Day 103: Monday: White Headbands

So apparently you are not supposed to wear white headbands in China. Or anything white on your head. My Chinese teacher and coordinator were laughing and talking about me today because of it. They said that it was very "furniture" which I finally deciphered to mean "unfortunate" and that people only wear that to funerals.
They just kept poking my head all day, giggling and calling me funny. So many things represent death here. You can't leave your chopsticks sticking straight up in your bowl because that represents death...you can't give watches to people because that means that they are going to die...you can't wear white headbands because that means you are going to a funeral... Crazy China :P

You can't see it too well, but this little kids jacket says "Got Girls?" Haha typical China.

The snowmen we made for class today :)

Shenzhen Christmas Party: (Day 101)

We went to Shenzhen for the Branch Christmas party on Saturday. The food was definitely a highlight. We got ham, mashed potatoes, rolls, (with butter!!) and tons of pie and cookies :) They feed us well when we come. 

Enjoying our food :)

Family pictures ;)

Helping out with the piñata

We like whipped cream ;)

The cutest little Asian girl named Jade :)

 Santa! He wasn't as excited to see us as we were to see him...

Day 102: Tennis searching

Sometimes I just can't wait to get back to America.  The language barrier can become a bit frustrating. We"talked" with some lady for about 20 minutes just trying to get some balls to play tennis. I guess you had to schedule ahead of time to play and also pay to get in, so we ended up taking a bus to the college and found some more courts. I am not going to miss the buses here, thats for sure. It is so annoying having to wait for them. We had to wait an hour today because one of the buses broke down.
Kaiyin had delicous food at dinner for once. It was pretty much the best they have had so far, hopefully they keep that food coming... We played some card games at Anna and Britt's apartment afterwards. Allison and I are unbeatable together. I guess its not really fair to play games when we have our telepathy ;)

Day 97: Buddhist temple

One of the friends of the owner of Bond took us out to eat at a Buddhist temple today. It was a really neat experience. We got to see the inside of their temple and walk through it all; it was really pretty. We also got to eat with the female Buddha. I guess it was an honor. The food was seriously some of the grossest I've had in China though. They don't eat meat either, so it was just tofu, mushrooms, bean paste, roots, and cabbage. At least if they had a good flavor it would have been bearable, but it was seriously disgusting. It was also Brittany's Birthday, so we went to Ginas Pizza to celebrate after which was good, because I didn't eat much for lunch.

Roots...

The group

Anna the cake master

Brittany was pretty excited ;)

Days 94-95 Sleepover in Xiaolan!

We played some sports this morning. My favorite part of the week :) We played some soccer, frisbee, and football. After that Allison , Carmen, Brooke and I went over to the Xiaolan School. It was about an hour and a half away, but ended up taking a lot longer because of the traffic. We got stopped and the bus driver even got off the bus at one point. Kids were taking potty breaks out the front door. I even got to drive the bus ;)

We got to see the flower festival while we were there. We went to the park near their school, it was beautiful. We also climbed up to the pagoda to look out above the city, which was really neat. We were the last ones to be able to go up to the top, luckily they like us foreigners a little more than most people so they let me go up. They were trying to close it off :P 

Candice, Mindy, Me, Allison, Carmen, Brooke

We even got our pictures taken with these guys, and then saw them looking at it on the way back :P We were making some pretty crazy faces in some of them. Its a little game we play now, who can make the ugliest face in their pictures ;P

Our delicious fruit salad :)

Christmas!!

Our treats and games of the night. 

We stayed up way too late talking and playing around, especially considering we had to wake up at 6:45 to leave on the bus to church. We only got about 2 hours of sleep :o 

The next day was Sunday so it was a bit more relaxing which was nice. We had church in the morning and then played some games. It was freezing cold all day long.

Day 93: Friday! Scooter Time!

We decorated our apartments with a little bit of Christmas today. It is officially Christmas season now, so we have to start. We watched a few Christmas movies to get us in the spirit.

We also borrowed some little scooters from the school and went riding down the hills around our apartments. It was way fun :P We had more fun on those things than the kids do at school.

