A wonderful place called Xiamen

      First, I want to apologize for this post taking so long. I had a super busy weekend. We just bought tickets to travel to America, and we needed to get visa application and appointment stuff, and it was just a lot of work that we weren't expecting. Now all we have left to do is the visa interview and we will be good to go. I am so glad its all done! On top of that it was Easter, so we had a bunch of Easter things to do.....anyway, I will get on with the blog.


      It was during the national holiday break that we took a trip to Fujian province. The first city we explored was Xiamen, a city by the sea. We woke up super early in the morning, and left by speed train to Xiamen. National holiday is the time when everyone in China goes on vacation, and we were a little bit late buying tickets, so we didn't have tickets there, and the trip was six hours. Lucky for us, we were the first stop on the train, and we grabbed a seat in the food car. I remember on the way there I did a lot of sleeping, but we also watched The Incredibles and a Chinese movie called 何以笙箫默, which was a movie adaptation of a tv show that Hui and I really liked. I must say, the second movie was just terrible. I mean, it was so bad that they shouldn't even have wasted the money to make it, but Hui and I finished it, because we thought it was hilarious how bad it was.
      Anyway, we finally arrived in Xiamen, and we tried to find a ride to our hotel. If you read my blog about my first time in Shanghai, you will know that I am really wary of 黑车, and our way to get to the hotel was pretty sketchy looking, so I fought Hui, tried to ignore them like I always did, but it turned out to be a normal thing that was set up by the train station. I still don't regret not trusting them, because it was just some random guy with his car, what can I say? On the road, we were talking about Xiamen's most famous attraction, an island called 鼓浪屿(gulang yu), and we found out that all of the boat tickets going there were sold out. Luckily, our driver knew a guy who could sell us a ticket to a TRAVEL GROUP that would include a boat ride to the island. Now, if you have been reading my blogs for a while, you know that travel groups are pretty much a terrible investment and just a front to sell things, but we were desperate for that ticket, so we went with it, and they said they were going to call us early the next morning to pick us up at our hotel.
      When we arrived, we found we were staying at a hostel, not a hotel, and when the people at the desk saw me, they said that we couldn't stay there. I didn't completely understand what they were saying in Chinese, because I was tired and stressed out by the car situation, and I accidentally thought that they just didn't like foreigners, and they were trying to kick us out, but I was actually really wrong. Hostels are actually very popular with foreigners, and they tend to cater toward them, but it is a government rule that foreigners are only allowed to stay in hotels during the national day break. Don't ask me why, that's just how it is, and I didn't want to be breaking any laws, so we went and got a hotel. I hate that I thought they didn't like me, and that I cried in front of the manager to make him feel bad (and because of all the stress). It wasn't his fault. Oh well, he did help us get a hotel, and it was really nice.

the view from the lounge outside the hotel room

the hotel lounge

   











   
      In the evening we rented a double bicycle and rode across the beach. It was really nice to get out and forget about all the stress of the morning. It also helped that Xiamen is just a really beautiful and relaxing place. Every day we saw people taking wedding pictures around, which was kind of interesting. I definitely think it would be a great place to take some wedding pictures by the ocean or in the old fashioned houses on gulangyu. For dinner we went to a very busy street of bbq vendors selling every kind of seafood you can imagine. It was so amazing. I feel like I ate so many clams and shrimp in Xiamen, which made me really really happy. Also, Xiamen is home to the world's biggest mangoes (a statement made up by your's truly), and I love mangoes so much, so we had to get one.

all the girls are out there doing wedding photos

had a nice grilled giant snail for dinner

Xiamen is home of mangoes as big as your head

I didn't eat them, but check out these giant lobsters

      That night, Hui was stressing, and he was pretty sure we got hustled over those boat tickets, because they didn't give him their phone number. I would have been so bummed if that were true, but sure enough bright and early they called us, and let us know we were going to meet them at the big Buddhist temple called Nanputuo. It was free to go in, so we went inside to check things out. It was pretty nice, so I'm not sure why I didn't take any pictures of it, but I didn't so sorryyyyyy! Here's a nice picture of it from nanputuo.com. It wasn't that nice when we went. It was actually raining. 

