Yangshuo - Day 1

We arrived in Yangshuo in the evening, got dinner and settled into our hotel. We woke the next morning rested and ready to start a day of touring. We ate breakfast with a familiar friend and then met up with our guide. For those of you who know us, you might be surprised that we hired a guide. We are after all people who took a road trip last year in a country where we could barely string together a sentence of the language. But knowing that it would be incredibly busy and wanting to maximize our time (not having to scramble around figuring out tickets or transportation), we thought this would be a good idea and our guide Lily was wonderful. 

We found a friend to have breakfast with....

We started our morning by taking a bamboo raft ride along the Yulong River. This was such a wonderful way to see the mountains. This is a smaller river that contains several waterfalls. After the first one when Tori got wet, I wondered how this was going to go. She was almost hysterical! I calmed Tori down and the rest of the trip was really enjoyable. We spent almost 2 hours going down the river. Josh was ready for it to be done, but Becca wanted more waterfalls. We then had lunch in a small country restaurant and went to Silver Cave. I have been to several caves in the U.S., but a Chinese cave is an experience! I know that in Mammouth Cave they only use the lights for select periods of time in order to preserve the formations. Much like how the Chinese do other things, the caves are a technicolor explosion. I am not sure how it affects the cave, but seeing it is breathtaking and beautiful. After a quick dinner, we finished our day off by attending the Impressions show in Yangshuo. We had been to the Impressions show in Hangzhou. Both of these shows are choreographed by the same man as the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics. The water is the stage in this amazing show. What a great end to a tiring and truly wonderful day!

Ready to go!

Enjoying the scenery

Going down the falls

The spectacular Silver Cave

One tired little tourist

Trip to Guilin

Happy Golden Week! This week commemorates the revolution and when Chinese celebrate the beginning of modern China. This is also a holiday for Andy, the kids and myself and a great time to travel without having to use vacation time. :-) Last year we went to Hangzhou and Huangshan (The Yellow Mountains). This year we decided to travel to the area of Guilin and the Li River (pronounced "Lee"). We stayed in the beautiful city of Yangshuo. The area is known for its unusual mountains. In fact, many people are familiar with the mountains as they are featured often in photos and paintings about China. We left Friday, October 2nd. I am going to go back and detail our trip day by day. Let the blogging begin.....

Settling In

Well, I now have almost one month under my belt of Chinese classes. While the vocabulary words are still mostly review, my knowledge of recognizing and writing characters has grown exponentially. I think that I know how to write and read over 100 characters. I am well on my way to basic (Chinese) literacy! In both my Hanyu (grammar) and Tingshuo (speaking) class, the teachers speak almost entirely in Chinese and even explanations will be in Chinese. I feel that I am getting into a routine of how and what I need to study. Really, the thing that I spend the most time on is writing characters. We usually have around 20 new characters that we need to know (which means that we need to be able to write not just recognize) every 2 or 3 days. I spend HOURS practicing writing. Just to show what I am doing, I scanned a page out of one of my practice books. Doesn't this look like fun? ;-)

Great grilling saga

If you remember, the grill that we inherited had rusted through. Two of the legs had fallen off and the bottom was getting a little shaky. Now, that didn't stop us from using it several times and prompted some red-neck grillin'. Before we left for the summer, we had priced out grills and they were crazy-expensive! It was over $100 for just a basic Weber charcoal grill. Yikes. So Andy took the grill into work and had someone from maintenance fix it. 

Before:

After:

They ended up slicing off the bottom and fixing a new bottom and legs. I think that they did a great job! Probably better quality than the original. ;-)

My baby is 4!

Last week Tori turned 4. So sad, I no longer have a baby anymore! :-(  But at the same time, we are enjoying the added freedoms and ability to travel even more as our kids are getting just a bit older. Tori is really enjoying school. I am amazed at the difference in her Chinese in just one month. The other day she came home from school and was telling me all about a story that her teacher had read to the class. Her descriptions were so vivid that I stopped her and asked if the teacher had read it in English. She gave me a look as to say, "Mom, that is silly" and responded with,  "No, Mom, it was in Chinese." All I can say is that I am envious as I spend a couple hours studying each day and she just absorbs it like a sponge. She is such a character and we are so blessed to have her as part of our family. Just today she asked me, "when does our story end? does it end when we die or does it keep going?" Such deep thoughts. I love the combination of silliness, independence and deep thinking (with a whole lot of feistiness thrown in) that makes up who Tori is. Happy Birthday, 小 T ("xiao" T, which means "little")!

Tori's favorite animals are pigs. So instead of a cake, I made these pig cupcakes. Funny thing.... we went to one of our favorite restaurants in Suzhou with some friends to celebrate (which happens to be a Muslim restaurant). So yes indeed, I did the unthinkable and brought pork (these cute little pigs) into a Muslim restaurant!

Pizza Art

Sometimes you just have to play with your food.

Though the girls decided that next time they would put the pepperonis on top of the cheese.

One Week in.....

I have completed my first week of Chinese classes at SuDa. After the first two days, I wondered if the level 1 class was going to be too easy, but things picked up on Wednesday. Already I have 20+ characters that I need to know how to read and write. I find it fascinating learning to write characters though a bit frustrating at times. Just an overview of characters: each character can represent a word or several characters will combine to form a word. I have heard that for basic literacy (like to be able to read a newspaper) you need to know 2000 characters. I wonder how many I will know by the end of the semester? Or the end of the year? Will I be literate? :-) When writing the characters, there is a certain order and direction for each stroke.  Which really when writing the English alphabet, there is a certain order and direction as well (speaking as one who has taught many children to write), but in writing characters it is much more rigid. Simply because a stroke that is slightly wrong can change what the character says. There are many students from other Asian countries in my class that I am jealous of as we write. Because even though in Korean and Japanese, the characters are different (though they do share many characters) there is a similarity of writing. I feel like I am having to re-train my hand and brain.

Some people have asked what a typical run-down of my day looks like now that I am back in school. Usually I am up early, get ready, eat breakfast, get the kids dressed and am out the door by 7:30 AM. Andy tags in, feeds the kids breakfast and gets them on the bus (Go Super-Dad!). Often I am able to get a ride with a fellow student who lives in a neighborhood behind mine and she drives us to school. But if she is unable to have the car (she shares it with her husband) then I catch the bus and must leave just a little earlier. If we drive, it takes about 25-30 minutes depending on traffic. But this morning when I took the bus, it took me almost an hour. I have 2 classes: a grammar and a speaking class. Class dismisses at 11:50 and I usually take the bus home. Thankfully, the traffic is much less on the way home and it only takes about 35 minutes. I am home between 12:30 and 1. I eat lunch, spend a couple hours studying, do any grocery shopping that needs to be done and then by that time the kids are getting home on the bus. While this does make for busy days, I am so thankful for the opportunity to learn Chinese. What a year this will be! :-)