Nashvegas

I'm in Nashville now.

Tuesday morning Josh and I left Orlando (He just happened to be in the area after a dance weekend and was nice enough to drive back with me) and got in Nashville that night. So now I'm staying at Erin and Jamie's house, just chillin' for two weeks. Daniel needs some help at the office a few days a week, so that should keep me somewhat entertained and in a little money. :)

Not much to report, just thought I should blog my whereabouts. So let's hang out Nashville peeps!

In Daye at Peach's House...

The state of my pants all weekend...wet.

The whole family - Peach's mom, two brothers, sister-in-law, and nephew

Her nephew - Hao Tian

Notice the layers! And the split pants! (I only held him when he was wearing a diaper...)

Peach's mom and Hao Tian

Pictures at a park in Daye...and it snowed!

At Last!

Whew. Here at last after three full days of travel. Guess you can't expect traveling half way around the world to be too simple...

I left my apartment at 6 am Wednesday the 16th- the school had a car waiting for me (thanks!). I got to the Yichang airport, went straight to the plane, no problems. Wuhan to Beijing, no problems. Landed in Beijing, found the hotel shuttle service I needed and ended up at the "100% Perfect Hotel." Now this hotel was far from perfect, but it did have a bed, heater, and a shower so it was fine with me. I successfully bought street food for lunch and was proud that I could ask for what I wanted...that I wasn't just like every other tourist in Beijing. I did a lot of reading and caught up on some letter writing, then headed out the next day for America.

I got to the airport to find that my flight from Beijing to San Francisco was messed up, something about crew legality? Anyway, they had to reroute me because I was going to miss my connecting flight in CA. I ended up flying to Chicago instead and spending one night there. This morning I finally flew to Orlando. Here at long last.

Oh, the best part...I got bumped to Business class for the trouble! Now, THAT was awesome! And the hotel they put me up in was pretty sweet too.

I was just so thankful all the mess happened in English speaking places! I've loved the satisfaction of being able to fully express myself and ask for directions or help! It's the little things. And I've had a quite a time playing the travel bingo game Katie made for me (almost got them all!) and people-watching. America has so many different shapes, sizes, colors, and styles! I love it!

Snow is cool until you have to do something in it...

So Monday morning I was supposed to take a direct bus from Daye to Yichang since I was traveling by myself. Peach and I got to the bus station to find out that the bus we thought left at 8 left at 7:20. Great. The other option was waiting til the next day or taking a bus to Wuhan then Yichang. I needed to get back to start packing and getting ready for my trip back to America so I opted to brave it on my own to Wuhan. All I had to do after all was go to the ticket window and say "Yichang."

I got to the Wuhan bus station (one of many) only to find out that no buses were going to Yichang because of the snow. The bus station was chaos. I called Peach and told her. She felt terrible that I was there alone so she called a friend who lives in Wuhan and had her come help me. She arrived about 2 hours later (I had Harry Potter 7 to keep me company) after I braved a ridiculous squatty experience. She said she'd heard another bus station had buses going to Yichang so we walked, yes walked, through the coldest wind and snow this Southern girl has ever experienced to another bus station (about 25 min away). No buses. We walked to the train station. No tickets.

My pants, shoes, and socks were soaking wet and freezing. I hadn't eaten anything. The "it could be worse" game I was playing with myself was starting to get old. I had been texting several different people trying to figure out a way to get home. I just wanted my house, my toilet, and my bed! It looked like there was no way of getting to Yichang that day. I called Jian, our foreign affairs guy, who just happened to be trapped in Wuhan too. He, Sophie (my Chinese teacher), and Sophie (the mysterious Ms Yang) had been to a conference that weekend. They had train tickets for this morning but weren't sure if they could get a fourth one since of course, all the people who had wanted a bus were now taking the train.

I decided to at least meet Jian at the hotel they were staying at to see what could be done. All I had to do was get a taxi. Harder than it sounds. All the taxis kept saying the road was too bad when in reality the place I wanted to go was too close and they always wait for the higher price long distance people. I pulled my foreigner card and plopped down 50 yuan for what should have been a 20 yuan ride. At that point I didn't care. The taxi driver was pretty funny. He asked me where I was from and when he found out I was American he stopped and shook my hand, laughing. Then he kept pulling over and waving at his buddies to check out the foreigner in his car. Strange. But he got me where I needed to be (which incidentally was directly in front of the first bus station I had been at. If I'd only known...)

