Nov. 26, 2014
Free day today! Which means most of the morning was spent lounging about. I had a tok with Jesse and we both decided that getting a cheap smart phone would be beneficial. almost everyone in China has a Wechat meaning as long as we have internet we will be able to communicate with pretty much everyone. So I dropped a little bit of money on a new phone, it was still less than 100 USD. Both Jesse and I made plans with Weiwei to go after classes let out, to China Unicom, one of the providers that allows for foreigners to get a phone with just a passport. Then for me it was off with Jackie for shoe shopping. She and I have been planning this kind of outing for a while but it has either fallen through or we just forget in the moment when we should ask the other. I ended up having a great time, I don’t know Jackie super well, but it was nice to be hanging out with some slightly different. She is also a yearlong so I will be seeing her all next semester too.
I ended up finding a cute pair of shoes that will go with the slightly dressier outfit I have. I need to wear them around though so that the first time I need to wear them they don’t destroy my feet. Jesse’s class let out and we snuck down into the office to find Weiwei. She walked us over to a fairly familiar area over by the Trustmart. Then it was a matter of figuring out which plan we wanted. It took a while because all the middle ground options we wanted were unavailable. But we finally found a phone for 50 kuai a month that has both data and minutes. It was a old situation. I have to change my number again, but as long as everyone has my we chat it should be good. After all of that I met up with Chiyi for a little bit of Chinese help. I was apparently much more tired that I had thought, I was completely failing at Chinese, it was magical. But Chiyi managed to get my through it. I am excited for tomorrow, which will be a USAC Thanksgiving, I am cooking so we shall see how this goes!
Nov. 27, 2014
 |
| Corey, Jesse, and Sam |
Happy Thanksgiving! So the day started out fairly normal, it was just going to class. Though a good portion of class was spent talking about our plans for the meal that evening. Not really surprising I think people were extremely excited to had our party. I headed out with a small groups to the apartments after classes let out. I had volunteered myself as a cook for our Thanksgiving feast. The turkey would have to be bought from an outside source but everything else was to be made or bought. So after a few stops at the stores, I had enough potatoes to feed a small army. I miss a decent potato peeler because I spent most of my time just peeling them. I literally bled for those potatoes. It took nearly an hour and a half. Then I had to cook them in three batches due to limited size of our pots. The potatoes alone took three hours from start to finish. Then it was on to the pasta salad that I made up out of thin air. I just wanted to add something that no one else was bringing, it turned out to be really tasty if the empty pot at the end of the night was anything to judge.
 |
| Chinese potato masher, the Harbin beer bottle |
Thanksgiving was essentially amazing. I have really been missing my family, since this time is year is when I am almost always guaranteed to see them. But I have a China family too and they made everything worth wild. Our Thanksgiving dinner was whatever we had, from Turkey to rabbit and throw in some vegetables and other food no one knows the English name for (or if there is even an English name). It amazing because everyone came together and just enjoyed being with one another. I managed to get some pictures of the night, I hope it captures the merriment and profound belonging. Happy Thanksgiving, please tell everyone how much you appreciate them. I am thankful for the family at home who have supported me in this endeavor to China. For my friends, who even with an ocean between us remind me everyday why they are awesome. Thank you, I love you all. Now it is time to turkey coma, see you on the other side!
 |
| Fellow cook Jackie |
 |
| Round Two |
 |
| Also Rana's birthday so candles! |
No comments:
Post a Comment