Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Celebrating Chinese Style



So last Friday came and I was for sure ready for a break, work has been rather stressful recently. I was ready to travel to my friends house in the province of AnHui to a large city called HeFei. We had tickets for the 5:15 train, I left work at 3:30, got on a bus at 4:00 J Well, at 4:45 we realized we were going to be late so we got off of the bus and tried to get a taxi, well at 4:45 it’s the taxi change time.  To make a long story short we jumped on some mo-peds, 3 people on each scooter racing through crazy traffic, I’m not kidding when I say we nearly hit 5 cars. NO JOKE.. actually my friend was carrying my bag in his hand and my bag got stuck in-between the bus and our bodies 3 times. : - ) Oh how I love china! We got to the train station at 5:00 and had to literally RUN/SPRINT to make our train. Image seeing a white girl run through a train station where people are trying to take her picture, as if I was a movie star. Oh it was great !
So HeFei, it isa large city, however, there are NO foreigners, LITERALLY. I stay with my friends family, My friend works at Mr. Mais. Mr. Mais is a coffee house that has the same values as most of usJ Also, my friends mom is a “SisteR” it’s a great feeling staying with someone who knows HIM. A lot of times I stay with Chinese families there are Buda’s or different offering/sacrificial things set up. Staying with this family is so comfortable as verses like James and Matthew are printed on the wall. I call them my Chinese family, love them.  This past summer I went to visit them for the first time, while I was there we went to a small town called NanGang where their uncle is. The uncle was in the end stages of building a KTV (karaoke) and mahjong building :- ) The KTV was set to open October 1st, the family asked if I would come back to be there for the opening, of course I said “YES”
Okay so September 30th is Mid-Autumn festival, October first is National day (equivalent to our July 4th) . I arrived in HeFei on September 30th, September 29th we went to NanGang, and here is where the fun begins! I will just list a few highlights and then show the pictures below : -)
-       24 hour KTV
o   As par tof the opening festivities we lit fireworks and firecrackers, holy smokes it was soo loud and it continued forever, lets just say my Dad literally would of had a heart attack!
o   So actually the KTV place was open when I got there, I was just helpful in attracting more costumers : -) Oh the joys of being a foreigner
o   Oh and the KTV place is not only a karaoke place but also a Mahjong room : - ) Many rooms with mahjong tables, SOO fun. I learned how to play the local mahjong!
-       Riding on top of a truck trough crazy village traffic
o   So the guys had no time to translate the local language into standard Chinese… they just said “we are going, want to come?” Next thing I knew I was on top of the truck holding on as “uncle” was zipping through village traffic, which is faster than big cities
o   And then we ended up at a crash site, where one of the family members had driven their car off the road: -) We were going to help them! At this time we were literally in the middle of a village, for real! There was an older couple walking by the car and saw me. I stood up and the man (at least 55 years old) go scared ran to one of my friends and hugged him. Hahahaha, I’ve never had that affect on anyone over the age of 5 !
-       Being the only foreigner
o   While at one of the many meals I was sitting at my table and every 2-3 minutes another person would come over to “cheers” me!
-       Getting to refuse all the cigarettes
o   Man I was so thankful to be a girl J because I am a female I am able to kindly refuse all of the cigarettes that were offered to me. Unfortunately my friend who is a male, could not do the same thing.
o   One of the most funny things was watching him make some terrible face as he HAD to put the cigarette in his mouth, as soon as the giver of the cigarette walked away he would stick his tongue out like a little kid!! Haha it was soo funny:-) 
-       Eating Pigs feet
o   Oh man I ate Pigs feet, what else can be said.. IT was pretty FATTY! And many people said “Pigs feet is good for your skin, girls must eat this”
On the train TO HeFei

Random funny sign!

KTV room! (the small room) They are NO JOKE when it comes to KTV!

The amazing wall hanging picture we bought to give as a gift to celebrate the opening of the KTV.. Oh PS this lights up, got to love it!

Awesome Scaffolding!

Cha... AKA TEA! Which flavor would you like?

The Boys, aka my brothers!

