Zooom zooom zoooooooom....

Here's a shot of the boys going down the ramp!

Slapped Cheek Rash

Nate had a few bites on his hands on sunday and I thought, oh no the mosquitoes are back already and it isn't even spring, the downside of a warm winter. Over the next few days the spots increased a bit and i thought they were probably mosquito related. Today he woke up with one very red cheek and I was hoping maybe it was because he slept on that cheek. Then both cheeks turned red!

I remembered that Emily had this slapped cheek condition and went to check it out on google. Well its the # 5 rash, hits kids 4 to 12 and apparently will go away... but its not supposed to be itchy. I send Ike off to school, got lucky with the dr and snuck in before his first 9am appointment. The symptoms are not consistent with Slapped cheek rash... more like bitten by something. So he is on some antihistamine and anti itch cream but it sure doesn't look like its subsiding yet.

He doesn't have a fever and fell asleep in the car. While at home with Mabo he found his train set from Idan and Ronni and this time he seemed more mesmerized by the train moving back and forth and getting little balls in the process. Even Ike at the end of the day sat with him watching the trains go back and forth and picking up balls and passing to thomas, percy and harold.

I've signed the kids up for more Chinese classes, found a teacher advertising at the Chinese grocery store and we will try going to her house on Tues, wed and thurs for an hour, both kids and me and see if we get into the swing of the language. I may then cancel Nate's Friday chinese class where he attends it alone and seems rather unhappy. I also contacted another Chinese teacher who will come to the house on Sundays to play with them in Chinese.

Today I excitedly went and attend my first day of one on one Chinese class, with my granddad's written works as study material... I need to find another teacher, the one I have is from mainland china and they have moved to jiantizi whereas the material I want to cover are all in fantizi. Maybe Nate's teacher will take me in!

I have been working harder at using chinese with the boys. Tonight I heard nate recite 1 to 13 in chinese before sleeping... must remember to recite more numbers.

Perfect afternoon part III

Finally caught a fish, its a bass of some sort, quite a good meaty fellow, perfect for steam fish but it got lucky too and was thrown back in.

Instead we had fried rice. I should have taken a picture of Ike sitting on the mat and feeding himself happily. He was happy to throw rocks in the dam and to play with the beagle pup.

Nate learning the finer points of fishing...

We had a great zip back on the golf cart and then nate stepped on a small piece of glass, a bit of blood, alot of tears. Ike then grabs some leafy plant and gets a splinter! I removed half but the other half I only managed to remove back home.

The ride back we encountered some traffic but I took the back route and managed to cut thru a few shortcuts and got back without the kids falling asleep. Very nice afternoon! Thanks Christine!!

Perfect afternoon part II

I can't believe how many new fangled fake baits there are, Ray showed us a wobbly jelly like fish and also a small octopus... they look quite real. He doesn't use any worms or shrimps... tho Kelly's nanny packed him some shrimps, she was sure that his lack of a bite was from the fake bait he used.

I think people who fish seem to like to fool the fish, Ray was tossing in the bait and then making it swim pass the fish a few times. Then the fish suddenly took to the bait.

While waiting for Ray to catch something, the kids ran around the golf course chasing those polka dotted birds and ike had a great time practising his run down the slopes.

Then we saw a golf cart come... and it delivered food!!! It was definitely not a rough it picnic. When we got there the drink station was already up and a table and an umbrella!

Perfect afternoon part I

Today we got lucky and was invited by Christine to Eagle Canyon for a fishing and picnic afternoon. Every september, they close the golf course for maintainence and so she and her family usually enjoy a fishing day at the dam. her husband Liu loves to fish. We got greeted by the golf club manager, the boys had ice cream and then we headed out in 3 golf carts, racing thru the golf course, it is quite a hilly one so we were going up and down, lots of giggles from the boys. I had to drive with my left hand and use my right to hold on to Ike. That was already immensely fun!

It was windy enough to put up a few kites... I think I will start collecting kites again to fly with the boys as they are now probably old enough to do so. I gave my last bundle of great kites to a kite flying friend in Singapore before we left 5 years ago. I should build the collection up again, it is a really fun activity on a golf course with no golfers.

Here is Uncle Ray, stringing up his fishing pole.

Art from Africa

Here is Ike's first artwork that I have brought home that will go into his scrap book, which reminds me I need to try and put that in some organised state. Nate really likes looking at his old works and pics, I really should get cracking!

nate did the "mounted" lion head, its from paper mache over a balloon. Its hung up in the toy room. While bubbi was here she helped us get a higher and bigger table for the boys to work on and some chairs as well. We can do proper art and craft there now.

