Cornucopias and Trolleys

So, our second Thanksgiving in China has come and gone.  Instead of repeating the ridiculously crowded and over-stressed experience we had last year, we opted for a small Thanksgiving meal with the Swansons and a quick weekend trip down to Dalian, Liaoning Province.  Dalian is THE beach town of the North.

Okay, so a few pictures of Thanksgiving.  Most of this blog will just be pictures, so if you’re not interested, move along.

These are shots of the cornucopia.  Yes indeed, AllRecipes supplied me with a spiffy idea, which I (mostly) executed perfectly.  Justin helped.  Connor did not.

So, you take the foil and shape it into the proper cornucopia shape, then stuff it with more foil until it’s firm.

Then, you wrap breadsticks around it.

And brush it with egg wash.  The most difficult part was getting the tail to stay up properly.

I was a little excited.

Okay, VERY excited.  Baked it for about an hour, then wrapped it up for the Grand Revealing the next day.

But first, we had a Thanksgiving breakfast with said Swansons.

Cranberry pancakes, sausage, and egg.

Connor was excited about the pancakes.

Rachel was mostly on the phone.    Just kidding.  Actually, we were all answering the many “Happy Thanksgiving, Teacher” messages.  The most common well-wishing occasion message is: I open my wallet, find no money.  I open my pocket, find no coin.  I open my life, find you, then I know how rich I am!  It’s cute.

Anywho.  A while after breakfast, we get snacky whilst playing games, thus….

The Cheese ball.  That’s right, ladies and gents, I made a cheese ball.  First time I bought cream cheese in China, as it’s not cheap, but definitely well worth it.

Note that Rachel spent a good amount of time stuffing her face before anyone else got in on the action.

And check out the cornucopia!  Stuffed with fresh veggies for the dipping.  Worked beautifully.

Justin forgot to take a picture of the feast before consumption, but here’s the sad wreckage afterwards.

No turkey, chicken instead, but we had green beans, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, rolls, and mac and cheese, with pecan pie for dessert.  Of course, I couldn’t eat most of that, but it still disappeared pretty fast. 

A few hours later, we were on our way to Dalian.  An enterprising woman struck up a conversation (in Chinese, look at me go!!!  I understood about half of what she said!  Vast improvement.) on the train, and I finally hinted enough about Connor’s bedtime to send her on her way.  Here’s a picture of hard sleepers on the train.

Warning: I had just woken up the following morning.  Thou shalt not mock a half-asleep picture of Shannon.  The 11th Commandment.

Yes, Connor and I shared that bed.  Or, more accurately, he took up 3/4 of it.  Considering I have a hundred pounds on him, that’s saying something.

We stayed at a nice hotel in town.  Nice thing is that it was the off-season, so our nice hotel in Dalian was cheaper than two dorm beds at the hostels in Beijing and Xi’an. 

To get to the hotel, the website told us to take bus 201 from the train station.  Not just any bus.  A TROLLEY. 

Had to do a black-and-white here.  It felt very Judy Garland, Meet Me in St. Louis.  Yes, of course I broke out in a chorus of the Trolley Song.  What’s the point of being a foreigner in China if you don’t meet their expectations of zaniness sometimes?  Clang, clang, clang went the trolley…

Normal crowded state, but it felt fancier.  Well, actually, this was roomy for us with the Harbin bus experience.

Anyway, after checking in, we wandered around town.  Dalian is WONDERFUL.  Small but modern, hilly tree-lined streets (never seen that in China before), several parks, plenty of great seafood and some good Western food too (we’re told; we stuck to seafood), 15 minutes from several great beaches.  This is definitely a city we’d love to live in.  It has a great climate and feels really relaxed.

Anyway, for lunch, we had sushi. 

I was a wee bit giddy about that.

Walked around some more.

 

      Guys on the street gambling.  Priceless.

Had dinner at the place with the cabbage on the sign.  No idea what it’s actually called.    This is some sort of fried fish with a great sauce.  Not really sweet and sour, just really tasty. 

  Basically Chinese coleslaw.  Don’t like American, but I do like Chinese.  Go figure.

  And Connor had chicken nuggets.  At least he’s growing up a little bit American.

Okay, this is one of the famous foods in Dalian.  It’s basically a  fish/potato pancake.  Sounds weird, right?  Wrong.  It’s fabulous.  So good we ordered more.  Salty, fishy, somehow reminded me of hush puppies, but not hush puppy-ish at all.

Walked around some more.       This is a landmark of Dalian.  Crystal ball that is lit up at night, supported by five hands that represent five continents and their unity.  Don’t know what happened to the other two continents, but there you have it.  Smack dab in the center of Friendship Square.

