China: May 2005 Archives
THANK YOU!!
We met our goal of $1,000 for the Fountain of Hope! A big thanks to all who contributed: Henni, Omi, Papa, Grandma, Brother Dave, Fran, Charlotte, Katie, Alejandra, and Kristine. We know that James, Tabitha and all the kids they take care of will be extremely grateful and will use the funds to move closer to achieving their goals for the farm and orphanage.
How did it get to be May already??? We're both truly sorry about our long lapse in writing updates. We noticed today exactly how pathetic we've been when we saw that our travelogue page is EMPTY at the moment, I guess because it's a new month and it's been so long since our last update. Again, our deepest apologies, hopefully you haven't given up on us completely yet.
This past week has been really busy for us, full of goodbyes and trying to get things done in the last minute (seems to be a reoccurring theme for us!). Friday was the students' last day before their week-long May Day (Labor Day) Holiday, also known as Golden Week. Besides fitting in oral exams for all of them before Friday, we also put on a farewell awards and talent show on Wednesday evening. It was lots of fun and we were so impressed with the students' hard work. A group of my students put on a funny "tourist in America" skit in which Jackie Chan was the tour guide. Michael's students performed a special Phillips version of MacBeth which included the phrases "Let's Party!" and "Give me a break!". Other highlights included the principal singing Italian opera, a Titanic reenactment to "My Heart Will Go On", and Simba as a Chinese Emperor.
The award for students in Michael's sophomore class was an American pizza and movie night in our room. Thursday night we had pizza delivered from the best pizza place we've found so far (for about the same price as it would cost us back home, except that compared to 'normal' food here, it's insanely expensive) and watched the Incredibles. I'm not sure how they felt about the pizza (a lot of Chinese don't seem very fond of cheese) but they did enjoy the movie, and it was fun to share a different kind of evening with them.
After saying goodbye to the students on Friday, we went for our last Tai Chi and Kung Fu lessons. Although none of us are ready for any 'mountain retreat', we did get our teacher's approval during our final practice, and he told us that we all graduated. Andy and Christina joined us for a goodbye dinner, and after that we headed to the Bohemian bar to play some foosball, followed by the inevitable migration to the Havana Bar where the same people seem to listen to the same music (My neck, My Back and the Pizza Hut Song--the worst get-stuck-in-your-head-song ever!) weekend after weekend. The best part of the night was definitely sitting out on the side of the street at three in the morning eating wonton soup and barbequed bread from the street vendor.
Saturday was Allen's barbeque party. Allen is the most amazing host we've ever met (not to mention a great gift-wrapper as we learned on Wednesday when we were desperately trying to get ready for the awards night!). For most people, a barbeque party would simply mean throwing some meat on the grill and grabbing some drinks. But for Allen it involved spending most of Friday and Saturday marinating all kinds of meats, seafood and vegetables, and otherwise preparing to pamper his guests. The only problem arose when we all agreed that grilling INSIDE of his apartment seemed like a fine idea (it was a little sun room that gave the illusion of being well-ventilated). We soon realized that maybe it wasn't such a great idea after all, as the guest bedroom and his entire apartment began to fill with thick smoke. But luckily the grill was successfully moved outdoors and the party was saved. The two of us even managed to be among the proud group of all-nighters.
Yesterday we were invited to visit the home of one of Michael's students, Tina. It was a bit of a struggle getting there, as there were eight of us trying to find spots on a bus during Golden Week, when all of China seems to be traveling, but we finally made it and it was certainly worth it. Tina's mother prepared a huge, delicious meal for us, and her 10-year-old sister enjoyed 'flirting' with all the boys. We even ended up spending the night and enjoying a filling breakfast this morning. Thanks to Tina's family and to Michael's sophomore class for being so great!
We are so happy about our decision to stay here an extra month. If we had left at the end of March as originally planned we wouldn't have made such a connection with our students and we would have missed out on some great friendships. As our departure gets closer, we're getting that lump-in-the-stomach feeling again of having to say goodbye to a place, and especially to people that we've become close to. I think it's the most difficult part of our year of travel--the goodbyes.
But of course at the same time we are excited about our next destination. We've decided to head straight to Southeast Asia from here, specifically to Bangkok, because we feel that otherwise we might not have enough time there. We want to see parts of Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia before we meet Henni, Tilde and Chris in Australia at the end of July. We don't have our flights finalized yet, but it looks like we'll be leaving this Sunday, May 8th. We've been using the Southeast Asia guidebook that Michael's parents sent us to do some planning (thanks again!), so we'll write again with more specifics before we leave.
It's getting late now and we're waking up early to go hiking tomorrow, so I'll finish up the photos and links tomorrow. Good night!
