My Mom is HERE!!! :D

Sorry I have been slacking on my blog everyone! Here is what has been going on these past few weeks...

March 15, 2011

                My mom has finally come to China!!! This past week and a half or so, we have been quite busy! She flew in on Friday the 10^th and I brought her to my host family’s house. I think that they like her a lot. Now Jessi has two English teachers! While my mom is here, though, I am going to be staying with her in the Xu’s other apartment where Mingyu’s (whose English name I just found out is Warren—after Warren Buffet) parents live for the other half of the year when they are not in Sanya. The apartment has a master bedroom that we are going to share, a kitchen, living room, and full bathroom. It’s a pretty nice set up. The wi-fi connection isn’t the greatest, but that’s ok. We are just a 20-30 minute walk from Tian’anmen Square, very near the Temple of Heaven, and not far from the popular shopping street called Dashilar 大栅栏. So far we have had a pretty good time. I think my mom likes China.

                The first full day my mom was here, Saturday, we spent the first few hours mopping the floor of the apartment. Since it is a brand new building, there was still a lot of construction dust on the floor. I am glad that we did it because now we don’t have to worry about dust and dirt everywhere. I figured that since my host family let my mom stay in their extra apartment for free, the least we could do is sweep their floor. After that we went shopping at my most favorite cheap, low quality shopping center called Fuchengmen 阜成门. It’s actually not that bad. Everything is just so awesomely cheap, I could go shopping there every day. I just wish I had money. I am down to $168 (1100元) to last me until June 1^st.  I have to say, my mom is not very good at bargaining, but that’s ok. She’ll get better with more practice. You can only get ripped off so many times…

                On Sunday we went to Haidian church. Mom took lots of pictures. We went to the English service and when we got there it was packed wall to wall. I decided that it would be better to go up to the media room to watch the sermon from the big screen. I think Mom really enjoyed the service. She was surprised at how contemporary and open the worship and sermon were. Afterwards, when I was blogging for the church website (http://english.hdchurch.org/), some of the media guys brought lunch. My mom is still getting used to eating with chopsticks, but she did alright. When I finished blogging, we decided to go to Wudaokou五道口 and walk around a little bit. I heard that it is a good place to go shopping and foreigners go there pretty often. It didn’t seem that great to me, but maybe I just don’t know the right place to go. It was still fun, though. Just riding on the subway with Mom is an adventure!

                Monday Mom and I walked around downtown area. We started out at Dashilar and just looked around. The main street has a trolley that runs up and down it. There are lots of name brands on the main road. At the end, there is Qianmen前门, the gate to Tian’anmen. It is really pretty. The best place in Dashilar to go, however, is in the alleyways behind the main street. This is where you can bargain for lots of chap goods. It’s a lot of fun. I like seeing how low of a price I can get even if I don’t really want to buy anything. This is how you find out what price to offer when you really do want to buy something.

                Tuesday was also good. We just decided to explore around the apartment building a little bit. We found the north gate of the Temple of Heaven. Then we stumbled upon the Hong Qiao Pearl Market. There were more than just pearls there. There were lots of purses, Chinese souvenirs, and electronics. I bought Jeremy this rice paddy worker’s hat that he really wanted so I am excited to give him that. I found a huge (1-1.5 meters) decorative fan that I can hang on my wall. My mom and I also bought some tea made out of flowers and dried fruit that is really yummy! After shopping we went to the roof and took pictures. I am an utter failure when it comes to taking jumping pictures, but it was fun to try anyways. Today was also the first day of my new small group Bible study. We met at Pizza Hut and then went to my leader’s house. My leader is an American girl named Crissy who has lived in Asia on and off for almost ten years. There are six of us total. We are going to be studying the book of John. I am pretty excited about this group. All the girls seem really nice. I see Crissy as someone that I can look up to and ask advice since she is kind of doing what I want to do one day. She has a lot of experience living overseas and speaks pretty fluent Mandarin. So, I hope that I can learn a lot from her while I am here. Overall, it was a really fun day!

Chinese Word of the Day

San bu 散步 : Go for a walk; take a stroll

Verse of the Day

John 1:3-5 "Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."