I was so happy to see Jian and Sophie at the hotel! They took care of me and helped me get a room (I didn't even have my passport so I wouldn't have been able to do it alone). I took an amazing hot shower, dried my clothes with a hair dyer, and headed off to dinner with them (more cold walking in the snow). They pulled some guanxi and got 4 train tickets back this morning...I even got a soft sleeper! I was so fortunate...it's nearly impossible to get tickets in circumstances like these. After surviving the stampede to get on the train (words can't describe it...and neither can I since it's Jovial January), I nestled up with Harry Potter once again and finally arrived in Yichang around 2 pm.

I rushed home to do laundry, pack, clean, and get things ready for my final exam at 7. Now here I am blogging when I should be grading papers. A car picks me up at 6 am and hopefully I'll fly from Yichang to Wuhan to Beijing with no problems. Cross your fingers. I have a bad feeling about it. If all goes according to plan, I'll spend one night in Beijing and fly out on the 17th to arrive in Orlando the night of the 17th. Hopefully next time I blog it'll be from America and I'll have no tales to tell!

Daye

Last year Beth, Brad, and Dawson went to our friend Peach's house for Spring Festival. I was in America, so I couldn't join them. So this year I had a little free time before jetting off to America, so off to Peach's house! Peach lives in a town called Daye (Dahyeh). We first took a bus to Wuhan (boooo) to meet her mom for lunch since her mom work's there during the week. Of course it was pouring rain in Wuhan and so cold. Long jeans and tennis shoes proved not to be the best choice as they were both soaking wet. Meeting Peach's mom was quite awkward and not what I imagined. She didn't know quite what to do with me at first since I don't really speak Chinese.

Anyway, we had lunch and froze our way to the next bus. Wuhan to Daye is about a 2 hour bus ride, but for us it was longer since it was raining.

We arrived at her house and I met her two brothers, sister-in-law, and cute little 5-month-old nephew (pics later). We made jiaozi (dumplings), and well, that's not my gift, then had dinner. So many people in a small apartment...Peach and I shared a bed with her mom to my surprise. The next day we didn't do much because it was still raining. Since Peach is the only person in her family that speaks English I played with the baby alot and watched a lot of Chinese TV in between eating and her mom insisting that I sit by the heat lamp at all times. That night we played cards and the loser had to do whatever the winner said. It was a pretty mild game as my worst punishment was singing "My Heart Will Go On." Guess that's relative.

Sunday I learned how to play mahjong which proved quite challenging at first since Peach didn't know how to play and I was learning in Chinese. I ended up winning several rounds on my own and was declared "lihai" (clever). I tried learning to knit but wasn't quite as lihai with that one. I'll keep working on it. As we were going to a park it started to snow! The park was beautiful with the snow falling. (Snow isn't so glorious when you're slipping in it!) That night Peach's mom busted out home karaoke with microphones and everything which really cracked me up. There were only 2 English songs, one of which was Scarborough Fair which I hardly knew, so I was mostly off the hook.

Throughout my stay I realized several things, but mostly that I'm a spoiled American at heart. Even though my apartment here is no Hilton, it's still fairly Westernized. I dealt with the squatty all weekend and wore the same 3 layers of clothes everyday. I was a guest so Peach insisted that I take a shower, though I noticed no one else did. They do miracles with a pan of hot water. I'm spoiled by taking taxis all the time, whereas most Chinese walk or cram on buses, yes, even in the rain and snow! Then there's the whole miracle of the split-pant baby. It was so funny watching them all care for the baby and fuss over him. They seriously held him over the trashcan anytime they thought he might have to go. And he was bundled up in 6 layers to where he couldn't even put his hand in his mouth.

Overall is was a good weekend. I was definitely ready for my own house by then end of it, and swearing I should learn Chinese. The Daye local dialect is completely different from Mandarin (what I claim to be learning) so it would have been lost on me anyway. It sounds like a tribal language! I'm amazed at communication here...that the written language is the same but every area has it's own dialect, yet everyone is supposed to know Mandarin too!

This concludes the first part of the Daye adventure. Stay tuned for the journey home!

Oops.

Jovial January took its first major blow when I said a certain person was a moron. And while I still believe that's true, in the spirit of Jovial January I shouldn't have said it. :) So this morning I couldn't eat the delicious Cinnabon muffin in my fridge. Now that was sad.

