Monday- Classes in the morning, bread bowl/potato soup dinner, Study
Tuesday- Classes in the morning, big dinner, Study
Wednesday- Class in morning, Chinese study, class over to my house for movie and dinner
Thursday- Class in morning, class over to my house for movie and dinner
Friday- Class over to my house for movie, Sports Meeting
Saturday- biggest and best Halloween bash ever!!!
Throughout week: food shopping, finish costume, study for GRE, study Chinese, lunches with students, write letters, work on girls weekend, Gilmore Girls (let's be realistic....you know I am going to watch it), make copies, etc.
This is a busy week, but this morning I wake up a little more determined. Determined to take the time to have Study/Quiet time everyday for myself. Determined to take at least a 15 minute nap. Determined to go to bed before 11pm each night. My life in general should be a little more quiet, a little more still. I need to rest so I don't say things like "Let's spray..." instead of "let's pr-y." (Funny yes, but not so much when this becomes a constant part of your life...) For this week I am determined to do this. Please help hold me accountable.
(Just so you know that I don't do this things out of obligation or I feel like I have to... I really do enjoy cooking and such... I just need to be a little more balanced.)
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Saturday, October 20, 2007
It's The Small Things
So I am just sinking and burning on technology these days! I have lost my cord that hooks my camera to my computer. Really stinks because I have some classic, never-going-to-live-that-down pictures to post. I will clean my office tomorrow. ;)
I did lay claim to some new domestic diva skills today.
This morning I proudly finished sewing on the star on my Halloween costume with a local tailor. He made the skirt and I got to sew on the star. You can tell what he did and what I did, but it was a moment that we shared and could appreciate the work. (I was appreciating his minutes of work in what would have taken me days and he was appreciating the fact that he will never again agree to let a foreigner use his sewing machine!) Just a little work to finish the rest of the costume...
Yichang has McDonalds, KFC and a Pizza Hut, but you know what they don't have? Panera... so we decided to bring Panera to Yichang. Katie and I started our quest about 11:30 this morning. We attempted to make bread bowls. At 6:30pm Amy and I put in the last pan of bread bowls. Altogether we made 7 bowls that might fit 3 spoonfuls of soup in them. They are bread bowl texture worthy. Strong. Also, made pumpkin cream cheese muffins, but due to extreme amount of time baking bowls did not cook yet. They will sit in my fridge for the night and smell my kitchen up tomorrow. :)
Just a little note to my sisters (Emily, Caitlin and Hannah)... Tonight I watched Casper (well a little because I fell asleep), but I digress... I missed you three girls like crazy! Remember when we used to quote that movie all the time? I used to freak out scared. Emily and Hannah would quote Fatso. Caitlin would just laugh, not breathing at all of us. Those were some good times! Wish I could have watched it with you all this year. Miss you.
I did lay claim to some new domestic diva skills today.
This morning I proudly finished sewing on the star on my Halloween costume with a local tailor. He made the skirt and I got to sew on the star. You can tell what he did and what I did, but it was a moment that we shared and could appreciate the work. (I was appreciating his minutes of work in what would have taken me days and he was appreciating the fact that he will never again agree to let a foreigner use his sewing machine!) Just a little work to finish the rest of the costume...
Yichang has McDonalds, KFC and a Pizza Hut, but you know what they don't have? Panera... so we decided to bring Panera to Yichang. Katie and I started our quest about 11:30 this morning. We attempted to make bread bowls. At 6:30pm Amy and I put in the last pan of bread bowls. Altogether we made 7 bowls that might fit 3 spoonfuls of soup in them. They are bread bowl texture worthy. Strong. Also, made pumpkin cream cheese muffins, but due to extreme amount of time baking bowls did not cook yet. They will sit in my fridge for the night and smell my kitchen up tomorrow. :)
Just a little note to my sisters (Emily, Caitlin and Hannah)... Tonight I watched Casper (well a little because I fell asleep), but I digress... I missed you three girls like crazy! Remember when we used to quote that movie all the time? I used to freak out scared. Emily and Hannah would quote Fatso. Caitlin would just laugh, not breathing at all of us. Those were some good times! Wish I could have watched it with you all this year. Miss you.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
The Joys of Technology
What did the world do without internet?
After having no internet for almost a week, the problem was solved. Someone had just pulled the cable out beside my door. 1.3 seconds to fix... 1 week to wait.
I did not realize how much I use my computer. Kind of sad actually.
Now my blogger is in Chinese. This might get posted.
What did the world do without internet?
They were a lot happier.
After having no internet for almost a week, the problem was solved. Someone had just pulled the cable out beside my door. 1.3 seconds to fix... 1 week to wait.
