Christmas Time is Here!

I purchased this awesome tinsel tree from a friend of mine who is sadly leaving the country soon. I am so happy she was willing to part with it.

The cloves and oranges make the house smell amazing!

Our tree!

I did not make this. Sadly, I am not this talented. One of my students folded this and the star in the next picture. 

Another student creation.

My cyclamen is thriving.

New addition to the tree. This was purchased Christmas Day 2012 at Hong Kong Disneyland. 

Domestic Day: Thanksgiving Edition

Once a month my friend, Michelle, and I host Domestic Day at her house. We invite all of the seniors over and cook/bake/hang out. This past Friday we held the Thanksgiving edition of Domestic Day focusing our food making energies on Thanksgiving favorites: apple pie, pumpkin pie, Oreo cheesecake (this may be a China expat thing), mashed potatoes, and sweet potatoes (we also had curry, but that really doesn’t fit into the Thanksgiving favorites category). The students genuinely enjoy making dinner/dessert for each other and hanging out with us, their teachers! Crazy kids. Earlier this year I introduced them to the game Pit and this has been regularly played at each of our get-togethers ever since. I think it has something to do with the necessary shrieking/yelling that is involved. Every time I play I have a hard time talking the next day!

Domestic Day students getting ready to dig into pies and cheesecake!

Gan Eng Jie Kaui Le! Happy Thanksgiving!

This is how we started our Thanksgiving Day- with the first annual Kunming Thanksgiving Day 5K.

We rushed home from the race to get our pie making on! This is apple.

Apple and pumpkin!

Dinner with the Rodgers family. Zoe, Macy, Sam, Sophie, Eric, Eric, and I. Missing were Eliza and Amy, who were in the other room, and Emmy, our photographer.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

The cold has come to Kunming. So maybe it’s only 45 degrees Fahrenheit, but for a place without central heating it seems downright frigid! Thanksgiving morning dawned grey and cold out and it hasn’t warmed up since. While last year we used our space heater one time, for three hours, on December 31st, this year we have already used it in an effort to ward off the chill. Wo hen leung! (I am cold!)

Rob Visits!

Rob flew in early Friday morning from Calcutta and we did our best to keep him busy the entire time he was here. Friday we went downtown and walked through the Bird and Flower Market, saw the big map of Kunming in the city center, and had banana pie at McDonald's (yes, that is a must do!) before heading back to our neighborhood and touring KIA and experiencing a little bit of what youth group here looks like. We had dinner at a sqatty and had an ice cream bar in the neighborhood for dessert. 

Checking out the Chinese exercise equipment in our xiao qu.

 Saturday we biked to Dianchi Lake and rode a gondola and then a ski lift up Xi Shan and hiked to the Dragon Gate. The Dragon Gate is a Daoist temple that was carved in the 1500's into the side of the mountain. We spent most of our afternoon hiking the path down from the gate. That night we had a bunch of friends over for dinner and then we headed out to Shao Kao! 

Sunday was not much more laid back with Fellowship in the morning, lunch at an awesome Chinese place across the street and a slow bike ride back home via Carrefour and a little village in the city. He flew out at 7 something so we called a driver who picked him up at 4:30 and he was off!

We had an awesome weekend and were thrilled to share a little bit of our lives with him. 

Taking the ski lift to the top of Xi Shan and the Dragon Gate.

The Dragon Gate

The only picture I have of the three of us!

Shao Kao is Chinese night bbq and is pretty awesome!

Halloween- China Style

Our pumpkins are really just oddly shaped squash, so carving one proved a bit tricky. I couldn't fit my hand through it so I had to flip it over. 

 

Voila!

KIA kids trick or treating at our house on the 26th. 

Our carved pumpkin from below.

Small group Halloween party on the 30th- we are Google Maps!

Group shot... 

A more normal group shot.

Fun Fair 2013

Every fall KIA hosts an event called Fun Fair- a carnival like event open to the community. Each high school homeroom runs food and fun booths where the general public can spend their Fun Fair tickets to either play games or eat great food. It is a great opportunity for the school to open its gates to everyone and provide a great service to our both our Chinese and expat neighbors and friends. 

This year Eric's homeroom class (the 10th graders) came up with an awesome booth called Trick or Treat where people, mostly kids, could come and cut a string hanging in the booth and receive whatever prize was on the other end. The trick was to pick the correct string because they were all tangled together so they never knew what they were going to end up with. They also hosted a skee ball booth, a balloon dart booth, and a booth where people were served juice and had to guess the flavors. Sounds weird, but it was actually very successful. 

My homeroom class (the 11th graders) always have a "Soak a Teacher" booth. A poor teacher sits on a stool with a huge water balloon sitting in a basket over their heads, while contestants throw a ball at a target. Hit the target, soak the teacher. I had to sit in that booth last year. Thankfully, this year we had other volunteers! We also hosted cookie decorating, bracelet making, and mini-golf. Our food booths were curry rice bowls, cotton candy and popcorn. Yum. 

Preparing the curry!

11th Graders Cotton Candy booth

10th Graders Trick or Treat booth

Getting ready for a full day of fun!

11th Graders Cookie Decorating booth

Skyping

Skyping with family is our lifeline to "home". This is me skyping with my family last week. Love it! If you ever want to skype us, email us and we will figure out a time. We would love to talk to you!

Sanya!

Over National Day holiday I had the opportunity to go to Sanya, the "Hawaii of China", with three of my friends. Sanya is a city on Hainan Island in the South China Sea (we didn't technically even stay in Sanya, but were actually in a small fishing village about 45 km outside of the city). Having never been to Hawaii, I can't really say if the comparison is accurate, but I suspect the only things that they really have in common are palm trees and lots of tourists.   

