Oh, one more thing!

Thanks to all of you, this here meager blog has been viewed over 1000 times!! 

That's so awesome! It really means a lot to me that you take the time to keep up with what I am doing.

This blog is what connects me to all of those who I love so far away. 

Keep reading! and I'll keep posting! Also, feel free to comment. =) 

Love you all. 

Until next time. 

Higgly Piggly

Okay, lots to tell, but they are all short... Here goes!!

I forgot my headphones at home today... So no musical moments. *sad face. But fear not, the day was still quite nice.

I had four hours to kill in the middle of the day between teaching sessions. So I ate at McDonalds for the first time in China. It was pretty good. I had a spicy chicken sandwich. Then, I walked around ending up sitting on a bench reading my nook with coffee. I got two (i may or may not have a problem) and sipped for a little over an hour in the shade. twas so lovely. Then, when I was sick of sitting I headed for the busstop.... It was too early to go back to school, but I was bored. But rather than stop and wait for the bus I just kept going (I just felt like walking... twig; movie quote!) and after about 45 minutes I found myself back at school. I just walked in the sunshine and rather enjoyed myself. :) I was still early so I sat on a swing by the river and read some more.

On the bus after school I came to a conclusion. I'm fairly confident the term 'wizened old man' was coined by someone who visited China. There was an elder gentleman who was sitting next to me (well, I was standing, but you get the idea) and he had work worn hands, and his hat was on a little crooked and he looked well aged by the sun. The term 'wizened old man' popped into my head like I had read it out of a book. Which prompted me to think about some of the other old men I've encountered.... and it applies to them too. Even some of the old women fit. But I think a wizened old person would be sorta smiley... and the women here don't smile. Like ever... But the old men smile. Especially when you say 'nihow' or 'hello'...

Today at school we had a mini sports day. The kids did their dances for the parents. They all had on matching outfits... either shirts or track suits. Super cute. (I took pics.. they should be above)

I think thats all. Ummmm........  ........ ... .. . . . Yah.

Until next time.

Music

This is the theme this week I guess. Music.

Perhaps it is because I've been riding busses by myself a bit more the last few days, so I've been turning to my headphones, and tuning the world out.

Today's selection includes Avicii, Michael Jackson, Ed Sheeran, Melissa Etheridge and Guns-n-Roses... As all music selections should.

But the song that caught me today has these lyrics.

Fare thee well; My own true love; Farewell for a while 
I’m going away; But I’ll be back; Though I go 10,000 miles


Now depending on your personal musical tastes, your movie knowledge, and I think some factor should be given to your age.. You may or may not know this song. It is called 10,000 miles sung by Mary Chapin Carpenter and rather prominently featured in the movie Fly Away Home. The song by itself is about losing a loved one and finding them again either in another life or heaven. The movie uses the song to commemorate the loss of a mother and the characters actually travel a great distance...

I like the mellow, easy feel of the song. I always picture myself flying when I hear it... (In the movie, Fly Away Home, the song plays while flying) Anyway, I did a little research. From my home in Appleton, to my second home in Shaoxing, it is approximately 7,200 miles. (as a plane flies)

When I found this number, my first reaction was 'That's all?? It should be farther shouldn't it??'

Then I realized.... distance is not really measured in miles. It's measured in the flight time; it took me 24 hours to get here. It's measured by who is or is not with you. I'm always home among my friends here. But my family is a very long way away. It's measured in moments. I wish my sisters could be here to see some of the things I've seen. Kaitie would love all the little kids I get to see everyday (as naughty as they are sometimes) and Hannah would love the old places mixed with the new. My Grandma's would just love everything and make exclamations about all of it. My parents would love to see me navigate this crazy city... (I also think they'd love to go home after about a week or so). Everyone else would find something here fun, crazy, or amazing just as I have. I've been in the foreign state for a while and things still shock, amaze, and puzzle me. 

So, even though I go 7,200 miles or more... I'll be back. I'm going (gone) away but I'll be back. 

Much love, 

Until next time. 

