Matt and Angel:
From the Midwest to the Middle Kingdom
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Busy Holidays

10/30/2018

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Ironically, holidays - a time when we take a break from daily life - usually end up making us busier! Even though I'm not working this year, the past month has still been super busy due to the holidays. At the end of September, China celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival and then the first week of October is the Chinese National Day Golden Week.

Matt got a week off, so we traveled to Qingdao to visit some friends and give him a chance to spend some relaxing time in Qingdao since he didn't get to enjoy it much while being so busy at work there last year. We had some nice meals, got to hike a little bit, visit the beach near where we used to live, and hang out with many friends. We finished the trip off by getting food to go from one of our favorite restaurants in Qingdao - Burger and Bun.
The trip was a lot of fun, but unfortunately on the first day, as we were getting off the train, I didn't "mind the gap" when I was looking behind me to grab my suitcase, and my foot slipped down into the gap between the train and platform. I fell all the way up to my thigh, so my leg was pretty bruised up and I couldn't do too much intense activity during the trip. We were really grateful that nothing was broken and that I could still walk, just more slowly than normally. So, let this be a warning to everyone: really do mind the gap like the announcements say! It took a couple of weeks, but my leg is fully healed now.

After we came home from Qingdao, I discovered that my Worm Inn had gotten infested with fungus gnats. I've been trying to starve them out by not feeding or watering the worms this month and kill off the adults by putting a bowl of apple cider vinegar and dish soap in the Worm Inn. As you can see in the photo, I've successfully killed lots of gnats, but there are still some in there. Frustrating! So, I've ordered an improved worm home that zips at the bottom and the top (whereas the one I have now just zips at the top and has a drawstring at the bottom, so that's probably where the gnats entered). I'll get the improved worm home when we go to the U.S. in December, so hopefully that will solve my gnat issues once and for all!
At the end of the holiday week, after we got back from Qingdao, it was my birthday, so Matt and I went out to a nice Italian restaurant near where we live in Tianjin. Then, the following week I experimented with making some new dishes - everything bagels and sweet potato cheesecake. The cheesecake turned out really well. The bagels were okay but definitely could be improved upon in the future. During the second week of October, we went to the Chinese church where we volunteer once a month and led music. It was my third time playing piano publicly. It went okay, but it always makes me super nervous to play in public.
The third weekend in October, Matt and I were away again, but not together this time. He had to go to Beijing for a tech conference, and I went to a women's retreat in downtown Tianjin. It was a good time of fellowship for me and a good time of learning for him but also made the month feel quite busy!

​As soon as we got back home, we had another factor to contribute to busyness. Earlier in October, our friend asked us if we would help her family by taking a dog that they had been given by another friend who moved away. Our friend's family is in a busy season right now with health problems, and it was getting difficult for them to care for this dog. Our friend knew that we were open to getting a dog eventually, so she thought this would be a perfect solution. We met the dog earlier in the month and then after our travels were finished, he came to live with us. We've spent the past week adjusting to him and getting him adjusted to us. He was already potty trained and now we're working on getting him to go to sleep later and wake up later (instead of sleeping from about 7 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. like he was used to) and we're trying to teach him to sit and fetch. He's about a year old, so he has a lot of energy but fortunately, he also doesn't mind cuddling with me during the day and taking naps in the sun. So, without further ado, meet Aka!
In addition to adjusting to life with a dog this last week, a couple of other things kept us very busy: Matt was invited to be the guest speaker at a Model United Nations meeting in downtown Tianjin last Thursday, and Friday we had several of Matt's coworkers over for a Halloween dinner party. Both events were a lot of fun but took a lot of preparation work! Now, poor Matt had to go back to the office, but Aka and I have been relaxing today and yesterday to recover from all this busyness. It's a good thing we have a lot of leftovers from the party, so I can take a little break before getting back into daily life, post-holidays.
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New "School Year"

8/29/2018

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For the first time in a LONG time, I'm not starting a real new school year this fall. It's crazy! But also kind of amazing because I get to be a student, and I don't have to pay a lot for it, thanks to YouTube! So, what am I going to do during this non-school year coming up? Here are my resolutions for the year:

Piano

While my guitar playing has pretty much gone by the wayside (it makes my fingers hurt so much and it's super hard for me to play bar chords), I've been very diligent about piano practice. I can now play several songs and use a few different patterns. I played along with Matt for a small international fellowship a few weeks ago. There's still a lot for me to learn, especially so that I can play more "fluently" without thinking too much about where to move my hands and staying in rhythm, but I'm still enjoying it and plan to keep improving my piano this year. I linked a couple of YouTube channels above that I've been using to practice with lately, in case any of you are also aspiring piano players looking for good tutorials.

