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New Year’s in TianJin was a great new experience. The city is full of culture and history. There are a lot of historical buildings and areas there. Apparently in the 1900s there were quite a bit of Europeans that came to TianJin to help industrialize it. They established banks and built European style buildings. So there are a lot if places throughout the city where you can really see the Western influence in architecture. There is even a whole section called Italian Style Street.

You can kind of see some of the architecture here in this picture. But you can also see that I am frozen. At this time it was about 4 below zero Celsius and I couldn’t even feel my feet. Correct that I could feel the pulsating pain that comes from your body when it is so cold. I was honestly a little worried that I was going get frostbite! Luckily I was able to keep all my toes.

Every place in China seems to have different traditions from Chinese New Year. It’s very much like Christmas in America where every family has different rules about where to celebrate, when to open gifts and what to eat. In TianJin they spent most of the New Year’s Eve early afternoon making dumplings, then playing MahJong, then cooking dinner, eating dinner, then eating dumplings, then setting off fireworks, THEN waiting for 12 o’clock so they could eat again! Crazy. A lot of food, but a lot of fun having good conversation over good food.

Here we all are. This is Rachel’s dad’s family. (Grandpa, grandma, uncle and his family and aunt and her family).

Mmm dumplings. Very tasty.

While in TianJin I also got to ride one of the bullet trains. The one I was on went up to just under 300kmph or 180mph. It was very smooth and really great. We made it from TianJin to Beijing in a little over 30 minutes.

From TianJin I went to Kunming for a night and then off to DongChuan again to spend time with Ruth’s family. It was great to see them again!

This year they waited for me to kill the chicken. Sorry no pig this year, BUT take a look at this picture!

Guess who has the knife in their hand!

Yep that’s right I killed my first chicken! Don’t mess with me!

In other news, WeiWei is getting bigger! I delivered some gifts from America and she absolutely loved playing with it. Here she is playing with her new Play-Doh tools and placemats! She played with it everyday!

It definitely was a fun Chinese New Year again this year. I can’t wait to see what next year brings.

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We went to a pretty famous place to eat BaoZi or buns. There’s even a picture of Hu Jin Tao (the current leader of China) on the wall from when he ate there! Here’s a picture of what we ate. It wasn’t amazing but it was more to say that we ate there!

Compare that to what we had this morning! A tastier bun but it was just from a hole in the wall place!

Having a great time! But I’m freezing! This So Cal girl isn’t used to these below freezing temperatures! Today I’m wearing two jackets, three shirts, two pairs of pants, two pairs of socks and I’m still cold!

Yesterday we were even sharing the Good News to a worker in one of the temples! So fun.

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The flight over wasn’t that bad, a special thanks to my friend NyQuil. I was given a lovely going away present of a cold right before I left. Not ideal, right now as I can barely hear out of my left ear due to all the fluid that got stuck there during the descent. Thank goodness we have two ears! I feel more stuffed up than before, but at least I was able to sleep through most of the flight.

I did get the opportunity to watch 2.5 movies. Moneyball, The Help and half of Terri. Anyone that likes baseball should watch Moneyball, especially if you like the statistics of it all. The Help was good, but not quite as a funny as I thought it would be. Terri was an interesting but very slow “independent-ish” film, but we landed before I could see the end.

I really enjoyed my last visit back in the States. I got to hang out with my cousins a bunch, go to two hockey games, visit Disneyland, go down to San Diego 3 times, play/coach football twice and meet my brother’s future wife!

I am excited for what this coming year is going to bring! I get to start it off with going to TianJin to celebrate Chinese New Year with my Twin! I am excited to see a different family’s traditions. My twin lives in the city so it should be a pretty different experience in comparison to the village.

I will spend a week in TianJin before going back to Kunming for a night and then heading back to the same village that I usually go to after that. After another week there I’ll spend some time in Kunming again before finally going home to Wenshan. I’m bringing back 3 full bags of gifts so it’ll be fun to get to deliver them all!

Here’s some fun pictures that I took over my break! Enjoy! Write more when I get to China!

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For Christmas I got an iPhone so then I found a blog app! If this works it should hopefully this means an easier way to blog! It should mean that I can use my phone to take pictures and then upload them easier!

Here’s a picture I took while at Disney’s California Adventure. I love the different lights that they have there!

I’m back to China on Tuesday!

More to come!

Lup

Here is one of the rehab kid’s grandma “carving” the turkey.  We had turkey Chinese cut style, meaning take a cleaver and hack away.  She was definitely amazing with the knife, but it was a lot different than my family’s electric knife and mom’s strategic decorative plattering techniques.  I guess either way the turkey tasted the same!

Our Thanksgiving feast was a combination of Chinese and Western Food.  You can see my plate here looks a lot different than what you all probably had!  We had: turkey, rice, lotus root with pickled vegetables, Chinese broccoli, pork and fresh garlic, pork and celery, a Chinese onion pancake, and spicy mashed potatoes.  (Also offered were Sweet Potatoes, cooked by an American, which I didn’t eat)  All very very good.  I did miss our family rolls and butter though!

For dessert we had a banana cake (it was the rehab center’s first anniversary celebration too, so this served as the birthday cake), lemon meringue pie, pumpkin pie and 2 apple pies (not pictured).  Also, all very good!

Here we all are!  It was quite the crowd but it was great to have a big family together to really celebrate all that we’re giving thanks for!

It was the best Thanksgiving I’ve had in China so far!

Saturday I got to go back to the orphanage.  A quick story about that.  Some of these kids are so cute and fun that you can’t imagine anyone giving them up.  Of course we never really know the family situation or all that went into the parents deciding to give up their child but sometimes you can take a good guess.  This Saturday I spent most of my time holding a little one that immediately grabbed my leg when I walked into the room.  He was very calm, content, cute, well-behaved and mentally all there.  (He had even learned the “jell-o leg” technique so you couldn’t put him down… make your body go so limp so you just slide down and look pathetic so then you HAVE to pick him up!  Be sure to note that this kid walked up to me and perfectly stood up holding my leg waiting for me to pick him up!!)  Anyway, it was sort of a mystery why this child would be in an orphanage, but then his sock fell off.  As I was putting it back on… the kid had 6 toes!  6 cute little toes, with the 6th kinda being on top of the pinkie toe, but fully formed.  I hope that there was something other than the fact that this little one had 11 toes instead of 10 that compelled this family to give up their child… but I hope even more that there will be a family that is willing to bring him into their home despite the fact that he has 11 toes!

I should be home in a few weeks!  I can’t believe how fast time has gone.  I can’t wait to see all the signs of Christmas!

Please pray as my friend has an interview at the US Embassy.  Let’s hope that she can come with me to celebrate the “Most Wonderful Time of the Year”!

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