      Finally after a while we got going, but we were headed to the shopping portion of the travel group, which included a presentation of all the "interesting" things you could buy. Ohhhhh how boring it was, and we were so starving. Thankfully, we had the great idea of walking out of the presentation to go get some food, and our tour guide wasn't there to see it, so we were all good. We went out to explore while also watching the time, so we would be sure to get back to the group by the time the presentation was over. There were many interesting things to see along the ocean outside of the jewelry shopping areas, so we really enjoyed just relaxing and taking everything in. Unfortunately, some of my pictures from this time are missing, so I will have to look into what happened to that and post them later.

      After the shopping portion was over, our tour guide brought us to the boat "station" to get some food and get ready to go to gulangyu. We had a really awesome lunch, and we were able to try many things we never tried before, such as shrimp cooked inside of sparrow eggs. Everything was delicious! Now, I guess I have to talk about one big thing I had always planned to eat when we were in Xiamen, a popular Xiamen street snack called 土笋冻(tusundong). The English translation of the name is worm jelly, and, as the name suggests, it is a gelatin type of jelly with worms inside. At this food court place that we went to, I had the opportunity to eat it, but for the second time I turned it down. I didn't think it was time to be eating the stranger things yet. I was saving it for later. 

鼓浪屿is just ahead on your left!

a lady showing us how to open a clam to get pearls out

      I'm going to end this post off at this point. I don't want my blog posts to be too big. I will pick right back up next time when Hui and I arrive at gulangyu. Thanks for taking the time to read everything, and see you next time!

The international Class

      I know I said my next post would be about my trip over the national holiday, but I did get to do a photo shoot with one of my classes, so I thought I would share that here. I think some people are a little confused about my situation here, so I'll just explain everything here. I teach 15 classes, and each class has an average of 50 students each, meaning that I have more than 700 students that I teach. I'm not allowed to give the students grades or homework, and as you can imagine that causes a lot of behavior problems, but I feel that, aside from a couple of monster classes, my students are mostly great, and they work together with me really well. The international class, class 15 is a special class of 12 students. They get extra English lessons, extra homework, and I have extra classes with them as well, all of which are preparing them to go to college in a foreign country. They are the first class of this kind for Hongda, so we decided to do a photo shoot together. Here are some of the photos from that.
   

This is Mr. Ge. He is the head teacher of this class and a math teacher at Hongda.

Brief (hopefully) Update

      Ok, here goes. I have reached the point in my blogging where I am about to post a blog about an amazing week long trip Hui and I took to Fujian province. I have actually kind of been rushing through the previous blogs, because I was so excited to get to this one. I have hundreds of pictures, and you are getting all of them, ALL OF EM! I am just going to go blog crazy on this one. I think you are going to love it. I tried so many different foods, did a few things that were a bit out of my comfort zone, and did some things I have always wanted to do. It was just a great trip. Also, I don't know if I have said this before, but when we travel, we really travel. In the past we have been known to squeeze as many things as we possibly can into one day. I mean through this whole trip we were probably only in the hotel to shower and sleep. I think we also learned a lot about each other as a couple. I know I definitely learned that Hui has a very deep relationship with rice, but more on that later. It was completely amazing, and I really can't wait to share the whole great adventure.
See you in the next post.

Thrills in Shanghai: Shanghai Happy Valley

      I told Hui that I have to ride roller coasters every summer. It keeps my energy up, and gives me those wonderful endorphins. Yeah, I love it, so we found this amusement park, Shanghai Happy Valley, and we went their on a three day weekend. It was very interesting. It was actually Hui's first time on roller coasters, and we decided for his first roller coaster ever, we should ride the most extreme one in the park. When we started getting closer, he kept telling me he was afraid he was going to throw up, but I told him he definitely would not. I have to say, that roller coaster I think was the best quality one I have ever been on. It was really cool, because right as we were going down on the first hill, it just stopped for a few seconds. I feel like that style of roller coaster is popular in China, because I think they have one of those in Guangzhou too. Anyways, it was awesome, and Hui hated it. He's probably never going to ride roller coasters again. lol
      If you were wondering, the biggest difference I can see between theme parks in China and theme parks in America is that you'll only get to ride four or less rides, because the wait time for absolutely everything is over an hour. It was still a great time, and that was the first time we saw the plant hair clip fashion trend, so we had fun making fun of them in the lines. They also put up a lot of nice scenery. I think they knew that people weren't going to get many rides in, but they wanted people to feel like they got their money's worth. I certainly felt satisfied, but I still wish I had time to ride more than two roller coasters and a kiddy ride. I need to open the discussion with Hui about possibly building an apartment in Disneyland. That might do it for me.

