Heading towards the West

Well we're on our way home, we've made it past security and now we're waiting for our first flight. Not looking forward to our 13+ hour flight from Hong Kong to LA, but I am looking forward to Starbucks and Popeyes.

Thanks for all the PRs.

Video Cast - Favorite Places

I think this will be our last video cast.

Nameless

Well I'm following David's advise and I'm keeping my blog updated.
The trip is coming to an end, we've been saying goodbye to some of our friends, and that's never fun. We also began the packing process and the clean process. I don't really have much else to say. We leave China Thursday night and land in Dallas at 5am. Yeah I think that's about it.

one week

so we have one week left in china. i have mixed feeling about this, on one hand i miss home and all my friends like crazy, but on the other hand i know i'm going to miss all my new friends in china. i think i'm going to miss china in general, the people, the culture, living on a college campus, the excitement of trying to get someone who speaks a different language then you to understand what you are saying. this trip has really gone by fast, and as i sit here writing this entry all kinds of great memorizes come to mind and it makes me sad to think that i'm leaving. this next week is going to go by to fast! please be pr-ing for us to really finish the trip strong.

Mafia

Here’s a more detailed entry on the past week.
(7-6) Sunday: Ok, so this was a pretty boring day, but I did work on the hand out for our Word study. And attended The Bridge, I lead my own group once again. Went out to dinner afterwards with our friends Nina and Eric. Walked all the way home. Nina said that the Chinese people believe that if you walk 100 steps after dinner you will live to be 100. I think we walk way more then 100 steps. I’d guess we walk between 2 to 3 miles.
(7-7) Monday: “Teacher English". Ate lunch at Muslim Noodle, I’d have to say its one of my favorite restaurants, great pulled noodles with beef. Then we took a bus to Lun Du to do some shopping. Came back to our room and watched movies because it was raining pretty hard. Ate dinner at a friend’s vegetarian restaurant. Had our Word study, it went really well, and afterwards the bookstores owner asked us to design some things for a calendar and a t-shirt.
(7-8) Tuesday: Slept in. Ate junk food in our room for lunch. Designed a hand out for Word study and worked on some other projects in Photo Shop. Ate dinner with our friend Mark, some sort of spicy noodles with chicken, not that great. And then we got a drink that Stephen and I call “milktea surprise” it’s regular milktea with beans, bean paste, jello, nuts and something chew that we have yet to identify. After dinner we called some friends and went to Gu Lang Yu, after we got there we walked around and discovered that all the places were closed, but McDonald’s. So we sat in there and played Mafia until it closed at 11. Then after it closed we took a taxi to the McDonald’s by Xia Da, which is open 24-7, and played Mafia until 2:30.
(7-9) Wednesday: Slept in pretty late and ate lunch around 2 at one of the campus’ cafeterias. Hung out in our room. And then met our friend Jason for dinner. After dinner Jason took us to the Xia Da library and got us some books on basic Chinese, he then taught us Chinese for about an hour and a half.
(7-10) Thursday: Went to work around 9, packaged and boxed CDs. Ate lunch at a place that Stephen and I nicknamed ‘Icy Plum’, because they have a really good drink there called icy plum, they also have some really good fried dumplings. Met our friend Jason around 1:30 for another Chinese lesson. Then met our friends Joyce and Sofia and went to the Jun Joe campus (for freshmen), it’s about a 30 minute boat ride from the Xia Da campus. Went skating at a very small skating rink. I think they were probably the worst skates I’ve ever used, but it was still fun. Neither one of them had been skating in a long time. After skating we took a tour of the campus and ate dinner. Some of their friends that we met for dinner bought everyone “milktea surprise”. Then caught the last boat home.
(7-11) Friday: Met our friend Turner for lunch, he took us to Icy Plum. And after lunch showed us a pirated DVD store that none of the foreigners know about. After that we went to the library and surfed the internet. Met our friend Mark and tried to goto the movies, but the movie we planned on seeing wasn’t playing because a new Chinese movie had just come out. So we came back to Xia Da and start a huge game of Mafia at the English Corner. Played until about 11, then talked with some friends and regular English Corner-ers ‘til about 12:30.
(7-12) Saturday: Texted my friend Maggie asking if her restaurant was opened on the weekend and asked how to get there, she offered to come and pick us up so we set up a meeting place and time. Her restaurant was about a 10- 15 minute drive away from our dorm. It was a very nice restaurant. On our way home we saw a Walmart, so we jumped off the bus and went in. It was a little bit different from the Walmarts in American, but it was still the same concept. Ate dinner at Harbing Sway Ju, another one of our favorite restaurants. Met our friends Lynn, Joyce and Sofia for more “study games” played some sort of IQ game, Mafia .and Stephen and I played a game were they timed us to see who could learn the most Chinese, he won, I think it’s because he’s been here some many times, but he said it’s not. I lost the game so the other team got to paint our faces.

Untitled

Once again I have neglected my blog, but it hasn't totally been my fault. The last time I was on the internet I couldn't get onto Blogger. Anyway here's a brief update. Since my last post we have gone through an earthquake, eaten Chinese vegetarian food, climbed a mountain in the dark, ridden on a bus for more then an hour and not known where it was going, and have had over 20 cups of Chinese tea in one sitting. I think that's all the highlights.

Video Cast - Paradigm Edition