Opening up my eyes

Qingdao is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

I am afraid though that home blindness may set in after a while. I really don't want to become home blind to this place. I notices back in PA i was home blind and started opening my eyes to things I was taking for granted. PA is beautiful.


I want to keep my eyes open here, to see the continuing beauty Qingdao has to offer. The mountains are so majestic and the ocean so refreshing. I am caught up in the mystery, life is full of possibilities. I never dreamed I would live in China... Italy maybe, but never China. Not until a few years ago.

I am young and I know I have a lot of life head of me, but let me ask you... when is the change over? From what I can tell, life is ever changing, ever morphing. I think the saying 'you get what you give' is somewhat true. If you work hard with a purpose, if you have direction, if you gain guidance and you sew positive, you will reap positive. I am not saying it will all be easy, it will not. No one is guaranteed that, and i almost want things to be difficult. That's how we learn and grow and through though times we will build character, friendships and love.

My first crustacean family lunch

Mandy and I had lunch with our new friend Garfield. (Ryan Peterson: connecting people in other nations! oh, yeah... that's what i'm talking about. ;o)

SO anyway, mandy and I met up with Garfield for lunch. His mom wanted to have us over to their beautiful home. We had sea snails, clams, and some other bottom feeding crustacean. We also had chicken heart ( tastes a little like duck liver) , chicken wings (like we have in the U.S.), veggies and beef. There was a lot of food. We also had watermelon and honey dew melon for desert.

Garfields Grandmother on the left and Mother on the right, Mandy and I are in the middle.

Us and Garfield. Garfield is a student at Xining University, out west in the Qinghai Provence.

Waiting for the bus...

Garfield.

I felt a little bad because my chinese is not good enough to communicate with Garfields mom. She is very sweet and said we could come over anytime we wanted. She would cook for us. I am not sure how that would work with Garfield away at college and we can not speak chinese well, and understand others spoken chinese even less. But in any case we have her number.

Maybe we will have the chance to go again over the chinese new year. I am not eating sea snails again tho! Once was enough for me.

a small moment that made me smile...

;o)

So I just want to share something adorable that happened this morning. I went into school and walked into my first class and one of my students stood up and yelled across the room, "Good Morning Auntie Krista!" It was Salem. The son of one of the families in the fellowship (The Birkenstocks). His father is my co-teaching partner for the summer.

This is just one of the many thing about my days and my kids that makes me smile.

I feel so blessed to be here and to have family and friends here that are so supportive and encouraging. Even Salem in his sweet little ways can have a great effect on me.

In one month here in china....

in one month:

I have moved out of the states to china...
I have set up an apartment with my friend and roommate Mandy
I have met many people from all over the world
I have been welcomed in to the family here
I have become a regular biker babe (i ride my bike at least 2 times a day!)
I have visited the American doctor
I have gone on a 10 mile bike ride
I have been to the beach countless times
I have explored much of my new city and have so much more to discover
I have learned how to live without a dryer, we hang all our clothes on the back porch to dry
I have learned a little Chinese... more to come
I have started my new job, I love teaching!
I have been to a conference on teaching English as a second language.
I have had sleepovers with friends
I have been in fellowship with family here in china
I have witnessed some Olympic events
I have learned to direct a taxi in Chinese
I have become and Auntie to some amazing little kids
I have had hot pot dinner with a wonderful Chinese family
I have talked to little children on the streets who know English very well
I have eaten in some of the most random place (Italian to Korean to back street 'hole in the walls'
I have cooked dinner, anything from mac n cheese to chicken nuggets to fried rice to fried fruit wraps to blueberry pancakes... etc.

I have learned so much already about myself
I have learned SO much about JC
I have found a good grocery store that sells relatively cheap western foods and a good mix of eastern foods
I have found places to bargain for goods
I have had more starbucks in the last month that i have int he US in the past year!
I have walked miles and biked miles
I have figured out bus routes
I have enjoyed Qingdao immensely

I have done SO much and still have 11 months to do so much more... i am so excited to have you on this journey with me. I can barely imagine what awaits me in the months to come.

One Month Mark

Hello!
It has been too long since i have written, nearly 2 1/2 weeks! I have bee here almost 5 weeks! Man o man, time flies!
I just feel like this is where i belong. I feel very at home in Qingdao. This was no doubt the right move for me.

I have been a bit sick, as some of you know. And getting ready for the fall semester. I am teaching full time now. I LOVE teaching my kids. I have 6 classes and 70 kids at the moment. In September we should have 150 kids. There are 2 classes i do not teach. The Xiao Xiao Ban (Phonics: Sh-ow Sh-ow Ben) and the all day English class. These are both taught by Judith Rose, one of my colleagues. This week I am learning ALL of the names and the kids learn about shapes. I team teach with Chuck until September, and he is doing fruits with them. We have done games and songs and drawings. And they love to do the Hokey Pokey. I keep that as a Bonus to do with them if we have time and can get through the day.

The weather is nice. It is usually very hot, in the 80s or 90s. I tried to straighted my hair today and went outside and it curled up in a matter of a few hours. While i love the summer weather i am excited about fall, my favorite season. I can't wait to see the leaves change color and i love wearing jackets, a bit cooler.

Qingdao int he summer:

these are some of the mountains you can see from near my school

May 4th near the water

This is more of the City. Where the red sculpture is, that is May 4th square.

This is a park near Little Qingdao where people come and relax.

This is a place you can climb down and go wading in to the ocean!

got to stick my feet in!

Some of the kids in town found relief from the heat in a fountain!

Busy street in front of Hisense. Hisense is where we do most of our grocery shopping.

