uh, hi!

Long time, no type. I know, I know, I'm in trouble but I have good reasons I promise. Anyway, so much has happened since I last posted on here. We went to Beijing with Annaliisa's mother and Thailand on our own. We also got a new roommate, a Chinese girl Annaliisa works with. My brother introduced us to the greatest place in China...Dashatao, a place where you can buy almost any DVD imaginable for a mere $1! Yeah, it's pretty spectacular. We have been spending most of our time eating with friends and family and working or doing school work. We survived Summer classes...they were grueling! I finished my book...that was exciting! and we booked my mom's trip to visit us...super happy!!!

Today we are hanging out with our friend, Christine, watching Mary Poppins because Annaliisa says her purse is like Mary Poppins' bag. I will post separately for Beijing and Thailand but for now I am so written out! Hopefully I'll get to the posts on Monday...it's back to work this weekend :(

My Birthday

Um...I know it's a little late to be posting pictures from my birthday but I just now got a free day from homework (since I finished it early, woot woot)!

So as you know I went to Disneyland for my birthday (kinda) but before that, my work threw me a birthday party. If you've never had a birthday in China I suggest you try it. First off they surprise you with it. Well, they try to anyways. I totally knew what was happening...it was the day before my birthday and I had been working there for a few months and had gone through a few of these. Secondly, after they sing Happy Birthday to you they go around the room and everyone says something nice about you. It's pretty awesome. Then you eat a magnificent cake, all the fruit you can stuff inside you, and some chips if you have room. You'll also get some chocolate and a journal with some more nice things said about you inside. I loved it!

Birthday message on the white board :)

 

 Everyone giving speeches

 Me, the other birthday girl, Anna, and Tracy (one of my Chinese teachers)

 My Chinese boss, Marie (she pronounces it Mary tho)

Me and all the Chinese teachers.

Disneyland!!

I know it has been forever since I have written a new blog post but school has been kicking my butt lately and I haven't had much time. Hopefully after TV season finales (yes, that is another reason for my lack of posts) I will have time to dedicate to telling you all what we're up to.

As most of you already know, last week it was time for us to renew our visa again! 120 days down...crazy!! Anyways this time, since we had a holiday we decided to stay overnight in Hong Kong and visit Disneyland. There was a bit of confusion over our working days and non-working days but it all worked out perfectly.

I had one class in the morning so I went on ahead while Annaliisa stayed back for her classes. Oh on a side note, Annaliisa was moved to a new center within our company to take classes over for someone who is going back home to Canada.

So, I caught the 3:30 train to Hong Kong which was such and adventure for me. I have made two trips alone in my lifetime but none in a country where I didn't speak the language. Thank goodness we had already done this before because I would have been at a  loss at what to do.

Got to ride the top level of a double-decker train to HK!!

And then I checked into our hotel room. It was small but we were just sleeping there.

NOTE: To anyone who may one day decide to visit HK Disneyland.

Stay at the Silka Far East Hotel. It is located pretty much around the corner from the metro station

and the metro ride to D-Land is less than a half hour. It's a well priced hotel for HK and it's

a really nice place...and they have free breakfast if you choose it!! Good deal!

 There's a separate line that serves Disneyland alone!

And the metro train has mickey windows...

Mickey hand grips, plush velvety seats, and Disney character statues.

It pretty much looks like Anaheim D-Land but all the signs have Chinese

and it's much smaller.

There's the castle and people waiting to go in. 

We had an awesome time and it was the perfect park for a day trip. We got there at opening (10am) and were able to ride most of the rides and leisurely walk through the shops and we were done with everything by about 5. So we were able to go eat dinner and settle in for the fireworks. It was not very crowded, not by Anaheim standards anyhow, and the longest we waited in line for a ride was a little over half an hour but that was in the newest area of the park, Toy Story Land.

I mean, it's Disneyland so you can't really go wrong. The funniest moment was riding the Jungle Cruise. Luckily for us Californians we have an abundant supply of budding actors and entertainers who reside in the vicinity of Anaheim so the Jungle Cruise is always hilarious and just a lot of fun to ride. This is not quite the case in Hong Kong. While the tour guide was cute and sweet she did not have an acting bone in her body, nor a funny one. At one point she attempted the joke, "You know how you can tell the difference between a male zebra and a female zebra? The male is white with black stripes and the female is black with white stripes..." Pause for light laughter. "Actually I think they are the same." Really lady?!?! You just killed what was left of your joke. But it was still fun to experience that. :)

It is a must see for any Disney fanatic, but plan to see other things in Hong Kong or even visit Macau or some other country nearby because it is not big enough to warrant a whole trip to Asia specifically to visit.

We're settling into life here...

So now it's become kinda boring. We go to work, we come home and watch TV and do schoolwork then we go to bed. Not very exciting.

We finally got the package my mom had sent us over a month ago. We all thought it had been lost and was on its way back to the states but the million tank tops showed up just in time for us to wear them for a few days and then have it start raining. HA!

Oh wait...I totally forgot I do have one exciting piece of news! I got a job writing a fiction column for an online magazine based here in Guangzhou, geared towards foreigners! I am so exciting and I'll be sure to keep you guys posted. There's supposed to be a launch party for the magazine this month too but I have not heard anything yet.