Cooking/Baking (and Grocery Shopping)

Yes, grocery shopping takes a long time in China! Especially because I'm kind of cheap and don't like to pay for taxis. There are a couple of little stores really near to us, like a 5 minute walk away, but I prefer going a little further. A 15 minute walk away (or two bus stops), there's a big Chinese market with great selection and prices on all kinds of fresh raw meat, vegetables, fruit, noodles, tofu, roasted duck, etc. There's also a Metro (kind of like a European version of Costco) one subway stop away, or about a 30 to 40 minute walk away and a Japanese supermarket two subway stops away (it carries a good, cheap yogurt brand that the Chinese stores don't usually have), so when I want more Western style products (basically dairy products), I go to one of those stores. So, with my 1/2 hour or hour-long walking "commute," a trip to the market takes me a good chunk of the day. Since Matt's so busy with work during the week, I try to get most of our shopping done during the weekdays so that we can relax on weekends and not fight the crowds at the store. However, the vegetable seller I like to go to at the market did tell me I should bring him by more often, so we'll have to go sometimes on the weekend :)

With my extra time this year, I've also been working hard to learn some new dishes to make for us. So far, I've tried pad Thai, zucchini cobbler, slow cooker roasted leg of lamb, quinoa mushroom risotto, fresh tomato marinara sauce, chicken and red wine sauce, and even cinnamon crunch bagels! Matt says they've all been successful. It's been pretty fun to go through my recipe app and try new things. I've been cooking mostly Western stuff lately because our friend gave us a bottle of red wine, so I've been experimenting with dishes that use up the wine. Now, I'm going to start working my way through some new Chinese dishes. I've never been good at cooking Chinese dishes before because the style tends to be very 随便, informal, free, not following a recipe but just instinct. Well, as someone who has very little instinct for cooking, I've been watching a bunch of tutorials on YouTube about Chinese cooking. I've linked the best channel above. It's made by an American husband and a Chinese wife, and they do an awesome job explaining everything step-by-step with authentic styles and ingredients. Even if you're not in China, their channel is a great way to learn how to cook Chinese dishes. They gear it toward any English speakers, whether you're in China or overseas.

Matt's in New York this week for work, but when he gets back, I'm going to try making my first legit Chinese dish (like more complicated than fried rice legit) - 手抓饭, which is a Xinjiang style rice dish with lamb, carrots, and raisins. I'll post pictures next week if it turns out well.

Chinese

Since I've never really systematically studied Chinese before, I'm going to take the opportunity this year to go back to basics and get very rooted in things that I would have learned more deeply if I had ever taken real Chinese classes. I'm starting now with just the strokes and radicals - making Quizlet study sets and practicing writing them until I'm comfortable with all of them. I already know a lot of them with my hodge podge studying over the years, so I anticipate that after a month or so of drilling them, I'll be ready to dive back into more complicated studying. I'm working through a textbook series called New Concept Chinese and plan to join the Elementary Chinese WeChat group that my friend started for expats in China learning Chinese. I've linked to one of his videos above - another way YouTube is helping me study this year!

Cleaning

Like grocery shopping, cleaning seems to take longer in China. It seems like things get dustier more quickly, or maybe since we don't have carpet, the dust and hair are more obvious! Since I have the time, I've even been watching some of those YouTube videos that teach you hacks for cleaning. So far, I haven't had the opportunity to try many of them, but the YouTube videos are interesting. Now that our major cleaning and set-up is finished, I want to make a schedule for days to clean certain things so that the apartment stays relatively nice but I don't feel like I'm cleaning non-stop everyday.