Come on, lets have some fun! (ps check out the sky its totally, ALMOST< blue! )

The chinese words say "Every-time we are together we always have fun!" (or at least that is the gist!)

My friends Little Brother

FOr real little brother, that means his parents probably paid a good amount of money to keep their second child : - )His mom is the "SISTER" and his Brother works at the coffee shop here in Wuhan

This is my REAL younger brother!

In the process of eating this thing.. ITs a lot of work for a little meat!

I was supposed to eat that orange stuff and the membrane looking stuff (I did : - )

My friends Mom also the "Sister"

What have a gotten myself into?

I kind of like this picture... The debree from the explosives : -)

:-)

Oh boy, its going to be a loud one..

hahah the left overs!

pigs feet picture one!

Pigs Feet picture two,,, don't forget this is good for your skin!

I tore this fish up! NO JOKE!

Forgot to tell you that on the way home the train was soo packed that we had to buy standing tickets, oh and we couldn't get on the fast train so we had to take the slow train which took 5 hours : - (



My Good friend Chris, he works at the coffee shop and I stayed with his family!
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Sunday, July 15, 2012

A lesson in Hospitality !


It never ceases to amaze me, the lessons that HE chooses to teach. This past weekend was one of those times when HE decided to teach me how to be more hospitable. I was invited to a city called HeFei which is in AnHui providence about 2-3 hours away from Wuhan. My friend Chirs invited me and our other friend Jack, so of course I was like “YES, I would love to come” When we got there of course they picked us up and we went immediately to dinner where there were 4 teenagers awaiting to talk to me: -) Talk about feeling like a super star, every place we went there were people who had come from a ways away to talk with me.  After dinner we went back to his house, which is always just an interesting experience. You never know what your going to walk into, air condition or not, toilets or outhouses, beds or rocks, etc. However his house was beautiful, same size as my parents with just as much love. I was remidned that his mother is a believer : -) She had paintings up all over and it was evident that she was living a life for HIM.
The next day we traveled to a small village where his good friend lives. This village was so “CHINA” it was crazy. What do I mean by that? Well what you think of China (if you don’t live here) is what it was like! I loved it! I’m pretty sure I was the first foreigner in that village. We stayed at a hotel and I am for sure that I was the first foreigner in that hotel and also at the place we ate breakfast.. His friends own this huge building where they will open a KTV and Mahjong bar!
I always learn a lot about hospitably, they didn’t ever let me pay for ONE thing, They always wanted to make sure that I had enough food, air condition, and comfort. They went out of their way to make sure I was having a good time. People tried their hardest to speak English OR they tried their hardest to understand my Chinese. They didn’t laugh (to much) when I made a mistake with Chinese.  They put my put my interest before their own. I mean seriously its always amazing to me! Anywho, I will let the pictures below show my love from this weekend. I do challenge us all to daily be willing to learn from whomever we are with, for me I learned how to be more hospitable. 

Chris' Parents, AKA HUA MAMA (Flower mom), & Baba!

Winter, Spring, and Fire... Three Girls waiting for me! 

Funny Chinglish on top of the elevator

Me and Chris at a Museum

Pretty sweet wall at the Museum, it was amazing!

Being a little smaller city there are more factories and wahtnot, hence the fog

Me Jumping with Chirs' little brother I can him DIDI

Everyone Jumping, you could say I got them started on this fad!

1st day in the park/museum, loved this area, soooo beautiful!

Fish, YUM!

Tang Jiaozi!

Corn Pizza, kind of! It was delicious

Funniest thing about the weekend, this kid saw me and then refused to look up. He would just roll his eyes.. hah Actually he started crying at one point, everyone thought it was hilarious

Entrance to the Park, second day

sweet !

Not really sure if your allowed to make fun of these things but, yeah we did!

Hilarious!

I always think these buildings are really cool, yeah its a toilet! haha : -)

beautiful island like thing!

the walk in the village back to the river where we went swimming!



(Sorry the pictures are out of order) this was from the park on the second day, absolutely beautiful!

diving in the river,,, iw as trying to teach them... They had to stop after their 4th belly flop, apparently I'm not a very good teacher.. hahahaha!

Thursday, January 12, 2012

My first movie!