The last is photography art, from my N82... a barber shop in the middle of nowhere... this is more like the africa I had expected to see. Speaking of which, loren has headed to nigeria today and will be back on sunday morning.

Weekend activity

We took the boys swimming at heated pool at virgin on both days and will make it a routine. Ike has swimming lessons starting mid Sept but i will have to be in the pool.

He is now the perfect copy cat, what gege does, he will do too. He was so upset over the weekend that he did not have a swimsuit like gege. His terrible 2's are also quite shall I say, terrible. His vocab is still not increasing at any fast pace tho he said a 2 word sentence today.

Here's shots of them picking rocks at the gemstone area in gold reef city, ike and his appletiser in a coffee cup and them with dada at the birdpark on sunday. The two beijing olympic hats from one of loren's clients was a really good gift!

Karate Kid

Nate got his white belt a week ago and this week he got his karate uniform. He seems to really like this sport and I think I may have mentioned it before but he can recite the 5 principles of karate like self control, etiqutte, jeez I only know 2!

Ike got a karate shirt too, here is a shot of us on the Gold reef city ferries wheel. I think I may be too old for that, I actually felt a fear of heights. So much for parasailing, paragliding and parachuting!

Warm winter

We have had a really warm winter this year, with the amount of rain, everyone had predicted quite a cold winter but I think we only had one cold front and another one coming but its almost september!!

Now everyone is predicting a scorching summer.

Many trees have leaves again. The trees in front of our house have leaves a month earlier than last year. Here's a pic of my cauliflower, which hopefully survives the heat. Yes those are Nate's action figures under my vege patch, anything to get them to keep me company while I garden.

Some slash and burn in our area to control the weeds and the plants have resprouted.

The chickens in Nate's school have already hatched a brood of chicks, the duck or goose here has a nest of eggs.

Life before Beijing

Here are some shots that I didn't get a chance to upload before leaving for Beijing. This is Marcia with Ike on the swing, Nate is in Chinese class. Nate sometimes likes the class and sometimes not. The teacher has said that Nate may not feel confident in speaking in a Chinese environment because he doesn't have the vocabulary, I understand how he feels I absolutely hated going to Chinese school and one of the Chinese kindergardens in Penang, I remember it being an isolating experience but unfortunately, it is the language of the future, so I have stepped up my use of the language with them and of course I wish I had put more effort into my own Chinese language journey as a child.

Ike shakes his head vehemently except for a few chinese books, I got them Chinese Nemo, Chinese Toy Story and so far they are watching it. I felt in Beijing that they were missing out on their language development.

One interview I had to do in Beijing with a cartoon scholar... at the end of it, I felt like my head was going to burst. The other side probably had a low view of my abilities and kept saying I had done better than they expected. hmmm.

This weekend though I found another contact to another Chinese teacher, she will come to the house and will play with the kids in a less formal setting than Nate's Friday Chinese class.

Anyway, here is bubs and ike laughing away and Marcia and the tall statue of mandela at sandton square.

Biker Gang

In the afternoons our circle resembles a mini biker gang hangout.... here's is a pic of Ike with his new ducky print helmut, of course 20 years from now its likely to be a shiny harley and tattoos on his big biceps and slinky girl at his back seat... for now its slinky moms with the biker boys.

I am a late joiner this year, after Beijing... though i have not caught sight of any alcoholic bevies among the biker mom's, I hear lots of talk and references to drink, which can make one feel rather thirsty. Here is Bubs the benevolent female leader (oh china vocab has gotten to me) of the biker gang mom's, don't be fooled by the looks, underneath those long sleeved shirts are several brand new tattoos. Esp. cute is the chihuahua one on a bike.

Usually I watch as Ike zips away, so from the back, yesterday I got to observe his facial expression from the front... they range from wide eyes with puckered lips to squinty eyes and gritted teeth. Luckily he seems to know how to use his shoes as brakes. I think i continue my view of his back than his front. Though I will try for one video shot of the front hopefully soon.

I still wonder how come these bikes have not been sold all over the world yet...

Back to Joburg

Its cloudy here!! and cold... the only cold front I think this winter, well not even as cold as a cold front... just cloudy and cooler. Apparently will last till the end of August.

Bubbi survived and is still alive... Here are the boys zipping down like a motorcycle gang! A few tattoos, long hair and the look will be completed.

The school theme this week is about the environment, Nate will be going on a field trip to pick garbage this week. I also "cleaned up" one worm farm for show and tell. I can't believe I have harvested about US$100 worth of worms... I need to sort out their "holding pen" and the worm farm could yield me better returns than my investment decisions!

Also finally got round to sending out the invites for the boy's birthday party. Am so glad I hired a party planner, otherwise I will be running around like a headless chicken.