Composting

It's been too hot to have them shipped by mail, but now that the weather is cooling down, I plan to order more red worms and restart my composting bin. When I was teaching middle school, I had no time to feed and water the worms, so eventually they dehydrated (so sad!) and I decided not to start up a bin last year since Qingdao was so humid and had so many little bugs that would have infested the compost. Now that we're back in a dryer climate and I have more time to take care of it, I'm going to try bringing my Worm Inn back to life. It's all set up in the kitchen and ready to go...just waiting for the worms to come from Taobao!

Teaching Certificate

The last thing I can think of that I'm going to try to get done in my year off is a teaching certification. I have the experience and the actual degrees, but one thing I don't have is a teaching certificate since my career came about in a less ordinary way - I had no intention of being a teacher until I became one! I don't need a certificate for university teaching in China, but I figure in case I ever want or need to go back to teaching in a K-12 situation, it would be good to have a certificate just in case since most international schools require one. I found an online program for teaching certification with the American Board that doesn't cost much and I have the time this year, so why not?
So, this post is the answer to "What are you going to do with all that free time when you're not working??" And I didn't even mention blogging above! Or many of the other daily things that keep us busy, like hanging out with friends :) These are just a few of the bigger resolutions I want to work on during this new "school year" where I get to be the student and take a break from teaching.
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Qingdao Restaurant Review: Yunnan Style Hot Pot at Lion Mall

11/29/2017

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Last month, we tried a new style of food for dinner - Yunnan hot pot. The restaurant's name is 滇草香云南原生态汤火锅 (Diān cǎoxiāng yúnnán yuán shēngtài tāng huǒguō), and it's located on the 4th floor of Lion Mall (金狮广场, jīn shī guǎngchǎng).
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For those of you who aren't familiar with hot pot, it's a style of food that's very popular in China. The usual way we've had hot pot before is for the whole table to share one or two big pots of soup broth. You can order different kinds of broths - spicy, meat, and mushroom based flavors are most common. Then, you order raw meat, vegetables, tofu, eggs, etc. that you put into the broth to cook in front of you. It's especially great in the winter since the food comes out of the soup piping hot and the steam from the soup is constantly rising up as you're waiting for things to cook. It's also a nice way to socialize as you cook and eat together over the hot pot. So, the two essentials for me in choosing to have hot pot have been:
  • It has to be cold outside because otherwise, hot pot is too hot!
  • You have to have enough time to spend eating because otherwise, hot pot takes too long to wait for everything to cook and to spend so much time socializing and eating.

After this experience at the Yunnan style hot pot restaurant, Matt and I now have a third essential when it comes to hot pot:
  • You have to eat it with at least 4 people. Otherwise, you eat way too much!
This was the first time we tried Yunnan style hot pot, and it was also the first time we tried hot pot by ourselves. It was delicious, but we definitely ate too much!

So, how is Yunnan hot pot different from other hot pots? It's mostly the same, but here were a few things that were different:
  • The free snacks they included with the meal were really good, much better than a lot of other hot pot places, and a really nice variety.
  • They included some kind of free alcoholic drink with your meal, the way some restaurants include free tea or hot water with the meal. Matt and I don't like alcohol, so I have no idea if it's good, but it was free, so that could be a plus.
  • Instead of the whole table sharing a big hot pot, you each order and get your own individual little hot pot.
  • The sesame dip and other dipping sauces that are often included for free at other hot pot places was not free at this place. However, one dip is more than enough for 2 people to share.

Otherwise, the offerings and prices at this hot pot place were quite comparable to other hot pot restaurants we've been to. 
Here is what we ordered on our visit (at least according to the English translations in the menu):
  • Jane fungus soup
  • Bone stock
  • Flowers sesame catsup stock
  • Private spice sauce
  • Beancurd knot
  • Spinach
  • Sweet potato
  • Okra
  • Perfume forgotten lamb
  • Ballfrog (Bullfrog...Chinese menus always have the hardest time spelling this, haha)

It didn't seem like that much when we ordered it, but it was a lot after we actually ate it all.
For you adventurous foodies in Qingdao, you'll be happy to know there is also a large variety of insect dishes you can order at this hot pot place. I haven't really seen so many insect/worm choices before at other hot pot places, so maybe that is a thing unique to Yunnan style hot pot. No, we did not try any of the insect/worm dishes. Bullfrog was adventurous enough for us!

