Catching up!

I was trying to delay a blog post until I could include some of the touristy destinations we have been trying to get to, but I finally faced the fact that these may be a bit more in the future than I had originally thought. Instead, here are a few snapshots from the past few weeks:

Beijing finally got precipitated upon! I was later informed that the government makes it rain/snow, it is not naturally occurring. Apparently if clouds are in the area there is some sort of rocket they send up, containing precipitation-invoking chemicals... or something like that. It sounds suspicious to me, but I've been told from a variety of sources that it is, in fact, true.
Valentine's Day happened. It was on a Monday, so we celebrated a day early with a super swanky brunch. I tried many new things, among them were prawns, oysters, caviar, and some strange fruit. I have yet to try any animal that truly makes me regret being a nominal vegetarian, so I think I'll carry on for now.
I got a new job! I'll be teaching English classes at the Korean International School in Beijing, probably in the secondary school, but maybe primary. To celebrate, we went to the "Blind Masseuse" to get massages, and we got a package that we later found out included two traditional Chinese medicine techniques (scraping and cupping), in addition to the usual body and foot massage. They were running short on masseuses, (none of the ones we had were blind), so the Chinese traditional medicine doctor man started my massage until a regular masseuse came to his rescue.

The doctor man informed me that I was not "hot" enough to do the scraping/cupping routine, so I stuck with just extra massage time. John was not so lucky, and below you will see the evidence thereof. The vertical long red marks one either side of the spine are the result of the scraping, and the circles are from the cupping. I was frustrated I didn't have my camera during the procedure, because he looked quite comical. Maybe next time...Finally, for the less extreme: I had been telling my mom about the very annoying clothes washing process that the machinery in our apartment necessitates. Although I don't think I captured it that well, here are pictures of filling up the washer (must be done with the shower head, unless only cold water is desired), and the transfer of clothes from the "wash" to the "spin" cycle. Our dryer is the balcony.