Have I ever mentioned that I have the best brother in the ENTIRE WORLD!

grins



5 minutes after arriving home from getting his license. :) Priorities are priorities. hehehehe He looooves me. ;)

The last of our adventures in the "Middle Kingdom"...

So, while Amy was teaching all day, Noel and I wandered around Qingdao. :) It's hard to believe I'm now writing about what took place almost 2 weeks ago.

It was restful. And living "in community" again with Amy and Noel was wonderful. It's funny how quickly doing life with people you love becomes so normal in so little time. It didn't feel like I was spending just a week in Qingdao, it felt like I was building a life there. As Noel and I aquainted ourselves with Qingdao and Chinese and the other teachers at MTI (Amy's school) and Amy's cleaning lady Ling ling (and Amy joining us after school), Qingdao quickly began to take another shape of "home" rather just being "Amy's home".

Here are some pictures from last week to give you an idea of more of our adventures together. :)
Playing taxi tag. :)


On top of "Little Fish" Mountain. We climbed to the top floor of the now empty temple and got a beautiful view of Qingdao at dusk.


At the top of the temple with 2 of Amy's fellow teachers, Jenny Lee and Heather.


Buying pearls... for several dollars. Yes. That's dollars, NOT 100s of dollars. I've never seen so many pearls in my life!! There were stalls upon stalls of bundles of pearls of every shape, size, and color you can imagine. And when you thought you had seen all of them, they brought out MORE bundles. Craziness.


Noel and I discovered a fool-proof way of drawing a crowd in China. grins Here's a peek at our masterpiece. ;)

"Antebellum South meets Egypt... in China" grins

Noel's last full day in Qingdao (last Friday), we caught a bus to a national park mountainous area called Laoshan (shan = mountain(s)). We took the bus until it went no farther, hopped off, immediately got lots of propositions from taxi drivers who wanted to take us to places we couldn't understand, found a hiking map and started walking. It was beautiful. Although pretty hazy the majority of the week, by Friday it had started clearing up a bit, so we got some nice albeit a tad hazy, views.


Although it doesn't look like it, the buildings in the background are actually public restrooms.
What would our experience in China have been without a little Engrish, right? ;)

And that thing about drawing crowds... well, you don't have to build sandcastles to do it... walk around and you'll be just fine. grins We met this group of wonderful kids (and their teacher) crossing a bridge. :) They waved and said "come join" and we thought 'hm. nice place to eat lunch... pretty water, fun rocks, and plenty of space so we won't intrude on their party.' It was a nice thought. ;) Meet our friends, the Chinese Tourism Class of Qingdao University (1 of them).

We started making our way down the rocks and a couple of them came to meet us and "help" us. grins It was humorous. One girl took my hand and said 'This way.' 'Step on this rock.' 'Now this one.' :) When we made it over to the group, the whole gang of them clapped and cheered for us. It was insane. What do you say to that? Noel and I laughed. :) They then asked us to sit down, and formed a circle of sorts around us. They peppered us with questions like 'What's your hobby? Do you like China? Do you like Chinese food? Where are you from? What did you study? Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend? How old are you? Why are you here? WILL YOU SING A SONG FOR US?' hahahaha To give us a little encouragement, one girl stood up and sang a Chinese pop Christmas song. I was blushing and Noel was bowing out gracefully. And then I remembered an experience I had while in Cuba... Our group was asked the same question, and no one would sing. I remember how disappointed my Cuban friends were afterward... It was a part of their culture to share something of that sort, and no one would. And so... I decided to swallow my shyness and embarrassment and sing. And they loved it. :) And I resumed being shy and embarrassed when I finished, and then I got over it. grins But then they convinced Noel to sing! hehe He sang part of a song that was in his head and when he finished they clapped and cheered. What a crazy afternoon! We made our way together down the rest of the "trail" (wide man-cut and laid stone walkway) until we came to our bus. They sent us off with a warm farewell and we were on our way. And starving because we had yet to eat our lunch. :) And of course, what better way to end the day than meeting Sam, newly arrived from Thailand! Joined by Amy, we began introducing Sam to Qingdao. Saturday we sent Noel off. *sniff* :) And I couldn't imagine ending my time in China better than being able to spend time with Amy and Sam together. Pictures to follow - as soon as Sam emails me them. :)

More adventures with Amy and Noel...

