Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas


Making our ginger bread houses!

Stew's house started to fall apart!
Merry Christmas Everyone!


Chinese Christmas


Well Christmas is around the corner and I can say this is one that I will Never forget.
It doesn't seem like the season is here. Without friends and family it just doesn't feel the same. I definitely miss home. I miss the things that are familiar during this time. I miss the decorations and hustle and bustle of the season. Some stores here put up decorations but it's a sad attempt.

The school was kind enough to give us a break from teaching Christmas day, but they wouldn't give us Christmas Eve. It's kinda sad, but I can understand. This is definitely the coldest Christmas I have ever had. It's about 40 degrees every day and slowly dropping in temperature.

I am staying busy this season. Stew and I are playing Christmas songs at multiple parties. We will play 5 times in 4 days. Everyone wants us to play for them. We don't mind at all, and it's fun to help people out. We will play at Aloha's and Mr. Mai's and a couple other places.

Christmas day we are going over to an Australian families house in the morning and exchanging presents and having breakfast...and in the afternoon we are going to a German families house. I am very excited to celebrate with different foreigners and Countries.

I am going on some different trips soon which I will tell you more about later. I just wanted to give you a quick update. Love you all.

Yellow Crane Tower/New Dog/Random

Here are a few picks around town and at the Yellow Crane Tower. I am doing well. We are making great relationships with people at Mr. Mai's Coffee Shop. I met this guy named Frank and he is a Kung-Fu instructor. So I decided to take some lessons. I am going to do that once a week to keep in shape, and so that I can practice on my little brother when I get back. haha Just kidding Trev. Mr. Mai's is having a Thanksgiving Day Party next week and they have asked Stew and I to play some music for the event. We are also having a Thanksgiving Day dinner with our foreign fellowship group next Thursday. So we will be celebrating the holiday with our good friends. Stew got a dog and named him 'Beau'. Don't ask me why he got a dog or why he named it 'beau'. I don't know. haha It is getting really cold here but I bought plenty of clothes in preparation. That's about all for now. Thanks for your pryers.


Street Market

A little Fruit.

Chinese Garden

Nuff Said.

Beautiful Wuhan, China.


Yellow Crane Tower. The entire town would come here for shelter in a time of war.

Stew's new dog, Beau. It looks like a stuffed animal. It acts like one too.

Huangshi and Three Gorges Dam

Hey everyone...sorry it has been so long since my last post. We have been busy the last few weeks. Since my last post we went to visit our friends Gavin and Kelly in Huangshi. They are teaching in this wonderful little town where they are some of the only foreigners. It is a nice visit for us just to get away from the big city.

When we got back, Stew and I had the week off from teaching. Our students were going on a community service trip to a local farm. They worked on the farm feeding the animals and sleeping in the barn. The school didn't want to let Stew and I come along for safety reasons, so we decided to go on a little adventure of our own. I bought a bicycle and we rode them 200 miles to the largest dam in the world, the three gorges. The first day we rode about 120 miles in ten hours...but when we woke up the next morning, Stew's knee had a weird shape with some fluid in it. So we didn't want to risk making it any worse. So we took a bus the next 80 miles to the large town before the dam. So we start walking around the town and we see the only foreigner in the town. Stew stops to talk to him, and we find out that he was dating this Chinese lady who just happened to be the manger at the best hotel in town. So we got hooked up with a nice room for half the cost. Amen. Then the next day we went to the dam for a few hours. Then we took a bus back to our Wuhan home.

Here are some pictures of our two trips.


Little Boy in Huangshi.

A little Park.



Sweet bread man. This bread was so good.

On our bike ride to the Three Gorges Dam, there were nothing but cotton fields the entire way. This is probably where your t-shirts come from!

It was hard to see because it was cloudy but this is where they raise and lower the boats to go from one side of the Dam to the other.

Me and the Dam...There isn't much to do at the Dam!

It's starting to get cold!

Well I know that it's hard to believe, but it got cold over night here. One day it was hot and humid and the next it was windy and cold. This will be my first winter outside of southern California. Many people relate the winter here to the winter in Seattle. So it won't be too bad, but it will be a very wet and long winter. I have started to travel around the city on Monday's and Wednesday's because i have a break from 10:30 to 2:30. So it gives me enough time to hop on a bus and get off whatever area of town captures my interest.

