The Cake Bucket

We finally did the cake bucket! Let me explain... one of the guys here, his name is Shea... he makes these ridiculously awesome cakes. He interned at a bakery and picked up the skills quickly. He is our resident cake maker... So, when he gets the cake ready to stack into to tiers and decorate he always has the extra scraps. So this is how the story goes. Last year, he made a wedding cake and he had lots of cake scraps. One of the girls was jealous that he didn't share his scraps with her. My details may be wrong but she likes cake scraps from a bucket. So Shea gets a bucket, ties a rope to the handle and lowers it to her window from the roof. and she opens her window to receive the yummy scraps of scrumptious cake. So, yesterday he said to me that their were cake scraps left over from the last cake he made and offered me some. So I suggested he do the cake bucket. I am glad to say that I have gotten the sacred cake bucket... It was really fun. There's a video from last year they took... I'll have to load it later. But here are some pictures from the night of the cake bucket.


The cake bucket being received at the window


Becca retrieving the cake


Me eating the awesome cake.

Another little add on...He added this mixture of peanut butter and chocolate to the middle layers of the cake instead of frosting... It made it super moist. The idea for the mixture came up one day at dinner... We are always trying to be more creative with desserts here, seemingly there are not good ones. So we had bananas and I went to get some peanut butter and chocolate, then I mixed the two together and it made a frosting like goo. It was really good. Shea tried it and is now using it in his cakes and cupcakes! :) Two creative minds working together... makes really good cakes.

This is what I categorize as some of the crazy-documentable things that go on here in Peter Hall. Hope you enjoyed a peak into my fun little world this year!

Disappointing Snacks...:(

One day I was at the bakery and was hoping to find something comparable to chocolate cake... Well I saw a box that said "Chocolate Cake" on it. I was happy so I bought it. I failed to look closer in the box (my first mistake). When I got home I opened the box anticipating this glorious (or as glorious as it can get for Chinese cake) chocolate cake.... and this is what I found:



You can understand my utter disappointment. The cookies were thin, hard and filled with some kind of seed that made my mouth react like it does to walnuts... YUCK.

After I had recovered from my saddening experience, a few weeks later I go with a friend to another bakery on campus. There they have much more comparable sweets to what I am used to. I decided to pick up a small package of donuts... I didn't see the label on the box until after I took the first bite.

They look harmless enough but the package says : "Dry Snacks"



They tasted like month old donuts that had weird flavoring...Note to self: Never buy sweets in China and expect anything what I am used to!

Spring at SIAS

Spring here has been very beautiful but still pretty chilly. We had a couple of nice days (most of which I was sick!) But this last week it was back in the 40's. :( But I got a few pictures of the blossoming trees before they were all gone, I always seem to miss them at home, usually due to the season at work, all the teachers understand...and working here part time really pays for the spring time!

Some of the trees in bloom around campus are peach blossoms and pomegranate trees. I dont know about the rest, but they are beautiful.

Funny thing, the word for pomegranate in Chinese is "shi liu" (sure leo) which is also the same word (but different character) for the number 16. I found that they were pomegranate trees because a friend and I went downtown and she bought a small tree/shrub... she guessed it might be a pomegranate tree and when we were walking back, some of the ladies that do gardening at the school all said "shi liu". I asked as I pointed to the tree... they responded with "dui" which means yes/right. So it was a fun day figuring out trees and succeeding at Chinese!

Like I said, I dont have a clue what these are so if you have any ideas, feel free to post them!

I am wanting to make a few videos of a virtual tour for you all to see... Maybe they will be done by the next month or so!

Shaolin Temple and Farmers Village

This weekend we all went to Shaolin Temple in the city of Dengfeng (or at least its close to there). It wasn't as exciting as Xi'an or Thailand but it was nice to have something different than the hustle and bustle of other trips. We went to a kung fu show at Shaolin temple:

There was a time in the show when they asked for volunteers to mimic the moves of the kung fu masters. One of our own foreigners was chosen to participate!

Later we headed to lunch and then to the Pagoda Forest... if you can imagine what that is like then your guess is as good as mine was.

So I don't actually remember what the name of this place was, but it was right before we went to the Pagoda Forest... Got lots of good pics there.

As for the enormous incense sticks... that was in front of a temple area where people could come see the Buddha statue.

Later that day we went to a Farming village and had dinner in the farmers' houses. The village was really neat and we got to see a traditional Chinese farm house, much different from the ones I have seen in the states.

This is the road leading to the village...

This is the kitchen and bed room in one of the homes.

Our delicious dinner! All of us foreigners packed into one of houses before we left.

If I had to choose my favorite part of this trip it would be the Farmers Village. I loved seeing the quaint and homey living spaces of the locals.

To the start of a new semester

The semester has just begun and I am already having very positive feelings about it. Its such a different feeling than last semester, first time teaching and all. I feel experienced and stronger. I am even less nervous in classes! My students even noticed; in their evaluations they said I need to be less nervous, and just relax. So I took that into consideration. I really do get nervous easily. I feel their expectations of me are higher than I offer them. As I was talking to G0 d about this he said that this my season to be a teacher, so I took that as a little more strength for the journey. I feel as if I know my students better and they see me as a friend, at least most of them do. A good thing happened with my PE classes, instead of being in the afternoon they are all in the morning, when I am at my best. I even feel more confident with them too. They seem to have a bit more of an ego, that is normal here.

I have been able to keep my schedule pretty free. I am still busy but I only have class four days a week and lots of free time on the weekends... So if I feel the itch for any more big adventures I have the freedom to do so. I don't really foresee much more travel, its just nice to think!

