Christmas Time

Year four in China has surely been a blessing. The past week I got to see a friend I studied with for over two years get washed. She mentioned it a few weeks ago and I was shocked. I didn't realize she was ready and I was so happy to hear! She has surely has grown in her life over the years.

Then, about a week later my good friend and roommate Leona was confirmed! I was so happy that I fought the tears (I later gave in a little). Such a blessing to see these "lost" friends find the truth about life. It reminds me that living half way across the world is worth it. However, holiday times are hard. It's hard to see and remember what's happening in America and know that you aren't able to be a part of it.

This year is going to be different. About nine months ago I bought a ticket to America. I would fly from Shanghai to Milwaukee on December 19, six days before Christmas!!! I wasn't about to miss another year! One catch... I wanted to surprise my Grandma, so, after keeping it a secret for the past months, I'm finally able to say hi to my grandma in December! I'll let you know how it goes... right now it's December 23rd, I'm sitting on the couch with the tree lit and the fire going. Outside the snow is falling and we are enjoying a very white Christmas!

I started this before Christmas, now I'll finish it.

My grandma came over for Christmas and was surprised so see me in the kitchen! It was fun to see her for the second time this year. She was a little sad though to know that I will have to fly back to China after Christmas, but she would enjoy the time for now.

Chinese Characters

Learning Chinese is a lot of fun. I get to feel like a young child again as I walk around outside discovering my world of becoming literate. Learning to speak and listen is one thing, but learning to read is another. Although reading isn't super important, it's fun and important to learn some words. Here's a short introduction to learning Chinese charachters.

Some characters you learn out of necessity... 男 (boy) and 女 (girl) will tell you which bathroom to use. 街道口 (my street name) will tell me which bus I can take to my house.

Some characters you learn because they are easy...  一 (one), 山 (mountain), 不 (no...).

Some characters you learn because they look cool...哭 (cry), 夸 (I'm not sure, but I know it's "kua")

However, some characters you learn because of emotional connections behind them. For example, 拆 (cut down) is a character which brings sadness to my eyes. China is developing. This means that many old buildings are being cut down in order to build newer "better" ones.  The other day I ventured to my old old apartment. The 拆 character was everywhere. The entire complex is being torn down. I didn't even recognize the gate as I walked by. I decided to see if my old building was there. Sure enough, it will soon be torn down. A few people still live in the complex, but most buildings are deserted and awaiting their fate. Here is a walk down memory lane...

By the way... I saw the character near my current apartment... [sigh]... it just keeps going.

The main entrance

Looking back into the street

This used to be an open area, now it's full of garbage.

I walked past this every day and wondered what it said. Now it's crossed out... and I still don't know what it says.

The door to my building

Haha, we always walked past this... it's still there, but now with lots of beer bottles

My floor...

kitchen on the left, bathroom on the right

Our couch used to be there

TV

My old bedroom

Nicole's bedroom. Her map of Wuhan is still on the wall. We haven't lived there for over 3 years!

View from the roof

The whole to climb through to get to the roof

Here is the 拆 character, which carries so much meaning

The walkway I took every day...

This is just for fun. It's where Nicole and I would buy our train tickets. They were so patient with us!

BBQ!

I grilled out the other week with some friends. It was a mixture of American and Chinese grilling.  Although it took a while to get started, we finally were cooking with oil. Haha, literally, we used cooking oil to start it and on the foods...

Brian is setting up

Some of the food we prepared

The view

The cooks

The grill with food!!!

Still here

I want to do a nice post with pictures and fun things to say, but this will be strictly business. :)

I've been a bit busier than normal lately. I always thought I was busy in China, but his year has proved my last years to be easy. I'm taking my online classes and teaching extra hours at my school. This week I had to reschedule classes, so it's been an extra busy week.  I'm excited for next week when I can relax a bit more! I won't have master classes next week since every class is 5 weeks, then one week off.

We had a big Halloween party last week. It was a great hit! I invited over 40 people (of which maybe 25 came) and there were still at least 15-20 people that I didn't know at the party! Although it had nothing to do with Reformation, it was still a good way to connect with people and get to know them better.

Well, I'm off to start my day! I hope all is well on that side!

Enshi

About a week ago China celebrated their National Holiday. This means that every business and school closes for 7 days so people can go home and/or go traveling. It's one of the worse, if not the worst weeks to travel. However, it does give us an opportunity to see a new area of China. Last year I went up north to ride on the camels, this year I went to Enshi.

I know, it's like I'm always on vacation, but this is the last one until Christmas for me :) Enshi is in the same province as I live, but quite a ways west. It's surrounded by mountains so the best way to get there is by train. After an 8 hour train ride we were met by a friend at the train station. He took us to our hotel and treated us to dinner.

The trip was awesome! I got to meet another friend and have dinner with him, see his family and his home, and even try some special Enshi breakfast food- dog meat! The first day we hiked around the "Grand Canyon" and the second day we went deep into the country-side and saw the real country life of some people. Country life in China is much different than America!!

The final meal was the most interesting meal I've ever had. We were given a stack of shallow, clay bowls. These bowls were meant for drinking alcohol (although sprite is also ok :) ). After you finished your drink you would smash the bowl on the floor. So during the meal you would hear bowls shattering all around. It was pretty neat!

Enough with my words... enjoy some pictures!

people

people

everwhere!!! These pictures show the number of people hiking on this 4-hr long trail...

After narrowing the people down to one lane, we had more space to walk... beautiful views!

My friend, John Wayne, with his family in their kitchen

to the left is the kitchen, to the right is a walkway to another kitchen and a bathroom

a path in the country-side

country-side... notice the lack of roads?

corn field and path

Great Wall of Enshi

We got to hang out with this girl as her parents (Linda's cousin) drove us around.

Linda

The bowl

You drink from it....

... and smash it!

Our table

The bowls after we were finished with them :)

delicious!!!

I got even closer to Linda on this trip. She's a blessing!

A bridge near our hotel.

3D Photos

I have a lot of things I could tell you about. For example, I traveled to Enshi for a few days last week. It was amazing! The whole trip cost me just a little over $100! I’ll tell you more details about that later. I could also tell you about the street near my home and how it’s like a Walmart but just mini stores along a long street. I’ll show you pictures about that later to explain. 

Instead, I’m going to tell you about the 3D pictures place we went. Literally, there were pictures coming out of the walls!

We didn’t know what you expect, but that’s what often happens in China. We decided to give it a shot and see what kind of shots we could make. It was sooo cool! Here are some optical allusion photos. These were all taken in front of flat canvases. Some of them included a canvas on the ground, but overall they were flat against the wall. It was so much fun to move our bodies to help create the trick photography that unfolded! Enjoy!

This is my favorite photo.

Money, money, money, money, MONEY!

A mirror?

No!!! She got us! Help!!!!

Be careful!

Stairway to heaven???

Stairway to another place???

I also love this one!

She got in my way, so I kicked her.