Visitors!


At the start of the new year my friend Jenny and her sister Heidi came to Shanghai. They stayed with us for 2 weeks, getting to experience the life here in China. It was fun being able to show them around our school, have them meet my kids, and experience all the different things that we experience each day, and of course very nice to have girls to shop with - although John loves it so much. They got to do a lot of traveling around the city while we were teaching.



On the last weekend of their visit the four of us went to Hongzhou, "the paradise" of China (that's what people here call it). The city is about a 2 hour train ride. It was quite beautiful. Unfortunetly it rained most of the time that we were there, but still, it was so relaxing being away from the busy city. We stayed on West Lake for one night and walked around most of the lake. We also took a boat ride that stopped at different little islands and historic points around the lake. John and I look forward to going back in the spring.

Hong Kong!

Yes, it has taken me quite some time, but I'm finally attempting to update my blog. The internet has been so slow, I haven't even attempted.

Christmas in Hong Kong was wonderful! We enjoyed being away from Shanghai for a short amount of time, and enjoying the beauty and cleanliness of Hong Kong. We had so much fun traveling around seeing the sites. The best was being at the "Peak" which was an overlook of the city from very high (not sure how high?). We waited in line for over an hour, then rode in a little rickety trolly up to the peak of a hill - scary - but fun. There was a whole little city/area on the top that we ventured around and tried to take many pictures. We're still working on learning how to use the camera so bare with the blurriness. If the user's guide wasn't in Chinese it would be a quicker process.




On Christmas day we rode on a double decker bus to the southern beaches. Again, amazing!! The views of the green hills and ocean was breathtaking. The busride was quite an experience too:) Rounding the cliffs sitting in the top of the double decker - wow.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas is almost here, 3 more days. Christmas isn't a very big deal in China...but at SMIC (our school), we celebrated as if we were home. I had a lot of fun teaching my kids all about Christmas, doing many activities, and talking about Christmas at home. When I first introduced the holiday about 3 weeks ago, I asked, "WHY do we celebrate Christmas?". The overwhelming response of "It's Jesus' birthday!!" made me smile. Whether it be from their Christmas program songs, learning about it last year in kindergarten, or from home - many of the kids knew the true meaning of Christmas. That is hard here, since the stores only sell commercial items. PTL that these kids have a chance to hear it so young!!

All that to say, John and I have had a really nice time celebrating with our students and friends here in Shanghai. We started the season homesick and wishing we wouldn't have to miss another Christmas. Two Christmas seasons away from home is different. But, were truly blessed by all we saw and experienced here at SMIC. Here are some pictures of my kids in their Christmas program. They sang a song about baby Jesus written by one of the music teachers here, and they played instruments and danced to Up On The Housetop. Wish you all could have seen - it was adorable!!




Here are some pictures of John's 10th grade honors class helping my first graders write their own lyrics to "The Twelve Days of Christmas". They had some interesting songs! Mr. Taylor's class began the time with their own Twelve Days of Christmas. Although my kids barely understood - they watched in wonder and found the funny lines.





Lastly, here are some pictures from the BIG Christmas party. I say BIG...because we were the only class to have a Magician come right to the classroom. Not real sure what he was saying the whole time, but the kids sure bought into his tricks and laughed hysterically. I had more fun watching my kids. After the magician, Santa popped his head in to. Talk about a bunch of crazy first graders. I'm pretty sure the party was a success!






Even Mr. Henderson wished he could be part of the action. Mr. Henderson, Dan, is another first grade teacher and a good friend of John and I. Whenever John is missing - I know he's over at Dan's playing ping-pong - his new love:)

Making Dumplings



After a day trip to Yu Gardens (traditional Chinese buildings and shopping), we enjoyed an evening with John's language partner Rita and her friend Jeff. They brought ingredients over to make one of our favorite foods here - dumplings. We wanted to learn how to make them to make sure we could still eat them at home. They're served at most restaurants here, so for the trouble of it - we'll probably stick to ordering them to eat while we're in China. But...when we're home - be ready to eat lots of dumplings when invited over to the Taylor's.







Jeff started by making the dough while Rita made the inside (ground pork and vegetables). John and I were busy....watching. Occassionally we tried to give a hand - but usually we were just in the way. We did get to take an active role in forming the dumplings which includes placing an amount of inners into a perfectly circular rolled thin piece of dough. Rita enjoyed watching John try to do this part - she laughed a lot, but after a few tries he caught on and made some normal looking dumplings.




The best part was eating....of course!