I did not realize how much I use my computer. Kind of sad actually.
Now my blogger is in Chinese. This might get posted.
What did the world do without internet?
They were a lot happier.
Monday, October 15, 2007
final day
Back online again...
Okay so our final day in Xian, we met up with our friend Yuanmin. Yuanmin used to work at our university, but a few months ago her husband moved to study in Australia. She is currently in the process of moving. We thought it would be a good chance to spend some time with her before she left. So we met our sweet friend and her nephew at the south gate of the old city walls.
Once climbing the stairs (everything has stairs you know...) we rented bicycles. Yuanmin was very excited and showed it over and over again. Amy though was a little nervous because she had not ridden a bicycle since her childhood. (You know that saying "it's like riding a bicycle" well sometimes it does not come back so easily...) Anyways, for over an hour and a half, all five of us biked all the way around the city on the wall. Even the last 10 minutes were a little torturous to me because I just climbed a mountain the day before. I was so proud of Amy because she really looked fear in the face. I was also relieved that we had gotten there early. When we first got on the wall, there was hardly anybody. By the time we left though, the masses had arrived.
Okay so our final day in Xian, we met up with our friend Yuanmin. Yuanmin used to work at our university, but a few months ago her husband moved to study in Australia. She is currently in the process of moving. We thought it would be a good chance to spend some time with her before she left. So we met our sweet friend and her nephew at the south gate of the old city walls.
Once climbing the stairs (everything has stairs you know...) we rented bicycles. Yuanmin was very excited and showed it over and over again. Amy though was a little nervous because she had not ridden a bicycle since her childhood. (You know that saying "it's like riding a bicycle" well sometimes it does not come back so easily...) Anyways, for over an hour and a half, all five of us biked all the way around the city on the wall. Even the last 10 minutes were a little torturous to me because I just climbed a mountain the day before. I was so proud of Amy because she really looked fear in the face. I was also relieved that we had gotten there early. When we first got on the wall, there was hardly anybody. By the time we left though, the masses had arrived.
After our bicycle excursion, the five of us headed off to Muslim Quarter to have lunch and do some shopping. Amy and Brad practiced their new Chinese phrase ("I will not pay anything over 1 dollar." Yuanmin had some good Conversations. I was particularly fascinated by the caged cricket (think Mulan...) We all bought some good Thoughts written in Chinese calligraphy.
So how could one end such a good day? With a good cup of coffee. This time we went to a new Starbucks. This particular shop had a huge window where you could look out on the Bell Tower and watch the busy streets of Xian. It was so packed that it was not as enjoyable as the Starbucks sanctuary we had found earlier in the week. Alas, it was Starbucks and we don't have one in Yichang. It was the first Starbucks experience for Yuanmin and her nephew so that made it also worth the trip. Introducing Father and good coffee to the world... That should be my aim in life...
Thursday, October 11, 2007
ugh
So my internet is down... In the office using this in Chinese... Sadly can't finish my Xian blogging until mine is fixed... Hopefully that will be soon. Hopefully my Chinese is good enough that this will get posted... Until my connection is fixed... signing off...
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Hua Shan
When I told my Chinese friends that I was going to Xian, most everybody said we should go to Hua Shan. ("Shan" is the Chinese word for "mountain".) Sounded like the perfect day trip!
On Tuesday Amy, Brad and I got on a bus and headed east for 2 hours. Upon our arrival, we broke out the Lonely Planet and expected it to be an easy beginning. Not so much... They wanted us to buy 10RMB tickets to ride a bus to another site and then 100RMB tickets to climb the mountain. 100RMB?!?! Sounded a little pricey for hiking something not man made. Plus Amy was going to ride a cable car up so we did not understand why she had to pay something now and later. After milling around the parking lot and asking people for advice in our broken Chinese (we were a little proud I have to say... so much Chinese!) we stumbled across a couple from Mexico. They had a guide with them so they did not know anything themselves. We found someone else to help us, but were intrigued by the Mexican couple and their guide. The guide was a Chinese girl who spoke Spanish. A rarity indeed... We enjoyed talking with them for awhile. I can honestly say I have met some of the most interesting people since being here in China.
Anyways, back to the mountain... we ended up paying for the tickets and getting on another bus. The bus took us to the cable car depot which turned out to be where we began our climb too. The views even at the bottom were pretty amazing. I have never been around mountains exactly like this... more like just cliffs. We said goodbye to Amy who had to go wait in the longest line (hour and a half) to go up the mountain. Brad and I set out on the Soldiers Trail for a morning of climbing.
We did take opportunities to stop and enjoy the views. (aka. Brad stopped to wait for Beth who was dragging behind!)