One last note - there were two sets of prices for each item in the menu. One is the discount price and one is the regular price. They told us that we qualified for the discounted price, but I'm really not sure why. We asked them if it was because of the time of day or the day of the week (we went for dinner on a Sunday), but they said the discounted price is for all the time. So, I'm not really sure what's up with the two sets of prices. In all, our meal listed above was about 200 RMB (30 USD), and like I said, we ordered more than enough for 2 people.

Our overall verdict: we would definitely go back to this place (short wait, good service, great free snacks), but we can't go by ourselves again, or we'll stuff ourselves beyond capacity.
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Happy Thanksgiving!

11/28/2015

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It's been a long time since we updated our blog, but we are still alive and well, promise. Also, even better news, my surprise basil plant is still alive and well! (Even though the room we are keeping it in regularly gets down to 50 degrees F now.)
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In other plant updates, my broccoli plant is just super weird. It grew really tall, then fell over and began sprouting other plants from its weak stem. I have no idea if we will ever see or eat anything resembling real broccoli from it, but as long as it's still alive, I guess I'll keep watering it to see what happens.

One kale plant died (the one on the right), and I've been too busy/lazy to do anything with the dirt. The other kale plant is very close to dying. Most of its leaves are dead, but a few are still green, so I'm still watering it. Doubt we will ever get to eat any kale from it though.

I still have a tiny carnivorous plant left, but we haven't had any gnats since our friend put some stuff in the soil to kill the gnats. (We left him in charge of the plants while we were home this summer, and he said the DE was not cutting it, so he tried some pellet things he had used on his own plants in the past. Definitely worked to destroy our gnat population, but probably not very organic. The search for effective organic methods to destroy gnats continues...maybe we'll have better luck next season.)

So, for now, the success story of my garden is definitely the basil, which we've been able to enjoy in basil chicken and on pizza. And it's looking like it will last through the winter.

Matt has been busy with schoolwork, but so far, he's been able to earn As in all of his classes. He has been taking 2 classes at a time from Harvard's extension (online) program. He still has another year and a half left, but he has made it halfway through the program. There's light at the end of the tunnel!

I have been busy at work developing a new intensive English program for our middle school ESL students. It's been a lot of long days and nights, but rewarding to see it paying off through the students learning and growing more confident each day.

This Thanksgiving, we started off our celebration by eating a traditional Thanksgiving meal for lunch at work. Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes...all the trimmings! It was catered by Hank's, a Western restaurant in Tianjin and tasted very authentic. Best part, we were able to leave work early because of the holiday!

So, Matt and I went downtown in the afternoon and met our friends from Chicago who were visiting Tianjin for a couple of days. It was fun catching up with them and seeing their smiley baby (still smiley even jet lagging...wow!)

We spotted a new YYs Thai restaurant (very famous in Tianjin) that had opened up right next door to where we met our friends for coffee, so we spontaneously decided to have our Thanksgiving dinner Thai-style. Delicious! We had yellow lamb curry and pumpkin custard for dessert (just to make it more Thanksgivingy).

Yesterday, to celebrate Black Friday, we went to Beijing and got extra pages added to our passports. Yeah! Best Black Friday ever! (Haha, not really, though it did save us money to add the pages now instead of waiting until next year, when the prices go up.)

It was our first time visiting the US embassy, and we were a little underwhelmed. I don't know why, but I had been picturing some beautiful white colonial-style building, but it was in an ugly brown industrial building. Inside, it was set up like a typical bank or government building. Lots of windows, sterile decor, and uncomfortable metal seats. What did stand out to us is how many Chinese people were in line for visa appointments. As we came to the entrance of the building, there were a bunch of Chinese sales people shouting at us to ask what time our appointment was and if we wanted to pay to get a better appointment time. We were like...um...no thanks, pretty sure that's not going to work. It made me glad Matt planned ahead and got us an official appointment. We were able to walk right in with no problems, no lines. The embassy was very efficient in getting our passport pages put in; we didn't have to wait long, which was good since they didn't let us take any tech devices inside the building. Also, the bathrooms were very American - smelled like fresh bleach, had toilet paper you could flush, and soap. Yay!

After we left the embassy, we stopped by Haidian district (the university district in Beijing) on our way home and had lunch with our friend, Matthew. We had even more lamb (lamb for Thanksgiving is way better than turkey, btw) and had a fun time talking with Matthew and seeing his university's campus.

