回美国

This is crazy, the past few days have flown by SO FAST and I have SO MUCH I need to write about, but first things first....I am leaving China in about 4 hours!! This week was a blur of traveling and goodbyes; we tried to cram so much into so little time, and now it is really starting to sink in how much I am going to miss everyone I've gotten so close with here. My laptop is pretty low on battery but I'm sitting at the airport waiting to check my bags and thinking about all that's happened here and what we managed to squeeze into the last week: one last shopping trip at ancient culture street, 2 eighteen hour train rides, a whirlwind trip to Xi'an (which I loved and I must go back), saying goodbye to friends in Tianjin, millions of pictures, and our final crazy day in Beijing. Now there are only a few of us left in China, and I don't know if I will meet up with everyone before we catch our remaining flights, but we all said goodbye last night before going off to different hotels and hostels. The hardest was definitely saying goodbye to Stevie, which was at 7:30 this morning and we were so sleep deprived it didn't even seem like it was real, but I know I will see her again and we will keep in touch for years to come, I'm sure of it. Anyway this is getting really mushy now but you get the gist of it, many touching memories, countless adventures, and friends that I will treasure for the rest of my life. God bless and see you in the states! ...this is not the end of my blog ..still gotta write about a couple of things before I can walk away ;)

So much tea in China! 那么多茶

Today we went back to the tea market! If you can believe it. But there was more tea to be bought! And the highlight of the trip was that we made an awesome new friend, 吴朝花. We talked to her about learning Chinese, about America, and she helped us pick out tea to buy. She was so friendly and we gave her and English name, Jasmine, which she liked a lot. She also told her that Americans all seem very happy and that we have given her a good impression...it is funny for me to go back and try to remember everything we talked about through my broken Chinese, but at the time I felt like I knew exactly what she was thinking =] She told us to come back often and drink tea, and we could teach her some English while she helped with our Chinese. Then we got her QQ screenname and took a picture and said goodbye! Such a good experience, I hope we do keep in touch.

水灾 (Flood)

It is monsooning in Tianjin and Beijing! Last night and this morning it rained and rained and rained ! We didn't venture out of the hotel until finally this afternoon it stopped raining...but everywhere you look it is FLOODED. The street we normally buy food on is about 4 or 5 inches of water, more in some places, and the traffic is terrible, and people are still out and about, still riding their bikes, some walking around with plastic bags around their feet but most just walking around ankle deep in water! It's crazy! I can say I was definitely not prepared for this...it is quite the experience. Anyway when we finally did venture out we wore crappy clothes and old shoes and just went for it...and took long showers afterwards. Here are some of my pictures from the day:

trying to hail a cab

we finally made it to the store!

Goodbyes

We have completed our 6th week of this journey! Sorry for the lack of a Week 5/Week 6 post but I'll write about things that happened in both weeks, don't you worry. The reason this post is titled goodbyes is because this week we had to say goodbye to both our translator, Sophia, and the students from Utah, who were here only on a 6 week program. I have made so many good friends here and it was sad to see them go, but now I have a reason to plan a Utah vacation!
Sophia was supposed to be here with us for 2 more weeks, but her mother unexpectedly got sick, and so Sophia returned home to Xi'an to take care of her. The story of her going away party is a nice one so I'm going to tell that here.
My roommate Stevie had mentioned to Sophie a few weeks into our travels that she wanted to buy a nice tea set for her husband. Sophie said that was a great idea, and she envied him because she wished she had a nice tea set of her own...and we thought "Bingo!! Now we know what to get Sophie as a thank you gift at the end of our trip!!!!" So we asked her to take us shopping to look at tea set, but at the same time we were also secretly trying to figure out which ones she liked best. She took us on the bus to this street with an underground market...kind of like the basements of the shops above but they were all connected. And the market was full of different vendors selling tea, and tea pots, and cups, and whole sets...anything you could ever imagine needing to serve tea! It was a really interesting trip, with so much to look at and teas to smell. Once we had an idea of what to get her, and also looked at things for Stevie's husband, we continued on the rest of the day's shopping adventure...but planned to come back the very next day on our own! So right after class, we booked it to the bus station, waited for the bus to come (I can read bus schedules now, so cool!) and took it back to the same place...found the perfect tea set, bartered with the shop owner, succeeded in getting it for the price we wanted, figured out the buses again, and booked it back to afternoon calligraphy class (because we were planning on presenting her with the gift after class). Needless to say she was very surprised! She new Stevie and I had been sneaky! Our calligraphy teacher wrote 谢谢 (thank you) on the board and then we said our thanks and took a group picture. I know this post is getting really long, but she means a lot to us and we miss her a lot! Hopefully we will be able to visit her in Xi'an when we take our trip there in a couple weeks, but if not I have her email. So happy to have made such a great friend here, she helped us with so much and truly has a pure soul =]

