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Happy Chinese New Year! JD had a blast (literally) yesterday night setting off his huge collection of fireworks.
 Last night, as I was going to sleep, JD told me that he was planning a prank or two for me today. I didn't really take a lot of notice as I was sleepy. But this morning, when I got up my slippers had disappeared. When I switched my computer on I found the desktop background had been changed! I made myself a coffee but after a sip I realised that the milk had garlic powder in it! I grabbed my water bottle to wash out the taste and found it contained salt water.  An alarm went off behind my computer. This drew my attention to one of the photos on the wall in the office which now had my head 5x bigger on it. I've been well and truly tricked this morning with no real guarantee I've found them all! Now, do I prank him or spank him in revenge?
 JD was invited to "Makino Play Park" the other day by a couple of his classmates. It was a 1½ drive into the countryside - a camping and animal petting area near a large lake.
Half of the park seemed to be still under construction, but JD and his friends enjoyed feeding and playing with the emus, donkeys, llamas, chickens, pigs and - especially - the rabbits.
One of JD's Christmas presents was a Lego typewriter. He started it by himself, but struggled a little when the various moving parts and gears needed to be constructed. So we decided to finish it together.
JD and I went to the cinema to watch "Avatar 2" this afternoon. We took our masks just in case, but in fact there was only one other person in the theatre with us!  As expected, the film was a visual feast. Not much story, to be fair, but the world-building was exceptional and the final hour was non-stop action. JD and I loved it, and the 3¼ hours felt more like ....3 hours.
 JD is keeping track of the number of days to Christmas with a self-made Post-it Advent Calendar! It has no chocolates or nativity pictures, but at least he gets to rip something off each morning and savour the countdown! He has already opened one present, actually, since we are all in quarantine with COVID - using his spare time throughout each day to construct a huge Lego aircraft!
With JD's Primary School having been closed for a month now, his schoolwork is all assigned, handed-in and marked online. Up until last week, he has done this though the day at "Cleaner School" - his after-school club attended by 5-10 students, usually just to do homework but now doing classwork through the day too.  But with COVID ripping through the population now, since the removal of pandemic restrictions, "Cleaner School" has closed down too. JD has had COVID this last week but is now back to 90% health and so the schoolwork continues. Jiajia has to do the Chinese and Maths with him (90% of the total) while I pitch in with English and "generally keeping everyone less stressed"!! The holidays can't come quickly enough!
We took JD to his "girlfiend's" 10th Birthday Party yesterday. Unfortunately, the English on their signage let them down and I spent the first 20 minutes looking for a lost girl!! 
Is it normal for a 9-year old to be falling
out of bed once or twice every night?
We finally managed to organise JD's flight simulator visit today - a treat promised for his birthday back in March! He had been before, along with 50 other kids for a brief 15 minute "flight". But planes are JD's passion and he very much wants to be a pilot when he grows up.
I've been giving JD English/Maths work during the holiday (only 30-40 mins from me, compared to the daily 1-2 hours Chinese from the school!) but I try and make mine as interesting and fun as possible. We've worked out how much water is in the local swimming pool, the area of various pan lids and, for English, a project writing up the specs of various aircraft (JD's passion).  But today's homework was for JD to work out how to get to the Wanda Towers (a landmark shopping mall across the city) by public transport in time for a McDonalds lunch! He worked out the best route using my phone app (walk, underground, change trains, bus, walk) and then we went and tried it out. JD took the lead, using underground maps, bus timetables and asking locals for help where necessary. I just tagged along! We arrived 12.10pm - perfect.
We planned a different route back over an ice-cream and got back home two hours later. I am hoping JD might gradually pick up the bug for independent travel as I once did in my teens.
We grabbed our last chance for a swim in the outdoor neighbourhood pool yesterday before heading back to Kunming today.  The pool was pretty cold, but JD managed 500m of fast-improving breaststroke before calling it a day.
With exams all over and a week of sunshine ahead, we've been hitting the paddle boats on both Green Lake (with some of JD's school friends),and LianHua Lake (with just JD and I).   It's a good way for JD to get some exercise in a controlled area (ie no cars or pedestrians) with fresh air and a cool breeze. The pedals are too close for me to be able to help much (...that's my excuse) so I just let the kids wear themselves out, whilst ensuring they are not about to bump into any boats, ducks or islands! And at 40RMB (£4) an hour, it isn't going to break the bank anytime soon.
 JD went to the dentist with a couple of wobbly teeth last week. The dentist said they would come out by themselves if he "...ate some sticky candy". JD duly ate some sticky candy and they duly came out! But, whilst there, the dentist also said that JD would probably need some sort of braces within a few years, as there isn't enough space for his teeth to come out straight. Laster, we went to a specialist children's dentist to get another opinion. They confirmed that he would need 1-2 years of braces, and sooner rather than later. But their preferred solution would cost 160,000RMB (£2000) which seems extraordinarily expensive (especially in China). So we are going to get a third opinion/cost in the Summer holidays, before deciding what course of action to pursue. That's one expensive child!
JD went out to play on his scooter the other evening. After failing to come home at the agreed time, I spent over an hour searching for him around our neighbourhood while Jiajia rang her Mum (phone turned off), the guards at the main gate (not seen JD) and - almost - the police. Ma eventually rang back and confirmed JD was with her, "helping her play mahjong" in her friend's house. Neither had thought to let us know. Both got a telling off once they returned!  So, for now, JD is taking care to let us know where he is at all times. Hence the note above, left on the office door sometime last night, in case we wondered why he wasn't in his bed this morning!
We had a very hot half-day at Kunming's Botanical Gardens today, courtesy of Jiajia's VIP status at the Bank of China, who invited us to attend a Children's Day activity there. It started with a treasure trail, followed by light refreshments. Then an hour's guided tour around the large greenhouses (the world's first greenhouse was built here in 200BC!). And finally, a craft activity, sticking and labelling botanical specimens. JD's was deemed good enough to be framed as a prize.
Jiajia, JD and I had a further explore of the park by ourselves for an hour before taking a taxi to a newly opened noodle bar for a late lunch, and then back home for a well-earned rest!
Carnivorous plants (pitcher plant, venus fly trap, sundew)
 The family of one of JD's friends invited us all to their new house in ChengGong - a University satellite town of Kunming - to celebrate May Day. We got a lift there by car (it's 20km away) and then JD had fun playing with his friends with pellet guns inside the apartment and fishing outside. They cooked up a nice meal and, fairly late, we returned home by subway - an hour-long trip costing 5RMB (50p).   With exams next week, followed by May Day week holiday, last week was the best time for JD's class to have their 6-monthly photo.
JD was learning about silkworms at school a couple of weeks ago and the teacher encouraged the children to buy a few, feed them on mulberry leaves and watch them spin their cocoons...  So JD bought half a dozen worms at a nearby toy shop, but then swapped a couple of them with another students for 30+ eggs. Last week, the eggs hatched... So now we appear to be responsible for a huge number of silkworms, munching their way through treefuls of leaves but showing no sign of pupating. Nightmare!
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 AuthorPaul Hider lives and works in Kunming (SW China) and regularly updates this blog about his life there. Past blog entries
January 2023
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