semi-available, so we'll take advantage and post some random pictures.

Over a month ago, we celebrated the Lantern Festival here. We heard there were going to be some beautiful lanterns hanging in a big park. We ventured out on this very cold and windy night and arrived only to see many people streaming OUT because it was closing. So we didn't see any lanterns, but we did see almost everyone there wearing these devil horns.

AND, we had a celebrity moment! We can't seem to go anywhere with this one without attracting attention ...

After they interviewed our famous friend about her thoughts on the Lantern Festival, the attention-hungry "mang-nes" (babies of the family in Korean ... sorry, that is Tanya butchering the spelling) made sure they were caught on tape too:

Richard is certain that if they aired anything from this interview, they would have aired the clip of him yelling, "I LOVE CHINA!" in the background.

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In other news, spring has arrived here in BJ! It's so good to see COLOR again.

Last but not least, we were really lucky to be able to celebrate Easter here in all the usual ways. We were also able to hold two parties for friends here to share this holiday. Sorry, I only have one bloggable thing from Easter ...

1) Special presentation with Chinese instruments -- can you name this song? :)

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Look who Tanya ran into!

2007-03-17T05:48:00.000-07:00

Tanya writing:

When we left for BJ, I found out that Bonnie, an elementary school friend who I haven't seen since h.s. grad night 1998 would be in the area around February. When February rolled around, we got into touch through email. But before we could even set up a time to meet, we randomly ran into each other at the International place of gathering on Sunday. Luckily we both pretty much look the same. We ended up meeting up for dinner later that week and started catching up on our life over the past NINE years. Yup, time really flies, and writing nine years makes me feel old. Anyways, If any of you know reading this also know Bonnie, she is doing great! She's on her way to becoming a wonderful doctor and is still the same sweet girl I knew in high school.

Here we are at a university we walked around in. We did a lot of walking that day because of the nice weather, although looking at the picture it looks pretty typically BJ gray. This is just one of many Mao statues in this big city and probably country.

Goodbye, Xanga ...

2007-03-15T21:58:00.000-07:00

We're not 100% sure, but we think Xanga is no longer accessible in our neck of the woods. The internet is working fine, but we can no longer log into our site. So ... hello, Blogspot or Blogger, or whatever your name is.

Please come here for all future updates!