Part of Polar Ocean World!

Mandy walking along the base of a lighthouse we visited last wkend

No, there are not sanitation requirements at chinese restaurants. This is one reason i have gotten sick from Chinese germs. I like the hole in the wall places where you can get some of the best Chinese food in town. The expensive are nice as well, but they still do not have a sanitation code. It may look clean in the dining room, but i dare not look in the kitchen.

There are mixed feeling about the Olympics here. While it is fun to watch and the Chinese take much pride in hosting, i find a lot of locals and long term foreigners are ready for them to be over. They have been preparing for 8 years and are ready to get back to normal life. Although the Olympics are mainly in Beijing, the sailing is held here in Qingdao. Mandy and i got to catch a bit of it. There was also an opening ceremonies event on 8/9/08 at May 4th square in town, with fire works and everything.

(some sort of connection interruption will not allow me to upload any more pics. I will do a whole Olympic post when they are over. Hopefully i can upload pics then.)

I can not believe it has been 5 weeks already! Time is flying. I promise i will try to get better at writing. There is so much to tell you. But i fear I have been a bit overwhelmed and extremely busy preparing for the coming months.

Our Fellowship with internationals is fantastic. I have met so many people and am forming so good friendships with others i have met over a month ago! I am so excited for this year! One thing you can be thinking about is my computer. It is still broken i am thinking of sending it home. I am not sure what to do with it.

Thank you for your support and emails! I enjoy hear from all of you!

The people want to know...

I am experiencing SO much and want to make sure you guys are here with me, but as the weeks go on and I start teaching I will have less time to write (and i don't have much now as it is), so it would help if you gave me ideas of what you want to know/learn about.

Thanks guys, have a fantastic day!

PS: here are some odds and ends i have been asked about already...

This is what is behind the garage door... no, we do not have a garage.
It is our back porch.

This is where Mandy keeps her bike...

and it is where we hang out laundry to dry...
the chinese do not believe in using drying machines because it ruins the fabric.

The buttons on the microwave... no popcorn button.
Even better we have a button for dumplings and one for rice, etc...

I pl;aced stickers in varios places around the house to help me learn chinese... Lan is the word for the color blue and bai is the word for white....Lu is green and Kafeise is brown... i have stickers for window and living room and other similar things... but if i put them all up this would be a super boring blog entry...
G'night (10:21pm, I have school tomorrow)

August Already!

My week in a nutshell...

Sunday:
We met with our foreign friends and went over the playbook. It is so nice to meet with people you can talk to... in english. I still can not speak much chinese, so i can not carry on a long conversation with the locals yet. It was fun to just sit around, talking and learning about everyonae. Enjoying time with dad, he is so knowledgabe.


Monday:
Elizabeth took us to a vendors area where a bunch of vendors set up to seel food on the streets. We got our food then came back to our apartment to eat and hang out.

Elizabeth is 19 years old and from Germany. She is in Qingdao to help the Birkenstocks with their 6 kids.

Tuesday:
Mandy and i got to go through Ana and Stephs stuff they left behind and got to fix up our apartment somemore.
We also had Mac n Cheese for dinner. One of Mandys favorite dishes we found at a local grocery store for 7 yuan. Not bad.

Wednesday:
I got to teach a little. It is still summer fun, so nothing too hard. We went over body parts and then i taught them the Hokey Pokey.
We had Todd and the kids over for dinner since Sue was out of town. We got to share NiHao Kai-lan with them. 'NiHao Kai-lan' is a show in the US similar to 'Dora the Explorer', but teaches chinese instead of spanish.


Thursday:
This was the 2 &3 year olds day to go swimming. I was asked to accomapny Salem to the pool since his parents had to work. So although i did not get to teach i had a fun outing with Salem.

Salem

Our friend Alicia came to stay with us for a week. She has tickets to teh opening ceremonies for the Olympics in Beijing! She heads up there on Wens.

Alicia, i will try to get a better picture...

I also got pillows and a blanket for my bed! Very exciting!

Friday:
I got to teach a little more, but only 2 classes because one of the claases was moving rooms and two classes went swimming. I got to meet Judith rose, another foreigen teacher at Big Apple. She focuses on the Xiao Xiao Ben (Phonics: Sh-ow Sh-ow ben, 2&3 year olds) and the all day english class.
Chuch took us bike shopping! We had to ride them home from Decathlon, about 3-4 miles... it was super fun.

My bike!
I have an attachment on the back where I can strap my backpack and a nifty bell to let people know i am coming.

Saturday:
We got to babysit 2 of the Birkenstock kids, Brittney and Salem.

Lunch time!

Yum... SO cute!

Salem, is posing for the camera... after eating bread and nutella for lunch. Its all over his face.

Elizabeth and Mandy

Brittney standing in the tent we made...
Brit and Mandy hangin out in the tent

Salem, and I were playing catch with a huge stuffed dog...

Mandy and Salem

Me and my girl Brit!

Brit and Salem making funny faces... I love these kids!

When we finished babysitting, we took Judith Rose to the new Starbucks 2 blocks from our house. We made friends with Toni, the guy who runs the place. He is native Chinese, but went to Seattle Washing to to study Starbucks!

Very homey...

They sell Tiramisu! It's not Olive garden, but no bad...

This is the view from the ride home! Blue skies! We can see the Mountain peaks!

Sunday:
We had another team meeting and we got to babysit Jude, one of Kirk and Sheenas boys.

Jude

Aw, precious

Ok, so this was a big nutshell, but I have many requests for pictures along with the updates... so i am trying to supply the people what they want... Hopefully i will get to the point soon where it flows more smooth.