Okay, hung out at the hotel that evening with Connor, watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Connor’s favorite is the funny dog).  Headed to the beach the next morning.  We chose the only beach that doesn’t have an admission price, since we figured we would only be there for a little while with Connor.  I think maybe we should have coughed up the money for one of the more beautiful beaches.

Still there were things to see at Tiger Beach, including a tiger statue…

…a weird fish mural…

and some pretty cool cliff/beach scenery.

    

    

…but then Connor got tired and didn’t like the wind coming off of the ocean, so we headed back into town.  We walked the shopping streets and found a couple of cool coffeehouses and a place for Connor to play.

He had fun.

So, we had our last meal in Dalian.  A smorgasbord of shrimp.

Shrimp breaded and fried with salty egg, alongside pumpkin, shrimp wontons in clear broth, and cool little crispy veggie rolls.  Delish.  And the tea there was really good, too; the manager even gave us some tea leaves when we told her how good it was.

Added bonus, they had goldfish swimming around next to our table. 

Connor was excited.  Almost fell in a couple of times.

Connor then made a friend at a coffee shop we hung out at until our train left.    

So we caught the train back and watched some Mickey’s Christmas Carol until Connor’s bedtime.  He loves it.

We knew we were home when we stepped off of the train and our boogers froze in our nose.  It was in the 40s in Dalian.  It was 1 degree above zero in Harbin.

So, that’s our trip.    Much better than our trip to Xi’an – this time we weren’t pickpocketed and we didn’t miss a train, sit up all night, or lose our train tickets!

The Great Speech Competition…or, more aptly named, An Evening with Shannon Hill

There are things you’d think I’d have learned by now.  We’ve been living in China for more than a year, after all.  You’d think I’d realize that no foreigner ever does anything inconspicuously. 

I just received a refresher course in this subject last weekend.

See, it started very innocently.  While at our house for the Halloween game night, two of my students mentioned that they were the finalists in a campus-wide English speech competition.  (At this point, feel free to jump on back to the Halloween pictures.  Lewis – the only boy – and Lucky, on the far right.)  This is a really big deal.  My freshmen competed against about 100 students, some juniors and seniors, and they made it into the top 8.   I am suitably impressed and proud, and tell them to let me know when the final competition will be so I can go and watch.  Lucky and Lewis were very surprised that I would really come to see them, which re-enforced my desire to go if at all possible.

Then I find out that one of our Seekers, Belinda, is also a finalist.  Belinda was in some of my non-English major classes last year, so now I have three students in the top 8.  I’m exceedingly proud of them all.  Rachel decides to go with me.

Lucky, Lewis, and Belinda all talk to me about the competition during the week leading up to the final.  I tell them all I will be there.

This is the part where I should have known better.

Rachel and I show up about ten minutes before the competition begins.  Lucky, Lewis, and Belinda all come up to us (Rachel only knows Belinda, so I talked mostly to Lucky and Lewis while she calms Belinda’s nerves) and Rachel and I start to look for seats in the mid-back range of seats.  This is a really big lecture hall, by the way, easily seating 150 people, and it was filling up. 

“No, no,” Lewis says.  “You’re special guests.  You sit up here.”

Right behind the judges.  Special seats, set apart with balloons at the end of the rows.  All the judges are other foreign teachers, so we joke with them about how the Chinese feel they must honor us.  This is still not a great big deal, just kind of wishing they weren’t making such a fuss over us.

And that’s when the hostess comes up.  See, all Chinese parties or events have a host and hostess with written-out banter.  Cornier than the Thanksgiving Day parade people.  Way more scripted.  Way cheesy, but they eat it up.

Anyway, the hostess is a student named Felicity that I met when I was a judge at a competition last year.  She’s very outgoing, a little odd, and sweet.  She hugs me like she hasn’t seen me in a year (which is pretty accurate) and asks why I’m there.  I tell her I have three students in the finals.

Big mistake.

So the competition starts and the judges are all asked to stand up while everyone welcomes/applauds them.

Felicity and her co-host (hereafter referred to just as “Host”) call their names, one by one.  Then I hear, “Our special guests, Shannon and Rachel!”

Oy.  Or, as is more appropriate here, “Aiya.”

We stand up, wave, and sit back down.  I’m blushing, and we’re both chuckling.  We think that’s it.

Perhaps now is a good place to mention that Friday has become the only non-weekend day that I don’t have classes.  So on Fridays, I generally go about make-up free and bobby pin my hair instead using product and really styling it. 

I am rather stupid sometimes.