Here are some recent pics...

 Kyle and Crystal with Crystal's Aunt (next to Kyle), Crystal's cousin

(the guy behind her) and his new wife!

 Babies! :0)

 Annaliisa teaching a story

 Anyone need some insoles?

 Beijing Road!

 Imparting our culinary wisdom on our new friend!

 

Fried rice and Squash

 

Dinner with Erin!

 Annaliisa and Cheryl!

 Amy! She's so cute :0)

 Annaliisa is soo happy that my mom sent her some mustard!

 Annaliisa helping Mindy with a game.

Dinner with Friends

Here's a post draft I found sitting on my blogger dashboard. Weird that I didn't post it but here it is now!



Our neighbor, Catherina, really wanted to hang out with us again but we had had a crazy week so we didn't want to go anywhere but we invited her over for dinner and she was ecstatic. She brought her friend over and we made breaded pork steaks, cucumber salad, and sauteed green beans...

Oh, and noodles and bread. Delish!

(Sorry I couldn't turn the pic)

Getting ready to cook with all our goodies from the produce market!

Cookin!

Teaching our new Chinese friend how to bread chicken like my momma does!

And then they looked through my DVD...which they loved!!!

It was such a fun night. We watched Date Night and had an awesome dinner, they loved both. Just the fact that we were able to make friends with Chinese people outside of our school is great and they're great at that!

Hong Kong here we come and go...

This is my first post today (I will have at least two more). Every time I thought about posting something for you wonderful people I remembered that I had to do it on my phone and I was tired and had homework and blah. Now here we are, more than two weeks after my last post and I have so much info and pictures for you.
To begin our journey of March we headed to Hong Kong on the 5th to refresh our visas. I say refresh because we literally just had to cross the border and return but we went with our friend Erin because we didn't know what to do. She had to actually renew her visa which takes at least 6 hours. So we palled around with her and went shopping. Not Annaliisa's idea of a good time but she was a trooper.

(On the train to Hong Kong)

(Hong Kong)

Although we didn't see much in Hong Kong, we did see some adorable doggies. There were some people outside of Forever 21 (sort of like ARF or FBR in Fresno) and they had the pups out there and one was a huge St. Bernard. He was handsome.

Erin found out there was a Forever 21 in Hong Kong and was giddy as a schoolgirl. She freaked and we had fun just seeing her reaction.

Happy day!

Besides going to Hong Kong, we have been having fun exploring the many things our neighborhood can offer. About two weeks ago there was a guy selling pineapples.

 He peeled them for you too! Coolest thing ever so naturally we got one.

 

Oh, and outside of our metro station there are these guys who sit on their scooters asking people if they want rides but if a po-po comes they all disappear. LOL. It was so funny to watch them scatter and then resume their positions immediately after the threat was gone. Luckily I was able to snap some pictures.

There they are...

And there they...

 Scatter!

Hey!

Since I can get on Blogger at work I actually updated my Itinerary Page!! And maybe now I can add other pages too! Ooh exciting!

I will post after our exciting Sunday/Monday adventures!!

60 days have come and gone!

It's so crazy! I can believe we've already been here for 60 days and no I'm not counting down, it's just time for us to refresh our visa. We realized yesterday that time was upon us and we had a mini freak out cuz we hadn't planned anything but luckily one of the other foreign teachers is going to Hong Kong the exact day we need to! So we're gonna have a girl's trip to Hong Kong! Yay!

Tonight we went to dinner with our neighbor, Catherina! Yeah that's right, a real Chinese friend outside of work and family. We met her all on our own. After dinner we walked through the underground mall to escape the rain and found a Dairy Queen! Yep awesomeness!! So we had lots of fun!

I also started my own class on Sat. I was a hit! Three kids signed up because of me and I get a second class this coming Saturday! I'm enjoying it more now that I have my own class. I feel more comfortable but I still hope I just make enough money with my book when I release it ;).

Pictures are of us with Catharina, and the medication is what they gave me at the hospital for my chest cold!

What is it about Garry Marshall that makes you feel better on a sick day?

So I am home sick today :(. Last night I got a terrible fever while shopping at IKEA (I know, a travesty!!) and now I am at home watching movies which isn't so bad but I'd rather not be sick.

Yesterday, as previously mentioned we went to IKEA which was pretty cool. I wish I hadn't been sick so that I could've fully enjoyed it. It's just like the IKEA's in the states except everything is cheaper. :D. We will definitely be going back!

Since the last time I posted we also had a gathering for Annaliisa's birthday with my bro and sis-in-law. That was fun but for some reason everyone eats dinner really late so even though they left at 1 they had only been here for a few hours. But we had a great time. Annaliisa made pork (cuz we couldn't find beef) burgers an we wrapped that in lettuce. She also made some potatoes (you know the kind you get for breakfast) and I made a cucumber salad. Delish!

We also found a foreign supermarket and while it was expensive we bought a few things and it was nice just to see familiar things :). Fun times! Now I gotta wrap this up and do some writing!