A Thursday...is it typical?

Ahhhhh...Thursdays. That means tomorrow is Friday and the great UN day at school. Doug has been working hard at getting it ready for the whole school. Him and his middle school team has been doing all the work, they have created passports, schedules, activities, a parade, and so much more. I even stepped in and did stuff. I had the Pre K -2 grades create flags of what they thought UN day, peace, and a whole bunch of other stuff is. I also had my 3rd through high school create a mural. I think it came out pretty cool. Each grade did a different part! I will take pictures tomorrow so I can post them later.



Last weekend Doug and I went for a four hour bike ride with a few friends. Avis Larson the Kindergarten teacher, Alissa Kruse the guidance counselor and Robbie Daniels the librarian. We went everywhere. Those pictures will also get posted this weekend so stay tuned.



Yesterday Doug and I went to the gym to see if we could get into a routine again after I got sick with the Beliun Belly...which by the way is when everything you eat comes right back out. Doug lifted and I swam.

Here I was swimming like this

S

W

I

M

M

I

N

G

and everyone else was going this way across the pool

SWIMMING

SWIMMING

yup...I was just like well if they get kicked then they get kicked. And they were probably saying look at that white girl..she doesn't know how to swim. Either way it was pretty entertaining.

Soon is our free trip to a town in China...yup can't remember how to spell it..will try to write about it this weekend so people can look it up if they want to but...it's free and we get to see a new place...I think we are lucky.

I think Doug and I have gotten use to the fact that we have an Ayi and really like it. We don't have to clean on the weekends, we don't have to iron and our floors look great. Really it's a huge relief for the both of us..and still a little bit of a shock when we walk in the door and our apartment is clean...but it is a good thing.

I do think we like it here and are having fun...we keep saying though our next place will be cleaner than this place...as in pollution wise. But every one is so nice and willing to work together. So much so I think we are going on another joint trip...yup for Chinese New Year...maybe to the outback. Who knows.

That's all for now in lovely China.

Things We Have Learned in China

Chopsticks, even though we use them for everything they still are not easy to use.

Babies do not wear diapers.

Air Conditioning is the best thing in the world.

Only having 144 students in the school is a blessing and burden.

Ants come from plants that you buy in the store.

Beilun belly comes at least every two weeks.

It's easier to buy dinner than it is to make it.

There is no such thing as personal space.

Yup the language is HARD.

People drive like they walk, and they swim like they drive.

If they don't honk worry.

Thank goodness for beer.

Thank goodness for the pizza joint down the street.

Being rained on beats the hell out of sweating.

Pollution brings a whole new meaning to breathing.

Don't drink the milk.

The Howard Johnson's in Ningbo would bring any 5 star hotel to shame. SERIOUSLY!

The five English speaking channels we have ROCK!

Old pictures...SHOPPING IN THE TRADITIONAL MARKET

This was so crazy. When we first got here....like the second day they took us to this huge warehouse where they have all kinds of food. Anything you could imagine was there. People were staring yes...and saying hello, hello, hello like you wouldn't believe. But all the vendors were so nice, we even got try some different foods when we didn't know what they were. It was called a Dragons eye. There was this hard shell exterior thing, when you peel it off there is thing inside that looks like a peeled grape so you eat all of that but have to spit out the hard seed in the middle. Swear to God I would have never tried unless we were made. It looked like it was a dry cocoon... the butterfly flew away.
I think this was the dried fish area...pretty interesting...very smelly.

No idea.
No clue what we are looking at here. The girl in the pink is Kelly Fu who works in the office. She was our guide for the first few days and she was great! She takes care of so many things and even taught us how to say bathroom in Chinese.

