Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon Boat Rides

I think last night will be one of my fondest memories of my family in China.  As I said before I made dinner for my family.  The first thing I made was rice krispy treats.  They loved these, especially Bryant and his friend who lives next door.  His mother was also over and she enjoyed them too.  None of them had ever seen or ever heard of them before.  The mom was watching me with amazement as I showed her the three easy ingredients and steps to make them.  Later, I made the rest of the meal.  This was the comical part.  Stephanie, the mom, and the neighbor mom and me all squished into the kitchen (about 7 feet by 3 feet) for my American cooking lesson.  It was like I was some famous chef or something and everything I had to say was brand new.  Everything that I did they would repeat in Chinese and then write it down on a sheet of paper.  And of course all of them wanted to help.  So I had Stephanie breading and egging the chicken, neighbor mom was frying them, and host mom and me were mashing those potatoes.  I think they got a kick out of that.  So overall the dinner went pretty well.  I bought way to much pork and we are still eating it.  It was hard to flavor the pork because I didn't have any of my normal spices and it was making me nervous being watched the whole time.  I added some of their red pepper to the gravy and flour to try and liven things up a bit.  Once we sat down I had to show them how to eat it.  I put my mashed potatoes on my plate, pork on top and then covered it in the gravy which I told them was sauce.  They seemed to like it for the most part.  The boys enjoyed playing with the gravy.  For dessert we had angel food cake with mangoes and rediwhip.  This was fun because they had never seen rediwhip before.  I thought Stephanie was going to spray me in the face with it.  They called it ice cream which was fun.

Sunday Adventures

Last night I was surprised with the news that today we would be going on an excursion!  We went to an old village called HongLongXi Ancient Town.  We went with the neighbor mom, the son who is Bryant's age, and their grandparents.  This town is actually the location of where the movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was filmed.  I think I will have to see the movie now.  The village was very pretty and it was interesting being with just my family all morning. Stephanie did not go because she had to do home work.  So I did not really talk to anyone most of the morning and early afternoon.  The boys were fun to play with though and they have warmed up to me and are fun to tease.  Our first big activity in the village was a oh I can't think of what its even called.  When you sit in the little box and the two men carry you?  I was asked if I wanted to do this and then thrust up with Bryant put in my lap.  It was very jumpy and strange having men carry you.  Ahead of us was a little band announcing our arrival.  Unfortunately I do not have any pictures, but will try to steal some from them. I do have pictures of what it looks like, just not me in it.  Our second activity in the village was a boat ride.  I don't mean any little relaxing gondola ride either.  We rode in a speed boat, and trust me this place has never heard of no wake zones.  It was one of the most ferocious boat rides I have ever been on. The driver had us tipping back and forth and I swear at one point we were completely on our side.  The mom and I sat in the front and we screamed our heads off.  It was quite scary, but a lot of fun.  After this we just walked around the village, looked in shops were I was asked if I liked everything. My answer always being...oh yes that's beautiful.  Even if I could care less.  We ate lunch and then headed back home.  It was quite a long morning, and I was wore out.  I ended up falling asleep on the car ride home.

After we got back home, I went right over to Jeannette's for the birthday party.  I ended up being an hour late and got there at 3.  I had pretty much missed everything but the cake fight.  I walked in and Elva (birthday girl) puts frosting on my face, screams and then runs away.  It was quite a greeting.   I ate some cake and then we all decided that we wanted to go to the movies.  So off we went to Wanda Plaza (Japanese Mall).  But, none of the times worked out so we hung out at the arcade for a while and then headed home.  When I got home, Stephanie was the only one here and we watched the old version of Little Women. (In English w/ Chinese subtitles).  I had actually never seen it, it's quite good. I've only seen the newer version.  We ended up getting Elva's birthday cake because Jeannette and Elva's mom miscommunicated and both bought a birthday cake.  So we got the half eaten one from the party and they are eating the other one for breakfast tomorrow.  Apparently it's quite normal to eat birthday cake for breakfast because we did the same thing after Bryant's birthday.  I just finally got my clothes into the washing machine...stupid thing and will hopefully have clean dry clothes tomorrow night so I can pack!  Stay tuned for the slide show of the week!  Love to all!