Lateran festival

The past two weeks China has been celebrating Spring Festival. It starts and ends with a boom (literally... Fireworks all over). Today is the last day of the festival. So, of course, we hear a lot of booms outside :)

I'm assuming these booms symbolize similar things as the first booms. Superstitions about chasing the old spirits away. Tonight we were having our "meeting" and during our first song as we were lifting our voices to praise Him, we heard booms all over outside. Here we are, a small group in this land of the lost. I'm sure there are more people tonight making noise to scare away bad spirits than making noise to praise their creator. Our work never ends. :) Thanks for your continual thoughts!

The pictures are of my friend's house. Her aunt is cooking and this is their kitchen table.

Traveling to Yinchuan!

This past week was National Holiday! That means we get about 1 week off to go traveling. As I mentioned before, it also means that the entire country is traveling at that time, so it can be quite interesting. This year I'm thankful that I was able to avoid most of the crowds. I went way way up north to Yinchuan. The capitol city of Ningxia. It's a small city of around 2-3 million (or so I've been told). I went there to ride on camels in the desert and to join in fellowship with fellow FoCers. Here is a short list of my experiences...

1. Five of us rode on a super crowded bus for 7 hours, got off, tried walking to the hotel to find out we went to the wrong one (there are 3 with the same name close to the train station). That's ok, we had time to walk some more. Arrived: 12pm

2. Day two started with the ten of us walking to find breakfast (not easy with such a large group!) I quickly took on the name of "mom". My job was to keep us together and moving forward. Then, on to the train for 20 hours!

This man wanted a picture with the 8 of us foreigners. I don't think many foreigners visit this city.

3. Train ride for a super long time. Lots of card games were played and hours spent eating and sleeping. Thankfully we had beds. Best train ride ever! (No lie!)

4. Arrived in Yinchuan! We went to Ashely and Anna's place were they so graciously allowed all ten of us to crash for a night. We were supposed to meet a fellow FoCer there to get the key. However... it turned out that Ashley was still there! She was able to show us around the apartment and help us get lunch. She also told us what we could do for the day. Having 10 people in one apartment was interesting, but thankfully we all found a place to sleep. I think most of us slept ok.

5. Yinchuan is so small we conquered it in one day (pictures coming, I didn't actually take any that day so I need to get some from friends).

6. Off to the camels!!!!!!!!!!! I'll have a post just on this since it was so cool it deserves it's own post!

Here is a hint of what it looked like. 30 camels in row walking through the desert... pretty cool!

Zeke (my camel) and me! I got him day one and randomly got him day 2. I kept him forever then :)

7. After the amazing camels I had a super long trip back... 21 hours on train #1 (8pm-6pm), 3 hour layover, 6 hours on train #2 (9pm-3:30am), 20 minute taxi ride, 2 hours of sleep, 4 hours of teaching, 2 hours of lunch with a friend... and finally... arriving back home for napping and relaxing! I also teach Sunday morning, so hopefully I can sleep early tonight :)

It was so nice traveling with 9 fellow Wuhaners (altogether there were 8 foreigners and 2 Chinese friends). We laughed, screamed (there was a scary movie watched), sang, coughed, ate, played, and rode camels together. So much fun :)

New Years Parties

China doesn't really celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas, but they have something bigger! Bigger than the turkey you got from Pick 'n Save or the assortment of Christmas cookies your mom made. China has Spring Festival. Otherwise known as Chinese New Year. Since traditionally, China follows the Lunar calender, the New Year changes from year to year. Sometime around the end of January to beginning/middle of February. To prepare of it, there are New Year's Concerts/parties. Last year I attended one, this year, I've already attended two. The first one was put on for foreigners throughout Wuhan. The second on, by Wuhan University. The second one was only traditional Chinese music, very nice, but nothing too special. I was the only foreigner. The first one... amazing! It was more like a variety show. Enjoy the pictures...

 

 The concert started with a group of zithers. It was very soft, smooth, and relaxing. 

Two co-workers from school. The girl is from Europe (Natalie) and the guy is from America/New Zealand (Linus)

Some of the performances were singers. They even had bubbles. :)

This performance was very interesting. I'll try loading a video of it. Hard to explain it.

We also saw a short Beijing Opera

It was cool, but the "music" is a lot of banging on what sounds like pots and pans, so it hurt your ears after a while.

The acrobats were very interesting to watch.

She could move in very unique ways.

They were both very strong.

This just amazed me!

There was a group of dancing girls. I enjoyed it.

The ending was a Chinese orchestra. Different sounding than a Western orchestra. They were quite good.

Thanksgiving in Wuhan

Thanksgiving has come and gone and now the Christmas season is here. I hope all of my friends and family enjoyed their Thanksgiving with loved ones. This year was yet another year to be thankful for all the wonderful things HE gives us every day. I'm working on a list of what I am thankful for, tell ya later. For now... I will tell you about Thanksgiving half the way around the world.

 First, China doesn't celebrate this American holiday. I asked my students what they know about Thanksgiving and most of them only knew that we eat Turkey (which in Chinese translates as "fire chicken"). Don't worry, I taught them all about the Pilgrims and Native Americans. Then, as a discussion topic, they had to pretend they were turkeys and Thanksgiving was near. They had to tell the class why we should eat their partner over them. Quite entertaining!

Thursday evening the four of us in the middle area of the city (Nicole, Peter, Darin, and myself) treated our friends to a Thanksgiving meal- Chinese style. We found a restaurant with a big private room and ordered the dishes. Altogether we had 15 people show up. It was a great time to show our friends how thankful we are for them.

Vivien, Joanna, Peter, John Wayne, Tracy, Bruce, Edward

Sherry, Jacquline, Nicole, Julian, Darin, Jonathan, Lisa

This was our Chinese Thanksgiving Feast! From the rice going clockwise: Rice, spicy bean sprouts, mushroom broth, something I forgot, donkey/cucumbers, spicy french fries, sweet and sour pork, eggplant, in the middle is tofu.

Today (Sunday) we had our FoC Thanksgiving meal. We all met at Beth and Sarah's home and worked on our feast. The final result was amazing! It felt just like a real family dinner. We had potatoes, chicken, rolls, veggies, fruit, cornbread casserole, sweet potatoes, stuffing, bacon wrapped hot dogs, wine, and of course... pie! After dinner we played some games and people fell asleep on the couch while watching football. Kidding... no football here. We watched a movie.

Our Western Feast!

Before tonight it didn't really feel like Thanksgiving, however, having our whole "family" together is a great way to spend the holiday. I am Thankful for my great support system over here. Keep us in your thoughts especially as Winter comes and sicknesses are seeming to conquer us one by one.