Bring on the Night

Finally got hold of some pig’s feet for the missus to cook. The picture below is the end result after +2 hours boiling with cinnamon, anise seeds, garlic and ginger.

Pigs feet with cinnamon, anise seeds, garlic and ginger.... Looks erhmm...uhm, smells great, tastes... well - I dont know...

If you live in China or are Chinese, you might not find this anything special, but here in Denmark pigs feet is not considered normal food. Doesn’t look too inviting too me and I probably won’t eat em, but as long as my wife is happy. Actually smells wonderful with the spices C used, but I’d rather eat a nice bloody steak with a glass of red.

Tags: china vs denmark

Does this often happen to you too?

My wife just called from home telling me to grab some pigs feet in the supermarket for her on my way home….

Only old ladies normally go for those here in DK now that we write 2010.

Tags: china vs denmark, marriage

Overheard today:

• Half asleep I notice C come into the bedroom. She takes a quick glance at my leg and mumbled: “What a big leg – looks very tasty!” (I know she weren’t talking to me).
• Watched C check out a strange plate of hash-looking stuff her girlfriend gave her while muttering: “This is partially made of donkey skin. It says it helps you regain hemoglobin after recent blood loss”.

Tags: china vs denmark, marriage, wife

If anyone is interested: As expected the runaway dog never showed up. No idea about it’s fate, but C may end up being correct.

To compensate for the loss, C’s parents now have a new puppy. Hopefully this one will not be lost as easily as the first one. C told me about the new replacement, while she chatted with her parents on Skype. My first reaction was that she should tell her parents to buy a real leash this time. Time will tell if they save the money or learn the lesson.

Tags: China, dog

Here’s some shots. Most memorable is the one where my dad took the kids hand and I got a quick shot of it. My dad is 80 years old.

By the way – people say the baby is cute, but they also say he looks a lot like me. I’m as confused as you.

Tags: baby, Mark

Finally allowed to leave the hospital today. Home at about 2pm.

We’re both wasted. C both mentally and physically. I have the benefit of getting more continuous sleep that last 5 days, which gives me an edge. Tbh though, I have slept like shit the last month or so and it shows. After C went to the hospital it just worsened. Now we’re home and can finally try to find our own rhythm with baby stuff and not be dependent on the short calm moments we found at the hospital. It has been very noisy and exhausting there with constant interruptions hence lacking sleep for C.

I have to give credit to the staff at the hospital though. They have been fantastic. Always helpful and patient. Equipment and support stuff like diapers, baby clothes and so on, has been plentiful and in good shape too.

After 3 days being “locked up” gets to you though. Tiny noises slowly become a pain in the butt, and we really started longing for our home, where most noise can be controlled by a remote. It really is silent here when we close the door. What we can’t control are things that need doing. Diaper changing, baby feeding and of course feeding the zombie-like parents.

C just hit the sheets and I will too soon. Since we came home, I have sat down trying to relax plenty of times, and I may have gained 30 mins all in all. I shouldn’t complain at all, C really got her number up. She mostly slept 1½-2 hour every night before she’s was woken up by hospital staff to feed our tiny troublemaker. In the day time, I’ve seen her sleep perhaps 1½ hour straight but ½ hour is most likely before interrupted by noise out of our control. My best shot is that she might manage to get 2 hours of sleep in the day time and its not near enough to make up for the lousy nights she had there. Being home will help in the long run, but so far, it has been even busier.

1 hour ago I stopped a 1½ hour baby feeding marathon where the little bugger just kept sucking the life out of a bottle.

So we’re home, and that’s a start.

Tags: baby, home, Mark

Tags: Mark

As you might have guessed, I’m extremely busy visiting C and our new son at the hospital all day long. C has to stay there with the kid, since he is under observation. Nothing serious, just newborn stuff. If everything works out well, they’ll be home tomorrow, Monday. You never know, since I’ve heard that story from the hospital staff the last 2 days. They are pretty thorough and I have to say that I respect that. So even if we have to stay some days longer, it’s better than going home too early.

Meanwhile my time goes with driving to the hospital in the morning and home again in the evening (today from 8.00 am to 11.00 pm). I drop out to find some food from time to time, but other than my time goes with running errands for C, talk about the baby and baby related stuff and of course help out with diaper changing and you name it. Nothing I can’t do so far except feed the little bugger directly from the source, which turned out to be an issue this evening keeping me there 2 hours late, while we tried our best to suit him. Only to find out that he might be full, but not exactly happy with me trying to comfort him so C could catch an hour. So I had to cave and put him back to C’s “food storages” and he finally calmed down.