Hello Ya'll!!!!!


Well once again I have had a very exciting and adventure filled week. Tuesday I took a two and half hour bus ride to the other side of the city where I was meeting some Chinese friends for dinner. Of course I got there a little early so I walked around the mall just killing time! They came and we went and enjoyed some chinese food! After which I took them to Mr. Mai's, a Coffee house were many Foreigners also go to share the Good news with people. Its just a fun and easy place to go and gain immediate friends! Tuesday night is live music night, my friend Ryan was playing :- )

After Mr. Mai's a group of us went to our friends house just to chill and talk about life and how our week was and whatnot. While we were there my friend taught me how to play Chinese Chess... I was basically a rock star at this game, especially since I won! (And yes he didn't LET me win he was actually trying, at least at the end). Well as we were in the taxi home Taylor mentioned how one of his chinese friends had asked if a few of us foreigners would be willing to help him out. The Chinese friends simply needed some foreigners to come and make small talk with some big-wig people at his company. There in lies the tale...

Wednesday morning came, we got dressed up and made our way to this guys company. When we got there we saw how we were the ONLY ones dressed uber nice.. haha Then there was a guy walking around asking if we had anything nicer we could war or even telling me and another girl to go and put water on our hair to make it look better, haha. Okay so my friends Taylor, Kirk, and I were waiting around for the big-wigs to come... Well, they never came! haha However the man asking if we had anything else to wear ended up being some PRODUCER... yup they next thing we new they were bringing in huge camera's, lights, pushy things, and people were telling us where to sit and whatnot... We were staring in our first Movie, with real producers and all. IT was some commercial for a big company there were three foreigners and three Chinese people. We just had to sit, point, laugh, write notes, and shake hands! Yeah so there in starts our movie career, haha! Not what we expected at ALL but definitely a good experience! Sorry but there was no time to take any pictures.

After the movie making I went back home to Hanyang and got ready for Fajita Wednesday! Only two Chinese friends ended up coming over, however it was uber fun. Usually when I have Chinese people over and they make Tortillas they are very precise about it and they make perfectly circled tortillas however this time the girls were so funny, we ended up with different shapes and sizes, man it was pretty funny! ha The girls LOVED the Mexican food and yeah it was great to get to know them! One of the girls name is Water (I know waht a great name huh?) and the other is Shirley. I actually met Shirley at Starbucks she is a Barista there and is basically GREAT! I invited her and any of her friends! Speaking of Starbucks, that has become my 3rd home away from homes. I love coffee now and I am always excited to go to the Starbucks which is only a 10 minute walk from my house :- ) I know everyone who works there including all of the mangers and store owner. Today when I was there with Emma the store manager came out and gave us a couple calendars and some new starbucks candy! And then later the shift manager came out and gave me a couple free movie tickets along with a free coffee. haha isn't that awesome? I'm hoping that I can work there this summer as a volunteer. This would be a great way for my Chinese to improve and also help them out with communicating with the foreign costumers.

Okay well I think that is it for now, this new movie star is getting tired! :-)
PS if you have an iPhone, iTouch, or iPad you need to download "INSTAGRAM" its a program that is basically like a picture twitter. I post pictures ALMOST everyday its a way to stay in touch quick and easy. Follow me, my name on Instagram is "kjinchina"

Water, Shirley, and ME after Fajita night!

Saturday, January 7, 2012

! weekends!

So we started break on December 23rd and sense then I've had something to do every weekend, its been AWESOME!

Last weekend, also New Years, was my friend Rebeccas Bday.. We spent all day on Saturday just getting pampered, Messages, Hair washing, and then we were blessed to have many of our friends at the Whincops house for a Bday party and New Years party. What could be better? It was awesome!

