Disclaimer

Michael likes to read these blogs, and sometimes even contributes to them. He does like to tell me I spelled things wrong, or that a sentence doesn't make sense. I know this, and I would usually go back to change the errors.
Being in China, it takes about 1 hour to do a new post, and just about as long to edit, so I am not changing the errors. Sorry.

You will have to try to figure out what I am trying to say, and ignore the spelling errors. Oh and I also have a horrible habit of capitalizing random words. It is something I have done for many years. Many points were docked and many notes in red ink that read "watch the capitalization"from College papers due to my pinky randomly hitting the shift key. It happens! Oh and I love run on sentences too ;-)
Anyway enjoy the new post below!

Out Of Town Trip!

Since arriving in China, one of us has been sick so we haven't had the chance to travel! Finally we were both healthy enough we decided to get out of town! We went to Hangzhou, which is really only 1 hour away, but it was enough!

This is us at the train station, barely making it after getting off at the wrong stop from the bus, they really need to update the bus schedules. It is very interesting traveling in a foriegn country, you think you have all the info you need to get around, and something always suprises you! After riding the train for an hour, we arrived in Hangzhou train station, got a taxi and of course the driver had now I dea what hotel we were looking for. Luckily we bought a map and could point to the general location of our hotel. He took us pretty close to where we wanted, but we still walked 2-3 minutes (not bad we thought).

I about cried as we walked into the lobby and heard christmas music, and then saw this tree! In our apt. we have a 2 ft tree, and it is scarcely decorated. The hotel was awesome. It had christmas decorations everywhere!! After being in a city that doesn't have decorations this was lovely!



Hangzhou is nown for the West Lake. This is a View of it from the restaruants window! The restaruant was pretty good. We were excited about the hamburger and fries! We haven't had a real one since arriving in China!


Another View from the restaraunt. Notice the guy out of the window? we wouldn't want his Job! Especially being 7 floors up! And yes he did just climb out the window to water the plants!
I fell in love with these fish... they were so funny to watch! Look at those big lips. I even saw two kissing, but didn't have my camera this trip!

Doesn't he look like he is pouting!?




For Michelle(and anyone else that loves Amazing Race): I think these were Amazing Race China contestants. There were teams running everywhere all over the West Lake Park.


3-D Map of Hangzhou, pretty cool.Usually you see teenagers or someone in their twenties doing this skating thins (there's a name for it and I just can't think of it!) We saw some pretty old men doing it though!

Another A.R. Team.

Ahh, Michael was very happy to see this place! We went in to get warm, and enjoyed some real Strawberry Ice cream.... mmmmm.

More A.R. runners.

When we become really really really really really rich, we think we would like this car. But then again, we would never drive it because it is so beautiful and we wouldn't want to get a scratch or dent in it.... so then what would be the point? I guess we'll just look.

The musical Fountains. No Belligio Foutains in Vegas, but still pretty good. After this, we had about 2 more hours until our returning train left, so we decided to get a foot massage... oh the pain, but it felt sooooo Good! Not as Cheap as ones we have had here before, but compared to US prices, worth it!

The joys of little things, even a little hamburger in BK. It was also really really nice to get a steady stream of hot water with lots of pressure in the hotel shower, hear english, see other foreigners that we didn't know, not having to wear a coat 24/7, eat beef, have a huge soft (er) bed, and Just have a vacation!!

Story of Peter

We can not get pictures on our blog at the moment, so as promised here is the story of Peter.

Peter
Peter is one of our students from the adult class we teach. In our first lesson we encouraged the students to e-mail us so they could practice their written English. These are parts of our e-mail conversations we had with Peter the Following days.

