for December! The weird thing was it happened mid day. I checked the temp before I left for work, it was 70°, perfect skirt and Tshirt weather, and that was 7:30am. One could only expect it to get warmer. But by 1 pm, the temperature had dropped to below 50 degrees and windy! Now 50 isn't bad, but we were just so unprepared for it. Now I never leave for work without a good winter/rain jacket and mittens. My building isn't heated very well so I wear them all day. And back in the apartment, I finally have my heater figured out. I treat it like the washer. Just push buttons until I get what I want, since all the buttons are in Chinese.
Saturday I got a biking tour of Beilun.- We found a neighborhood that looked like Mexico to me, if the homes hadn't been so gray. They were all attached, with clothes lines, and shattered glass on top so no one could climb them.
- The zoning was weird. Skyscrapers turned into farming fields that turned into dead
streets that turned into bustling shops. The next block was always totally unpredictable.
- I was surprised to find a really nice gym, and an amusement park.
Saturday night a dinner was held for all the expats" (or foreigners) at a fancy hotel.- Some of the entertainment provided included dancers, magic, mask changing and sand art. The mask changing guy totally scared me. He came out into the crowd right up to me, stared me down, I blinked, and he was wearing a different mask. I was a little too freaked out to take video at that time, but I got some a minute later. The picture is of the sand art. It was really cool because the image would only be there for about 10 seconds before the artist would manipulate the sand into a new image. And he would use the shapes from the current image to create the next one. I wish I had video of this too!
- The awards and honors were given out in Chinese. The Ningbo government wanted to
recognize foreigners who have come to be a part of the community. Our music teacher got an award :)
- I was a little embarrassed by our table, they were very chatty, but I was listening to the Chinese, and I recognized the name of our school in Chinese so I got to shhhh everyone and tell them that Elaine was being announced.
Saturday later night, a group of 7 of us played Sardines in the apartment complex. For those who don't know, sardines is reverse hide-and-seek. One person hides and everyone else tries to find them. The trick is, once you've found the hiding person, you have to hide with them! So not only do you need a good spot to hide yourself, but you want to include at least 5 other people! We left the apartment doors open and played with 3 apartments on the 17th, 19th, and 21st floors. That was a lot of stairs for a reverse game of hide and seek!
Sunday was by far the best day ever. Dana, Matt, Julie and I biked to the base of Jiufeng"Mountain", which for all intensife purposes is actually a foothill, and we hiked up for about 45 minutes. The whole trip took about 3 hours. After we got back, I ate an entire large pizza by myself, and then I went and played soccer. The guys were a little miffed that I ditched on soccer early for the knitting club, but I was spent. And my new yarn from Tao Bao (online shopping) came in the mail!
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| Hiking up Jiafeng. We left our bikes in the valley. |
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| And coming back down. Those are some serious stai. |
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| I just love the language of this sign. |
Elves:
- At nap time yesterday, for some reason we could hear the car horns out on the interstate particularly well. I'm wandering if there was an accident or a traffic jam. One of my students sat up, and said "Outside, too loud. That's not okay." Then he looked very sternly towards the noisy honking and said, "Calm down!"
- Today as we were walking back from the cafeteria, I felt the first raindrop. Within about 10 seconds, everyone else had felt at least one raindrop. One elf pointed up to the clouds and said, "Oh no! It's broken!"
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