We finally arrived home about 13 hours after we left that morning, ready for a good night's rest.

Today, we have just been relaxing and getting some work done. A nice ending to a long holiday weekend!

We hope everyone back home had a great Thanksgiving weekend! We are thankful for all of you!

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Garden Update: Diatomaceous Earth and First Harvest

5/9/2015

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As I mentioned in my last post, our green beans got an infestation of fungus gnats last month. After about a week of trying the Castile soap insecticide spray, the gnats were still happily crawling about the soil in the green bean container. 

So I decided to give diatomaceous earth (DE) a try. I just applied it to the green beans two days ago, so I'm not sure if it's been effective yet. The way it's supposed to work is by getting underneath the gnats' exoskeletons and drying them out until they die. Apparently, the DE has to be dry before it can affect the bugs, so that makes it a little challenging when trying to decide when my plants need more water.

The day after I applied the DE to the green beans, I also found a bunch of fungus gnats in our strawberry container, even though that one is in our other room and we always keep the door closed in order to prevent pest infiltration. I guess they are either making their way to different rooms in our apartment through cracks, or they are able to come in through small cracks around the windows. 

Anyway, I have now applied DE to all of our plants except the soy beans (to use as control, since they are dying anyway due to the weird yellowing leaf thing). The DE on the smaller plants in our clothes drying room is still wet since it's a lot more humid in that room, and I've found gnats crawling around on top of it, so I at least know that this stuff isn't effective when wet. Hopefully it will dry out soon and start killing the gnats before they kill my plants. It's been cloudy and rainy here for the past few days, so I think I need a good day of bright, hot sun to dry out the DE.
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Green bean plants with DE on top of the soil to kill fungus gnats. The verdict is still out on whether it's effective.
Our soy beans are still as sad as ever. Every time a new set of leaves grow in, they look nice and green and healthy for a few days and then promptly turn yellow, rubbery, and fall off. I guess I will keep letting them grow for now until the whole plant dies and then try again next month from seed if they still don't show any signs of improvement.
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Soybean leaves still getting yellow and falling off
Meanwhile, our smaller plants are doing quite well. 

Our basil (formerly known as Malabar spinach) is really thriving and starting to smell like basil. 

Our strawberry plants are growing more sets of leaves and starting to spread out. 

Our broccoli has sprouted more leaves and is getting a little taller.

One kale plant is really growing out. The other kale plant is still quite small, but fortunately a new kale plant snuck in on the side of the container and seems to be doing better than the original plant. If it keeps growing faster, I'll remove the middle one and replace it with the one on the right side. 

Work has been super crazy lately, so I haven't had time to start a real Malabar spinach seed yet. I also want to try growing some 空心菜 (Chinese spinach) because we got a packet of seeds as a freebie from one of our Taobao orders a couple of weeks ago. It's one of our favorite vegetables, so we're excited to try and grow it, but I haven't had any free time to plant it, so that will have to wait until early June when school ends.

Here's a look at the recent growth of the smaller plants pre-DE applications:
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Basil
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Broccoli
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Strawberry plants
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Kale plants
Now, for the most exciting news of all...

We had our first harvest from the green bean plants. I only picked three beans since most of them weren't ready to be picked yet, but we couldn't wait to try them out, so Matt fried up the small serving of beans.

Today (2 days later), I picked three more, and Matt boiled those. Both times, they tasted delicious. So awesome to eat them knowing that there were no pesticides used on them.
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Garden Update: Happier Kale, Really Happy Green Beans, Sad Soy

4/24/2015

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Time for another garden update. After the application of vermicompost and more gentle watering techniques, the kale and broccoli have really started to perk up. I feel like there is hope for them to grow into yummy vegetables yet.


The strawberry seedlings are also doing well.
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Happier broccoli leaves. Still small, but looking greener and healthier.
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The bigger kale plant. Still small, but better than before.
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The smaller kale plant. Hasn't made as much progress, but at least it's still alive.
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Strawberry plant #1
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Strawberry plant #2

Funny update on the "Malabar spinach"... So like a true newbie gardener, I of course didn't mark any of my containers, thinking, "Pshhh...I'm not going to forget what I planted in each container."

After which, I promptly forgot.