The Night Market

Last weekend we found our way to a new exciting stop in Shanghai - a night market. A night market consists of sellers lining the streets with their goods, anything from fake purses to jewelry to kids toys. As most places here, you can bargain your way to whatever price you want to pay. Occasionally they shoo you away for offering way too low of a price. You win some you loose some...That's just how it works. Our friends Channing and Jayme were gracious enough to let John and I join on their favorite weekend activity - eating street food and seeing what new deals are on the streets. We tried a little bit of everything, delicious lip burning dumplings, egg rolls, some kind of wrap/gyro, fudge filled chocolate cake (ya, that was the best), etc. This will for sure be a new favorite for us:)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Another year away from home for the big turkey day. Still so much to be thankful though. As much as we miss family and friends at home, John and I are so thankful to be here in Shanghai for this chapter of our life. We're thankful that we can spend this time together, being able to experience so many new things all at once:) Besides being thankful for God's provisions for us here and for each other, we couldn't be more thankful for the students that he has brought into our lives. We both have loved our teaching experiences and continue to grow closer to our students as the year progresses.

I brought Thanksgiving to my room quite thoroughly this year. I've been teaching my first graders about Thanksgiving for the past 2 weeks and we ended with a fun celebration...a potluck feast! All the parents were invited to join by bringing a dish from their "homeland". We had everything from dumplings, chicken wings, pasta, sushi, milk tea, pizza, to things never seen before. Oh yes, I tried it all!:) And the difference between kids at home and here...they tried it all and especially loved the shrimp fried rice. After our meal we had a presentation for the parents - a secret that was hard for the students to hold in for the week. You can imagine their excitement to be able to show what we've been practicing. We taught the parents about Thanksgiving by presenting the ABC's of Thanksgiving, followed by a couple songs - packed with actions:) The parents loved it!






After school was over we hurried to the bus, then subway to get to our Thanksgiving Dinner reservations. It's been raining for a couple weeks now so traveling bus style isn't as fun as it usually is - ok, it's never all that fun:) We made it with plenty of time to spare - shopped around at the "Super Brand Mall" to wait for our reservation time. To me "Super" would imply to me that the mall would be packed with stores - not quite - all we needed was a pair of shoes for John - not one shoe store! So...we continue to be on that mission.

Anyhow...dinner. That is what's important in this blog. We had dinner at the Shangri-la Hotel. They have the largest and best buffet in Shanghai is what we've heard. It was for sure the most AMAZING buffet we have ever seen or been to. 7 cuisines all with their own chefs, everything served gourmet style. I'm thinking dinner in heaven might be something like this:) The western station had turkey and cranberry sauce, potato wedges (not quite the usual - but they were delicious) along with prime rib and everything else. I loaded up on sushi - which has become a new liking of mine in the past year. Never thought I'd like raw fish. The chefs at this station were excited to fill a confused girl's plate with unknowns. What I did know was that one of the things I ate was octopus - very chewy - not so sure I'll go back for that specific entree. THEN...to end...the best dessert selection ever! (except for my mom's of course) - There was everything! I had a mini pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and apple pie, as well as many chocolate treats, ice cream, and gummy worms. Even took a few things home:)
Visitors....I hope you're getting excited...because soon you will have this experience as well!:)

The First Graders!

Here's just a few pictures of my kids on picture day. Cute as ever!!

KTV

Karaoke TV will go down in the books as one of the most entertaining nights for our group of 12 SMICers. KTV is a Karaoke building where you rent a room for a group, choose songs, watch 80's music vidoes made up mostly of marching bands, and share 3 mics. Since meeting John he's been talking up his karaoke skills - and he proved his talent. The crowd loved his crazy singing and comments on the videos. Him along with a couple of his friends were a hoot!:)

Company Sports Day

Saturday, October 20th, was the SMIC Company Sport's Day. This is a day to make up for the extra days we had off over the national holiday a few weeks ago. It was interesting, that's for sure! They go all out for the company's sport's day compared to the kids which is the day before. There are local venders selling food and beverages. There are events planned for the whole day, from relays to individual long distance and sprints, to tug of war, etc.

Somehow John and I got chosen to march with the selected teachers in the walk around the track march (just like the kids). Each of the sections of the company has a group that marches. Our group was about 20 teachers, a mix of Chinese and English track, along with the principal and so on. Little did we know when we said yes, that our Saturday morning would begin at 7:30 am meeting to practice lining up and saying a cheer all in Chinese. When the march finally started at 9:00am it was drizzling and thousands of people were watching and taking pictures. We were told to be in formal clothes, skirts and suit jackets for the ladies and ties for the men. Well...early morning...I showed up in a white flowy skirt and a bright blue t-shirt...so my off looks on top of me being about a foot taller than any other teacher except for a couple men, John being one, brought the attention. I thought that would be the worst of it. But...little did we all know that after marching around the track in our perfect lines,etc. we would be taking a lap around the track following the CEO of the company as the kick off to sport's day. Haha...the troops started running onto the track after we were all lined up in midfield listening to a speech (in Chinese of course, so we had no clue what was going on) and off they went. All other marchers had tennis shoes - they must have been informed. The teachers joined the run, in heels, ties, and all. A memory John and I will never forget!

