Happy....

This has been the time of parties the last few weeks with one more to come this next week. Here are some pictures from a few of them!

Happy...

Birthday Damon!
Damon is one of my classmates at the CLP. All us 2nd years went over to his house on his birthday for home cooked Chinese food and then a viewing of "October Sky" (the kids at CLP are getting ready to do a science fair!)

Damon loves chocolate and coke obviously

Cyndie, Lisa, me and Kim Cagle

opening gifts

Birthday Joellen!
We all surprised Joellen at our favorite coffee shop, Maili on her birthday. She thought she was just going with Kim to get coffee but then many of the ladies of CLP met her there with a cake and gifts. It was a nice time to hang out together and celebrate Joellen.

so surprised!

Lighting the candles

St. Patrick's Day!
I had my second annual St. Patrick's Day party again this year. I was much busier this year so it wasn't quite the extravaganza as last year but still fun. We had a meal of Baked Potatoes, Beer Chili, irish soda bread, Barm Brack, green white chocolate mint fudge, and my green snickerdoodles!

Mandy enjoying chili

Bridget and Iain

Reagan and Hannah-sportin some good green

16th Birthday Reagan!
Reagan had her 16th Birthday party on Sunday. It was Hollywood themed so we went all out. It was a lot of fun to be able to celebrate her 16th birthday with her!

Great ipod cake!

The Cool Place! (Youth and leaders from youth group)

Lisa (Lady Gaga), Cyndie (Whoopi) and me (Avril)

Child star Sydney (with a gun?)

Avril (me), Lady Gaga (Lisa), Jackie O (Emy), and Messi (Stowe)

15

For the last day of Chinese New Year, the 15th day, a few of us went to a friend's house to celebrate. Because the New Year was so early this year, many students had to be back to school before the end of the holiday and so couldn't be at home to celebrate with their family. Sooo, my friend Kara invited some of our Chinese friends over so we could celebrate. We tried to make it very Chinese style for them.

We ate Chinese food cooked by Kara (sooo good!)

teamwork

we chatted

we did fun fireworks

there is no rules about what kind of fireworks you can buy. This was from the smallest of the boxed ones they had-only 6 dollars. It is amazing how big of fireworks anyone can put off.

And of course ate tang yuan (er). This is a kind of food that is always eaten on the 15th day. It is made of sticky rice mushed into balls with a flavoring inside. Ours were either peanut flavored or black sesame flavored. Very good though a little strange of texture.

Making Timelines

The Cool Place has now got back into swing this semester. For those of you who don't know, I have been leading a youth group of international students (non-Chinese) for almost a year now here in my city. Friday night was our first real meeting this semester. We got a bit of a late start but hopefully next week will be getting back into the normal time! This next month we are going to be studying some main characters from the OT.

Eden and Benny with all the slips from OT people matching game

To kick it off, we played a game of matching names from the OT with who they are. It might have been a little too hard but I was so impressed with how good everyone did! We then sang some songs and then talked about the devos I did for them. We ended the night working on our timelines of Gen. and Ex. We didn't quite finish them but got a good start!

working hard

...even in German. We are very cultured.

Take a picture with me Eden! Now, try drawing horses and chariots...

Chuan(er) 串儿

----pronounced chware (last part like the word "are")-------

Chuan(er) is something that we enjoy eating here in China. Basically, it is a lot of food on a stick-like kebabs. If you can see the Chinese character, it looks like there are two chunks of something on a stick, so it's nice to remember. We went out to eat chuan(er) last night and it was very tasty so I thought I would share with you.

Our favorite place to eat "stick food" is this one place that is pretty nasty actually. One time while eating there this roach ran along the wall beside me. I pointed it out to the waitress and she looked at me like "what?" It is the kind of place you don't look too carefully at what you eat, where they prepare/cook the food, and where you eat. They bring out the food as it is finished and throw it on a plate in the middle of the table that is covered in a plastic bag (to prevent having to do dishes). Then you just grab the food and dig in.

You can honestly get anything on a stick here. My friend pointed out the cow eyes as an option last night on the menu to me. However, we usually stick to more normal things. All foods are covered in this mixture of spices containing cumin, maybe some garlic powder and some spicy goodness. Here are some of my favorites:

• For meat, always lamb. Many of the places are also Muslim so your choices are usually lamb, beef, or other animals we don't usually eat. We often stick with lamb because it has the least amount of fat. It is usually alternating meat/fat/meat/fat so I usually only eat the meat part and pick the fat part off. The Chinese really like that fatty part for the most part.

