Tuesday, March 6, 2012

"Hey, Kim Nana!"

Here are some random stories from the past few weeks!

Randomness #1:
The past few weeks here in Huangshi have been gloomy, literally it has rained almost everyday!  I'm not talking about the sunny kind of rain, it's the black clouds, gray skies, no sun, cold kind of rain.  To say the least it has been kind of a downer and Lesley and I have turned into hermits. We teach, eat, go to hip hop, and hibernate in our rooms.  Because of this, we have been watching a lot of movies and TV shows.  

One of my students recommended a show to me a few months ago.  She has been dying for me to watch it, but it is a Korean TV show, so I didn't think I would like it.  Well, boy was I wrong!  I finally broke down and watched an episode and was instantly hooked.  Of course I drug Lesley down with me and got her addicted to it as well.  The name of the show is City Hunter.  It is so good!!!!!!!  There are only 20 episodes and we have watched 18 of them in a week.  We will most likely finish the series today.  

I would have never thought that I would enjoy watching a Korean TV drama. Anyway, I highly recommend it.  It's even on Hulu, although the English subtitles aren't as good compared to other websites we've watched it on.  It is very intense and every episode ends on a cliff hanger.  

Here's a picture of the cast!  Kim Nana is the girl on the left and Dr. Lee/the City Hunter is in the middle.  They are the two main characters!


Randomness #2:
On another random note, I made a homemade King Cake for Mardi Gras!  I've made a semi-homemade one before in Louisiana using crescent rolls, but this was my first attempt at a real homemade one.  I think it turned out pretty well considering it was made in a toaster oven. 

Here I am rolling out the dough with my hair all in my face. 
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After it came out of the oven.  Not too shabby!

Lesley made the icing for the cake.

 Adding the sprinkles to the top

We only had green and yellow sprinkles, so we had to be creative for purple and combined red and blue.  If you squint your eyes, it kind of looks like purple.  haha

Randomness #3:
We finally bought a couch!  Yes, it is 6 months in and we just bought one.  Our school provided a "furnished"  apartment for us to live in, but the so-called couch was more like an airport bench.  It was very uncomfortable and ugly.  Well, Lesley and I decided it was time for us to go ahead and buy one, since we wanted our living room to actually be a place where we could sit and relax.  We have been in our rooms so much this Winter that we are ready for Spring time and to be able to use the rest of our apartment.  (Our rooms are the only places that have heat in our apt.) 

This is the "couch" the school provided, aka airport bench.

Here is our new and very Chinese teal/aqua couch!

Our living room now looks like a room!  We still have a few things we want to do like buy a rug for the floor and some throw pillows to break up the blueness of the couch.

Well, Lesley and I are off to Beijing today!  Lesley's mom is coming for a visit, so we are meeting her in Beijing and then bringing her back to Huangshi.  This probably means no blog post for about 2 weeks, but I'll be back with some fun stories from our trip!


Sunday, March 4, 2012

Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy Birthday to me!  I'm officially the BIG 24 now!  I can't believe I'm already this age, but I have to say this past year was a good one.  I graduated from Grad school and moved to China.  Alot has happened, but I'm so thankful that He has led and guided me through it all.  Okay, so onto my birthday.  As you know, I was born on Valentine's Day.  Most of the time I am not able to celebrate my bday on that day b/c restaurants are full with couples and it is just too hard to plan around everyone's schedule.  I thought it would be different this year, since I live in China, but I was wrong.  V-day is a big deal here as well!  The prices in restaurants go up on this day and are packed, so we moved my actual celebration to the 15th.  No biggie, I'm use to it! 

However, my awesome roomie made me feel super special on my actual bday.  Starting with a wonderful pancake breakfast.  Not just any pancakes either, blueberry and chocolate chip ones!  They were delicious.  I also had a yummy iced coffee for breakfast too!

After breakfast, Lesley had to go teach, but we met up later for a pizza lunch at New York pizza.  It's a new pizza place here in Huangshi and it's actually pretty legit.  After lunch, I had to teach two classes and I taught on Valentine's Day and how we celebrate in America.  It was really funny to talk about love with my students because it is not a topic they talk about often with their teachers or in class.  I explained that V-day could also be a day to show that you love your family and friends and that it wasn't just about boyfriends and girlfriends. They are so funny about the topic of love and get so embarrassed.  

After teaching, Les and I went back to our apartment because of course it was raining.  It has been raining alot recently, which can be kind of a downer.  We decided to watch a movie, but first Lesley said we had to wait because she had another surprise for me...homemade salt and vinegar chips!!!!!  They were delicious.  We enjoyed eating them while we watched the Disney movie Prom.  It's a good one if you haven't seen it. haha  This is a picture with me and the salt and vinegar chips!


The next day, I had my bday dinner with the 7 of us Zhong people and the Randall's.  It was such a fun time of just hanging out with friends, eating Korean BBQ and delicious cake and cookies!


Paul, Erin, Hope and Aaron on one half of the table


Mercee and Grace, who made me the cutest paintings and clay figures of an elephant and my initials!


Kevin and Chelsie

me and Les


My birthday cake was delicious.  Lesley made a homemade two layer chocolate cake and my mom shipped pink creme cheese frosting!  It was so good!

Aaron made elephant cookies!  I was super impressed by his skills.  They looked great and tasted even better!

About to blow out my candles...


Paul was obviously telling a very important story! hehe




This picture cracks me up because Lesley had to cut the cake with a chopstick because we didn't have a knife.  Oh China!

My plate of deliciousness!

It was a great two days!  My team made me feel very special and I had a wonderful time celebrating with all of them.