Karen's in China!: ! 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!