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Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Happy Halloween!
I hope that everyone had a Happy Halloween!
I can't believe that it is November already. The time here in China has flown by. We are starting to plan our trips and we feel like we have no time here in Weifang. We still have 6 weeks but it doesn't feel like very much time. Life here is so simple. It is harder in many ways but much easier in some. One thing that we do miss is living conveniently with our cars, and dishwasher, washer, dryers, and many things. Life in America is all about convenience and coming to China has helped Adam and I appreciate all the wonderful things we are blessed with. These last few weeks we have been to QIngdao for Church and shopping. This year we have been taking an early train on Sunday and then get a bus to church but we plan on going on Saturdays now so we can shop, shop, shop, and then we spend the night at Qindgao University and go to church with them! We love being able to hang out with our BYU friends. Adam and I miss the other part of our BYU China Family so very much. We knew it wouldn't be the same without them but I don't think we realized how sad it is to come to QIngdao and not have them here. :( Luckily a few of the BYU teachers stayed from last year and have been wonderful to us. We love them. The Qingdao branch is so wonderful and the spirit is so strong. The kids are so cute! We have been busy teaching and hanging out. We celebrated Adams cousin Thomas's birthday at Pizza Hut, we have been to the tailor a few times, we eat at our soup place at least twice a week, and we watch too many movies! For Halloween we were the special quests for a Halloween party at McDonalds. Our invitations were hand delivered by the manager. We didn't realize that we were the "hosts" until we got there. We were surprised but it was so much fun. Everyone had masks on and we introduced a little about Halloween, we played some games, carved pumpkins, and then they gave us free food. It was delicious! Most of the kids got to make their own food but because we got Big Macs we couldn't because they were too hard to make! Adam and I played a game against two girls. The games had flour and 2 ping pong balls. Adam and I sat across from each other with three small bowls in between us. 2 were filled with flour with a ping pong ball on top while the middle bowl was empty. The point of the game was to blow the four until you got your ball into the empty bowl. I got mine in first try and after a few times and my getting flour all over me Adam got his ball in the bowl and we won! We got Chinese coca cola mugs. It was really fun! Then the next for on Halloween it was pouring rain all day. We went out for lunch and to get some groceries and we got soaked. I am not ready for the cold weather to set in. Thomas, Katie, and Kayte came over and we made our shrimp dinner with fries. It is so good and we end up eating way too much. I tried to make donuts but they ended up tasting like peanut oil. Haha Then we watched Hocus Pocus. Today we made it our "American" day! We did not have any Chinese food at all! Adam made me French toast for breakfast, and then for lunch we had steamed cabbage, parmesan pasta, and tomatoes, and cucumbers with olive oil. Then for dinner we had mashed potatoes with gravy, a salad with ranch, and fried chicken. It was a great day! Thank you, Mom and Kacie for sending us packages, they have been life savers! Before we came to China last year people would always comment of the possibility of us losing "so" much weight because of all the "fresh" vegetables in China. The thing about china is that most everything is dipped in oil. All those "fresh" vegetable are fried! So to have a fresh salad is heaven. We have also noticed that we smack our mouths when we eat, we talk with our mouths open, and we slurp our noodles! Great things you pick from China! I love that it is part of their culture to bring your bowl up to your mouth and shovel food in. Adam and I said that we will never tell our kids to eat everything on your plate; there are starving kids in China. Even though I am sure there is a large amount of hungry children in China, the Chinese waste a disgusting amount of food, and they also eat a disgusting amount of food! When we eat with our students we are always surprised of how much they can put down!
I am trying a new way to add pictures on to my blog! We will see if it works. ***Thanks so much Jess for updating my blog!!
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Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Beijingers
Me, Adam, Thomas, and Katie(Adams cousin and wife) went to Beijing for the weekend. It was so much fun! We went to get our tickets for the fast train and they were sold out....we were so sad because we thought we would have to cancel our trip, we went back to get sleeper tickets (beds for the 13 hour train) and we got tickets on the fast train but only to zhibo, and we could just buy tickets to Beijing on the train. So Adam and I plan on meeting Thomas and Katie at the train station. We live pretty close so we got there about 15 minutes before the train is supposed to leave. We wait outside for a while and they aren't around. Finally we go to the platform to wait for the train and Adam tells a guard to tell Thomas and Katie to RUN if they got here in time. They train is about to arrive and Adam goes up to check one more time and I am worried standing there because the trains don't wait at all. They leave on the dot. Luckily the train was like 2 minutes late and Thomas, Katie, and Adam are running to meet the train! We are so blessed. Adam and I would have been going to Beijing by ourselves. It was crazy. The tickets we got meant that meant we only had a seat to zhibo(30 min) and then we got standing tickets(which cost the same) so for rest of the 4 hours we stood. There were lots of people standing. It wasn't too bad. One of those China things you have to experience while here. Katie and I eventually sat in the isle. We then got to our hotel and because Katie and Thomas hadn't got their passports from the police station we had to make it look like they weren't staying with us. You have to have your passport to stay in a hotel and there are certain hotels that allow foreigners. We figured they knew when they put extra towels and slippers in our room, but they didn't say anything. The first day we went shopping. It was so much fun! We thought we would only shop for 2 hours...we were there for 5! You end up buying stuff you didn't really care to have just because of the thrill of