Toys

This picture is of Doug's beautiful bike. He fits it perfectly...so yes surprisingly you can find bikes to fit very tall people.
Don't you worry he got this really comfortable seat so we can go on longer rides! YEAH!
We both have disk brakes on our bikes...they are so new and cool. They are also shiny. The bike shop that we bought them from...well the guy doesn't speak any English but he can pull a bike out of the box and put it together in about a half hour. He is pretty amazing, he will also fix our bikes for no extra cost. The other day we stopped by to buy a bell for me which is a must here, and he had gotten a puppy about the size of half of my fore arm. I petted it and then wasn't allowed to touch Doug until I scrubbed my hands. I think I have fleas but it was totally worth it. Yes...I do understand that he might be eaten for Christmas dinner but he was so CUTE! At least I didn't touch the cat that eats our trash in the morning!
This is my bike...I think I need some type of Gel seat because sitting down now is a little painful.
These are our Tennis rackets that Doug and I bought on line. Well we didn't but the Elementary PE teacher Ken Lee found them for us and set it up so we would get them in the mail. It was awesome. He is a really nice guy, easy to smile..willing to stay after school and play tennis with you and go biking with you on the weekend. His wife and him just had a baby boy this weekend. So good luck to them!

Here are some friends..still at the Japanese Resturant

From the Left to the Right. There is me. Then Alissa Kruse she is the guidance counselor. Then there is Avis Larson who teaches kindergarten. Then Jess Burton who teaches 6th, 7th, and 8th grade language arts.
From the left to the right is Mappi and she is dating the tall Kelly Miller who teaches 6th, 7th, and 8th grade history and PE. He's the 6'8" guy Doug talks about.
That is my handsome husband!
OK you know everybody but the guy in the middle that is Matt Devlin and he is married to Jess. He teaches Elementary ELL which is English Language Learns...up we have a lot of those!
It was an awesome night. We haven't been to this place again but we have gone back to the other one. There it is a little more authentic. Tons of fun..you can sit on the floor and stuff.
It's great to have people to hang out with and everyone is so nice and willing to go out of their way to help you. But I think you have to be in order to be in this business.

Japanese Resturant and Food

OK so this is one of the Japanese restaurants that we go to. For 100 R.M.B. which is about 13 dollars per person you can eat and drink all that you want. YUP EAT AND DRINK ALL THAT YOU WANT.
Can you believe it? We do this once a week or maybe every two weeks. We eat lots of sushi which is very good and some other very random things that taste good for the most part. We order from pictures sometimes...and sometimes we don't know how we ended up with things.



Here is a picture of me eating a craw fish or something...ummm...it was marinated in something and it was a heck of a lot of work for not a lot of pay off! But everyday is an adventure in China.














Yup raw fish...for all I know it was caught in the stream were people wash their feet in earlier that day....but it tastes really good.















I know I know you would have never guessed it but here is Doug eating the same thing as me. We made a deal, we try everything at last once...so far it is working out OK.
















Yup more food. It's like a five hour eating fest.

The Apartment

So this is a brief view of our back yard. Yes we do have one since our apartment is on the first floor. It was a mess when we first got here...so we paid a gardener to clean it up...35 R.M.B. so about 5 bucks for these two lovely men to make the yard less scary to go into. Still don't sit out there but soon maybe...that way we can really smell the pollution. LOVE IT!



This is where we cook. Just a gas stove top. We got a nice wok though. And we try to cook every once in awhile. The food is good but we don't eat much meat...usually just veggies and tofu. It's good.
Small fridge but big enough to keep contaminated milk in and veggies!

Part of our living room which is huge with the biggest flat screen t.v. we have ever seen. We are one of the few people with couches that are not painful to sit on. We now have plants and that is great. The best part is the fluorescent pink lights that we use every once in awhile...they are awesome...showed Meghan and she was jealous...Ton said he might install some!
This is our oven..up we make toast in it but other people make homemade brownies in theirs. Doug has not made it that far yet. Oh and our coffee maker....we drink our coffee black now...so the people that are coming to visit get use to it now!
Our apartment has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, living room, laundry room, and kitchen.