Dear Katie Jorgensen:
Hello! You are very beautiful.I am a manager of a company.Next class can I kiss your hands? -Peter

Peter,
If you wish to kiss my hands you may, but in America, we usually do not kiss hands. Is it a Chinese custom to kiss a girls hands? -Katie


****what could it hurt right? Then we get this e-mail

Dear Katie Jorgensen:
Because you are attractive ,so I want to kiss your hands.If we can meet next time ,could I kiss your face? -Peter

****I didn't know how to respond. Of course he could not kiss my Face. So My loving husband stood in and replied for me

Peter,

Thank you for the compliment in telling me that I'm attractive. However, in the United States it is not polite to kiss another man's wife. I am married to Michael and I believe he would be offended if you tried to kiss my face. Kissing a woman's hand is unusual in the United States. In Europe they kiss one another as friends, but not in the United States. Since I'm American, I'd prefer if we just shook hands during class. See you tonight.

Sincerely,

Katie

*****Very professional, and I would have never done such a great job. But then we get this e-mail.

Dear Katie:
I think you are a charming lady.Let's meet in the same place if we can.

Peter

WHAT??? We laughed quite hard at this, but it is really creepy. We are trying to figure out if he wants to impress us and is getting these conversations from a romance novel of some kind or if he is just creepy. We have taught a few more classes since this has happened. I still haven't been kissed thank heavens, but there is always something funny.

At the end of classes, Michael always asks if there are any questions and Peter always asks something. Last week it was "Michael do you kiss your wife everyday?" A couple of weeks ago He asked Michael What his favorite color was. Michael responded and then asked peter what his favorite color was he responded "White like your wife's Face" Very Creepy!

Lets just say I am Trying as hard as I can to Avoid Peter!

Out and About

of Mike and I were invited to make dumplings at our directors house. Mike had to teach so didn't make it. It was a lot of fun! We were making a DVD for recruiting other teachers!

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Funny Story: I was walking home a lone, and as I turned to corner to our building this man was standing there. He made me a little nervous, but I figured he was the garbage man, or something. He then motioned me to stop, and pointed to the garbage. I looked and there was a rodent of some kind. I was like "okay cool a mouse". But Then he went into the bushes, Grabbed a big rock and....well squished the poor thing! It was sad, but the Shock of it all made it Hilarious. I went upstairs and he was still hanging around long enough for me to get a pic.





Mike and I were invited to go to a teachers house. It was in Northern Shaoxing, and in an old area. It was really a great experience. We got to meet Gigi's Family and see where she grew up!

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Drying out milk, or ground up flowers. They couldn't explain it really well in English so we really have no Idea! This little girl kept following us around the museum we went too! She was adorable.

GiGi, Katie, Mike, Vivian, GiGi's Sister, and her friend.
Before going home, we went to the market to buy a few treats. As Michael was trying to figure out how to say something, which took a few minutes, we were swarmed by a lot of the workers. Every time I would try to get a photo, they would disappear! A few seconds ago, there were literally 10 workers in view, now you can see three!
This is how they dry out the rice I guess. We thought it was wheat or something because it didn't look like rice. Then it was explained that "the clothing was still on the rice, and we needed to take the clothes off the rice to see it." They then proceeded to show us how to take the "clothes" off the rice.
This is a view of the area, some houses are very old and run down, some were practically new! I also liked how they stacked the rice into Tee Pee looking shapes.
Out in the Rice Fields. These Farmers are very tough. Most of them did not wear shoes, and would carry big bundles like this!

random and East Lake

This Blog is very random. Most of the pictures are of a place called East lake, but mixed in between are random photo's! I am just not in the mood to do a lot of editing right now. Sorry!

If we were to take any of our students home to the U.S. , this would be him! He is just the happiest kid ever! Michael calls him Panda bear. He is a huge boy. He is in with the 5 year olds but is only 2 or 3 years old. He is in that class because he is such a big boy! He is always happy and is just too Cute!



We have started teaching night classes to adults in an area called Keiqao. It is about 40 minutes away from where we live. We really enjoy it! There is an additional story about one of the fella's in this class, but it is for another blog!
Finally east Lake. It is a man made lake. I guess Miners made it on accident as they were mining. It is close to a river and over time, the river soaked into the holes made by the miners. Very beautiful!

These guys were just sitting there waiting to be hired! It's sort of like a Chinese Gondola ride.



