Birthdays and Beach

This weekend might be my favorite so far. Last night all of the teachers had a potluck in honor of four colleagues birthdays. The food and company was great. After we all stuffed ourselves we went to KaiFiQu for some dancing and fun. We had a blast, off course. People do fireworks in China for EVERYTHING!!! I am not kidding, if they are breaking ground on a new building...fireworks. Birthdays=fireworks, weddings=fireworks, funerals= fireworks. Apparently they think by lighting off fireworks it wards off the evil spirits. I have been woken up many a mornings at 5 AM, I'm sure you can guess I wasn't happy. So last night for Jess' birthday they had fireworks. It was crazy, even in South Carolina you wouldn't have been able to set these off. It was about a square 1.5 ft of fireworks and they lit them RIGHT BY THE BUILDING!!! I couldn't believe it. For a communist country there aren't a lot of cops around. :)


Me, Kara, and Veronica

This morning was amazing. I woke up and it was GORGEOUS outside. I went to church, ate some lunch, and got my massage/chiropractic work done. I was going to come home and take my Sunday nap, but decided it was way too pretty to be inside. I am so thankful I did. I walked to the beach and basically to the town next to us. I put my Ipod on and walked and just enjoyed God's creation!! It was so nice. I needed some time alone and also had fun seeing the sights. I was asked by 5 people to have my picture taken with them. It was pretty funny. Here are some of the pictures from my outing. Oh yea, on the way home I was kind of in a hurry and a little tired from walking so I got a moped taxi back (don't worry mom he was creeping along so I was safe). I went to pay him and he wouldn't accept my money. I think he just took me for the bragging rights of having the tall American ride on his moped. LOL

I found it kind of funny walking around and saying hi to people. They wanted to impress me with their knowing English, while I wanted to impress them with what I am learning in mandarin. I would say "Ni hao" and they would say "hello". I would say "Ni hao ma?" they would say "very good thank you, how are you" I would say "Wo hen hao (I'm very good)" This went on, back and forth with dual languages for the basic phrases in both languages. We both were excited to show off our language skills! :)