bargaining. Adam was worried because I spent $100 U.S dollars (almost 700RMB) in a half hour. But that is why I save so much money for shopping when we go to Beijing. :) They have everything is these markets. They are super pushey and start out with ridiculous prices because they know foreigners pay for it....not us! I got this "leather" jacket(they say everything is real!) and she started out at 5,500rmb. I was like are you crazy?? So we bargained and you have to walk away atleast twice but in between me bargaining for it this girl from Hawaii got the jacket for 500rmb and she was super happy. I got the same jacket for 220rmb. We got true religion jeans, uggs, ballet flats, Ed hardy tee, sweaters, scarves, perfume, makeup, jewelry. We ended up going shopping another day and it is so fun! I love it! We then hit all the sights again. This national holiday was the 60th anniversary so it was a huge celebration. We went to the Great Wall which is amazing. We wandered around the Forbidden city and walked across the street to Tianamen square. It is a huge square and there were all kinds of floats for the celebration and there were TONS of people! Every where you look. We went to the summer palace. It is a beautiful place there. Probably one of my favorite sights! We went and saw an acrobat show and it was really cool. They did a trick with a big metal contraption(I'll send a pic) they did this trick at the circus this summer! But we were sitting in the first row and they started to undo the cables and it was swinging out and kind of scary so they made us move a few rows back. That was pretty exciting. We met an Australian couple that told us it was better to be considered Australian. We were like great we are glad that you are a proud Australian but we are proud to be Americans. We had a great time. It felt like we where in Beijing for a couple of weeks instead of 4 days. We were rushing to get to the train station to go home. We were running around like crazy and barely made it on to the train to go home. Us five americans running down the streets through the train station seems to be a common occurance. We can't seem to make it to the train station early for the life of us. We are getting our work outs running to catch our trains!
Monday, October 5, 2009
"Whose money can't buy happiness?"
"Whose money can't buy happiness?" was our favorite saying on a shirt that we saw this weekend! We decided to get out of Weifang and go to Qingdao. Vera our student from last year and our great friend came to Weifang really early and then we took a train to Qingdao with Thomas, Katie, and Kayte. Qingdao is a beautiful coastal city looking out towards the Yellow Sea. Qindgao is known in China for its beer. Here is a little history piece from Wikipedia.
"In 1891 the Qing government decided to make the area a defense base against naval attack and eventually began to improve Tsingtao's(Qingdao) existing fortifications. This Chinese activity was observed and reported by German naval officials during a formal survey of Kiautschou Bay in May 1897.[4] After the Kiautschou Bay region was ceded to Germany in 1898, the German authorities soon turned the impoverished fishing village of Tsingtao into a strategically important port administered by the Imperial Department of the Navy (Reichsmarineamt) rather than the Imperial Colonial Office (Reichskolonialamt). The navy based their Far East Squadron here, allowing the ships to conduct operations throughout the Pacific. From January 1898 the marines of III. Seebatallion were based at Tsingtao. The German imperial government planned and built the first streets and early infrastructure of the city (still visible today), introduced electrification throughout, a sewer system and a safe drinking water supply. Commercial interests established the world-famous Tsingtao Brewery. German influence extended to other areas of Shandong Province, including the establishment of diverse commercial enterprises.
Before the outbreak of World War I the ships of the German naval forces under Admiral Count von Spee were located at central Pacific colonies on routine missions. The fleet then rendezvoused in the Marianas to plan a transit to Germany rather than be trapped in the Pacific by Allied fleets.[5]
After a minor British naval attack on the German colony in 1914, Japan occupied the city and the surrounding province during the Siege of Tsingtao after Japan's declaration of war on Germany in accordance with the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. The failure of the Allied powers to restore Chinese rule to Shandong after the war triggered the May Fourth Movement.
Because of it's German architecture and it's large population of Korean ex-pats, Qingdao has a very unique atmosphere.
We played card games on the way there and tried to learn Chinese from Adam and Vera.Then when we first got there the boys stayed at the train station to get the tickets back home, and us girls went to get a hotel room. It was mid-autumn festival and during the October break so there were tons of people. I have become a lot more bold in asking for pictures of hairstyles and things, so when I saw a girl with a popular bag with the saying.."minutemen meatpuppepts descendents angst" I took a picture and a girl there was wearing a WE LOVE KATE shirt, so of course Katie, and Kate got a picture with her! We had a lot of fun. We played with little dogs, and laughed at little kids playing in a fountain. We got delicous cotton candy, and bought more cool things like jewelry and a sword(that made it through the scanners, and onto the train without a problem!!)
As we walked around the streets and went shopping in the markets I thought about how much I loved China, until that night when we crawled into our small rock hard bed, (kayte and vera shared a bed) I think they were twin size mattresses, it felt like people were talking, laughing, and coughing up a lung in our room, and then it smelt like someone was smoking next to us in our little bed. The hotel room is windowless (as most of them are but a definite fire-code violation in the U.S,)with dirty carpets and a tiny bathroom(but very nice compared to some other hotels we have stayed at). Only then did I wish I was back in the comforts of home, or atleast Weifang. Next time we are bringing our foam pad from our bed! The next day we went back to the market and did some more shopping, we went to Qingdao University and then walked along the beach. We had a great time. We are going to Beijing this next weekend, so hopefully it will be just as fun and not as crazy as last year!
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