The first week of the New Year was great, for what I can remember.
  • Monday was spent just chillin, drinking coffee, having fun with friends, and being reminded of Gods   Awesomeness. When i was on my way home I saw some people going into my building and in good Miller Tradition I said "Ni Hao" then they proceeded to ask me if I would like to come over to dinner. It ended up being really awesome, I love the unexpected memories which usually turn into big blessings I get to have while I'm here in China!
  • Tuesday I went to play badminton in the evening with some new friends. Well I thought we were going to play badminton but first we played ping pong which was slightly embarrassing.There were 4 ping pong tables and 20ish people there playing/watching. I barely got the ball on the table 4 times, haha!
  • Wednesday hung out with Rebecca Franks and Anna Reyes, ate some awesome Fat Fish Head drank some amazing starbucks and got to catch up/get to know each other better. After starbucks I went to gymnastics club at school. I was soo happy because I was able to do a back-walker all on my own starting from a complete standing position.. haha! Later that night I went to the Gym for dance and yoga classes. While I was there I was thought it would be a great idea to share my tubling skills with them (wihtout stretching)... Oh to be young(er) again! 
  • Thursday -- WEll I got out of bed in extreme PAIN.. I could hardly stand my back was killing me however, I thought "surely the pain will go away" well it didn't. In fact it just got worse and worse. I could hardly walk :-(  I had some things planned for the weekend and I was afraid I was going to miss them. But then I decided to get a message. I went to a couple places who must of been crazy... They wanted to charge me 160RMB for 20 minutes. Finally I buckled up and went to a really good place that was further away.. I got a message for 100RMB for 2 HOURS... During the message the lady asked if my back was sore, I was like "YES" so she asked if I would like to get the Fire Cups to which I responded "YES, anythign to help my back" I went to bed in pain but woke up a LITTLE better!
  • Friday-- Went to the Fabric market with Rebecca Franks.. Got some sweet clothes made (Hopefully, we'll find out next week)... While at the fabric market I learned the chinese words for "Cotton, Wool, and half cotton with something else" After which We got some awesome street food, can't go wrong with lunch for 5 RMB! So after the fabric market I headed to Hankou where I would meet my friends later for a birthday party! I got there a little early so I decided to get my hair washed, which is one of my favorite things to do in CHina.. IT cost around 15-25 RMB (2-4 Dollars), they wash your hair, message your head, and style your hair :- ) The best thing EVER! After the hair washing I went and studied at Starbucks (yeah I have this class I'm taking which might end my life.. haha :-) Then my friends called and said they were close so I packed up and started walking to meet them. Lets just say that my 15 min walked turned into 45 minutes... Luckily I made it! So we all went to some awesome steak house for Taylors birthday! Super fun, espeically when he got is "Birthday Hat" haha (Check out facebook for pictures)... For his birthday he wanted to see a movie called 13 flowers (or something like that)... THis movie is about a city in China called NanJing back in the day when Japan was trying to take over... It was a good but very sad movie (some famous American actor was in it but I forgot his name) It was crazy to see how the people of NanJing were treated especially the children. I know it was a long time ago but my heart still went out for them. This movie explained a lot as to why Chinese people don't really like the Japanese. Its hard for me to even think that things like this really did take place in the past and even now. How could someone really have this much hate, I was reminded to pray, pray that Gods love would be shown even today! After the movie we went back to the hotel where we had a birthday cake but no knifes, forks, or chopsticks.. So we resorted to Dental Floss :- ) Pictures to follow :- )
  • Saturday we had mcDonalds for Breakfast, walked around and then had Subway for lunch, felt like we were in America, for sure.. haha After which I walked over to Art Street. I wanted to take advantage of just CHILL time and total relaxation..Art street has over a billion pictures/paintings/etc. Its hard to explain but basically its awesome. There were some big stores and then SOME really cool alley looking things that lead into bigger stores :- ) It was just fun! Then I went to starbucks, surprise, and studied some more.. Then was asked to join a coffee tasting.. I love those, free coffee and food, can't go wrong :- ) Plus I know everyone that works at starbucks so I'm just chillin with them getting to know them and hopefully making some sort of impact. Tonight they were helping me with my Chinese and they thought that it was soo funny that I had a book teaching me Chinese, one girl started taking pictures with it. ha : -)
  • Well tomorrow is Sunday and I'm looking forward to all that God has in store for me!
Thanks for reading this extremely LONG blog!
Cake Cutting! 

Sweet Great wall Painting on Art street!

Random sausage hanging... Preparation for Chinese New Years!