Thursday

I am not musically inclined. I can plunk out a melody on the piano, and I love to sing... but its usually off key or pitch or whatever. Along with this, I've never really been one to be moved by music. I don't get goosebumps when a singer gets a high note, or a long belt.... However, its been known to happen. 

Today on the bus to school I had a moment. I was listening to my iPod, and this song came on that made me pause from my game of 'candy crush' and just listen. It made me feel happy and sad, content and lonely, and moved all at the same time. I can't really explain what it was. I just knew in that moment that things in life were okay. After the moment passed, I didn't really give it anymore thought until this afternoon when I put my headphones in on the way home. I hoped it would happen again. 

I wonder why things like that occur in life. Perhaps it was just a brain pause, or the sound waves between my ears.... or maybe it was Him. Giving me a moment of clarity amidst this craziness that is currently my life. It worked because I've been thinking about it, and Him all afternoon now. 

Go with Him today. And always. 

Until next time. 

Supper

So, today I decided to eat in... rather than in the school canteen. I stopped by the campus store and bought a cup o noodles. Yay!! Didn't give it another thought as I grabbed some crackers and hi-chews (they're like starbursts). 

(Below, is the picture that accompanies this story.)

So, I'm super ready to eat, and pretty excited about my beef noodles. Then, to my dismay I realize that the directions are in chinese... Oh boy. But, I can't let that deter me, I'll figure it out!! I turned to my chinese dictionary on my phone, and looked up a few words that I figured were on the directions. Turns out I was right, and doing things okay. However, I wasn't sure how much water to add.... There was kinda, sorta a line on the cup... Well, thats the line I used! 

Then I put it in the microwave and waited anxiously for it to ding!... thats my reflection in the microwave, by the way. Well, it dinged! but the noodles were still kinda crunchy. Back in! I think they were in for about 3 minutes... or so. They came out looking okay. But REALLY SUPER HOT! So, alas, I could not eat them immediately. So, I made a cup of coffee. Took my contacts out, and checked Facebook waiting so (or not so) patiently for them to be cooled. When I could finally eat them (my glasses still fogged a bit) they were delicious!! 

All in all, a successful dinner experiment. I China so well. 

Until next time. 

Real world and a typhoon

Nihow!

Hello again, and welcome to typhoon season. Two days ago we got a warning about an incoming storm/typhoon/hurricane.... I'm not sure exactly. Rain began on Sunday, got real heavy Sunday night, and into Monday... Let up a bit on Monday afternoon, and got heavy again during the night. Today, Tuesday was fine it was a drizzly, rainy, pouring kind of cycle that went off and on. Of course, it rained heavier while we were outside walking or waiting for the bus. Typical. The rain is tapering off tonight, and tomorrow is only a 10% chance...I think. I learned today that October/November and possibly into December is considered typhoon/hurricane season here. Don't worry though (gram!) we are far enough in land that we won't get too severe of winds. Just alot of rain. If you noticed, one of my pictures today was of our bench by school.... It's underwater. So the water on that little river/canal has risen somewhere from 3 to 5 feet from the rain we're getting. The river/canal... I'm not really sure what they are, but they have brick/stone edges, so we'll call them canals. The canal by school has risen too, but only by 2 feet or so. The sidewalk out side our apartment building is near a tree line and has about and inch or two of water on the far side. Luckily, it's still dry on the side by our door so we can get out.

In other news, my school schedule changed. Thank goodness! We now only teach in the mornings, and stay to observe/help three or four afternoons a week. It's not a huge change in time, but we're teaching more manageable classes, and getting at least one afternoon off.

And in sports.... haha, just kidding. Although I wore my flip flops today because I didn't want to get my tennis shoes wet. But, I forgot that china + water = super slippery! So, I was pretty acrobatic today in order to stay upright sometimes. Only really slipped good three or four times..... You know, arms waving kind of slip. Which was probably comical because I was carrying an umbrella. But I didn't fall!

Much love,
Until next time.

