Half-way mark

Yesterday was my half-way mark!!!  I can't believe that I am half-way!  Time has flown by, and I am sure that things will even go by even faster now that we only have a couple months left.  Here is a little time line of what is happening with me for the next little bit:

·                         In 1 day, Jared with ILP will be here to visit and make sure that we are teaching correctly, and that everything is going well

·                         In 10 days we are going to Beijing!!!!  and Xian!  (I am extremely excited about this, if you can't tell)

·                         We only have 33 days of teaching left... I am going to miss my little kiddies

·                         On May 9th I will have lived in China for 3 months! 

·                         I return to good ole' Salt Lake City in 67 days!

      I am starting to think that I don't have enough days here in China!  The past week was full of different adventures:

      FIRST, A couple of girls and I were able to see a Buddhist Temple.  There were monks worshiping and it was really neat to see.  They were making some kind of singing noise, that I have never heard before.  I don't even know if it is possible for me to make the noise they were making.   It sounded like a chant.   I tried to take a video of it, but the guards weren't very fond of that.  You think I would have learned the first time, but I didn't.  I had to take a picture of one of the monks!  I don't know if I will ever see a monk in real life again and I didn't want to regret not taking it.  I saw one walking up the steps, and knew that it was a prime opportunity to snatch a photo.  Right as I was taking it, the monk stared right back at me.  I uploaded the picture on this post.  It was extremely beautiful up there and you could tell that it was a special place. 

SECOND, Marine and Gloria took us out to KTV.  KTV is a place where you can sing karaoke and it is a pretty big deal to those that live here in China.  From what we were told, KTV is what a lot of the teenagers do for fun over the weekends.  You rent out a room and you get the whole room to yourselves.  They have a huge tv screen in the middle and you sing to songs.  It was fun because everyone got silly and we all just had a good time.

 

      THIRD, we were invited to go to an Art Exhibition at the Expo Center where Sharon works.  Sharon is the woman we met and we teach her and her son English.  Sharon is the Vice President at the Expo Center which means that she is a pretty big deal.  She receives a lot of respect from those that she works with and always gets VIP Access.  The Art Exhibition was really neat!  The Chinese paintings are absolutely gorgeous!  Since we were with Sharon, we were allowed to go into the private room.  The private room itself, had paintings that were hundreds of years old.  Along with swords, and very expensive jewelry.  We are talking about 8 karat diamonds here.  After the Art Exhibition, Sharon took us out to lunch.  Sharon always takes us out to nice restaurants and every single time we eat out with her, we are put in a room to ourselves.  We don't eat with anyone else, we eat in a PRIVATE room.  Most of the time, we have no idea what Sharon is ordering off the menu, and it is always a surprise to see what we are about to eat.  Well this time, our PRIVATE server brought out some soup that tasted just like turkey broth.  I was extremely happy and was slurping up every drop of this turkey soup.  We then decided to ask Sharon what it really was and it definitely was not turkey broth. Instead it was turtle broth.  I was fine with the whole situation, until the server brought out the whole turtle out on a platter.  Shell, head, claw, every part of the turtle that you can imagine.  However, I didn't let it bother me that much because I ate some of the turtle and actually enjoyed it.  I never thought that I would hear myself saying that, but it tasted good.  Along with turtle, I tried pigeon!  My mom had told me before I left that fried pigeon was considered a delicacy in South China.  I was surprised that I hadn't had or seen any fried pigeon.  I must have spoke too soon, because I tried fried pigeon.. and unlike turtle, I was not a big fan of it.  After we had been eating for a while, enjoying our food, Bill (Sharon's boss) called her from the room next door.  He asked us to come over and make a toast with him and those he was with.  We went over and I was introduced to some very important people of Zhongshan China.  I met the owner of a museum which holds a famous, ancient ship.  I met the Executive Secretary of the Zhongshan Government.  I met multiple millionaires, including one that had a Gold Digger as a wife.  He was an elderly man I would say, and his wife was a very young gorgeous lady.  I also met Bill's cousin who owned ALL of the paintings that I talked previously about that were in the Private Room at the Art Exhibition. 

Overall, I would say that last week was a pretty good week in China.  And things are only going to get better.  I have a package in the mail from my family!  And I leave for Beijing next week!! I am one happy gal.