Btw, if you wonder it hurts like hell to breastfeed. No, I haven’t tried myself, but it doesn’t take a genius to learn that from watching and listening to C. It’s extremely painful and I can vouch that C is not a crybaby about it. No gory details, but I could easily bring some. I’ve been eavesdropping near other women there, and I haven’t heard one not say: OMFG or God damn!

Uhm… Better split. Time to get some sleep so I can get back to business tomorrow.

Ps.: And – yes – there will be pictures, when I get around to it.

Tags: baby, birth, hospital, Mark

Chances are now 1 to a handful of billions that I am.

Yesterday, Thursday the 11. february 2010 at 18:16, C gave birth to a healthy boy. She went 14 days past expectancy, and thus the kid is nearing a whopper. 4.2kg, which is about 400g over average. Hard toiling for C who was extremely exhausted. She seemed fine when I was thrown out of the hospital at 11.45 pm, though.

Couldn’t sleep after 5.20, when I recieved a late congratulations sms. So up and about collecting stuff to take to the hospital at 8.00, when its open for dads again.

More later….

Tags: baby, birth, Mark

So, my parents-in-law bought a dog last summer. They were very fond of it, but a few days ago it ran away. My wife’s father was walking it and suddenly some firecrackers set of, and so did the dog. Its leash broke only being a line my in-laws made themselves.

Now they blame themselves for not buying a “real” dog leash. And so does my wife. Even though she never saw the dog, besides on a picture, she was teary-eyed when she found out.

If they lived here in Denmark, they would hang pictures of the dog in the local supermarket and normally the dog would soon be returned by whoever found it. But this is China. My wife suggested posting pictures around town to her family (after I pressured her to it), but they just shrugged their heads knowing that the dog was most likely lost forever.

My wife explained it to me: “If someone finds the dog, they keep it and try to sell it on. Chinese people (not trying to generalize here, but that’s how she said it) have no moral and only care for money! I’m worried that if a restaurant gets the dog, it will be killed and served to costumers”.

She said this well-knowing that it’s not a dog breed for eating and there are no dog-meat restaurants in her hometown (afaik). Also it would take a fool not to see that it’s a playful obedient family dog.

Her faith in her fellow countrymen has faded after this. The dog has now been gone 2½ day. I try to comfort her by saying that she shouldn’t be so stuck on the dog being lost and people in her hometown being greedy and cold-hearted. Perhaps someone found it and takes care of it until they know the rightful owner?

But why don’t I feel so reassured myself?

Tags: China, dog, moral

Well, maybe not “grand”, but at least I’ll try to start writing a bit again.

As a commenter wrote to an older post, I might have to tone down my ambitions and just write when I want to, instead of writing because I feel I have to.

So that’s how it’s going to be. I’ll write when I feel like it, and else probably not.

Tags: blogging

Time of death: December 3rd 2008 – 4.00pm

If not dead, then maybe more suiting in hibernation with no deadline. You never know, but right now it feels dead as the world economy.

It has been fun, but all good things have to end.

Thanks to all those who read and commented here.

Tags: blogging

….. don’t look here. There is really nothing interesting happening here at the moment.

Tags: blogging

It’s no secret that I hate city busses and the way people behave when they enter a bus. It isn’t a secret either, that I hate repairing my bike when the tire runs flat.

Flat is exactly what you can call my bike these days. Laziness got the better of me, so I’m a certified “busee” atm. Not only do I have to get up 15mins earlier to take the bus, but I also have to endure all the negatives of bus riding.

This morning I almost strangled a woman because she… well… was egoistic.

Danish city busses have 1 entry door and 2 exits. The entry is in the front, and the two exits are in the middle and the back. Both window rows are filled with seats and there’s a path in the centre of the bus. When you enter, it’s polite to move backwards into the bus, leaving room for new travellers. This normally works ok, until people get to the middle, where the first exit door is located. Then people automatically stop and “forget” moving along, since they want to stay close to the exit. Selfish shit. When this happens, the bus driver has to get up and shout for people to move back in the bus. If he doesn’t, no one will move an inch and people can’t get in.

This morning when I entered an almost full bus, I got stuck besides a 40-50 year old woman, who decided to stop at that point. I politely made some gestures to show her that moving along would be a good idea. She moved a bit more (like 1 meter), which of course didn’t help much. So I asked her if she could move. Her response was moving yet another meter. I looked back and saw the line forming and people that couldn’t enter the bus. So I asked her again. This time if I could get past her (which at least would let me off the hook). That made her move a bit, while she tried to make room so I could get past.