Sports Day - Go Taylor Tigers!!

October 19th was our school's Sport's Day. Most would have to agree that Mrs. Taylor's first graders were by far the cutest!:) You can never go wrong with the Tigers for a mascott (once a Stratford Tiger, always a Stratford Tiger)...but even better the Taylor Tigers. My kids loved it - and little did I know that a note sent home saying dress in orange in black would mean coming to school dressed as a tiger, some with outfits, some with stripes, all with a roar:)

Sport's Day is a pretty serious event here. The kids all line up around the track and march around class by class to present their class and dance or cheer in front of all the important company and school people. After the march the games begin, class by class each game is played. Gets to be a little boring during the off times, but the excitement builds as the day goes on. Then, thankfully, the kids all go home after lunch!

I'm proud to say that the Taylor Tigers won the award for best creativity out of about 30 classes. We even have a banner hanging in the room to remind us for the rest of the year. I suppose this seems a bit dramatic...I just found it funny how serious they take these kind of events.

China Travelers

I'm excited to tell you all, that we successfully completed our first vacation (besides the honeymoon) as a married couple...in China. Now to some, that may not seem like a big deal - but I'd have to say, we're feeling pretty good about the accomplishment.

We flew from the less "foreign friendly" airport in Shanghai to Fuzhou, 2 provinces south. We managed to pack only our backpacks - some of you may wonder how I did that - I'm getting better at the packing as I spend more and more time living out of a suitcase:) We spent one night in Fuzhou, then after waiting for about 2 hours for our bus, and asking the ticket taker every 10 minutes if the bus she announced was ours (she also occasionally gave John a shove after he would ask to make room for the many others waiting in line for their bus) - we took a 4 hour bus ride to Xiamen. Little did we know that Xiamen was an island - kinda fun. Somehow the bus station ended up being right next door to our hotel, which we learned after getting into a taxi in the hotel parking lot, showing the taxi driver our hotel written in Chinese, and him pointing to the building right in front of our noses. Glad we could make him chuckle a bit. From there we did probably the most walking either of us have done in a week. We had no idea where to tell a taxi driver to take us - so instead we walked in every direction learning our area.

We found the ferry that took us to the island of Gulangyu, a 10 minute ferry ride, and managed to find a beach where about 5 of the 2 thousand Chinese nationals standing on the beach were swimming. We found a few other beaches, but you would think the water or sun was deadly in those areas - as no one entered the water. We rented "umbrella seating" which included 2 lawn chairs, 2 plastic chairs, and unlimited tea...and a very nice man who always made sure I was comfortable as I moved my chair from the sun to the umbrella various times throughout a 5 hour period. I'm pretty sure most/all of the nationals there thought I had lost it. As their protecting their skin and trying to make it whiter...I'm basking in the sun hoping for a noticeable tan. Although, my oddness didn't stop random people from stopping by for a quick photo with John and I. There were points where a line would begin to form to get pictures with us big tall Americans.

Besides visiting the beaches, we took a city bus - another interesting memory - to Jimie where an old traditional Chinese school was set up as a museum. It was interesting to see and learn about. After the nauseating bus ride though we were ready to call it quits on the tourist idea. We also made it to Xiamen University where my TA in my classroom went to school. It was absolutely beautiful. Candy (my Ta) said it's in the top 3 for the most beautiful campuses in China. It was quite amazing.

We truly did enjoy our time in Xiamen. Although from my writing you may think otherwise:) This trip just once again made us realize we're in China. It has it's own way of life that we may never understand. The crazy driving, kids peeing in the street, meat out on tables for sale, watch salesmen at every corner, and constant smog in the air made us really appreciate home. And of course the inability to communicate with the majority of the people, making most things a bit more difficult.

We ended the trip after our bus ride north back to Fuzhou. From our hotel there we rode in a little van to the airport and headed back to what we now call home. For the time being anyway - can't say it's replaced our real home. It was sure nice though to get back on our street again, grab some rice and crispy beef from the "wooden door" restaurant and enjoy the cleanliness of our apartment.