In Amy's classroom at MTI... preparing lessons and being distracted. :)


Tai Dong Rd. Lined with shops and food and bubble tea places, and ALSO the road off of which Amy and I went to get traditional Chinese shirts made for us, and Noel found pearls (REAL pearls) for about $10. How crazy is that.


Noel and I off exploring the coast (Yellow Sea) while the tide was out Monday afternoon. Amy's apt. complex is way in the background.


Can we really be hanging out in China??? And at the ocean to boot!!


After school adventure with Amy. :) Walking along the coast, avoiding crashing waves (crashing over the pier walk and over us), avoiding vicious looking dogs, peeking into a purple-themed wedding, laughing, joking, loving life together. How amazing is our God... that 3 of us can meet halfway across the world and just SPEND TIME TOGETHER. grins

The Forbidden City's neighboring park...

After the Great Wall, Noel and I made our way to downtown Beijing.
Tian'anmen Square...
the Forbidden City... (picture of the gate to the City)...
The hubbub of Beijing. We approached the City with much giddiness and excitment, and proceeded to enter through the 'side entrance'... what we thought was the side entrance.
We wove in and out of beautiful gardens, painted patios and pagodas, and impressive ceremonial buildings.
We took in the sites and sounds and smells of the 'Forbidden City'... until we came to the end of the park and looked over the very high wall to our right and saw the mammoth rooves of the palace rising up over them.

We were very confused. :)

So, we wound our way back out to enter the REAL Forbidden City... and got caught just outside of it, barracaded off by military personnel. It was time for the ceremonial taking down of the national flag. The sidewalk was cutoff to pedestrians, and the traffic was momentarily stopped while men in uniform marched across the street, took the flag down, and marched back.
(the gate to the FC lit up following the flag ceremony)

So we almost, but not quite, made it to the Forbidden City. Oh well. :) Fun stories and good times. The company is the best part, eh?

More to come. :)

I'm in China. :)

Yes. It's true. I'm in China (first Beijing, now Qingdao). With Amy and Noel.

:)

Ah! It's still a little mind-boggling at times.

Noel, Amy, and me at the hotel in Beijing. My first night in China, and the first to see Amy and Noel since MAY!


While Amy was at teacher conferences all day on Friday, Noel and I hit China. ;)
First stop, THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA. In the first picture, you can see it peeking out from behind our shoulders. In the second picture, we climbed exactly 1.2 million steps (just kidding) to reach the top of this particular stretch of wall, and the end of walkable wall.

The stretch of Great Wall that we hiked was called the Mutianyu Great Wall. We took a cable car up to it.


Noel, the expert bargainer, bargaining for dried strawberries. :) The Chinese most definitley know how to argue their prices. Hurray for Noel! ;)


More updates to follow! :)

sayonara janakute, matane deshyou?

(not "goodbye", but "see you", eh?) :)

It's way too early in the morning - October 5th. My last morning in Japan. Chotto kanashi (a little sad).

I need to finish packing, and I need to go to sleep. grins

Tomorrow I'm catching the 10:55 am flight from Akita to the domestic airport (Haneda) in Tokyo. I'll take a shuttle bus to Narita, the international airport, and fly out from there around 6pm. And then, China. CHINA!! Which means AMY and NOEL!! A couple days exploring Beijing, and then off again to Qingdao, where Amy is teaching. I'm so excited to see and experience a little bit of her life there.

I promise a more promising update will come, but for now I'm too tired and too lazy. So I'll leave you with some pictures of my last day in Akita instead. :)

me, Sarah, and
Ying (Sarah has an identical white Monokuro pig named Yang). Our last sleepover (last night). It's 2am and we're sad because I'm leaving. :*(


Fun times. Always. :) Playing crochet at the park in Goshono (where the Bengtson's live) with Sarah, Brian (my new teacher), Juri, Linda, and Dean. Sarah and I were pretty sure we knew what we were supposed to do with the mallets. ;) We showed Brian and Juri the true spirit of crochet. grins



Supper and dessert with the Bengtson family and their "extended family". :) (Linda, Christopher - 12, Joshua - 14, Sarah, Brian, Dean, Juri, me) We ate shabu shabu (one of my favorites) and drank lots of coffee (tea for Sarah) and watched "I love Lucy"... and talked and talked and talked. It was a wonderful last day.


samishikunaruyo!! (I'll miss you guys!)