Valentine’s Day
I, Erin, am not a big
fan of Valentine’s Day as it seems so very commercial. Besides shouldn’t we be showing love on a
daily basis!? Since getting married, we
haven’t done much for Valentine’s Day either as our Wedding Anniversary is on
the 18th. Don’t get me wrong,
I’m not totally against the day. I
absolutely love the boxes filled with various types of unknown-until-you-bite-into
chocolates and I will always accept flowers!
Trying to be intentional with our boys though, I looked up a little more about
Valentine’s Day. Apparently it originally
was to honor a man who long ago married men and women in Rome though the Emperor
at the time did not agree with the practice as he wanted men ready to join
the army. Further more, as we try to
teach our boys about love I couldn’t find any glaring reason not to do a little
celebrating!
On a side note, as I searched for
the origins of Valentine’s Day I came across a quote from Maya Angelou that
stuck out to me, “Yet it is only love which sets us free.” Isn’t that true, the ultimate act of love…
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| Decorating Cookies |
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| Caedmon decorated over half of the cookies. |
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| Dinner |
So we made cookies and
pizza. Only to find out later the Mayor in
a neighboring province banned all Valentine’s Day celebrations. Not sure how this all turned out, but he was
concerned for the negative influence on the morality of the youth.
Anniversary
The following Thursday brought
John and my 9th Wedding Anniversary.
John surprised us, the boys got to partake too, with a one night stay at a hotel with a
pool! As always it is nice to get away,
swim in a clean pool, not cook, relax in air conditioning, and enjoy cable
TV. The following day we got picked up
by a new friend. He and his family
invited us to visit a river for the day.
It is a well known spot to play in the river and eat fruit. Thursday was a holiday, Chinese New Year, so
the boys didn’t have school and our friends did not have work. So we piled into two cars and drove about 30
minutes inland. It was a beautiful spot,
with thousands of trees. There were
chocolate, Durian, Langsat, and Rambutan trees all over. The season for these fruits has just begun so
we ate a lot of fruit in between swimming in the river. The water was very refreshing as it was quite
cold.
It was an enjoyable day, though
not the most relaxing as cultural differences lead to the local’s definition of
a good time being quite different than outs.
For example being an official holiday the place was quite crowded,
resulting in a lot of picture taking.
People here always recommend we see sites on holidays or Sundays because
there will be ‘a lot of people.’ It was
a beautiful spot, but surrounded with tarp covered wooden huts. These were great for a shaded place to sit,
but they didn’t add much to the natural atmosphere. Then there was garbage, everywhere,
thankfully though I didn’t notice any floating in the river, except the
occasional Durian skin.
On the way home, one of the cars
had a mechanical problem. We were still
15 minutes outside of town where we might find a mechanic. So we piled out of the cars and stopped-in at
the wife’s sister-in-law’s sister’s house.
The women and children sat and chatted while the men took the other car
to the closest, and open as it was a holiday, repair shop to buy a part. Upon returning to the car, they fixed it, and
we were on our way again. Amidst the
unexpected aspects of the day and cultural differences, it was quite nice to
see a different part of our province and spend time with some new friends!
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| Stopping at a fruit stand to buy more fruit. Durian on the far left. Rambutan hanging and in baskets top and middle. Langsat in bowls on bottom. |
I had never seen the above fruits prior to moving here so I don't know the English equivalent. Here are my own description:
Durian: A large, slightly smaller than a melon, and very spikey fruit with a strong smell. The fruit is white or yellow surrounding large seeds in bunches of 3-4 within sections. The taste is acquired, sweet, and something oniony or garlicky to it.
Langsat: Small yellow fruit. It has sections like an orange, but the meat is white and more like a grape with a hint of a grapefruit flavor. Watch out for the seeds as they are very, very bitter.
Rambutan: Similar to lychee, but larger. The fruit skin is red with big, stiff hairs. The meat is white and similar to a grape as well, but much sweeter. The seed resembles an almond.
