Pictures! 3-31-10

China Alley

Tienanmen Square

Bruce, Katie, and Jack

China buildings

You Are Going to Dance for Us, Yes?

I've been meaning to write every day this week. I think I've officially gotten past the horror stage in culture shock. (Mostly) Our kids were a little rowdy again this week. This week I taught the kids games. Wednesday I did the Cup Game. It's a very popular game from Girls Camp. I showed them the small cup, the tall cup, and the bowl. One of the boys (Cookie- he choose the name himself) thought it would be funny to pretend pee into the bowl. I started laughing because it's so something a Chinese person would do. Then the other boy in the class pulled down his pants and showed us his anatomy . . . Me and the 3 other girls closed our eyes and refused to open them until everything was put away! I won't admit it to the kids but it was kinda funny.

This coming Friday we are leaving on another vacation. We are going Qingdao, very close in our province. It is only a 4-hour bus trip. It is supposed to be really pretty. We are planning on hiking a mountain to see some temples and stuff. I'm not quite sure what to expect, but I am excited to see more of China!

Thank You Heavenly Father!!

So we asked a DVD-shop guy to get a copy of the new Alice in Wonderland movie for us about 2 weeks ago. We were supposed to pick it up last week, but we were in Beijing. Today (Saturday), Bruce and I decided to go grocery shopping and run some errands. We got on the bus in front of our school, #38, and rode to downtown Weihai. We got off and headed for the market street. We picked up our video plus two more - at Bruce's brother Daniel's recommendation, we got X-men Wolverine origins. Then we headed for Big World to look for toys for our kids and gets some of Bruce's favorite muffins. We were done just in time to catch the last bus back to school. All the buses stop at 6pm for the day, and our last bus leaves downtown at 5:20pm (the alternative is to pay an expensive taxi to take you home, if you can find one). We made it on the bus, and about 10 mins into the ride it stops on the side of the road. The bus driver gets off and starts talking in Chinese on her cell phone. Bruce and I look at each other; we had no idea what was going on. Then she got back on the bus and started yelling at the passengers. Everyone started getting off the bus. We guessed - the bus had broken down! So we waited for another bus to pick us up, along with all our fellow passengers. The best they could do was to just stick us on another route for free - there was no replacement bus for our route. When the free bus got to our stop, it was already full... so yet another game of "How many people can we fit on the bus?" We paid a lot of attention to where we were going, and some things looked familiar, though others did not. Eventually the bus stopped at a grocery store that is only 3 blocks away from our school. Bruce suggested we get off. I was sure that since they took all of our passengers, the bus would also go to our stops and take us by our school. So we stayed on. A minute later, the bus turned away from the school, but we thought surely it must stop right in front of our school, like the other bus would have. Nope. At every stop, the bus got emptier and emptier. Finally we pulled up to a gated parking lot on a dusty road, with only two other passengers. Bruce ran up to the bus driver and said the name of our school in Chinese, "Daguanghua Swayshao?" We wouldn't understand his Chinese answer, so we looked for other body signs as indications. If we were still going to our school, the bus driver might nod his head and point forward. After confirming our destination, his eyes got big and he said something in Chinese. The other two passengers started laughing. Bruce and I got red in the face. We were supposed to have gotten off. This was his last stop. The other two passengers got off and gestured for us to follow them. I wondered if they would call us a cab. We got off and started walking down the abandoned street. I was almost in tears. Then the bus honked behind us. The driver waved for us to get back on. We did, and he pulled a BIG u-turn, and started backtracking his route all through our neighborhood. Nearly ten minutes later, he pulled up to our school. . . The Lord was definitely watching over us. WoW!! I'm so grateful!!

