You're looking at the highlight of my birthday weekend -- a traditional Western breakfast prepared by my talented husband on a very balky one-burner hotplate with a mind of its own. 

Why would I blog about something as prosaic as poached eggs on toast? Because obtaining and assembling the ingredients for Western meals takes a bit of effort here. We found that bottle of Heinz ketchup at a newly-opened mall and it has pride of place on the table like it's the latest Beaujolais or something. The bacon is very lean but it smells and tastes like bacon. The hash browns are made with red onion instead of white onion, which is harder to find around here. 

It's been a while since you heard anything about our gustatory adventures. Ross and I grew up with the old favorites -- sweet and sour chicken balls, egg foo yung, fried rice, egg rolls and fortune cookies. And you know what?  They're tasty and I'd still eat them. But of course we get a chance to try a lot of different things here in China. Last week we went to a restaurant with cuisine from Yunnan province. Spicy and flavorful duck and even spicier pork. A lot of peppers gave their lives for this one meal. And the chef brought out a complimentary tureen of a mild-tasting vegetable soup that was purple in color. 

In the past seven days I've been a guest for three different delicious meals, including traditional hot pot served in a copper pot heated by coals, local Shandong cuisine in a countryside restaurant, and a seafood in a private banquet room. We had tender and succulent spring rolls that were quite unlike anything we'd have before. More clams? Yes, please. The delicious variety of vegetables makes it a pleasure to eat our veggies. And as long as you're not fussy about encountering a head or a foot (of a chicken that is)  in a bowl of chicken stew, the chicken dishes are great.

Hail to thee, Zibo Vocational Institute
The light of knowledge guides
Thy sons and daughters....

Actually I don't think there is a school song, and "Zibo Vocational Institute" doesn't lend itself to rhyme. But when I pedal my bike along the tree-lined streets of the campus, I have a pleasant feeling of being in a 1950's movie about campus life.

We've been living here on campus for over two months now. Our new apartment is made of two renovated dormitory rooms joined together. The students usually live six to a room, so we have the same amount of room that 12 students would have. We have a small but functional kitchen, a spacious living room and bedroom, and in the shower (cue angelic choir) a real shower, instead of the gravity-fed trickle shower in our previous apartment that, as Ross put it, could hardly get you wet. 

We moved in just as the semester was starting up, so here's Ross pulling his suitcase across the plaza, just like the hundreds of other students arriving at the campus. We live on the same floor as the other foreign teachers (there are four of us, plus two spouses).  ZVI has three campuses, one of which features a large artificial pond stocked with lots of goldfish.