]
Some parts of our climb were pretty dang vertical. The safety was not record high. We had to hold on to chain links to help climb. It was a pretty cool sight though being so high and vertical. Brad said it felt like the movie "Cliffhanger."
I was very surprised when I saw how many people especially families were on the mountain. At the summit the amount was crazy! Whatever happened to fun family vacations to the zoo and such? I cannot imagine my father dragging all of us girls up a mountain side for fun. I should not have been surprised that Brad ran into a student. 1.3 billion people in China and Brad sees someone he knows...
After a sweaty 2 hour climb Brad and I reached almost the top. We had a quick bite to eat with Amy and then proceeded to finish the rest of the hike. It was a nice trek.
The hike up was well worth the views from the top. We were worried about the fog because it was pretty bad when we first got there. By the time we reached the top though most of the fog had burned off.
On Tuesday Amy, Brad and I got on a bus and headed east for 2 hours. Upon our arrival, we broke out the Lonely Planet and expected it to be an easy beginning. Not so much... They wanted us to buy 10RMB tickets to ride a bus to another site and then 100RMB tickets to climb the mountain. 100RMB?!?! Sounded a little pricey for hiking something not man made. Plus Amy was going to ride a cable car up so we did not understand why she had to pay something now and later. After milling around the parking lot and asking people for advice in our broken Chinese (we were a little proud I have to say... so much Chinese!) we stumbled across a couple from Mexico. They had a guide with them so they did not know anything themselves. We found someone else to help us, but were intrigued by the Mexican couple and their guide. The guide was a Chinese girl who spoke Spanish. A rarity indeed... We enjoyed talking with them for awhile. I can honestly say I have met some of the most interesting people since being here in China.
Anyways, back to the mountain... we ended up paying for the tickets and getting on another bus. The bus took us to the cable car depot which turned out to be where we began our climb too. The views even at the bottom were pretty amazing. I have never been around mountains exactly like this... more like just cliffs. We said goodbye to Amy who had to go wait in the longest line (hour and a half) to go up the mountain. Brad and I set out on the Soldiers Trail for a morning of climbing.
Even from the beginning of our climb the views were pretty good.
We did take opportunities to stop and enjoy the views. (aka. Brad stopped to wait for Beth who was dragging behind!)
]
Some parts of our climb were pretty dang vertical. The safety was not record high. We had to hold on to chain links to help climb. It was a pretty cool sight though being so high and vertical. Brad said it felt like the movie "Cliffhanger."
I was very surprised when I saw how many people especially families were on the mountain. At the summit the amount was crazy! Whatever happened to fun family vacations to the zoo and such? I cannot imagine my father dragging all of us girls up a mountain side for fun. I should not have been surprised that Brad ran into a student. 1.3 billion people in China and Brad sees someone he knows...
After a sweaty 2 hour climb Brad and I reached almost the top. We had a quick bite to eat with Amy and then proceeded to finish the rest of the hike. It was a nice trek.
The hike up was well worth the views from the top. We were worried about the fog because it was pretty bad when we first got there. By the time we reached the top though most of the fog had burned off.
Terracotta Warriors
Xian is home to the world famous terracotta warriors. Some even say that they are the eighth wonder of the world. (I did look this up on Wikipedia, but found nothing mentioning this fact. The website is pretty cool though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army ) So of course, because "everybody's doing it" we go see the soldiers for ourselves.We decided to go through CITS (the main tourist agency in China) for a tour. Of course, there were surprise stops along the way. For example, we stopped at a factory where they make soldier replicas for tourists. It was kind of interesting to see how the soldiers were made, but at the same time frustrating because we could have been seeing the real thing. Not to mention the fact that even though they said you could buy here an
d save money it was a lie. 5 kuai outside in the parking lot of the real museum as compared to the 150 kuai at the factory. We did get to make fun pictures in fake soldiers uniforms. :)
d save money it was a lie. 5 kuai outside in the parking lot of the real museum as compared to the 150 kuai at the factory. We did get to make fun pictures in fake soldiers uniforms. :)When we finally got to the "real" site I was amazed at the size. There were 3 pits that we looked at. Some had more soldiers uncovered than others, but overall just amazing. To think that each soldiers had a different face and characteristics. To think that this was discovered by farmers who were going about their own business... over 8,000 terracotta men! To some degree I thought this trip would be a little boring, but I was wrong. It gave me a lot to think about and a lot to see. Sadly, I did not get to hear the whole history from our tour guide because I was too busy snapping pictures. Maybe one day I will snag a good book about it. I did enjoy seeing the warriors up close though. Pictures can't do it justice.
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