foreigners beware

yes, it's been a while since i've updated my blog, but it's a little annoying when you can't see it after you're done typing it up. but i have to share a good story with the internet world.

this week we met my cousin michelle and her husband dan in beijing. it was a good time with them :) we decided to eat some chinese food in a little alleyway off of wangfujing (which is a major tourist area). we figured if we went off the main drag, we could find a little restaurant to eat at that would be cheaper. i walked into a hole in the wall restaurant to look at the food that people were eating and it looked pretty good, and i figured it would be pretty cheap too. so we asked for a menu and started to order. the lady was telling us some outrageous prices for food, so we walked out. 28 yuan for tomatoes and eggs? really people, that's ridiculous.

so we went to the restaurant next door. we walked in and they handed rach an english menu. so then i asked for a chinese one. you know the look when people get when they know they've done something wrong, the deer in the headlights look? well, she had it. so i pressed the issue more and insisted on the chinese menu, finally she caved and gave it to me. we quickly compared the two and noticed a price difference between the menus. hmmmmmm, some shady business going on here. we were hungry so we stayed. they still tried to give us the english menu, even after we knew they were different. so i had to tell them again that we wanted the chinese menu with the chinese prices.

oh, they are going to have a heyday when the olympics come! watch out white faces :)

here's some picts from our latest trip to beijing.



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chirp chirp chirp

this morning i awoke to the wonderful sound of a bird chirping loudly. it was so loud and real sounding that i thought rach had bought one of those fancy alarm clocks from sharper image. you know the ones with all the sounds of nature, the birds chirping, and even the water flowing noise (the one that makes you have to pee). well, i realized that the sound of the chirping and fluttering was too loud and real to be coming from the outside. so i ventured into the living room and behold, i saw a tiny bird flying around the window. what the heck? how did this bird get in our house? i still don't know. but i trapped it behind the curtains to contain in the window, but it didn't fly outside. instead it flew behind the slats that encase the radiator. so i called seth and had him come down to help me. we took off the wooden slats that covered the radiator and poked around with sticks and the bird finally flew out and then out the window. he was a creepy little guy. i was scared he was going to peck my eyes out.

"good thing you can't get diseases from birds" (quote from michael scott on "the office")

unblocked :)

fantastic news from the motherland! currently blogspot is unblocked :) don't know how long this will last, so i'll have to squeeze a post in.

every day (mon-friday) the sophomores are required to write 6 english words on a tiny chalkboard. everyday the words are different, so they have to change them every night. in the morning, someone checks all of them and corrects them if there are any mistakes. last week i asked one student if i could write his words for him, just as a joke. he decided to leave my words up on the chalkboard so that they could be reviewed. good news, i passed :) i was a little nervous because i definitely do not possess the chinese style of written english. yes, even though i'm chinese, i just don't got it. but i did get a nice check mark (i think the checker knew that i wrote the words and didn't want the foreign teacher to lose face).

back on the attack

here's the skinny, i'm still being blocked by my friends being the great internet firewall, so it keeps me from updating so frequently. also, our computer, took a pooper and decided to crash 3 weeks ago. we just got it back and we have a brand new hard drive :) oh yeah, which means all the stuff on the old hard drive is gone :( so sad.

every year the freshman have to go through military training on all the campuses across china. they learn to march around, it pretty exciting stuff (not really, but if there is a person behind the firewall reading this, i want them to know that i endorse the training). so for 3 weeks the freshman learn how to march around and they get pretty good at it. this year the teachers got to join them and march around the track with the students from their department. i learned that i can't march worth beans. i have my own beat that goes on in my melon and it's not the same as everyone else. the teachers around me tried to help me and tell me what foot step when, but it didn't help (it also didn't help that they told me in chinese). so that was our latest great adventure here. i'm going to stick to napping, that's what i'm a professional at, so why mess with it.

on another note, the weather has taken a turn for the cold, what a bummer!



this is a video that sonny made, it's pretty funny:


Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!

up and running (kinda)

we've arrived back in siping and classes have begun. it's good to be home :) although our bags are still unpacked and things are everywhere. we just got internet hooked up last night.

the great china firewall has blocked half of this blog, i can post stuff, but i can't see it. so if things look shady, sorry. i can't see it, so too bad.

for class this week, i gave them a quiz on me (i know, pretty humble). one question asked them what happened to my chin this summer. one girl wrote that my chin is "more beautiful than before". what? was my chin not beautiful before? i'm so sad :(

we made it :)

made it to china, sitting in the stinkin' hot and humid weather of beijing and trying to stay awake from jet-lag. i forgot to start smoking in the states before i got back to beijing, so that my lungs would be ready for the pollution.

samantha has her day and night all jacked up. why can't she sleep when i want to sleep?

peace out from the motherland!

hanging in grand rapids

we're hanging in grand rapids, mi. now. it's been a good time to see a lot of old friends. it's too bad we only see them once a year now :(

austin was sweet, we took samantha to the sweet SPAM museum, rach had some spam, so that means samantha had some too. mmmmm, delicious spam, so good in your tummy!




here's a salute to my buddy greg walker: my friend greg is a big city lawyer that likes to talk it up all the time, we call him "all talk walk". well lets just say he likes to jibber jabber about everything. he went on a trip to portugal in college with our friend sherri, while they were there he bought this metal ship. ever since the trip to portugal, greg makes it known to sherri that he has this ship that sherri will never be able to have. 9 years ago, sherri and i were at greg's parent's house and i stole the ship and gave it to sherri. sherri has had the ship for 9 years, everytime we see greg, we bring up the ship and he yaps about how he has the ship and sherri didn't get it. the whole time we know the ship is collecting dust at sherri's house, but "all talk" keeps yapping away about how he was the winner of the ship. so when we were in chicago, sherri gave greg the ship back. poor guy ... too bad this won't stop him from talking. too bad he also doesn't know that i stole something from his house this time and i'm going to wait another 9 years to give it back to him. sucker!!!!

here's greg, sherri, me and the ship:

it's been a long time ...

yes, faithful blog readers (the 3 of you), it's been quite a while. but now i'm free and can blog away.

my classes are finished (finally), so i can stop reading for the summer (except for harry potter). now we are hanging out in spam land usa. we'll get to the museum one day and take some pictures with the spam cans :) i'll also get some updates on the police reports for austin, mn (i'm sure there's lots of crime happening).

we are heading to grand rapids next week (around the 4th) and then we will make a stop in cedarville on the 12th and then head back to north carolina on the 13th and leave for china on the 20th.

so far the summer has been good (except for the plethora of reading, not the harry potter), samantha is getting fatter and fatter (she's moved from the 15% to the 80% in weight). she's just bulking up for china, if she's like her dad she'll drop 10% of that weight in the first week back in china.


here's a few picts of samantha:




here's my salute to creepy uncle seth (watch out kids, he drives a segway and a van!)