Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving in China! All week I had been teaching about Thanksgiving and going over the traditions and food, so I was very excited to finally make the dinner. We had the option of going into Chongqing and enjoying a Thanksgiving dinner provided by many of the hotels for foreigners, but we decided to save $30 and make our own! I also wanted to embrace the fact that I'm living in China, and this is not a holiday that is celebrated over here, so it just wouldn't be the same....and that's ok! We actually managed to have a pretty complete dinner thanks to Sean's (another foreign teacher here) mom, who sent him supplies for cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie! I was in charge of mashed potatos and carrots, and yes that is a wok I'm using to boil the potatos :)

I also tried to make whipped cream for the pumpkin pie, but there's no cream in China. So I used milk, and it was a good effort, but the thickness just didn't stay!

There are no turkeys in China so we got a roast duck instead, which tasted exactly like ham, but it was good! The rest of fixin's were all present! 

It was an awesome dinner, so good in fact that we've decided to have an "American" type meal once a month! Speaking of holidays, I managed to find some Christmas decorations at Wal-mart here, so my wall is colorfully lit up and I have a mini Christmas tree in my living room! Tis the season!

In other news, I've finally made all of my travel plans for the Chinese New Year! I'll be travelling for about a month, spending 10 days in Thailand, a week in India, and another 10 days in between Malaysia and Singapore. I can't wait! Let me know what souveniers you want....no promises on sneaking the Taj into my suitcase ;)

Freedom!

Ni hao!

First off I would like to wish everyone a happy Singles Day. Yes, 11/11 is singles day here in China. I asked my students how they will be celebrating and they simply said "party!" But a little more digging revealed that many bars have hong lu deng (traffic light) themed parties....wear red if you are in a relationship, yellow if it's complicated, and green if you're single. For all those who hate Valentine's Day, come to China and celebrate being single!

I would like to acknowledge an important U.S. holiday today as well and thank all the veterans and members of the armed forces who have, and still are serving their country! 

THE CAST IS OFF!!!!!! I've been cast free for about a week now and my arm feels great! When I went to the hospital, I had one final x-ray taken, the doctor said it looked ok and that I was free to go home and cut off my cast. Um what!? Go home and hack away at the plaster myself!? I don't think so! Pan pan, our boss' assistant and go to Chinese helper, convinced him to actually be a doctor and take care of a patient! So all is good there!

A few days ago a very large ceremonial tent with accompanying blow up entry way was set up in the park by our apartment building. I assumed it was a holiday celebration or some sort of wedding reception but a slow walk by the entrance revealed many flowers and a casket inside. The tent was just taken down today, so the whole celebration/remembrance lasted about 3 days and included lots of food, singing, and of course hundreds of firecrackers going off at all times of the day and night. Puts real meaning into the phrase "going out with a bang!"

I was finally able to upload photos of the Jingdao gorge, so here's the link!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2080508&id=1019820015&l=9424bc89f7