My name is Chen Hui, and I conquered this thing!

Adventures in Anhui- part 2

      The same day a lady who lives near Judy's parent's shop brought us to a little museum place. I didn't get much information on this place, but Judy told me that it used to be some kind of theater, so I guess you could call it a historic theater/ museum. Either way I got some nice pictures, and we had fun.

Can you guess who wore these shoes? The are actually the shoes that belonged to women with bound feet. I don't know how they could even walk around.

      We spent another morning with Judy's high school English teacher. He brought us to a really cool looking Buddhist temple with a big tower in the middle. I really like the look of those temples with yellow walls. I don't know why, but they just look really nice. It was reeeeeeally in the country, and they had a very country toilet, aka a hole in the ground. I mean I went in there and the poo was just right there in front of me. I didn't really mind though. I just needed to use the toilet. 

      I really loved visiting Hui's house. His grandma was there, and I had not met her before. She was so sweet to me. She took me all around the garden, and told me all of the names of every flower and plant around their house in their local dialect. She seems very proud of them, because she did the same thing again when I came for the spring festival. Hui's family has lived in a big house in the countryside for about three year now. They have so many different types of food in their garden, and behind their garden they have chickens, so most of the things they eat come from right outside their house. I love that lifestyle. I think it is very healthy (though when I come over, their goal is to get me fat fat fat! hahaha). They decided to move, because Hui's grandma was getting old (she's almost 90 years old), and she wanted to move to the place where she lived when she was a little girl. Hui's dad is such a great son! He found a place near where Hui's grandma grew up, and made a house there. I think it is so great, and the first time I heard that story it made me cry......because the women in my family are prone to being moved, I can't help it.

      I am going to save the pictures of the house for the blog about the spring festival. For now enjoy this photo of all this food Hui's family prepared for us. I love home made food so much, especially 红烧肉. It is so much better home made. I feel like I am eating love when I eat it......but enough about food. I should move on.





   



.....or I could share pictures of all the nice family dinners we had together. muwahahaha I hope you don't get too hungry.

This dinner was I believe on our third day there, and it was treated to us by Hui's family. I think it was actually my favorite of the family dinners, because they had a whole pig's jaw, and it was so tender and delicious.

While I was in Anhui, Judy's family informed me of a meal I never knew existed. This was a meal eaten after dinner around 10 or 11pm called 夜烧 (night bbq). As you can guess, its really really healthy, so they do it all the time! That was sarcasm. lol I don't think they do it that often, and we only did it one time when we were there.

Judy's family also brought me to the place where Judy's dad grew up. It was so far into the countryside, that Judy told me I was probably the first non Chinese person ever to go there. There I met Judy's dad's family, and we shared this beautiful food together. It was really funny. I actually walked into the house first, and everyone thought that I was Judy, and she had just stayed in America so long that she turned white. 

     


      On the afternoon of the day we went to Hui's house, Hui's dad brought some of us to a temple on a really high mountain. I have to say the journey getting there and back had to be one of the most thrilling moments of my life (that is except for the time when Hui was driving on a mountain, but I'll save that story for later). We were riding in a car meant for five people, and I think we had four people crammed in the back seat, and the road to get up the mountain was so narrow, that everyone was holding their breath thinking we weren't going to make it. On top of that, on the way back down it was raining and slippery, and we had two people sitting shotgun. Oh my gosh, if my parents are reading this, they are both going to have a heart attack. lol It was still awesome getting to see the temple. I really enjoyed it.

You know, they always say this, but it's really true. You can take as many pictures of these mountains as you want, but no image can truly compare to seeing the real thing. You will just have to go there to experience it for yourself. 

That's me with Hui's dad. OMG I look like a giant. Its the shoes I swear!

      I have a few other photos from Judy's house, but I don't have a certain category for them, so here goes with the random photos! Yay!

Judy's driving! I was afraid at first, but trust me guys, she's really good at it!

Judy's cousin brought me flowers for Chinese Valentine's Day! How did she know lilies are my favorite?!

I bought a whole lot of clothes while I was in Anhui, including these jeans that make my legs look so super skinny, and that have mustaches on them!

Nothing like a nice relaxing foot massage after a long day. 

Judy and I at the airport. Time to go back home. What a great time!