(some random meat chuan(er)-picture from internet)

• Potato (both normal white and sweet potato). The regular potato comes very thinly sliced while the sweet potato is thicker
• Garlic shoots
• Tofu rolls 豆腐卷. (Spinach or other lettuce like vegetables wrapped up by dried tofu.）

(doufu juan-picture from internet)

• Bread. They have a few different kinds of bread that you can order but they are usually covered in oil and the spices mixture.

here are some pictures from friends eating the huge bread last night:

(the room we ate in last night isn't actually part of the restaurant. We had so many people they put us on the second floor-which we are pretty sure is part of a pizza place next door. That's why the room looks so nice!)

Happy New Year (Chinese, that is)

Alright, I am going to try to come back to blogging now that I have a way to get access again to blogger and facebook. I will post some more about my winter travels soon in the next few days but as it is Chinese new year, I thought I would make this first one back in a few months for that.

This is the first year I have actually been in China for the night of Chinese New Year. I got together with some teammates and we hung out as the fireworks started. Here is a video and some pictures of the fireworks just outside my friends' window. It was pretty intense and there are still fireworks going off here and there throughout the city and will be for the next week or so.

a little before midnight before it got real crazy. My other videos of it more crazy wouldn't upload so maybe later I'll try again.

Walking around looking at fireworks well after bedtime. Way too loud and exciting to sleep!

taking pictures outside-it was really cold hanging out of hte windows!!

A Walk To Maili Coffee

A few days ago, I decided to take my camera with me on my walk to my favorite coffee shop, Maili coffee. I usually go there at least once a week to work on preparing for youth group because it is a nice quiet place where I can really focus on preparing well and not get distracted at my house. This is a photo journal of that trip.


Coming down the stairs. This needle was laying on the window seal as I cam down the stairs. I have no idea where it is from, but there it was.


The pile of trash where I had just seen a huge rat run under. (This was the second time I had seen him)


Pile of chairs hanging out for storage? by my house.


This sign says "Protect the environment. Please don't go #1 here." Notice the wet wall. When I was coming back from the gym, there was definitely a man going there. Yes, it is very awkward to have to walk by that.


Grill/baking eggs and sweet potatoes that you can buy on the street.


This is one of my favorite restaurants. It is basically a bunch of vegetables, tofu, and some meat cooked and then seasoned really spicy (they have 5 levels of spicy and I only get the lowest and am sweating). Right now cabbage and big onions are in season and very cheap so everyone buys a ton and dries them on the street to use all winter.


Outside a hair salon. They dry their towels just on the sidewalk by their shop.


Recyclables car. These men ride around with these carts all day yelling for people to bring out their recyclables (kind of like on monty python... "bring out your recyclables...")


Chicken running around by the drying cabbage. (Sorry a little blurry-using old camera until I can buy a new one since my camera was stolen this summer)


Made it to Maili Coffee, this super cute Korean coffee shop that we all love to go to.

Parents' Night Out

A few weeks ago I was approached by a few of the kids here at CLP about helping them out on a Friday night. They decided they wanted to give their parents (and a few other families' parents) a night out so the parents could hang out together. After much brainstorming, we ended up helping them cook dinner for their parents. We split the kids between two houses-young kids at one house to be babysit by a few singles and the oldest 5 at another house with two other teammates and myself. The kids had sent out invitations to their parents telling them formal attire required but not much more than that. It was supposedly all a surprise to the parents. Lisa, Mandy and I rounded up the kids and started assigning jobs: set table, make brownies, clean salad veggies, chop veggies, butter and garlic bread, boil noodles and sauce for pasta. They were so fun to watch (think 2 girls and 3 boys around 10-12 years old).

cleaning up

chopping veggies

serving dinner

When the parents came over (dressed very nicely) the kids all took their jobs as matri'd, hosts, and waiters. They brought their parents all the dishes and refilled drinks. After the parents started eating the kids got to make themselves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Eventually, we served dessert, did dishes and put them away and then sent the parents back to another house to continue playing Wii and other games. We all then retired to the little kid house to help the by then very tired babysitters (10 little kids there under age of 8 or 9). We enjoyed the end of Mary Poppins and then enjoyed even more when the parents came to fetch their kids. It was quite the success of a night. The highlight still being when the kids welcomed their parents to dinner by saying "Welcome to the House of Love."

watching Mary Poppins