Chinglish Christmas

Wasn’t your typical Christmas – Andrea, Rachel and I gave finals on Christmas day, after finals Rachel went into town for a root canal, Penny and I went Christmas shopping for an MP3 and then to the bank that of course was open.

Us 4 Americans decided to have an Almost American Christmas dinner. We say almost because most of the food was ALMOST like a typical Christmas dinner. Andrea made a green bean casserole without the French onions or milk. I made mashed potatoes with packaged mashed potato mix (I know it is cheating, but all that was possible). Rachel bought a whole small chicken that could fit into our tiny toaster oven. The only way you can buy a whole chicken here is with the head still attached. So she steeled herself into cutting the head off but when she got it home and out of the package she found that she also had to cut off the feet and completely gut the chicken. There were no convenient bags of edible innards stuffed inside the cavity. We are so spoiled in the US. Rachel also made a broccoli casserole made with Velvetta (it came in a greatly appreciated “Kris & Jim Christmas care package”) instead of cheddar cheese which has been impossible to get here lately. Extra “Kudos”! go to Rachel for tackling the chicken dissection!

Side Note – It was strange that the package with the Velvetta got thru Chinese customs because Beth’s package that had Cheez- ets listed got stopped (no cheese allowed) and she had to go to the customs place to pick it up – go figure - a big block of processed cheese got thru and cheese dust crackers didn’t. I just hope “my slow boat from China” box of clothes and stuff that I mailed 2 weeks ago will get to me in Georgia – Honest there was no cheese or cheese dust at all…….

After dinner we played 6 rounds of Scattagories. (I didn’t win but I did ok considering my age)

West Lake English Corner Elves

A couple of weeks before Christmas I gave each of my English Major classes 2 hats, 2 stockings, and an assignment. Each student in their class had to contribute an item or items to stuff the stockings with for the children at Sunday’s West Lake English Corner. Pictured above are the 2 Elves from each class that helped pass out the goodies. The cold dreary weather really cut down on the number of children that showed up so the ones that did really got lucky. One of the elves taught the kids to sing Jingle Bells so we were treated to a unique version of the song.

Very Cold

Did I tell you guys that it was cold? I even had to wear my funny hat.

The Dolphins

I swear the dolphins were really playing with Penny behind the glass. We stayed there for about 10 minutes and a couple of them played with us the whole time.

Dalian Sea World

Interesting aquarium, which was very uncrowded because it was in the middle of the winter and snowing, but it was fun.

Penny's First Kiss??

She won’t admit whether it really was her “first kiss” or not but I really hope the Walrus wasn’t it. Whiskers, tusks, and fish breath – yuck! I have to find her a stuffed walrus to remind her of her kiss.

Cold Dalian

Dalian is a modern (notice the 'disco ball') city with a Russian and Japanese history. People kept asking me if I was Russian because there are lots of Russian tourists. The cold Siberian wind was really strong and we had a few snow flurries that reminded us of how much we like Hangzhou’s warm weather. The hotel was great – softest beds I have ever had in China and a great location. It was close to an underground shopping area that we kept getting lost in - which wasn’t all that bad. On our “have no idea where we are” wanderings we found a great hat for Penny, hair thingys for Nicole and donuts for me.