In other news...
Brad, Beth, Kim, and Katie headed off to Beijing and hopefully India yesterday (they are sans visa at the moment). I'm keeping pretty busy trying to get my grades averaged. I also assigned papers for my teacher class so I'm up to my eyeballs in papers. And their oral exam is tonight. I'm going to Daye, Peach's hometown, this weekend since I didn't get to go last year with the others. Tuesday night is the final part of my teacher class exam. I'll average all their grades as fast as I can and get them to the office...because at 5 am Wed a car will pick me up to go to the airport...one night in Beijing, then off to America! I should arrive in Orlando Thursday night, the 17th.

And all the while I'm trying to finish Harry Potter 7 before I go home because I really don't want to haul the big book around the world!

Orlando (Bloom that is)

Yesterday was a bit unusual. I went up to Brad's house and heard a strange noise. I turned to see a pitiful looking puppy sitting in the corner shivering and obviously injured/sick. I didn't have much time to tend to him then, but came back later wondering how on earth he got up to the 5th floor! I told Brad and Kristy (his neighbor) and all of us were at a loss for how on earth he got there, and why he would drag himself up 5 flights of stairs and park it in front of Brad's. Is Brad known even in the dog world for hospitality? Was the dog aiming for 6 and couldn't make it? Did someone drop him off in front of Brad's house hoping he'd take care of him? We may never know. I brought up a towel to try to help him get warm. We didn't really want to feed him because we're all about to leave, and don't necessarily want him to stay. We ended up taking him outside by the street in front of our house hoping someone else would take pity on him. All day we watched him and he never moved from his spot. We saw that is back leg was injured and he couldn't do much but limp in a circle and fall on his poor little butt. After dinner we had some duck leftover, and well, Brad and I had the same idea. We went downstairs and gave the pup water and some duck, and he definitely came alive after that. We wrapped him back up in his towel and left the cup beside him. We stepped back and started cracking up. He really looked like a little hobo covered in a shroud with a change cup in front of him. As soon as I woke up this morning I looked out the window. No one left change for him, but there was an assortment of take out boxes all around him. Maybe he'll become our little neighborhood hobo.

Oh yeah, and the name. We called him all kinds of stuff, but then noticed his back leg and mentioned that he needed a pegleg (most conversations with Brad end up with piracy :)). Well, pirate is a boring name, but a poor mangy dog named Orlando Bloom, now that's funny.

Jovial January

Some sweet Sisters in Shiyan thought of this idea, and up until just now I thought it was a good idea but wasn't willing to participate. The idea behind Jovial January is not to talk bad about anyone. If you do, you aren't allowed to have sweets for the rest of the day with the idea that something bitter has come out of your mouth, so you can't replace it with something sweet. But as I've been thinking about it, I've realized it's a real problem for me, and always has been. And I think Jovial January fits right in my search for what love is and how I can love others like Jesus. So I would imagine January will become for me a much quieter month with not many sweets, but it's an experiment I'm willing to try. Keep me accountable!

And that leads to 100 Things #2 -
What is your favorite Chinese drink?

I like milk tea, usually cantaloupe or banana flavored. But recently I discovered coconut milk tea! Yum! You can get it hot or cold, with jelly balls or without (always without for me). There are stands everywhere, so it's a great after-meal treat. So if Jovial January goes south, guess the milk tea is the first to go!

A very bloggy 2008

For Christmas, Sandra and Sherol gave me a bag of edible goodies and then this very clever idea: 100 blog ideas to work in over 2008. So because I'm sure all of you have always wanted to know 100 random things about me, here we go.

1 of 100

What was your favorite toy? Did it have a name?

The toys that come to mind are all dolls. There was the chocolate (African-American) baby that I carried around for a while, and then I remember an anatomically correct one...but I guess my dearest doll is Lindsey. She has a big hard plastic head and a goofy expression on her face, even a painted on curl on top of her head. Her body is made of some purple stuffing (she's been through many surgeries) and her arms and legs are soft plastic. Doesn't she sound impressive? I remember having dreams about her as recent as college. And my mom even surprised me by mailing her to China in a box with some other nostalgic things. (Lindsey has been safely escorted back to the States). So yeah, Lindsey it is, my favorite toy.