Fermented Tofu

We have been in China for one month now. I think I'm starting to like it here. In a strange and disgusted kinda of way. I'm starting to make peace with the food even. I've found some foods that I like. I'm trying more food from the cafeteria. That is always an experience . . . Today Bruce and I went to dinner with two other English teacher (not from ILP) and our foreign affairs person Kaile and her boyfriend. It was the first time we really spent social time with a China person. I absolutely love Kaile! She is in her mid 20. She is sooo funny. She is always trying to teach us new Chinese words. So we ate at a restaurant that serves "hot pot" or as their sign said "hop pot". Basically, there is a mini stove in the center of the table. They put a big bowl on it filled with broth. Then you order meat, veggies and other foods you want in your pot. Let me tell you, it is soooo much easier to order at a restaurant when someone can speak the language. She even got us free drink. So, once the broth gets boiling you add the meat and veggies one at a time. First she added the meat, let it cook, then we ate it out of the bowl. Then she added the veggies, and we ate that. Then some more meat, and so on. It was amazing!! We even got some sesame seed sauce that tasted like peanut sauce. It was great! I think I may try to make it when we get home. Over dinner we talked about some pranks we were going to play on Tim. I won't give it away, you'll have to wait to read it next week. As it turns out, the Chinese celebrate the 1st of April in the same fashion we do! I can't decide if I want to play a small prank on my students. I've really gotten to know them this week. My home group was all girls for the first 2 weeks. But we switched some kids around, because of conflicting personalities, so now I have 5 girls and 1 boy. Drew, my boy, was very rowdy when he was with his other group. But from the moment we switched him, he has not been a problem. I think he was too stunned at first to misbehave. He didn't participate for the first week, but in this last week he has opened up. He is such a cute boy. I'll get his picture up sometime. Other than that, my classes have been going well. We started visiting the kids in their dorms at night, I think they really like it. They really are starting to melt my heart.

Next week we have a vacation. I don't remember the name of the city and Bruce is asleep other wise I would ask him. (Forgive my bad grammar too!) So I will get back to you on that. Oh, and I wanted to say happy late BirthDay to PAM!! Miss you all!

Great Wall 3

Who Built This 2- It's a power line in the middle of the Great Wall. Are you kidding me? I'm betting that it went up during the "Mao Dynasty," i.e. the mid 1900's.

Who Built This- I don't think this shack is part of the Great Wall, but rather a small tower off in the distance. We zoomed in our camera and took a picture. Someone had to strap those bricks and concrete and water to the top of that mountain and build that. Crazy...

View from Guard Tower- You can vaguely see the Chinese writing on the side of the hill.

Steep Wall 1015- This more accurately shows how steep some of the sections of the wall could be. This shows, from bottom up, Sam, Nathan, Whitney, and KATIE at the top. A girl in our group asked, "Why did they shoot arrows? They should just let the Mongols climb the wall, and then just push them down the stairs..."

Inside a Guard Tower 1- This is me in the tower at the top of the mountain. I am walking toward a window that we climbed out of to explore more of the wall.

More Great Wall

Huge Guard Tower- This is probably the largest guard tower we explored before we hiked up the section of the wall in the background of the picture.

Great Wall Town- This is the town where the people live who work at this section of the wall. In the bottom left of the picture you can see a birdcage with a small bird in it.

Great Wall Entrance- This is at the base of the Mountain. On the left you can see the window with the sign that says, "Toboggan Run Ticket Office." That is where we went.

Great Wall- Little Shops- This is where we bought the panda nesting dolls. Our lead teacher's husband, Sam, bought a cowboy hat that says, "The Great Wall." It was pretty funny. That is Bruce's head in the corner of the picture.

Great Wall pics, and Silk market

Silk Market in Beijing. This is Katie with our group standing outside the Silk Market at 9pm on Friday, when it closes.

Great Wall- Katie's toboggan- This is the beginning of the toboggan ride down the mountain. It went super fast after a while. They have workers at certain checkpoints to yell at you to slow down, in English. Notice the bridge in the background of the picture. That is part of the toboggan ride. Katie thought that was the scariest part. Bruce didn't remember going over the bridge...

Great Wall- Cable Car- This is what we took to ride from the base up to the Great Wall (Instead of hiking for an hour on the mountain, we hiked for an hour on the Wall.)

A girl in our group, Michaela, standing up on an abandoned section of the Wall. Even though it doesn't have me or Katie in it, I think it is one of the cooler pictures that we took.

Great Wall- I climbed off the wall and took a picture of Katie poking her head out over the edge so you could see about how tall it is. It would definitely keep the Mongols from getting horses across the border very easily. I'd say it's about 30 feet tall. Our guess is also that those huge bricks at the bottom are from the original wall, while the smaller bricks at the top might be from more recent restoration efforts.