Some favorite folks in Asia!

These are some recent pictures I've snapped of Archie with some of his favorite folks in Asia. The list is nowhere near comprehensive, though. Archie loves everyone he meets, and we have lots more friends than these! He also wishes he could be held and photographed with all his friends and family back home!

Archie with Han Chengzi, Leslie's first Chinese teacher

Archie with Li Teacher (our current Chinese teacher)

The above two pictures are some of our Korean-American friends here

Just because he's cute on the little throne!

Mom still counts as a favorite person, right?

Grandpa DeJ loves it when we capture Archie doing "You're #1" in pictures!

Cuddling with Daddy!

A day in the life of a baby!

OK! These events actually took place over a few days, but you get the point.


I LOVE TOYS! I have discovered my toy box. While Mommy was cleaning her room, I scooted over to the toy box, grabbed the sides, and forced my little body up to see what was inside. It's the closest I've ever come to pulling into a standing position (and I'm still probably a ways off).


Yum! I love bananas! I can eat them like a big boy now, too. (No more banana mush for me!) This is thanks to a nice fruit vendor who saw Mommy carrying me in her front pack carrier and thought I looked so cute she just couldn't resist grabbing a banana off her display rack, peeling it, and giving it to me before Mommy could stop her and tell her I was too little to eat it by myself. Oh well, it kept me occupied on that bus trip home.

One of my aunties watched me the other day while Mommy was teaching. She has a little boy four months older than me. I learned to scoot in his little walker. He's too big for it now. Maybe he'll teach me to walk soon. He's pretty good at it.


This was my first time riding in a shopping cart. I somehow managed to get my leg through the wrong bars. Mommy and Daddy were worried I would cry while they pulled my foot out but Daddy kept hitting the tickle spot on the bottom of my foot so I laughed through the whole process. Let's do it again!

Poll Results: Culinary Delights Part II

And the answer is: DOG MEAT AND CREAM CHEESE



What did you say?
43% A Beijing Roast Duck and Sliced Cheese (While I do like it, you have to go to a fairly nice restaurant to get Beijing Roast Duck, and it's not served with sliced cheese.)
14%PB&J (I was just kidding. Peanut butter is not a delicacy here. We have Skippy brand with the label in characters!)
29%Dog Meat and cream cheese - GOOD GUESSING
7%Fresh fish I watched them kill although that would be an option here.
7%Chicken feet and mayo (This is likely but not the right answer. Chicken feet are extremely popular here. They like them many different ways including fresh and pickled. The chicken feet and chicken head are the most expensive parts at the grocery store. Did you know America exports a lot of chicken feet overseas? The good news for me: breast meat is cheap because it's "boring")

We went with some friends to a local dog meat restaurant. We ordered dog soup, fried dog with peppers and steamed dog. The steamed dog was my favorite although it was all good. Dog meat actually tastes quite a bit like dark turkey meat. The flavor is great! The cream cheese on my leftover sandwich was an "American" innovation because I like cream cheese and I had just made my monthly trip to a store that has imports so I could buy some.

The dog soup is in the bowl with the liquid and the fried dog with peppers are on the white plate towards the back. Below is a close up of the steamed dog. YUM!!!

Assimilation

One of our favorite things about living overseas, is experiencing the cultural differences. (This is true most of the time anyway; sometimes if we come at them from the wrong perspective, we can get a little annoyed.) Most parents here believe that diapers (no matter how frequently changed) are bad for a baby's bottom. Therefore, the kids run around in split pants and do their business wherever they happen to be. I think Archie got our hardwood floors wet twice during the shoot. Although he was embarrassed at first and wouldn't look at the camera :) he turned around and smiled for me after awhile.
When Archie is not posing for pictures, he enjoys such activities as playing with his Olympic Mascot doll, Fuwa Nini.

If you haven't voted in the Culinary Delights poll yet, you only have a few more days. I'll post the correct answer June 30.

Culinary Delights: Part II

OK, here we are! Stop 2 on our Culinary Delights tour. (Check out Stop 1 here.) What's for lunch? Take the poll below. Next week, I'll post the correct answer. (I'll try to post some cute pictures of Archie in the meantime.)

What kind of sandwich am I eating?
	Beijing roast duck with sliced cheese
	Peanut butter and jelly (a real luxury here)
	Dog meat and cream cheese
	Fresh fish that I watched them kill
	Chicken feet and mayo
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Quality Issues

During the first few weeks we were overseas, we went through two mops, one broom and dustpan, a complete silverware set, two vegetable peelers and about a million other home gadgets that were made with exceedingly poor quality. Since then, we've learned some exceedingly helpful tips for shopping in Asia. Number One: Don't buy the cheapest thing you see even if it is only $0.30 at the local $0.30 store - you'll regret it! While in Thailand in February, Hunter and I purchased Archie his first stroller. We figured because we were in a nice department store, we could forgo our number one rule. Oops!

Poor Archie, he was sitting in it on Saturday and it just collapsed in about three places! (He got a surprised look on his face but wasn't hurt at all - no worries!)

Off we set for the local baby store and purchased a Combi brand stroller. I don't know if Combi is really the best brand on the planet, but it sure seems like it after the last stroller. (I did a Google search and couldn't even find the brand name on Stroller #1!) Archie loves the footrest because he strains forward as hard as he can in the harness, leans over the bar, and pushes up with his feet to ride in a standing position. I love the umbrella shade to protect his skin from the sun and the ease with which I can collapse it. Daddy loves it because it has BIG wheels (that hopefully won't break on the rough ground).

When Archie is not riding around in his stroller, he likes to ride on Daddy's shoulders :)

The Real Deal

As promised, here are the best pics from my first outdoor photo shoot of the season.