amanda in china: September 2006

Confusious day

Some of Jeff's students took us to see the Confusious Temple and Mansion. It was pretty neat! The Temple was the best...the achritecture is awesome and there are actually TREES!! :) Lots of trees...really old trees...even a tree planted by Confusious himself! (I am pictured below standing with the Confusious tree) There were many memorable moments on this trip: first Clayton and I were late because we thought Jeff was eating lunch with us but he wasn't, then we waited for an hour at the temple before going in because there was some mysterious problem with the free tickets the students had, then clayton almost died because he walked down a slippery part of the stairs only to then see the sign at the top warning people not to walk there, we finally found post cards to mail home, we looked at tons of empty rooms at the mansion (a little boring) but found the really pretty garden at the end, and then couldn't decide if we should take a taxi back to go by horse drawn carriage thingy (we wanted to take a taxi but our student really wanted us to go by horse...we went by taxi)

Chinese Pizza??

Yesterday we went to the new Coffee Shop in town...
It was really fancy! VERY clean, big couches to sit on with a table in the middle, a little call button on the table to call the waitress, not what we're used to! And, coffee shops in China also serve great western items like American French Fries, Pizza, Tuna Sandwiches, Borsch, French Onion Soup, coffee, tea, milk shakes, and all kinds of other amusing things! We decided to go with Fries and Pizza....too bad the Pizza is mad expensive and kind of tastes like microwave pizza! :) it was still fun to eat some "American" food! Personally, I like the flower in the middle of the pizzas! (top pizza: Imperial, bottom pizza: Western Cowboy)

Hot Pot Take II

Makoto took us to the new Hot Pot Restaurant...yummmmmm!

mmmmmm giant piece of cabbage...so delicious! Reminds me of giant french salads...but how are you supposed to fold it with chopsticks??

Makoto and Yuki enjoying Hot Pot....this time we all had our own individual hot pots...probably a good thing since we are all getting sick!

Now that's some serious Hot Pot concentration!

Kitty!

HAPPY DAY! Traci and Cyndie let their kitten (Tutu) come over and play with me! She's sooooo cute, and playful just like Boo-bear!

Students!

Chinese pop-stars come to Qufu!

we were told there would be a special concert in Confusious Square...little did we know that one of the most popular Chinese Pop Stars amoung students was going to be singing! :) Now Chinese pop music is not exactly my taste...it's a little sappy for me, even when I don't understand what they are saying! But it was tons of fun to see all the students so excited and crammed into the square to see and hear the music! Our favorite songs were those with funny English phrases...like "La La La We're Number 1"...and also the song where everyone "La La La" the theme from Beethoven's 9th! It was amazingly funny...and everyone LOVED it...and of course who doesn't love the Chinese pop song "Take me to your Heart"

Students sitting all over the Confusious statue...eventually we made it up to the first level of the statue in order to see at least part of the stage!

Now, they didn't quite understand that if everyone were to just stand on the ground, because the stage is higher, everyone would be able to see...instead they piled onto desks they dragged out of classrooms, chairs, and even bikes!! it was hilarious to see!

The Stage

Students balancing on chairs

From the Confusious statue

Opening Ceremony

The school has an opening ceremony to celebrate the beginning of classes...a lot of speeches in Chinese...but it was fun to see!

Students sharing jackets to hide from the sun!

Cindy and Traci pretending to be in this pictures so i could actually take a picture of the freshmen in their military training uniforms!

Freshmen walking by in their military uniforms (they all have to do "military training" which seems like a lot of marching) and carrying their little stools (all the students have these little folding stools, they rock!

Qufu Campus

The following pictures are taken from all over campus, of random interesting things...

The Penguin Trash cans...athough usually trash is piled beside it and not in it....not sure why...we decided it's because they say "dustbin" so that must mean they are only for DUST and not for TRASH :)

cute little park in the middle of campus...it used to be bigger but then they built the library...but it's still quite nice...however this is where all the students go with their boyfriends/girlfriends...so we commonly call it "make out rock"