Cheese!!!

I have to say, the most recent highlight of life in Beilun has be to be that the supermarket started offering chedder cheese again! WAHOO!!! Normally we have to go into Ningbo for cheese.

School:
- Okay, so this was on the way to school ... on a little stone path, a little Chinese toddler spotted me, and ran to hide behind her mother. She peered back around her mom's legs, pointed at my head and yelled, "tou fa!" and proceeded to stare at me. It just means, "hair". Problem was, the toddler just couldn't get over it, and I was trapped on that little path because I couldn't get around them. Awkward turtle.
- When reading books, my elves like to pretend to grab an food item off the page and eat it. If it's a lollipop they'll pretend to lick it. If it's a cookie, they're pretend to take a massive bite out of it. Today, one of my elves was also offering me a pretend grape. I pretended to pop it in my mouth, before I remembered that Chinese grapes are different. You have to peel them first. The elf looked at me like I was super weird before pretending to peel his own grape and then popping it into his mouth.
- Yesterday upon arriving at school, one of my elves proudly presented me with his 'new toy', a lighter. The kind for cigarettes. At first I thought it was some sick joke for liquid candy. But when I read the label, it said in no uncertain terms, "KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN". His mom assured me that he had broken it so now it was his toy. Awesome. And no. No it will not be his toy.
- As part of Fine Arts Day, my elves got to tie dye Tshirts. Dana was teaching my elves how to bind their shirts with rubber bands. First she wanted them to cross the rubber bands and make an X. She wasn't sure they knew all their English letters yet, but in China, everyone uses sign language for numbers, especially for bargaining. Making an X by crossing your two index fingers in the number for 10, or "shi". So Dana told the elves to make a 10 with their rubber bands and showed them by crossing her two index fingers in the shape of an X. Well, I do have a smart alec, and he replied to Dana, "No, a 10 is a one and a zero, not an X."
- I was surprised yesterday when one of my elves came in to tell me, "I coffee." It's very common for them to leaving out the verb. But still, I was thinking in my head, I sure hope not!! A 3 year old on a caffiene high? This is not going to be a good day. This elf actually carried the nickname "terrorista" before I got here. But after she had a coughing fit, I realized she didn't have the diction to distinguish coffee and coughing.


Ocean World:
I took 6 of my 3-year-olds to Ocean World. It was awesome. We did a practice run the day before so luckily everything went smoothly. On the bus they were fantastic (45 minute ride), we watched 3 different shows, and walked through the aquarium.

One unforeseen difficulty was definitely the escalator. It's cool because they built the escalator into a tunnel aquarium, so you're surrounded by huge fish the whole way. But I didn't realize my elves had (I guess) never been on an escalator before. The whole day I was just trying to keep up with them, but all 6 stopped at the edge of the escalator and all refused to take one more step. I walked on it for awhile to show them, but in the end, I rode the escalator all the way down, and Alice put them on one by one, and I took them off at the bottom one by one. Of all the things I thought of that day (bathroom breaks, snack, what to do if there's tantrum, having a meeting place in case one gets lost), the escalator was not a problem that I had planned for.

Disclaimer on the pictures:
- I took Dana's camera since mine is broken, and I couldn't figure out the focus, so sorry if they're blurry. At least you get an idea.
- I'm only posting the ones where you can't see their faces, RFKC style.

 

Baby Baluga in the deep blue see!
When my elves see this picture, they start 'singing' like the whales in very high pitched squeaks.

The escalator :D

Penguins :)

This turtle was climbing up and trying to get out. I was seriously concerned it was going to reach it's neck out and bite.