So this whole time I've been thinking that the basil seeds were no good and that it must have been my Malabar spinach that had sprouted. Well, now that this little guy is big enough, I was able to compare photos online of Malabar spinach seedlings and this, and what I have sure isn't Malabar spinach. It does look an awful lot like basil seedlings, though. So I'm 99.9% sure that I have a happy, healthy basil seedling on my hands that is ready for transplant.

As soon as the bag of potting soil I ordered arrives, I'll transplant it. Meanwhile, I guess I will try to germinate the Malabar spinach again because I already have a trellis on the way for it!

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The "Malabar spinach" which is actually basil
Next, the really amazing green bean plants, now flowering in our living room.

Sadly, I discovered a couple of fungus gnats on them yesterday after work, so I made up a batch of liquid Castile soap/cinnamon spray and sprayed the leaves and top layer of the soil last night and this morning. I haven't spotted any more gnats, so hopefully it's working.

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Towering green bean plants
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Happy green leaves
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Flowers!
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So exciting!
Last up, the soy bean plants.

Since our last update, the leaves continued to yellow. They became dryer and developed a weird rubbery texture. Then last week, I can home from work to find they had fallen off the stem. I picked off the other yellowed leaves since clearly, they were not improving.

Now, a few new leaves have grown on each plant. These leaves look a little greener and healthier, but I'm still not too confident that we'll get any 毛豆 (edamame) out of these guys.

I suspect that it was actually a bad idea for me to try putting vermicompost on them. They definitely got worse after that. I've read online that unlike many other plants, soybeans don't like nitrogen-rich soil since they produce their own nitrogen. Vermicompost is rich in nitrogen, so this was probably not a good combination.

We'll see if the plants perk up after no more fertilizer being added. In retrospect, I should have added fertilizer to only one plant to better test the effects. Live and learn.

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Sad, droopy soy leaves before they fell off.
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Pathetic little soy plant. Quite unhappy.
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Today, looking a little better with the old leaves gone.
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Plant number 2...still hanging on.
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Garden Update: Sad soybean leaves

4/17/2015

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Since I last posted, some of our plants have been doing well. Others are worrying me.

First, the amazing green bean plants. They have actually been upgraded to the living room because they are getting ready to flower! (Matt's allergic to pollen, so no flowering plants are allowed in our laundry drying room.)

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Next, the strawberry seedlings have been transplanted and seem to be doing okay so far.

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The Malabar spinach finally sprouted and is looking pretty good. I need to order some more potting soil before I can transplant it, but so far it seems okay.

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Now, the plants I'm a bit worried about.

First up, our kale and broccoli. They are still so stinking small! I thought transplanting them to a bigger container would help, but they still haven't grown much.

Also, when I water the kale, it almost drowns a bit because the leaves are so small and flimsy. Maybe that's contributing to its lack of growth. I'm thinking I should try just using a spray bottle rather than pouring water.

I also tried adding vermicompost to the top layer of the soil to see if they just needed more nutrients. It's been a few days since I added the vermicompost, and there still hasn't been much progress.

Maybe the green beans spoiled me. They grew so quickly that I might just be too impatient, expecting the other plants to grow just as fast. If any of you have experience growing kale and/or broccoli, do you think they're growing at a normal rate for me?

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Kale, first sprouted on March 25 (about 3 1/2 weeks ago). The plant on the right was transplanted on March 30. The plant on the left was transplanted about a week ago.
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Broccoli, first sprouted on March 25 (about 3 1/2 weeks ago). Transplanted about a week ago.

Last, our poor soybeans. They're still alive & growing new leaves, but they're getting weird spots on them. Could this be a disease?

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Soybean #1
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Soybean #2...looking better, but still a couple of spots.
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Garden Update: Why are my plants pointing upward at night?

3/29/2015

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Here are some photos and updates on our gardening endeavors.

The green bean plants are growing like crazy. I thought I had a trellis on the way for them from Taobao, but it turns out I ordered the wrong type of thing. So I ordered the correct thing, and it will arrive tomorrow. The plants just have to hold out for one more day, and the poor guys can have more support as they grow.

The basil germinated but never sprouted out of the soil. The seeds did expire in 2013 though, so I think that's probably the reason.