Qingdao

Qingdao: the basics. Qingdao is located on the coast of China, on the Yellow Sea. Basically across from South Korea. It was influenced heavily by Germans and has quite a bit of European architecture. It is known for its seafood, and its beer.

Places we visited day by day.... Here is the day by day break-down just to get you acclimated to the events I'll be talking about more later. 
- Monday: Teach school and head to Hangzhou on the train
- Tuesday: Get on the bus for Qingdao!
- Wednesday: Arrive in Qingdao about 8am, drop stuff at the hostel and go exploring, hit up the beach. Swim in the Yellow Sea! 
- Thursday: Beer Street, tour the Tsingtao brewery, walk a beachside path, climb out on some rocks, basically just see the city. We ate dinner at crazy BBQ lady's restaurant. 
- Friday: Visited the German Prison, boat ride and more walking. We walked a different beach side path and found a park where I bought and flew a kite! Then we hiked up to this colorful tv tower.  
- Saturday: We went to the Christian church near our hostel and then packed up, had lunch and parted ways. 

The people.... We had 9 in our group. Seth, Jordan, Laura, Jason and I from Shaoxing, and Jen from Shanghai. We all traveled together from Hangzhou. Dan, Becca, and Leona came from WuHan. Leona was our unofficial guide (being Chinese helps) and Dan helped navigate the map. It was good to see everyone, and make new friendships. We thought perhaps 9 was too big a number to travel all together around Qingdao, but it worked out real well. The only time we ever had trouble was a few nights for dinner it took us a few tries to find a place that would hold us all for dinner. (restaurants in china are notably small). 

The Hostel.... was awesome! We didn't spend a whole lot of time there, but it was very nice. I have never been to a hostel before this trip. The Kaiyue Youth Hostel used to be a Baptist church or something and it has the Old Church Lounge. We had a 3 person room, a family room, and three beds in the mixed dorm. Since our friends from WuHan were there the afternoon before we arrived, they stayed in the mixed dorm. The three girls from Zhejiang (thats our province- includes Shaoxing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai) had one room and the 3 boys had the other. The lounge was real nice. It had a pool table and lots of seating. They gave us beer tickets for each night. It was good for one free beer between 7 and 9 pm. We always made it back to the hostel by 9 ;) and then usually went out for more beer in a bag. 

Travel experience.... Okay, I gotta tell you about how we got to Qingdao. Sleeper bus. Ponder that for a moment. We left Tuesday at 2:30ish... and arrived in Qingdao about 8am the following morning. We left Qingdao about 4ish on Saturday afternoon and arrived in Hangzhou about 6:45 or 7 Sunday morning. Now, the sleeper bus. It is a coach bus size, but instead of seats, there are beds. It sleeps 32 people. Mind you, these beds are meant for stereotypical chinese people. So, on the way there I slept on my side, knees curled, and back bent to fit in this bed. It was not comfy. On the way back the beds were a little longer and I could almost stretch all the way out. It still was not super comfy because we were on a bus and China is not known for their paving abilities. But it was better. During training for China we were told that a sleeper bus is something to experience, but generally avoided. I have experienced it, and will avoid from now on. 

Beer.... Qingdao is noted for its beer. Which is Tsingtao beer, most famous beer in China. I heard you can get it in America. Anyway, the beer itself, while good, it not the most interesting part of the Tsingtao beer in Qingdao. It's how they serve it. In China, you can walk around anywhere with your beer. They don't have 'no alcohol in public' laws or regulations. Well, in Qingdao, the way you walk around with your beer is in a bag. No, not a can or a bottle inside a bag. I mean a plastic bag filled with tap beer and a straw. There were a couple different sizes... On beer street, they filled a pitcher up with beer and they poured that into a bag for 10 kuai. (which is $1.60 or so). Now, it seems like everything should be in a bag. The Americans loved beer in a bag, and could not understand how the Chinese beat us to this ingenious idea. 