Tianjin Taida!

On Saturday we went to a pro soccer game, our city's team, Tianjin Taida, played Tsingtao's team, the Ultras. At first we sat in our assigned section, which was back behind this big section of cheering fans who had flags and matching jerseys and everything. Then the 15 of us Americans that were there decided to start our own cheer...so we sang the "Ole Ole Oleeeeeeee" cheer and waved our Tianjin scarves...and all the Chinese fans loved it! They turned around and joined in! Then they invited us to come stand and cheer with them! And as we were cheering they started taking lots of pictures, and since they wanted us to look like real fans in the pictures, they gave us free jerseys!! It was all such a surprise, they were so friendly and welcomed us right in. Sports fan sections are universal =]

jerseys!

fans!

soccer players!

stadium!

more fans!

=]

oh yeah and P.S. we did not win we tied 0-0 haha

The Great Wall Part 1!

First off, I'd like to say that this post is in celebration of getting internet back in our room again ! Yay! And now Stevie can watch the CrossFit Games without sitting in the lobby for hours at a time!
Last weekend we visited a section of the Great Wall that runs through the outskirts of Tianjin. It was about a 2 hour drive to get there but that section of the wall is a lot less tourist-heavy than in Beijing. However, this is Part 1 because we are also going to the Beijing site in a couple weeks. Sooooo here are a couple fave pics.

Unfortunately it was a very very foggy day so I didn't get a ton of super clear pics. 

Also, I wanted to tell a story about class today! So between 45 minute sessions of class we have little breaks to go stretch our legs and buy snacks or whatever. And when I came back from one of the breaks, one of my classmates (his name is Mitsuo he is from Japan) was looking at me funny, actually everyone was looking at me and smiling weird. I thought it was just because I got back late. Anyway than Mitsuo says to look under my book...and there is a tiny gecko underneath!! It was super cool and it didn't even move when I lifted the book. I think his prank backfired though because I was not afraid of it, he wanted me to freak out. I picked it up and held it in my hand for a little while and then our teacher got mad because it was a distraction. I wish I had gotten a picture but I did not have my camera on me. That is all! Talk to you soon!

家乐福

Hello! Today I am writing a short blog about going to the supermarket! The name of the supermarket we went to is the title. Stevie and I went with our group's translator, Sophie, who is the cutest person in the world. She is tiny and always wears a little bow in her hair and her English vocabulary is astounding. We biked to the supermarket, and biking in China so far has been really scary , plus the bikes are uncomfortable and I've already had a chain break on me. When we got there there was a huge bike parking lot! And then we went inside...and it was giant. Stevie took pictures on her phone, but they have every food item imaginable, plus toiletries and even places for shoes and bags and souvenirs. But we bought so many fun Chinese snacks! So far my favorite is puffed rice bar that tastes kind of like an American rice krispie treat, but way better. They have every kind of bread/bakery item and lots of fresh fish and seeds and grains and tofu and noodles. It was really fun going and looking at all the new things!! Some labels on the food I can read and some I cannot -but I try to ask whenever I don't know. Stevie learned how to say peanut butter today, I think it is 花生酱. Sophie made both Stevie and I talk to the people that worked there to ask them to help us weigh things (candy) and we had to order donuts at the bakery. Afterwards we paid for everything and rode home on our bikes, stopping along the way to buy a flash drive for Stevie that was only 35 元, the equivalent of about 5 U.S. dollars for 8 G. Okay that is my story for the day. Talk to you later!