The strawberry seeds and Malabar spinach still haven't germinated...after doing more research online, I found that they are more finicky about germination than beans, so I'm retrying those with other methods than putting the seeds in a damp paper towel in the closet. Hopefully we'll see some progress there soon.

The kale and broccoli are doing okay, but they're still pretty small. I'm going to move them to bigger containers tomorrow and see if that encourages more growth.

Also, something weird my broccoli plant and soybean plants have been doing is turning their leaves to point almost straight up at night. Does anyone know why they're doing this? Matt thinks (and I hope) that it doesn't mean something's wrong...maybe they're just trying to conserve energy and "sleep" at night. During the day when the sun is directly on them, they open up nicely. They still seem well-hydrated and bright green, but I've just never heard of plants turning their leaves up at night before. Is that normal?

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Soybeans sprouting 6 days ago. Tiny kale plants starting to appear in the container to the right.
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Green beans moved to a bigger container.
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Green bean plants' height 6 days ago. This was a little more than a week after their initial sprouting.
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4 days ago: soybeans opening up. Kale coming out more (4 seeds sprouted in all). Broccoli just starting to show itself.
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Yesterday: Broccoli and kale still about the same. Basil, strawberry, and Malabar spinach...still no progress.
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Yesterday: soybeans are now transplanted to bigger pots. Their leaves open normally during the day. Green beans getting taller.
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The weird pointing up thing the soybeans have started doing at night.
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The broccoli plant also does it.
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The green beans are so ready for their trellis! Hold on for just one more day...
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Next Step to Adulthood: Growing Plants

3/16/2015

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Now that we are 30, we figured it was time to take another step toward adulthood. 

Have children? No. That's way too much work. Even getting another dog is out of the question for us right now because we're way too busy.

So instead, we've decided to start growing plants. This has been a dream of mine for years now, pretty much ever since we started vermicomposting. We have the compost; now we just need plants to use the compost on.

I am notoriously bad at growing and keeping plants alive. In fact, the only plant I ever managed to maintain for longer than a few months was a basil plant that our friend Dan had given us when we were in the US. Dan has a green thumb and could even grow orchids, so pretty much any plant that has ever been under his care refuses to die even when I take charge of it.

Our friends Chuck and Vina also inspired us with their ridiculously awesome urban garden set-up in Boston. Every time they posted picture updates on Facebook, I felt motivated to start trying to set up a garden of our own.

Of course, any gardening we do must be edible plants. Gardening is way too much work, especially for a brown thumb like me, to do it just for ornamental plants. So FINALLY this spring, I picked out a bunch of plants I wanted to try growing and started ordering gardening supplies on Taobao.

I'm going to try the following plants, partially because they are all things we like to eat and partially because these were easily available on Taobao:

  • Pole beans
  • Kale
  • Soy beans (edamame, yum!)
  • Strawberries
  • Malabar spinach
  • Broccoli
  • Basil

I've done hours of research on how to make these things grow, so hopefully in a few months, we will be able to enjoy the fruits (or vegetables) of our labor. To see our progress so far, view the slideshow below.

And if you have any indoor gardening tips for me, let me know in the comments!
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A Winter Treat

1/30/2015

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In the US, which foods do we usually associate with winter? Maybe hot apple cider or pumpkin pie?

Now, one of the foods Matt and I have come to associate with winter is what we call "fruit candy sticks" or 糖葫芦 (tang hu lu) in Chinese.

One of the ways you know it's winter in northern China, (and maybe other parts of China? I've only seen them around Tianjin and Beijing though...) is that street vendors start selling these delicious fruit sticks around town.

They're basically pieces of fruit on a wooden stick that have been dipped in sugar water and allowed to harden. The vendors make them fresh and sell them from carts at various places around town.

We happen to have one right outside our apartment complex, so tonight with our dinner, we enjoyed one with strawberries and one with hawthorn berries (delicious sour fruits that we have only discovered in China. Pretty sure they aren't available in the US. We've never seen them anywhere.)

Wish we could bring some to share this summer, but a) I'm pretty sure they wouldn't make it past customs, and b) they are pretty impossible to find during the summer months.

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    This blog includes posts on our life in China. Want to know what the food is like or how we deal with pollution? Find the answers here. We also include periodic updates on what we're up to for those of you back home who want to stay in touch.

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