I got a haircut today. Hahaha. I was a bit apprehensive at first but it turned out pretty well. The one thing that you must realize it that the barber shops and hair salons here are like night clubs. They pump loud music and they are open for long hours of the night. Before I went into the barber shop i learned the phrase "Just a trim" in Chinese. So I started to walk around downtown and find a shop that "looked" appealing. But there was one problem. All of the shops I was looking at had pictures of girls on the outside...so I think it was just for girls. So the 4th barber I found had a guy inside also getting his haircut. So now it was time to face my fears. I walked up to the barber shop and I was greeted by a boy with his hair sticking straight up and bangs that went half way down his face. Just my luck, right? So I said the Chinese phrase, "Just a trim", "Just a trim". He nodded and brought me back to the sinks to wash my hair. This is standard procedure for a haircut. He washed my hair...twice. Then he conditioned my hair and he started to give my head a massage. I couldn't help it, I started to laugh. Out loud. It was just too funny for me to keep it inside. I was thinking, "All this for a haircut!" hahaha it was too funny. After about 40 minutes of washing...rinsing, washing again, rinsing; and the conditioning massage...I was finally ready for the haircut. So he waved over the barber and I repeated the phrase that I had previously told him, and he started to cut my hair. He did a pretty good job...although at the end of the haircut he blow dried my hair straight up! I looked like Don King! It was quite the adventure.


Don King haircut!


They think being white is perfect. So they have this whitening cream that makes their skin whiter. Yeah, kinda like Michael Jackson!


Around Town.


I found this park/statue area...it was relaxing.


Some military recruitment poster.


Starbucks...coming soon. We are so excited. They are opening up three in the city!


Bamboo Scaffolding! It's pretty sturdy.


That's all. Thanks for reading and taking the time to look at pictures. And thanks for your comments. I always love reading them.

Break in Shanghai

Hello Everyone.
I'm sorry it's been awhile since my last post but I have been so busy. We just got a break from teaching because it is China's national Holiday. So it was the perfect opportunity to get out of Wuhan for a bit and see a little more of the Country. So we decided to travel to Shanghai. I had such a great time... it was the biggest city I have ever seen. There are more skyscrapers and buildings than any city in America. It was an amazing sight to see.

Stew and I went to the Women's World Cup Finals. We went to a few museums. We relaxed. We read. We went to Starbucks...Everyday. We ate some great food. We met some cool people. We saw some amazing things. We had a great time. Here are some pictures from our trip.

The beginning of our trip. A wonderful view.


Tea time! We Went to this teahouse. It was so good.


This place was near the teahouse. Yu Gardens. This place was beautiful.


Even though these buildings look new...they are actually ancient...They fooled me at first. They are preserved very well.


These lions are everywhere. They are usually in front of buildings. They symbolize wealth and good fortune. The bigger the lion the more prosperity they have.


Women's World Cup.
This was the final match to see who would get third place.
USA:4, Norway:1


Final Game.
Brazil vs. Germany.
These German Fans were Crazy!!! So funny! They were Yelling the entire night.


Brazil: 0, Germany: 2
Brazil put up a great fight. It was such a good game.


The winners. The best fire-works I have ever seen. They were going off all around us!


So Stew and I went to get some dinner after the game. Then we were walking back to the subway and we saw a small crowd and some media people. We decided to check it out and it was Germany who had just finished their press conference. They were singing and dancing with the World Cup in hand about ten feet away from us. Then the goalie (who was the MVP for the game) threw out here gloves and I caught one! It was a great night.


Since it was a "National Holiday" the entire country takes this day off. It was crowded many of the places we went. There probably a few hundred thousand people at this shopping mall!


Baby Chicks, Ducks, Bunnies, and Squirrels for Sale. Stasi almost bought the Squirrel. I convinced her not to, only because it was gnawing rabidly at it's cage.


These faucets are so crazy. They have no sink! The counter is slanted back, and it just flows back there!


From the top of one of the tallest buildings in the World! Great view.


Only 10,550 KM from Los Angeles. I was a little closer to you all this week.

Video

Hey everyone...here is the long awaited video I promised some of you...enjoy.

Pics from the World Cup

Wuhan Stadium at night.

Here are some pictures from the Women's World cup. We had an amazing time. This was the first time I felt famous here in China. We all started to paint our faces in support of China and everyone around us thought that was the greatest thing in the world. They all wanted to take two pictures. The first one was always just us, and the second one was with the Chinese person themself. We had a great time. We think the U.S.A. team is coming to our area sometime soon. We are going to see if we can get tickets for that game. I will let you know if we do.
Everything else is going great. I am going to make a video so I can put that online. So that is something you can look forward to in the next couple of days. But here are some pictures of last nights game.


Go China! They lost 4-0, but it was still fun.

I bought a flag for 20RMB...about $3.

Outside of the stadium. It was a mad-house.
Security wasn't that tough. Everyone went through a metal detector...It beeped on EVERYBODY...but they didn't care. They still let everyone inside.

This guy was funny. He was the chant leader.

Game 1. Denmark 3, New Zealand 0.


Flags everywhere.

Game 2. Brazil 4, China 0. I love the huge flag going across the fans in the upper deck. It's hard to see because the stadium was filled with smoke! Yuck.

Cute Kids :)

Random people. They just wanted their picture with a foreigner.