We left Kunming early on a Saturday morning and made it to the southernmost point of China by 10am. We were on the beach by noon and spent most of our day either there or wandering around the village. 

Sunday was drizzly and grey, but still so wonderfully warm. We didn't know it until Sunday night but there was actually a typhoon headed for the island! We just thought the weather was bad and the waves were normally rough. We spent our day at a restaurant next to our hostel. It was run by Russians and served western food. We literally sat there ALL day long. It was wonderfully relaxing. The typhoon hit that night and honestly, between the AC going full blast, the fan going full blast, and my ear plugs- I slept right through it!

Monday morning was still drizzly and grey and we decided to bus into the actual city of Sanya. We spent our day exploring and doing nothing in particular. We walked through back alleys seeing everyday normal life in the city and ended up back on the main streets to see floods of tourists- what a contrast.

On Tuesday morning we woke to calm waters and sunshine! We spent our entire day on the beach and in the water. What a difference from the rough water we experienced the first day. We flew out that night and made it back to Kunming a little after midnight. 

It was a wonderful break from everyday Kunming life and a nice chance to hangout with the girls. Eric took advantage of my absence and worked to get ahead in his school planning and AP class prep. 

We flew Lucky Air, arguably the worst airline name on the planet. I felt so lucky to have arrived there safely. 

The view from our hostel deck. Beautiful!

We didn't realize there was a typhoon coming. This is what a normally calm bay looks like before a typhoon!

This is propaganda at its very best. Havana? Really?

Our favorite hangout ever: the Russian place. We have no idea what the actual name of the place was, but it was run by and frequented by many Russians. This was how we spent our Tuesday: sitting under a beach umbrella with frequent swimming breaks. 

Pictures from Our Week

Every Wednesday I have the pleasure of attending a small group with girls from all around Kunming. Last week I hosted at our house. This is a quick, informal shot of most of us, enjoying pumpkin break and coffee. Right now we are studying Daniel and I am loving it!

Small group at our house.

 Although October is just around the corner, we are warm and sunny most days. Flowers are blooming everywhere!

Flowers are still blooming in Kunming!

 And yet the trees are losing their leaves and it is pumpkin season. Oh the juxtaposition! We love it.

Fall is here, too!

Holidays and Food

We are in the middle of two holiday weeks. Last week we celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival (Moon Festival) on Thursday and next week we will celebrate National Day. 

For Mid-Autumn Festival (which I realize isn't in the middle of Autumn, at least by Western standards. Something to do with the lunar calendar...) we had Thursday off and took advantage of an odd day off mid-week. Eric used his time to work ahead in his AP class and I caught up with friends. I think I got the better deal. Here is how I spent my afternoon and evening!

L-R Bethany, Josalyn, Kim, and Michelle

The next day we had a professional development day at school. The students enjoyed another day off and we went to work and learned about a new testing program we are going to use later this Fall. The best way to make a fun day like that bearable is by going to lunch with co-workers. So that is what we did. We went to an Yi minority restaurant not far from our campus. Eric and I had never been there before, but we went with a couple people who had. This was key because they knew all the best dishes to order. One of the delicacies we enjoyed were fried grasshoppers. Yum yum.

Grasshoppers served with peanuts

Yum

Actually, they don't taste bad, in fact, they taste like nothing. Crunchy nothing.

Sunday afternoon we had another new food experience when we went to a north-eastern Chinese restaurant after Fellowship with a few friends. We enjoyed sweetened sweet potatoes- they had melted sugar poured on them and the trick is to quickly take your portion off the pile and dip it in cold water before the whole mountain of sweet potatoes cools down and hardens into a big block.

Trying to get a piece off the pile

Dip it in the water

We were back at work this week, but have next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday off for National Day holiday. Like Mid-Autumn Festival, Eric and I will be celebrating a little differently. I am going to Sanya on Hainan Island on the South China Sea for four days with some friends. Eric is staying in Kunming and will be attempting to get a little ahead in his school work (to say that Eric is busy these days is an understatement!)I am thankful to have an amazing husband who lets me play while he works and doesn't hold it against me. :) 

Superman, Spice, and Sightseeing

This past week was Spirit week at KIA giving students and staff, alike, the chance to wear some pretty interesting get-ups. The week was scheduled out like this:

• Marvel Monday (all super heroes welcome)
• Time Travel Tuesday
• Well-dressed Wednesday
• Holiday Thursday (alliteration is tough to pull off with a TH sound)
• Fairy Tale Friday

On Monday, Eric did his best Clark Kent impression with the outfit seen below.

Most days we dressed up and most of the students did too. I think it gives them an opportunity to feel involved and see a different side of their teachers and classmates. 

Eric as Clark Kent for Spirit Week! 

 Walking home one afternoon we spotted these peppers laying out to dry. You never really know what you are going to see on a daily basis here. 

Neighbors drying peppers in the sun.

The first step in making lajiao (spice).

 Tuesday after school, I went with a few new teachers and friends, Emma and Josalyn, to the downtown area of the city. Eric felt like he had to focus on his AP class planning so he opted to stay home. We took a bus to the city square and walked along a little market street to an Indian restaurant where we ate dinner. It is so nice to get out of the neighborhood sometimes and remind myself that I live in a huge city. There were people lined up along the street selling everything from dolls to baskets to clothing to dishes, all in anticipation of Moon Festival coming up this Thursday. It was a good chance to unwind and enjoy the sights of the city.

Blind musician seen downtown by the gates.

  

Horse gate downtown.

Erik, Brittany, Sarah, Emma, and Josalyn hanging out downtown.