Food I ate.... We ate all over qingdao. One place, just a block from the hostel, had jioutsa. Which is basically potstickers. We had lunch there on the first day and so e of the jioutsa had donkey meat and some of it had tiger shrimp. You read that right....donkey. It was actually pretty good. I should make you aware that meat in China is, at best, iffy; and at its worst can turn your whole digestive system to liquid, you catch my drift. So, donkey wasn't bad. Being a Midwest lass I haven't been exposed to much seafood. China will change that. It started with the tiger shrimp, which was okay if not a bit fishy tasting. We also had clams at multiple meals. Some spicy some not. And it's basically a plate of opened clam shells and you either use chopsticks or just suck the meat off. I actually enjoyed them. I didn't eat a ton because it was still a little bit fishy and I have this mental aversion to seafood. I know it's weird. Finally, my seafood initiation included streetfood one night of fried, seasoned squid on a stick. I didn't get a whole one but had a bite. Now, to get this picture right you have to understand this is the whole squid. Tentacles and all, skewered and fried on a griddle. I had a bite from the middle, didn't feel up to a tentacle.     Another new item was fried lotus. It's a starch I think.... It doesn't have much taste but the seasonings were good. Had some tofu noodles with pork and green peppers. That was delish!!! The. Walking about we found street food vendors with these fried eggs on sticks. ( everything is on sticks ). They were dove eggs and boy were they good too. But I haven't had eggs, decent eggs, since arrival here in the Far East. I had some fried sweet potato balls that were purple on the inside. Then reading was normal; bit the potato was purple! I was told it was the vanilla that made the coloring...huh. But the most interesting hing I ate, and it was on a dare/peer pressure; was a numbing pepper. These are little hard and moderately bitter but the oddest part is that they set your mouth to tingling and basically numbs the part you chewed the pepper with. It was weird, a little gross, and part of the experience.  

Things to remember.... Or to tell you about...
     The crazy BBQ lady. She was this older chinese woman with a very large beehive hair style that was red. Not natural red, but bright red. She stood out in front of her restaurant and beckoned people in, yelled at her staff, and basically just stood watch. We ate there one night, and it took forever! for our food to arrive. So, we made to leave before the second half of our food came, but she gave us free beer and we stayed a little longer. It was still a wait and we ended up leaving before our last dish came and went to get street food instead.  
     One day we went on a boat ride. It was a speed boat, and boy did the driver go fast. We were probably on the boat for a total of 10 or 15 minutes tops, and we didn't go far, but it was fun, fast, and we got to take some pics of the sights. It was 40 kuai, which seems like alot but its about 6.50 in US dollars. Then, one day we were walking along a beach front path and saw a wedding party taking pictures. We said hello! and congratulations! and some of the groomsmen knew English, so they invited us down to take a picture. Then, the photographer suggested a jumping picture. Three tries and we got it! There were about 8 or 10 in the bridal party, and the 8 of us foreigners. We drew a bit of a crowd. 
     The day we ended up at the park, there were a bunch of kites being flown. We had seen some kites on the beach the other day, and more from a distance in the air. I told Laura that I wanted a kite. I recall being pretty good with kites as a kid... I also spent some time retrieving them from trees too. Well, at this park they were selling kites!! I did some looking, and bartered a guy down from 30 to 20 and to throw in the string too. So, I now own an awesome fish kite!! When I was flying it at the park after I bought it, I got it to the end of its string and was keeping it steady when the guy selling kites behind me came up to me and gave me the thumbs up. He must have thought I was pretty good. =)
   Finally, I made two purchases in Qingdao. My first non-survival needs purchase. I got a little pig made out of shells from a vendor on the beach. And I got a present for Samantha back in America. Oh, and as a side note, we did a TON of walking. And our hostel was on a hill, so we did quite a bit of uphill walking. But we didn't see the sense in taking a bus because we might miss something. My calves and my shoulders are rather sore. 

Well..... Thats Qingdao. And thats what I did for my national holiday. I definitely needed this week to see friends, see China other than Shaoxing, and relax. Now, its back to school on Tuesday... But tonight the Xing-ers are going to night market to do some shopping, and we're gonna watch the packer game late tonight/ early tomorrow. 

Until next time.