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Sunday, December 6, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
~2 more weeks~
Adams and I's time is winding down here in Weifang. We only have two more weeks of teaching before we head out to travel southern China. I am excited and nervous for our trip. We won't stay in a hotel for more than one night, and the 10 days that we will be traveling China we have 6 flights. This year we will or have been on an airplane on Thanksgiving, our Anniversary, and Christmas. But Christmas day we fly to Thailand where we will lay on the beach for 10 days. I am excited to get some color to my pale skin and relax! Adam will miss the first day of classes because we will be in flight on our way home!
We were able to go to Korea and visit Yong, a foreign exchange students of Thomas's, lst weekend. It was cool because Adam hung out a lot with them so they had many memories together. One memory was about Yong while he was in Blackfoot, he wanted to drive and so as he was backing the car out of Thomas's garage he accidently took out some of the garage wall, and he went into the house and told Thomas, I have big problem. We laughed about that on our way to his house from the airport. This trip had a lot of irony, because later that day we walked from Yongs house to get his parents car from the auto shop. Yong went in and we were just waiting on the sidewalk when we hear this horrible crunch. Yong was backing up and had hit a small round cement barrier. It ripped a part of the front bumper off. It was sad, but so funny. Then another ironic thing that happened was that before we went to Korea Adam and I were talking about the foods that we were craving. Adam wanted a costco hot dog with onions on it. Well when we got to Korea we found out that Korea actually has a Costco! We had so much fun walking around Costco and looking at all the food that they had, and so of course we had to eat at Costco! We ordered everything that was on the menu! Hot dogs, salad, pizza, chicken bake, and icecream! It was so good. We had a great time with Yong and his family. They were so nice to let us stay at their house and take them around Seoul. We went to the Temple. I love the Temple. It was so wonderful to be able to go. We also went to the Korean Folk Village, that was really fun and interesting. Then one day we walked around Seoul and went shopping and ate at TGIF. We did eat at some great Korean restuaraunts. I love their style of eating. They sit on a heated floor and eat on little tables. We all loved those heated floors! We went to church and had lunch at Yongs place. His mom had made a great lunch with a some American food and some Korean food. We had a great time. I don't think I realized how under developed China is, until I went to Korea. The last ironic thing that happened was the last leg of our trip. We got off the plane in Qingdao airport and as we were walking out we decided that instead of waiting two hours for the bus to Weifang we would take a 45 minute taxi to the train station and get a train to Weifang. There are a lot of taxi drivers in the airport and one guy said he could take us all the way to Weifang for 300RMB. That is what it would cost us any other way and this way would be faster (almost 2 hours to get to Weifang). We were very happy! So we get on our way and we are talking about this trip and how nothing too exciting happened. Right after we said that our taxi driver pulled on to the side of the road before a toll booth and told us to wait for a minute. There were a few taxi drivers and so we didn't think anything of it until after 10 minutes we saw our taxi driver in the middle of the road waving down every car that passed. We laughed and laughed because we knew that we was trying to pawn us off. It was hilarous watching him run after the cars that passed. We did find a taxi that was going to Weifang but we would have had to pay more money and cram all four of us in the back seat. We decided to wait. Finally after about an hour the taxi driver found a "black taxi" van (illegal taxi's) that was going to Weifang that would take us. We were so happy! We basically paid that taxi driver to hitch hike for us. China is an experience. We made is back safely and am now trying to get motivated to start packing all our stuff up!
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We were able to go to Korea and visit Yong, a foreign exchange students of Thomas's, lst weekend. It was cool because Adam hung out a lot with them so they had many memories together. One memory was about Yong while he was in Blackfoot, he wanted to drive and so as he was backing the car out of Thomas's garage he accidently took out some of the garage wall, and he went into the house and told Thomas, I have big problem. We laughed about that on our way to his house from the airport. This trip had a lot of irony, because later that day we walked from Yongs house to get his parents car from the auto shop. Yong went in and we were just waiting on the sidewalk when we hear this horrible crunch. Yong was backing up and had hit a small round cement barrier. It ripped a part of the front bumper off. It was sad, but so funny. Then another ironic thing that happened was that before we went to Korea Adam and I were talking about the foods that we were craving. Adam wanted a costco hot dog with onions on it. Well when we got to Korea we found out that Korea actually has a Costco! We had so much fun walking around Costco and looking at all the food that they had, and so of course we had to eat at Costco! We ordered everything that was on the menu! Hot dogs, salad, pizza, chicken bake, and icecream! It was so good. We had a great time with Yong and his family. They were so nice to let us stay at their house and take them around Seoul. We went to the Temple. I love the Temple. It was so wonderful to be able to go. We also went to the Korean Folk Village, that was really fun and interesting. Then one day we walked around Seoul and went shopping and ate at TGIF. We did eat at some great Korean restuaraunts. I love their style of eating. They sit on a heated floor and eat on little tables. We all loved those heated floors! We went to church and had lunch at Yongs place. His mom had made a great lunch with a some American food and some Korean food. We had a great time. I don't think I realized how under developed China is, until I went to Korea. The last ironic thing that happened was the last leg of our trip. We got off the plane in Qingdao airport and as we were walking out we decided that instead of waiting two hours for the bus to Weifang we would take a 45 minute taxi to the train station and get a train to Weifang. There are a lot of taxi drivers in the airport and one guy said he could take us all the way to Weifang for 300RMB. That is what it would cost us any other way and this way would be faster (almost 2 hours to get to Weifang). We were very happy! So we get on our way and we are talking about this trip and how nothing too exciting happened. Right after we said that our taxi driver pulled on to the side of the road before a toll booth and told us to wait for a minute. There were a few taxi drivers and so we didn't think anything of it until after 10 minutes we saw our taxi driver in the middle of the road waving down every car that passed. We laughed and laughed because we knew that we was trying to pawn us off. It was hilarous watching him run after the cars that passed. We did find a taxi that was going to Weifang but we would have had to pay more money and cram all four of us in the back seat. We decided to wait. Finally after about an hour the taxi driver found a "black taxi" van (illegal taxi's) that was going to Weifang that would take us. We were so happy! We basically paid that taxi driver to hitch hike for us. China is an experience. We made is back safely and am now trying to get motivated to start packing all our stuff up!
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Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving
~Happy Thanksgiving~
We celebrated Thanksgiving early with Thomas and Katie Harper, and Kayte, our friends and family here in China. We have so much fun hanging out with them. It is nice to have friends here in Weifang. On our way to Thomas and Katies we were commenting on the statues that they have on our campus. We always wondered what the statue is at the entrance of the campus….the schools mascot…a thumbs up! We thought that that was pretty funny! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. We will miss our families, the holidays are never the same without family.
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Wednesday, November 18, 2009
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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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