Joy and I found ourselves on a little adventure as we headed to school today! We usually take some form of public transportation to get from our neighborhood to our school, which is around 2 kilometers in distance. But when we hoped on the bus today we found ourselves in one of the biggest traffic jams I've ever seen. So after idling on the bus for 5 minutes inhaling exhuast and seeing no hopes of movement in sight...we decided we'd be better off walking. So we embarked on our first ever trip of walking to school!
But instead of sticking to the main road we tried out a new path! :) And that new path lead us through a muddy little field! It was crazy going from our skyrise apartments (that you can see in the haze behind us) to what seemed like the middle of the countryside! After telling our teacher about our journey to school, it turns out this little patch of country we treked through is a landfill for our district...haha...gross!
Card playing!
Construction workers!
Mini-tables and mini-stools outside the restaurants!
Meals on wheels (a.k.a.- street food)! Great going in, terrible coming out! ;)
Fresh fruit!
Side-walk sale of pets! You can buy a bunny, turtle, or fish right off the street!
Construction workers!Mini-tables and mini-stools outside the restaurants!Meals on wheels (a.k.a.- street food)! Great going in, terrible coming out! ;)Fresh fruit!Side-walk sale of pets! You can buy a bunny, turtle, or fish right off the street!
Cookie decorating!
Crafts (thanks Mama)!
Modeling clay!
Egg decorating!
"Bless!"
Contestant #2, a former ballet dancer and geography buff.
Contestant #4, a local businessman and champion badminton player.
Contestant #5, a native Texan and gourmet chef. While the intro was really graceful...
the combo of wearing socks and vinyl flooring didn't make for such a great combination!
Award=Winner!!! That's right...A+ for effort!
Our friends there invited us to come on a little tour of the kitchen! We got to learn how they make (in bulk) the really delicious noodles...
how they keep the rice cooking (the rice cooker was the size of a deep freeze)...
and how to serve all the fixings!!!
Then we got to practice making speical dumplings....
and we can all testify that they're more tricky to make than they look!
After stuffing them with meat and folding them up, we let them boil for a few minutes...
and then out comes the yummy snack that is sort of like wanton soup!
And Joy practicing her cashier skills...our morning at the Yellow Umbrella=priceless!!!
One of our teachers invited us over to teach us how to make what people here call tang yuan, which are gooey rice balls stuffed with red bean or peanut-buttery goodness. When I first had these, I didn't like them at all. (I think that was because the first one I ever ate was rather large, and instead of trying to eat it in small bites, I just put the whole thing in my mouth at one time and nearly choked on all the goo! haha) But now I think they're pretty tasty!
That afternoon, we headed downtown with our teacher and as we were roaming around we came across the original gate to the city. This was the place that not too long ago everyone and everything had to pass through to get inside the walls of the city. What a stronghold!
Whew-wee...there were lots of people! Thankfully we only experienced brief moments of clostrophobia! But the fireworks were truly spectacular!
There were even fireworks that shot out little lanterns which would just float through the air!
And highlight two...I got to watch the sunrise and set, all in the same day!!!
