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.

Week: 77-81 Casey Visits!

Luckily this was a short week thanks to our vacation and our delayed flight. We only had to teach three days! Whoop!
Casey came to visit us on Thursday, and he brought Reese's..:-)  10 each!! We were all so excited! I kept telling myself that I was going to save some for later, or put some in the freezer, but they just kept finding their way into my mouth,and before I knew it they were gone..
We went out to eat with Casey and our coordinator Celina before that for her birthday lunch. She told us that we could order whatever we wanted. It was like our birthdays too! We got fries, chao mein, sweet and spicy pork, onion rings, these delicious pumpkin Twinkie type things and of course rice and other Asian foods. We were all extremely full after that for one of the few times here in China.

Extended Vacation? (Monday/Tuesday: 75 & 76)

We had to wake up at 5:45 this morning to pack and catch a bus to the airport. We waited forever, and when the 8 bus finally came it was packed full so we couldn't get on. We didnt have time to wait another 30 minutes for the next one to come (or so we thought). A shuttle van drove by and ended up taking us for 20 yuan each, which isn't bad. It took twice as long because the streets were flooded and trashed with debris. 

Delayed. Delayed. Delayed. Originally our flight was supposed to leave at 7 , but we called the airline and they told us it was pushed back to 10 , so we sat in the airport forever. We thought we were lucky when our flight got delayed until 10:00AM. Little did we know that we wouldn't be leaving until another 12 hours later at 10:00PM. Just the day before there was around 200 flights delayed, so they definitely have some catching up to do. We didn't have any breakfast because we left so early and we didn't have time to pick up snacks either. We just had what was left from yesterday: a few crackers and some PB. They only had one Chinese restaurant that was pretty expensive and a KFC,  but they barely had any food, because of the storm, no trucks had come in yet to restock. The only thing they had left was chicken, and the lines were miles long. Some of our new Russian friends kept trying to offer us alcohol, but we just shook our head and declined. They were kinda crazy, but nice :)

Brooke and I asked a restaurant for some rice and they gave it to us for free, and we also snagged some soy sauce from downstairs.  I will take a free meal anytime :) 

We came back and ate it, and then looked at the departures board and freaked out a little. It said that our plane had already left. We missed our plane...How, I don't know, because none of us heard or saw anything. The board just said that our plane had departed. We went to go try and talk to a worker, and learned that there were at least 15 other people who missed it too. We went running around trying to get new tickets, and finally were sent back to where we got our original ones. According to some other passengers, the flight was canceled, which would explain why there were so many other people who didn't get on. Who knows what really happened, but at least we weren't the only ones. I don't feel as dumb for missing it now. 

  

It was a long day (you can tell who got all the sleeping done) :P

The floor was DISGUSTING! There was trash everywhere! We found some random cardboard to sit on like all the Chinese.

We finally took off around 10pm; the words BOARDING never looked so good! We landed in Guangzhou around 11 and got some "real" food, aka KFC... :P 
Luckily there was a long distance bus at 11:40 to Zhongshan. It was the last one to leave that night, or we probably would have had to stay the night at the airport or find some hostel which would have sucked. After a few good minutes of bartering, we eventually convinced a taxi driver to cram all 5 of us into a taxi. I'm glad we had Hayden there with us, because it would have only been us 4 girls with a bunch of creepy Chinese men. We finally made it home safe and sound at around 3 in the morning ready for some real sleep. 

Karina and kyle were nice enough to let us sleep and not teach for the day. We slept in till 11, went to lunch and then after hearing the praises of Vanguard supermarket decided we needed to go check it out. It was like a Chinese Walmart. They had almost anything you could want. We found some doughnuts and chocolates for one yuan. Can't beat that, although I did see a cockroach running across the glass bakery case...I try to just ignore everything like that though, because I've probably eaten worse here already.

Glad to be back in our city, and thankful we were safe from the storm in Sanya. We were lucky not to be hit harder like the Phillippines were. They lost many lives and had devastating results. Sending prayers to the people and families who had loved ones lost!