Time off teaching means...

Adventures at Walking Street:

People stare and take pictures of us all of the time because we are Americans. We decided to give them a better reason to stare and take pictures of us. Please notice in this video the applause I got when I shimmied. Yep. China loves me. 

8 lunch/dinner appointments:

I gave up taking pictures after the first few meals. I can't believe how often people want to take us out to eat! The restaurants they take us to are usually Dim Sum style restaurants, which basically means family style. They order a million different things for us to try but hardly eat anything themselves. And they expect us to clean our plates... over and over and over again. If we don't take more food ourselves, they make sure we get more by putting more and more and more food on our plates. The food is great, but I get SO incredibly stuffed, because in China it is rude not to eat everything that we are given. I thought that I would be starving in China, not complaining that I am getting fed TOO much! Poor, poor, me. Life is rough here.

Two red envelopes from Jane and her friend, Allan, earning me a total of 45 yuan:

Bowling:

It was Amy and Kevin's first time bowling. 

This is Jane's mom, who tags along with Jane everywhere. She can't speak one bit of English, but she is so darn cute and we all love her.

Potsticker cooking lesson from Amy:

This is Amy. 

Her parents are friends with Jane so she came down to visit Zhongshan for the past month. I LOVE this girl! These are my top three favorite "Amy" stories:

1. She went out to McDonalds with some of the girls I teach with. She came back home with them at around 8, holding her stomach, and saying she was SO full. I noticed she had a bag of KFC in her hand. I asked her what it was and she said that she was saving it for her breakfast the next morning. Got to love day old KFC for breakfast! About an hour later, she pulls out her KFC and started to eat it. I said, "Amy, I thought you were stuffed!" She replied after she swallowed a bite of her chicken sandwich, "I am, but it just tastes SO good." I'm afraid she has been "Americanized" by us.

2. Me and my roommate Tiann have a favorite Chinese song on my Chinese version of Now 21 CD. Tiann asked Amy for a translation and she said it was about a girl's "nipple." The singer thinks about her "nipple" at work and at school and before he goes to bed at night and he gets distracted by it when he's with her. Umm. What?! Our FAVORITE Chinese song is DIRTY? We later found out that Amy got the words "nipple" and "dimple" mixed up. So I can still listen to my Chinese dimple song, thank goodness!

3. Our potsticker making adventure! Me and Amy went to a sketchy meat market where we purchased fresher than fresh pork and shrimp. As I was staring in disgust at every body part of this poor pig, I glanced to the side of me to find a lady chasing a rat down the drain with a broom. Amy asked me to hold the bag of shrimp for her while she purchased the pork. I grabbed the bag and about freaked when the bag started jumping! The shrimp were still alive! As we were leaving, Amy said she was grossed out because she just saw a dead "dinosaur." I looked and saw a dead alligator, right next to live snake, turtle, eel, and something that looked like a sting ray. I also saw a chicken's head get cut off. It was great. And traumatizing. 

Don't let these things fool you like they fooled us. They are definitely still alive in this picture. When we poured cold water in the pan and put it on the stove to boil, they started jumping out of the pan and onto the counter. We were all screaming like a bunch of little girls. In my opinion, shrimp look much cuter pink. 

I cooked. I ate. It was the most delicious pork and shrimp potstickers I have ever had. And I didn't get even get sick from the dirty, sketchy, traumatizing meat market meat. That was a pleasant surprise.

Dr. Sun Zhongshan Museum, Science Museum, and mini amusement park:

Planning, tours, and transportation were all provided by Allan. We are spoiled and we know it. 

I guess this is how chinese people ski without snow. Arizona could use this amazing idea. 

Overnighter with Mandy:

Debbie and Jeanette had some Chinese students stay over at their house last summer. One of them was Mandy, who lives on the other side of  Zhongshan, and she invited us to go spend the night at her house. We spent the afternoon at one of the coolest/prettiest parks I have ever seen.

Her grandpa, Mr. Leung, was SO nice and friendly. He gave me my Chinese name, Hong Fu, which means "very lucky and blessed". He also invited us into his room where we all sat on his bed and watched him perform for us on his karaoke machine.

The next day, we went out to lunch and went shopping. I spotted a rather funny looking hat and I was pretty amused by it. It said "Chinese (then, Chinese characters that I later found out meant Kung Fu), wonderful!" I even asked how much it was because if it was under 10 yuan (about $1.50) I was willing to buy it at a joke. It was 50 yuan. And the lady wouldn't bargain. Sad. Later we walked by the stand again and I picked up the hat again and tried to bargain again. The lady wouldn't budge so we went to a different stand. 3 minutes later, Mandy tapped me on the shoulder and handed me a bag. Inside was my HAT! She said, "I got it for you becarse it is very special becarse it has English AND Chinese characters and I know you will be happy if you have." She was right. I am very happy with my special "Chinese Kung Fu, wonderful!" hat. And very grateful that she bought it for me. 

Oh. And she asked me if I was Chinese. That's three!

17 more ILP teachers living just a 10 minute walk away from us:

More ILP teachers means MORE fun! We have been playing indoor soccer and basketball in the mornings and I couldn't be more happy about that.

Can you GUESS the cost of ALL of this entertainment?! 

$FREE.99

Like I said, we're spoiled and we know it.

Fun in Foshan:

We went on a day trip this past Saturday to Foshan, a city a couple of hours away from Zhongshan. Not a free trip, but very cheap. We explored the Ancestor Temple and the Ancient Nanfeng Kiln. It was a blast!