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I heart Xining

This is, bar none, the best place we've lived in CH.  We've been back for just over 2 months now and it hasn't been rosy everyday but most days have been pretty darn good.

---Amazing to live with moutains in our backyard and every side of the city
---The weather is a sweet treat. - blue skies, thunderstorms and stars
---I love that Lily dances and learns the cutest songs at her CH preschool.  There's this one song in particular.  Ms. Xue plays the piano as each child takes a turn standing in front of all the other kids.  The kids sing a welcome song to that child and at the end the child in front, in a very loud voice and with a little bow, says, "Thank you everyone!"  It is just about the cutest thing on earth to see all these little CH 3 and 4 year olds singing, bowing and thanking their classmates.  Of course, by far, the cutest is the one little blonde 4 year old bowing and thanking in CH.
---Our apartment complex.  It is amazing.  It's also huge.  There are about half a billion paths and about the same number of awesome fountains.  It may sound cheesy/tacky (it's definitely, very CH), but at night the fountains are lit up with colored lights and it makes a fantastic fountain show.  I love it.  A fun thing to do is a night time fountain tour.  There was one other complex we lived in in Xi'an that we really liked.  But this place is unbeatable.
---I've never been to a housing complex, whether high-end or low, that didn't have someone hanging their blankets or clothes on a drying rack right in the middle of the sidewalks.  Undies are permitted.  The difference now, is that I also have a drying rack and on sunny days I love hanging our sheets and towels outside on the sidewalk.  There have been days were our rack has joined a line of other racks.  There is something so satisfying about baking our things in the strong plateau sun.
---Again, cheesy, but around 11am the complex pipes music throughout the complex.  It always makes me smile to hear Kenny G serenading us or a Bryan Adams love song.
---Xining is the smallest place we've lived in CH.  It's not "small town America" small but it's small for CH.  I love that.  We can easily take buses to almost every place we want to go.  We never have to tell a taxi driver how to get to where we want to go.  They know it all.
---Xining is a very friendly place.  This is true among the local community and the expat community.  
---I love that, because we have a great place to roam and because we really want to be outdoors, I'm getting to know our neighbors easily. Some of them are several buildings away but there's a friendly nod and greeting when we pass on the sidewalk.  There's a granddad that walks his kids' dogs every morning.  We had a conversation a few weeks back as I was finishing up my run.  Yesterday morning we saw each other again and had a nice chat about the start of the school year.  It was short and simple but very neighborly.  When you live in a second culture you need these little things of acceptance.

Well, looks like another beautiful day in the neighborhood.  Maybe it's time for a second cup of coffee on the stoop.  

  
  


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