Normall this is no problem, but for her, it was. Apparently no spot was good enough since I would almost touch her in the attempt (I know what you think, but I’m not that fat). At last she reluctantly let me pass (and I didn’t touch her, I swear). Then 3 metres further down the bus, I found an empty seat. A seat she would have gotten, if she had just moved along like a normal thinking person.

All this happened within 2 or 3 minutes and that was all it took to piss me off and get a lousy morning. Thank you very much selfish #%¤&#&%!.

To some this may be a small thing, but personally I find this behaviour both selfish and narrow-minded. Unfortunately it isn’t the first time I’ve been in this situation and I hate it. Why is it so hard for people to think a bit ahead and make room for others too? It’s not the first time I’ve seen this woman on the bus either, so I know she’s not just a newbie. She is just an egoistic asshole.

This is just one of the hundred reasons why I hate using public transportation. You have to rely on people to use their brain. I better bite the sour apple and fix my bike while I’m still sane.

Tags: bitching, bus, egoism

Maybe it’s just me, but the last week, I have noticed an increasing number of girls that decided to wear short skirts and pantyhose. This disregarding the fact that in the same time, it has become pretty cold in the mornings and after the dark sets in (approximately 0-5 degrees celcius).

C has noticed it too. Being a Chinese, she find it very odd and irrational this time of the year. Its like girls here are desperate to use their skirts before it is definitely too late. I would have argued that it already was and expect plenty of colds to hit sporadically among the female race the next weeks ahead.

Its not that I’m complaining or anything (I am a man, aren’t I?), but got to wonder what sparks this behaviour.

Am I the only Dane that has noticed this trend?

Tags: China, clothes

…. You should have been around me yesterday. After 4-5 hours of writing a review of the new Acer Predator on my laptop, it suddenly died. Bluescreen and all.

It tried to reboot but nothing helped. Couldn’t even get to where it repaired the hard drive. The bluescreen gave random error descriptions every time, but it looked like hardware trouble. I figured it could be either memory or hard disk issues, so removed half the memory twice, with no effect.

Then after repetitive retries, it suddenly booted only to crash as I pointed my mouse on the document with the review. Doh.

The semi-success made me a bit optimistic, so tried rebooting plenty of times and at last it came around and I managed to drag the document to C computer (on the net). Then as I released the mouse… crash.

The document was saved though, and even though I still lost worth 1½ hours work (didn’t save a long time, as I was caught up in writing), I saved twice that. Better than starting all over, right?

It seems that I got the machine up again, and by deleting some .tmp files in the user catalogue. Still crossing my fingers. That will be decided by trial and error the next days.

Still a major DOH, and yes, I almost cried….

Tags: computer

So I’ve re-opened my Facebook account. Could have sworn I wouldn’t, but turns out it’s getting an important part of the net for many people.

It’s still flooded with games and annoying info, but guess I just have to get use to that to get the good stuff from it. The good stuff being keeping up with and renewing old connections, which is the part I really like. I’ll have to look into the privacy and general settings to keep the worst “spam” at bay though.

Tags: facebook

This may have interest for the Danes reading this blog.

For curious non-Danes: don’t think more about it. It’s a petition for Danes being allowed double citizenship, which is not legal atm.

Tags: China, citizenship, Denmark

Think I have to re-evaluate our marriage.

This evening as I helped my wife out with some Danish translations she accidentally called me 教师 (teacher).

Tags: china vs denmark, wife

Here I should have been writing a whole lot about how we tried to get our money back from the Chinese bank. As you may know, they decided to “withdraw” the fee we already paid here in Denmark from the transferred cash, instead of getting them from the Danish bank as the OUR agreement states they should.

As you can guess I won’t write any of those things.

Why? Well, C finally caved and agreed that we’d probably never see the money anyway, and the trouble of trying wasn’t worth the possible refund. We’ve been getting nowhere, and the ICBC isn’t helpful at all. So we gave up. Hands down. You win our money this round you no good lazy crooks ICBC.

From now on we’ll follow the advice of commenters here, and use the SHA code for future transfers. Not happy to be “forced” to do so, but that’s the only way to make sure our money isn’t stolen unexplainably lost.

I’d like to add this to the good people in charge of transfer procedures at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China though: lazy two-timing wankers!

Tags: bank, China, china vs denmark