At the end of the lake they had this pavilion. This opera singer would go into the pavilion and change clothes between each song. She had a beautiful voice.
This is not on the lake, but on the dirty river next to the lake. Notice the boat is partially sinking because of the weight of the sand. I wouldn't want to be on that boat!

2009 Sports meeting

Yue Xiu has an annual sports meet, or meeting as they call it. We were on the Foreigners team. We participated in the Skipping rope contest. Michael was going to run the 4x100 relay, but got a bad cold and had to drop it! Go Foreign Team!! (Alina the Ukraine, Darin the Aussie, Rudolph from France, Todd, Jake, Adam, Me and Mike from the US. Greg from France and Calum from England.) if you care.


For the skip rope contest, we had to have 10 to a team. Eight in the middle jumping at the same time, and of course 2 swinging the rope. I was a jumper and because Michael is so tall, he was told to be a spinner.


Practicing! Which we did a lot of.

Looking serious? We had one minute to jump as many times as we could. We placed 4th making 32 jumps! aren't we amazing? 1st had 51, so We did alright.

Wo Lai La!! (translation: I'm tired!!)

Number 27

What to say... what to say. I don't kow what to say about this picture. It was taken on my birthday as we were headed to eat pizza. This is the first time we passed it without someone sitting by the scary clown

These are my b-day guests. The wanted to try pasta so Michael was nice and made it for them. They brought me a cake, and we had fun! Three of them are teachers we work with, one is one of their boyfriends and a mom!
The yummy cake! Sorry the picture is blurry, just a sign we need a new camera!
This candle was awesome! It started as a closed blossom, and when you lit it, it opened, and well, you can see what happened. It also was a musical one that we found out would play all night. We put it on our balcony, and we could still hear it. So we decided to throw it to another balcony of one of our friends. hehe

I love chinese Cake! It has fruit on it, and sometimes in it. This one had pudding. Everything is edible. The happy birthday sign and music piece is chocolate, and the cream is sooo good. Not the fake waxy icing we sometimes get in USA.
What is a birthday, without a food fight! Especially when it is a cake with lots of creamy icing? Surprisingly, Michael did not start it! It was one of the cute little innocent looking girls! The other two were really getting into it too, once it started!
"I'm Angry" this is after the clean up of the fight!

The girls swooning over Michael and his Backstreet Boy impersonations! They were also his back up singers too!
Ya... so I felt pretty fat when three girls could not pick me up.... ;-( haha that what I get for being a Giant too! (and eating yummy oreo's)

All in all a Very good Birthday! Thanks for all the birthday wishes!

Halloween,...... sort of.

Better Late then never right??

At the Kindergarten, we tried to give them a little American culture by teaching them a halloween song, make masks for costumes, and then trick-or-treat. This is how it turned out.
Masks were wonderful, the song they learned. Trick-or-treating was more like, Mob, Mug, and Pick pocket the Foreign teachers for all the candy they have. The picture below is just the beginning. Towards the end we had all 10 classes out there, the VP was grabbing candy from our bowls and throwing it in the air so the kids could grab it.... not a good Idea! O'well.



We were invited to a masquerade with other foreign teachers. It wasn't what we expected, but a lot of fun anyway. They said it would be a dance. So we thought a big Dance like in the U.S. where the music was loud, and there were a billion people. We ended up in a small cafe, we danced to maybe 2 songs and it was mostly them watching the foreigners dance. oh and the party was over by 9:15 because most of the people attending were students who have curfew everynight at 9:45.

There were traditional halloween games like.....



Bobbing for apples, mask making contest, and of course charades. Our team one chocolate and a rose for the wonderful acting skills of Michael.



I have heard that when people go to china, they usually Lose quite a bit of weight. Like anyone would be, I was excited about it. Michael has lost weight, but sadly I have not. I blame my new found joy.....








Yes... it is peanut butter with oreo's. Give you they are the lightly sweet oreo's, so maybe I have a chance, but If I come back to the U.S. looking the same or even fatter you now know why!