Night races

Our Scooter Gang 

Day 91: Chinese Wedding

Bonnie, one of my Chinese teachers told us she was having her wedding and invited Ali and I to go. She said that it was going to be a very traditional wedding, so I was excited to see it. We only stayed for about 45 minutes though. The school drove us there and they brought us food and we ate, and then we took a few pictures with Bonnie, and we left. I guess we weren't really going for the wedding, just the dinner, which was still really cool. When we first got there, it looked like a big circus tent with a red carpet down the middle. There were rows of dinner tables filling the entire room. The groom and his family would walk around to each table and we would stand up and have cheers, this happened at least 5 times while we were there. It was pretty fun. Everyone around us was super drunk, the only people that weren't were my Chinese coordinators and teachers, which would have been funny to see honestly. The food wasn't bad. There were a few good things there. They had pork and a cashew and pepper dish, and some pumpkin dumpling things at the end that were amazing. They also had the "specialty" of Zhongshan, which was some kind of oyster. It was actually not that bad, the flavor was good, but it was just extremely chewy which I didn't particularly like. It was a neat experience. We were the only white people there so everyone was staring at us, not that it is an unusual thing here, but we were like movie stars walking down the red carpet. Everyone was waving and snapping pictures of us :P Oh the Chinese.

Ali and I 

Bonnie in her pretty pink dress :)

The specialty of Zhongshan

We found a couple of our kids who were running around crazy like usual ;)

Some of the teachers from our school

Tuesday Day 90: Thoughts from Today

I pulled out the heater today..I know, I'm a wimp. I have been freezing the last few mornings though. We got some smoothies after school too, so I was even colder. I have been having to wear jackets and pants, but I am so excited! It just makes me happy for the Holidays, and I'm also pretty happy that I don't sweat like a pig 24/7 any longer. We have been praying for these days to come.

We played "Santa Says" for outside time today. It didn't turn out quite as well as we were hoping...ha they couldn't quite grasp the concept. We ended up playing around and having races instead. 

Day 89: Catching Fire!!

My kids got PB sandwiches for breakfast this morning! So jealous; it took all of my self-control to not steal one off the tray.

We got to see Catching Fire! It was awesome to go to an actual movie theater again. The movie wasn't even in Chinese either, yay for English movie theaters! :) And it was only 6 dollars which is cheaper than back home, especially for a newly released movie.
We got some chocolate and mentos and popped some of our popcorn and took it in our bags with us. It was great. Dinner at Kaiyin was even good that night. We got the chicken, carrot, and corn stew which is one of the best things served there.

Sunday Day 88: Shenzhen Round 2

We got to go to Shenzhen for church again. It was nice to actually be there in person instead of skyping in. We had Hawaiian Haystacks for lunch, which are definitely not my favorite back home, but they tasted amazing to me here. They did end up running out of rice though, which I don't really understand. Of all things, how can you run out of rice in China? It was okay though, we just slurped up the gravy :P They had also made us a pumpkin cake dessert, which was heavenly. We got a scoop of ice cream on top and we were really in heaven. We downed the food so fast. I think that they underestimated us. Not only were we a bunch of hungry young adults, but we have been living in China for three months deprived of good homemade food :/

Days 82-87 Fabric District, Middle School, and Shopping

Sorry I have been sucking at posting lately. The internet has been soooo slow and annoying, and I have gotten lazy :P
We only have 28 days left in China! and 17 teaching days :( I am getting a little bit sad. I am definitely excited to go home and see my family! I am going to miss all of this though. The time here hasn't seemed so long now when I think about it.
We did some exploring around the city. Karina took us to the fabric market, after a bit of misdirection and aimless wandering. It was awesome though. I am definitely going to go back to get some fabric and other sewing things; it is dirt cheap. Maybe I'll just fill up my suitcases with fabric and buttons and things.

I believe that these are womens clothes...silly China and brooke :)

Hayden, Brooke, Carmen and I went to the middle school today to visit. One of the guys in our apartment complex works there, so he showed us around. It was fun to get to talk to older kids who could actually understand and hold a conversation with you, even if it was a little hard to understand. 

Lynn is in back in the white. He is the teacher who took us here.

Ash and I went to get peanut noodles for dinner when the bus didn't pick us up for parent teacher night. We also got some apple yogurt drink that was pretty good. I really like most of the juices here.  

Just practicing our chopstick skills :P

Random people having a fire on the sidewalk. I really want to do this on the roof and roast marshmallows or something. 

Friday we went to Walking Street and did some more souvenir and gift shopping. I definitely have more to do...but I at least got a few things crossed of my list. Souvenir and gift shopping is stressing me out! I don't know where or what to buy. You really can find just about anything here that you want, you just have to have the persistency to search it out.
Our Saturday morning sports day was crashed by some competiton the school was hosting. There were tons of kids from other schools there to fly planes and race boats. It was actually pretty interesting to see.  
Ended our day with a smoothie from our favorite place: Tawain Oolong Tea. The Mint Oreo Chocolate is one of the best.