Yimi and Stuart

Yimi was probably our biggest help in China. Every time I needed something translated, or someone to interpret, or money on my phone, I called Yimi. This spring she started dating, her now boyfriend, Stuart. He is awesome. They bath have been very good to us. The Wednesday before we left they took us to dinner. It was a yummy dinner and a good time.

They are awesome and we wish the best for them. I am planning on keeping in contact with these two. We love you and miss you Yimi!

Our last activity in China

On November 13, our last Tuesday, we went to dinner with the IT department from the factory. They  have been such a wonderful group of people for us. So many friends and so much help. They also gave us an amazing gift.

Dinner was yummy. Here are our last few pictures.

 Digging in!

 Garlic spinach, fried beef and beans, cucumbers, bamboo shoots. All very good.

 Seafood and mushroom soup.

 Yummy!

 Fish. Head half only. It was really good fish. Like really good.

 Fatty pork. It's like spam that's all fat. I didn't even try it.

Frog legs. It actually tasted pretty good. Like chicken. I'm not kidding. I hope you get the chance to try frog sometime.

The group. Back row:Mike, Charlie, Ray, Michael, Dragon, James, Ashley, Daniel. Front row: Molly, Karen, Yimi, Angela, Licy. I'm going to miss them all so much.

As a going away gift, they gave us a calligraphy set with custom stamps. Mine says "xia bai tu" and Daniel's is Da Xiong Mao. Little white rabbit and big panda. They also gave a book on how to write the characters and a practice mat so we can continue to work on our Chinese after we are home.

Mine is on the left, Daniel's on the right.

We already miss them so much.

Our Interesting Saturday

On Saturday we went to the local water park and it was a blast. The only pictures I have are from Mike's phone, so they aren't great.

First we went to lunch at the Temple Cafe. It is a restaurant that used to be a Buddhist temple. It mostly serves American style food. I had a cheeseburger. It was great.

 I stole this picture off Caroline's blog, because I don't have a picture from lunch. Thanks Caroline! Going around the table, you have Matt, Mike, Selena, Jennie (Selena's friend), Yimi's sis-in-law, Yimi, Mike, Ashley and Daniel.

This one includes Caroline. Matt and Caroline are here with Lifetime too. He's an international controller and accountant.

We had a good time. Then we headed across the island on a bus to the waterpark. We spent about 13$ to get in and it was worth every penny. There were only about 5 real rides. On two of them Daniel and Matt were told since they weigh over 90kg their safety could not be guaranteed. They didn't care. It was pretty awesome. A couple of them were the normal slides with one or two people per raft or what not. One of them went up and down like a roller coaster on it's way down. It was awesome.

One we enjoyed, but did only once, was like a skateboard. For the full effect of weight, Daniel and Matt went together. The ride was kind of like this one:

 Not a great picture, but you get the idea. If you look to the far right of the one below, you can see the blue/white ride. Matt and Daniel went all the way up to the last blue section. It's a lot higher than it looks.

 This red/yellow one was also fun. It was like a funnel.

 You go down and then go around. Most people went around twice. But us "sturdy" Americans (two at time) went around four times. I liked it.

Here's a view from the top. I've been told some cruise ships have rides like this.

Then there was the best one of all. It was a sideways funnel. It hilariously awesome.

 So you go down the pipe, up to the right, then come out and swing back and forth on this. We went up so high. A full 8 feet farther up the sides than the tiny Chinese people could. There were 4 people per raft and with four larger Americans we got some pretty serious force.

Most of these pictures were taken from their website. Mike did take a couple of us coming off the ride.

 They were taken with a phone so they weren't great. We came out with more force than any other raft as far as I could tell.

This is how much Mike thinks of me. He took a picture of me falling off the raft head first. On purpose. I chose to go off like this because I wanted my hair to get wet. Awesome, right? We did this ride 5 or 6 times. I loved it.

But here are the two most memorable parts of the day.(If you are uncomfortable with a small amount of mocking, stop here.)

There were two dwarfs who were fighting to push each other in the pool. Awesome. They had life jackets on. In fact so did a lot of adults. Apparently there are lots of Chinese adults who can't swim.

 The other one was the fat 10 year old who lit up and totally just puffed away.

Seriously? Who let's their kids smoke? Even in China they know it isn't safe to smoke. For crying out loud, it says on the packages "smoking kills." No surgeon general's warning, just that it kills.

Anyway, a good old regular Saturday in China.

This coming weekend we are going on a work holiday retreat. It should be fun. I'll blog about it when we get back.

Hulishan and the beach

While my sister, my aunt and my cousin were still in town, we went to the fortress and to the beach. Our friends here, Matt and Caroline, had Matt's sister Megan with them, so it was a party.

 The dancing around before the "fire" the cannon. There is a real boom, but no cannon call. And it was obviously previously loaded.

 Looking out over the water from the hill that the fortress is on.

 Down the hill to the beach.

 The beach.

 Abby, Caitlin, Megan, Caroline, Ashley, Patti. We got really wet right after this.

Abby, Caitlin and Megan.

Xiamen Adventures

While my mom was still here with the rest of the family (she left early with my cousin) we had our "posse" of Chinese girls over for night of cooking and games. They were so excited to provide us with all sorts of delicious Chinese food. As soon as I get the recipes ready, I'll post them here.

Here is some of what we enjoyed:

Hand made Jiao zi - also known as pot stickers.

 Cinnamon pork. My favorite.

 Saute and toss. Then cook in a pressure cooker for 20 min.

 Boiled (my favorite)

 Fried.

 Vegetables.

 Steamed river fish. Really yummy.

 This one is a rice/glass noodle dish.

 Shrimp - with heads and all.

 Silly girl was playing with her food.

Abby, My mom Holly, Patti, Ashley, Molly, Licy, Selena, Bella, Yimi, with Hannah and Caitlin in front.

It was a great evening.

Family in Xiamen

After a week at home with family after my father's funeral, I headed back to China. I was able to fly most of the way with Daniel's mom and sisters. It was nice to not be by myself for that traveling. When we got to Hong Kong I went on to Xiamen that night and they stayed in Hong Kong to spend a day there.

Daniel's mom and sisters at the airport in San Francisco.

I had one day to myself, then they came to Xiamen and we did a few things before heading to Beijing for a few days.

We had a few good meals, went to the fabric market, shopped on the island at Yogi's and Lina's and went for a foot massage.

We had a good couple of days in Xiamen.

 Streets of Gulangyu.

 Nedra and Crystal at Lina's - picking up pearls.

 Lunch at Master Kong's noodles.

The Ferry ride over to Gulangyu.

 The Elephant at Nan Pu Tuo Temple.

 Throwing coins into the pagodas.

 One of the buildings at Nan Pu Tuo.

 View from the ferry looking at Xiamen Island.

 Strawberry pudding dessert.

 April's bowl of noodles, cabbage and hard boiled egg.

 The ferry terminal.

 Bargaining for pearls and making sure everyone gets what they want.

April enjoying her noodles.

 Dinner with Kenneth.

 All kinds of food!

The various things available to soak in at the Hot Springs.

It was a good time. They came on Friday, saw stuff on Saturday, and went to Beijing after church on Sunday.

Check back for our Beijing trip.