Yesterday was monday here but it was a bit like Friday the 13th... Bubbi missed a step and had scratches this morning on her arms, a matching bump as nate on her forehead... Loren had a bad tummy ache and at one point was shivering in bed and fainted in the bathroom... oh and Ike is teething a big molar and wakes up at night as well. Its 9pm now and tonight seems peaceful.

Olympic Fever, then Hong Kong

While in Beijing I also got to sneak away to a number of markets... the toy and stationary market, which was quite fun to shop for the boy's loot bag for their birthday. The flower market... got to check out all the stuff being produced for the world, including little gardening sets, seeds... The Hutong's which are old houses with small alleys now converted into unique shops. There were two I particularly liked, a shop that sold wraps and shawls, which i didn't buy any as my bag was already quite full by then and a shop that sold wood block prints, I am convinced my granddad's Door God ones will do well commercially, otherwise, guess what everyone will be getting for hannuka?!

China won the Men's Fencing gold and we were there to watch it. There was great atmosphere, with the home crowd (and us) shouting ZHONGGUO JIAYU!! with feet stamping and the wave. But it was quite a close fight so it was also quite nerve wrecking. The women's basketball finals were like that as well.

The "banquet" was held in an old refurbish Hutong, I really like these old buildings and what they have done architecturally to modernise them. The blue cover and ceramic holder is a yogurt drink.

We spent 2 days in Hong Kong after beijing and that was very nice too. We got to see alot of old friends, Bill (the speaker at our wedding) now lives there and I got to see a very pregnant Julie and Junko and Ed... the two calmest people I know until they had kids!!!

Big summer sale in HK but no time and no bag space. We tried to eat as much sushi as we could and a meal there would have bought us 7 high quality meals back here. Asia is still an expensive place!

I got to meet, I think, the printers for our limited edition print (they can print with digital printing but on rice paper and are working with several Chinese museums). They can also collaborate in designing the few books I have in mind to publish. So much to do!!!

More Olympics

The city was not as polluted as blowing black gunk out of nose, in fact my nose which had been gunky in SA cleared up there, I like the humidity and felt like i could breathe again. It rained on day one and the last day of our stay,not bad, overcast the whole time otherwise. Our friends who stay there says they see blue sky only 20% of the time. hmmm.

Here are some pics from the forbidden city, it was quite a treat to be listening to my 5000 years of chinese history and being in China. The signs in the forbidden city have 2 languages, the mongol and chinese. I also listened to the part on the mongols while there. I also got to eat my fill of noodles! :)

Here is the dish for the peking duck... at Dadong restaurant, much fancier than I remember it!

I also got to meet up with a cartoon scholar, who hopefully i have convinced to do a much larger section on my granddad in his compendium history of Chinese cartoons. He is also going to write a few newspaper articles on Huang Yao and after his two main projects, I think he is interested enough to spend time focusing on Huang Yao.

I also met a guy who can help us send someone into the interior of China to hopefully find the 12 remaining works that are missing. A nice surprise tho, he brought me a book from Guiyang that has found my granddad's original set of cartoons that were donated to the art museum in 1941 and this publisher has found the set in 2005, republished it with explanations of Guiyang and the cartoons. Very pleased with this outcome. I think we will be speaking at the Guiyang cartoon symposium next year and if we are lucky we can organise to exhibit this set and maybe works that we bring along.

Beijing Olympics

Well, it was quite an interesting experience, landing in the world's biggest (and cleanest and newest) terminal. The city has much less visitors than expected as China did not approve many visa's so instead of being stampeded on, it was quite pleasant, traffic was cut down and olympic busses had special lanes.

The Sub Saharan Africa client group from Nokia were also quite a fun bunch of people, wives were allowed to tag along and so I got to go!! I didn't sleep at all on the flight and when I got there... I had been awake fro like 30 hours, got to meet up with Sharon and as she has not announced this, i will be the "big mouth" and tell all that she is now officially engaged. I have not seen her in almost 5 years so it was really quite fun. We got to see each other everyday, she took me to a nice Qipao place and my credit card was smoking after I was done there.

Our first event was gymnastics, well its very different watching the teams that are not medal winners, they seem to be falling off the beams all the time! It must be much harder to do than it looks. I decided to skip boxing since it seemed rough...

Here's Bush Sr. and his body guards pushing their way around the silk street market, I was buying a silk blanket as he showed up. Later at the lower levels, I see his body guards running and him too then a mob of people who recognized him. Silk street market is no more a street, beijing cleaned it up, built them a building and housed them there, they have also instituted rules like no pulling of tourists hands... but still quite chaotic. I am not a trinket buyer but I came across one store that would be closing down and got a bunch of pearl bracelets and pendants for a unbelievable price. Sorted all my small presents!