The weather here has been getting colder by the day. Its supposed to be turning into spring soon and it snowed for two days and rained for one. That cold wet is never very pleasant. The town still seems pretty dead with not much to do. Its kind of like South Bend! Once I've been somewhere for a while it seems to lose its flair and newness. However, its really nice to be able to feel more balanced in life.

Life here in Peter Hall always proves to be interesting. Its so good to be back around the other teachers again. I missed them over break. Everyone here brings a different side to the table. Its a great dynamic we have going on here. Its going to be a fun semester. There are so many document-able things that go on around here, if I think of it I will post one.

We had a staff meeting the other day, telling us dates and important events. The tentative date for leave will be June 11th. So sometime in June, whenever my flight is booked I will be home! Cant wait! I miss everyone a ton and Im curious of how we are all responding to the new leadership in our country. Should be interesting to experience!

Love you all!
Amy

My Top Ten Favorite Moments

Ten of my favorite things I did in South East Asia:

10. Visited Hong Kong (Yay for western food- boo for the prices)

9. Watched the sun set on a beach in Krabi (which was also my first time swimming in salt water)

8. Rode elephants in Phuket and Chiang Mai


7. Went snorkeling on five different islands ( I saw Nemo!)


6. Went bungee jumping off a crane looking structure


5. Got to see my cousin and his family in Laos. (got to play with the boys! so cute!)

4. Went rafting on a bamboo raft on a river in Chiang Mai. (no picture yet... getting it scanned)

3. Hiked for three hours in a wooded area and ate lunch by a waterfall in Chiang Mai (pictures are to come)

2. Crawled inside a "hamster ball" on a river... (picture explains all!)


1. Went birdwatching in Thailand (got to see a couple good birds! One of which I only heard...drove me nuts!)


So I hope you have enjoyed this top ten list...There's more but this is all I can fit!

Beijing 2009

Wow, Beijing is a cool city! It's huge first of all and it has everything imaginable for foreigners. I loved it. We had a bit of a twist to our trip...one of the girls' wallet was stolen before we even left on the train. It had her train ticket, cell phone (with her contact info and housing for the night) and a significant amount of cash... so to say it was adventurous is an understatement. Stressful would be well put too. But it all turned out okay. She bought another ticket, and we put our cash together and helped cover her for the trip. We got to Beijing early Friday morning and wandered around the city until we found a warm place to be and an internet cafe. We emailed our contact person my cell number and 10 minutes later, she called. However we were already on our way to Starbucks. The cab driver seemed like he knew where he was going but he took us to a place called "super bar street" instead. Apparently the word for Starbucks also is close to bar. Later we found out that there was one about half a mile from our origination point from the bus. UGH..

(this is after an 8 hour sleeper train ride. I was in the least feeling grungy.)

Later on we went ice skating on a small lake, or what I want to call a run-on pond. It was a bit scary, there were areas marked off where the ice was melting and it wasn't very thick. The ice skates themselves were a disappointment. The ankle support was flimsy so it was really hard to skate. But it was worth the experience. One of the girls has two friends that live in Beijing and they came to hang out with us for a few days so they went skating with us and we had a blast.

The next day was my favorite... we saw the Great Wall! I have been wanting to see this for some time and it was magnificent. Part of its greatness isn't just the size or the history, but the physical challenge it offers. There are lots of stairs and they are all uneven. There would be one stair that was about 3 inches high and the next one would be about 10 inches high. So it was a very rocky trek. For another stretch of the wall it was up and down hill steep slopes. I mean you could have been on roller blades or a bike and wiped out either direction. It was so beautiful... the wall is built on a series of gorgeous mountains, or some would call them foothills. But to me, coming from the flat state of Indiana... they are mountains. we were only able to take 50 or so steps and then we had to rest... It was hard work! We climbed a little further up and had lunch and then on the way down by the shops we found another Starbucks! :) I can say that I got my fill.

The next day we went to the Forbidden City and Tian' anmen square. It was cool, but not my cup of tea. Just another thing to see. I am convinced that I don't know enough about either, therefore my excitment is not as high. So I can say that I have been there! :)



In the afternoon we went to the Silk and Pearl Market. In this market is everything known to man. It has about 6 levels and they sell things like trinkets, North Face and jewelry. Not only silk and pearls. That is only a few sections. I got a few souveniers and T-shirt and we did well with bargaining. The key is to always pay only 20% of the price they ask. If you are firm with your price and they still don't come down for you, then you walk away. That is when they negotiate your price.

At first you laugh at how much they want for it, then you are asked to name your price and they laugh at how little you want it for. My trick was to say, "but that's not how much I want to spend"... that seemed to work. Also with the help of one of the girls on our trip, she did lots of the bargaining too. But I think I overpaid for two things but they are both very nice. It was a fun time. They are really aggressive. If I walk by the shops they would say "Lady, you want a bag... I have Prada... What do you want? I can help you... Good deal for you" that was their tag line. It was fun to be strong. In the past I had avoided shopping in stores where the workers were paid on comission, now I think I have mastered it. I just need to say no. :) The age old phrase.

As we were passing through the pearl market, we ran into one the teachers' family. They had been visiting and spent Christmas with us here and we got to know them. So for fun we took a picture with them as waited for their pearl necklaces to be made.

That is the end of this adveture, now onto the next one. Backpacking through southern Thailand! I am sensing that it will an adventure as a challenge. Can't wait to blog more!

:)