A true story

Two week-ends ago I grabbed breakfast with a dear friend. After that, I ran to the mall for some mostly "window shopping." I enjoyed leisurely walking around the mall and people-watching. When I got back in my car, I noticed that someone had stuck an advertisement or something under my windshield wiper.  Hmm, cool. I thought, and I drove home. I forgot that it was stuck there until later when I was running errands with Rob. After getting out of the car, he grabbed the flyer to see what it was. It appeared to be a coupon for Green Acres snow tubing. 

"Wait, there's some writing on the back," I said to Rob, as I turned the coupon over.   To my shock and horror, someone had taken the time to scrawl this message to me about my parking job.

"Who takes the time to write such a message, and how did I park that was so offensive?" These thoughts were going through my mind a mile a minute. "Has anyone even seen the yellow parking lines in the past 3 months?  Minnesota nice? I think not. This kind of thing would never happen in South Dakota" and on and on my thoughts went.

But, the story is not over yet. Someone in my small group had already previously arranged for our group to go sledding at the very place this green coupon was for the next week-end.  And so, that following Friday I passed the coupon off to my friend, and she saved $1.00 on the evening of sledding.

I think I got the last laugh on that one.  

A Chinese New Year's Superbowl Party!

How many parties can you fit into one event? Well, my friends packed a whopping three parties into one. Their invitations called it "The Perfect Storm" and the party was perfect indeed. The party was on Superbowl Sunday. It was also during Chinese New Year, and finally, it was the host's Birthday. Did I mention that it was also the couple's housewarming party? (I guess that makes 4 events packed into one.)

Rob and I went not knowing exactly what to expect since we know the couple but not many of their friends. We were in for a culinary treat though. My friend had one of her friends cooking Korean barbecue. She had also prepared an entire table of hot pot. Finally, there were delicious chocolates on the table, tiramisu, and birthday cake for desert. There was also a good selection of beverages and vegetables -- two of the staples of any good party.

At first, we all mingled happily upstairs. Pretty soon, the game came started, and the guy crowd all headed downstairs to the man cave. I stayed downstairs for about 15 minutes, but the Super Bowl was pretty disappointing. In the meantime, I could hear loud happy voices coming from upstairs--and the voices were speaking Chinese, and I could not help myself; I had to join them.

Upstairs, everyone was happily playing Jenga. But not just any Jenga: the loser of the game had to sing a song for everyone. (The pressure was on.) After that game got too intense, my friend made up a game. Yes, that's right--she made it up on the spot; she's amazing. The premise of the game? Each person around the table rolls the dice. The person who rolled the largest number asks the person who rolled the smallest number a question--a personal, intimate question mostly. For example, they asked me what was the most romantic gift that Rob ever gave me.  (I don't think Rob would appreciate it if I shared it on here.) Being with these friends, playing games, singing, and speaking Chinese filled my heart with such a fullness.

Birthday Bash

This past Monday night, I threw myself a 30th Birthday party. We ate pizza and gourmet chocolate turtle cake and played a couple games of mafia. It was encouraging to look around and see all the friends (and then some) I have here in the Twin Cities.

Small Town Auction

For all you team-mates and big city folk who have not seen a small town auction. I took this short video clip 2 weeks ago when I was at home in Freeman. The entire auction was quite a cultural experience for me. I'll explain more in upcoming post.

P.S. Tech help, please. Does anyone know how I can embed the video into blogger so people don't have to go to youtube to watch it?

Tea Shop

One of my favorite places in Hengyang is a yellow tea shop at the front of our campus. The shop is named 向上 (upwards). Not only can we get delicious and cheap coffees, teas, and juices, but the owner and his wife are friendly toward us and very patient with our Chinese.

The other day at the tea shop, I ordered a "machiatto" which is a new drink they have (similar to a machiatto from Starbucks but less strong.) Some visitors to our city pointed to my cup and asked, "Is this Starbucks?"
"More or less" I said. "It's our Hengyang Starbucks." And that's the truth. Hengyang Starbucks and friendly store owners, I will really miss you next year.

(The owner and his wife. They are 25 and have a 4 year old daughter. They think I'm a little bit behind on my life phases, but that's okay.)

Here are my top five favorite drinks to order at the tea shop:
1. Cold lemon black tea (has real slices of lemon in it)
2. Korean style, mango tea
3. Wu long flavored milk tea
4. Iced machiatto
5. Vanilla tea

We just ordered our drinks and feeling good about life.

Egg Drop Photos

This past week in class, I used my team-mate Amber's lesson plan called the "egg drop." The purpose of this lesson is to let students relax a little and work on problem solving skills. The task is for students to develop a contraption to protect an uncooked egg from an 8 story fall. The groups were incredibly creative and most of them worked well together.

Here are some words from one group: "Although we were inefficient at first, we didn't give up."
My favorite invention was called "The Nest." They used wire, covered with straw to create a cushion similar to a nest. Then, they lined the nest with styrofoam and wrapped the whole thing with plastic bags an a shower cap.

Island Get-away

Last week-end, a couple team-mates and I took a short-term team of foreigners to the island in the middle of our city. This island is famous for it's Buddhist temple and it's ancient, abandoned school.
These two are standing over an old well. One of them wanted to climb down into the well, but we discouraged it. Other exciting discoveries included an underground, abandoned shelter...perhaps a former sort of refrigeration.

The main way of transport to the island is an old. It cost 3 Chinese RMB per person, round trip. Here's the group except for our Chinese friend who took the photo for us.

In one abandoned building, we found this enormous wok with some left-overs from who knows when. Hungry?

As we rounded the corner of some older styled Chinese houses, we entered the courtyard and all of us immediately noticed the blue sky. We couldn't help but stare at the sky in awe and joy after being deprived of blue skies for a couple of weeks.

My friend and I took some "senior portraits" for each other.

Spam-errific!

Spam museum? Amazingly fun! I walked away from it asking myself, "How can I get more spam in my diet?" And thanks to the complimentary spam recipe cards, now I have some ideas.

Pasta a la passion

The other evening, we had a murder mystery party. It was called Pasta, Pistols, and Passion. I was Father Alfredo. Mom was Clair Voyant; (she looked hot).


This was the "little Italy" table setting before the festivities began.
The cast

This was my second time to participate in a murder mystery meal. They really are a lot of fun. It's interesting to see how each person acts his / her character. The ad-libs and witty accusations provide for good, light-hearted fun.