New Zealand news

Every week the kids in Kai's class draw and tell the latest news; what they did during the weekend, if someone came visit, if something they thought especially important happend. Anything they want to share with their friends. This is, apparently, what Kai told his friends about our New Zealand trip:

"Camping in New Zealand, many camping. I camped here and here and camping here. The door and the door here, camping everywhere - just camping always. All the family camped, always camping all the time. One had a trampoline and I jumped so high - boing boing boing. Then no more camping and we go to a house."

Ok, maybe we overdid it a little, but it was nice, and we will do it again.

Happy birthday, Hana!

Yesterday we celebrated Hana's second birthday, from early morning till late at night. As she nowadays refuses to go to bed before 9.30 or even later, she has become a true late riser and we could actually wake her up with candles and presents and beautiful singing...
She was then celebrated at school, mummy brought yummy fruitsallad with chocolate sticks, and in the afternoon a bunch of little friends came to play and have cake. Theo and his parents, Jenny and Khanh, even stayed for dinner.

Doll house interior. A great success, but as mummy went birthday shopping only yesterday, to noone's surprise the doll house shop had run completely out of doll houses - only huge amounts of furniture left... - the house itself will have to be added later. "Come back next month", they said. Anything to get me out of the store, I say.

School celebrations.

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Afternoon party.

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Cool princesses. With best friend Sille.

Scandinavian

We started out all Swedish, but then invited Norwegian Sondre to join us as well, for a garden snack and some after school play. After the morning thunder storm, all is back to normal again: Hot.

Sondre, Viggo, Hannes, Kai & Hana, apple juice and Oreo in the shadow on the terrace.

In the evening, Hana decided to rearrange our shoe collection a little...

Summer and weekend

Summer is coming, its getting hot again. Still below thirty at night, but definitely humid enough.
For the weekend, Saturday afternoon we took the kids to the yearly C.A.M.A. music festival - big event in Hanoi where anything alternative, especially if it has to do with music or dancing or other suspicious arty kind of things, is still "social evil" - and then handed them over to our nanny and went back to enjoy the later concerts and a few drinks ourselves. Sunday - swimming pool, to hot for anything else.

Festival boys. Kai and best friend Hosea.

Now Monday and will defy the heavy rain and take the motorbike across town to Vincom tower tremendous shopping mall, as tomorrow is another big day in Taketani family...

Panjiayuan Market & the Forbidden City

At Panjiayuan Weekend Market, you could buy almost anything; old coins and more or less fake pearls, antique ceramics and furniture, fabric and clothes from all kinds of minority groups, ink and stuff for calligraphy painting, huge marble sculputure, about anything old and new one can think of. My kind of heaven!

Then, after two failed attempts, I finally managed to get in to have a look at the Forbidden City. A huge amount of buildings, courtyards, more building, cortyards, Chinese-looking roofs and gold. Enormous and very impressing.

In other places, the sign would probably read "no graffity" or so. On the imperial grounds, they are obviously a little more poetic than that.

China

Two weeks, most days cram-full of work, but every now and then a moment to look around. I went to Beijing, Shanghai and two rather grey cities in Anhui province in Eastern China. Here, a very brief chronological-order snap-shot of my tour to a few places in this gigantic country.

Beijing futong, what's left of them.

Shanghai by night.

Iconic Chairman Mao, looking out over Tian'anmen square - back in Beijing.

The great, and partly very crowded wall, at Badaling outside Beijing.

View from my hotelroom in Hefei, Anhui province, Eastern China.

About how lost I felt in Fuyang, also Anhui province. Thank god for my translator.

Beijing taxi ride.

Last day, trying the subway. Finally on my way to the Forbidden City.

Home sweet home!

After flying around China for two weeks it really was nice to come home to warm and humid Hanoi again, yesterday evening. And it sure was nice to see the other Taketanis again, as wild and crazy as they are...

Kai at neighbourhod's new cafe, trying out the play area.

Hana at dinnertime, just being herself.

Whole team in Bangkok, in February. Rather freaky group, I would say...

As soon as I get a little organized I will try to post a picutre or two from China as well.

Roses and China

We bought flowers again, on the same day. Keisuke got home with a big bunch of red roses. I think he really loves me. Or roses where on sale. Or both.

Tomorrow I am leaving for two weeks of work in China, the longest I have ever stayed away from my family. I will miss them terribly, but have also promised myself to really, really enjoy full nights sleep and being able to do what I want to do, when I want to and as long as I want to. And then, work, too, of course.

Fishing and frog hunting

Yesterday Kai brought three friends home after school and mummy was really busy serving them all with snack and juice and trying to keep all happy and fights to a minimum. For some reason there were hundreds of tiny, tiny frogs jumping around the garden and going frog hunting turned out to be a success. Fishing anohter, but not from the pond luckily. Afterwards we released all frogs back into "nature" again.

Frog hunting.

Hana, Kai, Hosea, Elliot and Yuuki.

Yuuki's baby sister Chi-chan also came along but decided to stay inside with her mum.

Black board

The latest change at home is the new kitchen wall black board. Kai and I painted it together the other day and it is now really popular, with friends visiting or every day after dinner.

The communist electricity bill

Every month, the electricity bill lady comes to collect the money and to hand over the invoice. Normally it is about the same amount, but as soon as it gets warmer, or colder, or more humid, and we start using aircon or heating or keep the dehumidifiers running a lot, it goes up up up.
And no wonder, because the more you use, the more expensive every KwH gets, following some "the more you can afford to use, the more you are paying" kind of great communist logic.

(then I check websites like this one out, and dont really think everything is that great at all)

Lazy Saturday morning

This morning kids slept until 7.30. Then they went downstairs. By themselves. It took only about three minutes until someone shouted papaaaaaaaa, but still... might this be the start of something new?!

Then, I can hardly believe it, but the figs on the neighbour's tree are almost ripe again. This tree must be a mutation. Imagine if they were edible.

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... as you are so ugly

In Vietnam, there are so many things you can't say, or do. Like complain, or get angry. A smile can mean friendliness, as well as anger, or shame. In so many senses it is a very "high context" society where a lot of signs and hints and double meanings constantly have to be read. For most of the time I have no clue.

Then, when it comes to looks and shapes of people, it is totally ok to be as direct as can be. As our former helper said to me when I met her in the store after a couple of months. "Anna, you look nice. You are fatter." Or as the colleague of an aquaintance of ours told her: "Your kids are so cute. So strange, as you are so ugly." Really, what do you reply to that... with a smile?

Busy restaurant kitchen. And it's got absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the post.

Easter brunch and påskkäringar

In Hanoi easter passes completely unnoticed and we had actually forgotten all about it as well. Until travelling aunt Anita reminded us (also informing she and uncle Arne would arrive on Good Friday) and our Swedish friend Jenny invited us to easter brunch, including kids egg hunt. We even dressed up Hana as påskkäring.

By the lake

Lake side pic-nic, Hanoi style.

No shoes on the carpet!