So, we get into the speech competition.  It’s kind of fun when you don’t really have to judge it.  Lewis is sending me “I’m nervous” texts and I’m sending back “you’ll do great” ones.  We go through the first three, then it’s Lucky’s turn.

SHE IS AMAZING.

I’m bursting with pride. 

Then it’s Belinda.  She’s wonderful.  We love her.

Then Lewis.  Aiya.  He does well, really well, and takes the advice I gave him about using personal opinions instead of doing what most of them do and reciting a bunch of flowery stuff they find on the internet that’s impossible to follow. 

His personal story?  Me.

Yup.

He mentions me three or so times in his speech – gesturing to me as if people don’t know who I am by this point – and goes on about how I told him that the topic (“youth”) wasn’t boring, but all about opportunities and passion and making choices.  Okay, so I did say that, but I didn’t expect to be quoted!

Anyway, he gets his scores back.  The Host and Felicity read off the scores of everyone, at the end of which, they announce the five who will continue on to the next round.  My three are all in there.  Then they turn to me and Host says, “Shannon, aren’t you proud of your students?  All three in the top five!”

Aiya.  Blushing.

Then it’s time for the talent portion of the competition.  Lucky is up.  Instead of singing, which most of them chose, she chooses to do an English tongue-twister, which is flat-out brilliant. 

Guess who she chooses to demonstrate the difficulty level of the tongue twister?

Yup.  Yours truly. 

She comes up to me with the microphone and I have to stand up and repeat this really complicated thing about Betty buying butter, but the butter is a little bitter, so she bought a bit of better butter to make the bitter butter better.  It was not easy. 

I blushed.

Anyway, she wowed the judges with that, saying it five times fast, then Belinda sang acapella and she was awesome, and Lewis did a Lady Gaga song (HUGELY popular here) that was a little fast and you couldn’t really hear the pronunciation too well, which was a shame.

There was one more segment of the competition.  While waiting for the scores to come back from the second one, Felicity comes up to the judges to ask for their comments on the competition, and they all say nice things – of course.

Then Felicity comes up to me and hands me the mike.

Sheesh.

I’m really wishing I’d made myself up a bit now.  At least I’m wearing a nice sweater.

The first thing that comes out of my mouth is, “Oh, mercy.”  Felicity seems to think that maybe not everyone could hear that, so she pulls the mike back to her mouth and repeats “oh mercy.”  I barely keep back a giggle, and I say something about how proud I am of all of them, then hand the mike to Rachel.  She says nice things about Belinda’s performance.

We get the scores back and move on to the final of the final, which consists of the contestants seeing a picture from a movie and having thirty seconds to say something brilliant about it.  All of them do well.  For once, I am not mentioned.  Thank goodness.

While the scores are being tallied, Felicity asks the contestants what they will think if they are the champion.

Most of them say that the people they compete against are very good and so they are proud.  Lucky, though?  She says “If I am the champion, it is because Shannon is my teacher.”

I.  Could.  Have.  Died.

As it turns out, Lewis got fourth, Belinda got second, and Lucky got first.

I think I actually popped a few buttons.  I couldn’t stop smiling, couldn’t stop cheering.  My hands hurt from clapping, and my cheeks were sore, but I was SO PROUD.

And then Felicity calls my name.  She comes and gets me and Rachel, and we’re dragged up to the front to hand out some of the awards.  Only we aren’t told what we’re supposed to do, so we stand there looking awkward for a few moments before Lucky sees what’s happening and tells me what to do.

Bless Lucky.

Did I mention that I’m clomping around in heavy snow boots? 

We hand out the awards and try to go back to our seats.  “No,” says Felicity.  “Wait here a moment.  We have to take pictures.”

Aiya.

We take group pictures with all the contestants and judges, and I hug all my students and tell them how wonderful they are.  Lucky and Lewis want several pictures with me, and then a line starts forming of strangers who want a picture with me also.  Rachel and the judges have escaped, but I end up taking pictures for a while, hugging and praising my students several more times, and talking to some of my old students from last year.  Felicity keeps bursting into my conversations and laying claim on me since she knew me from last year, even though she wasn’t one of my students.

Lewis walked me home when I finally extracted myself. 

I think I have now officially learned my lesson.  Next time I attend a speech competition as a guest, I’m going to arrive late and sit in the back.  Preferably with a mask on and speaking in Chinese.

SNOW!

Okay, I know I just blogged a couple of hours ago, but this is just too awesome.

I am officially a veteran of cold weather.

Got up this morning, looked out the window, and said to Justin, “Huh.  It looks like snow today.”

That’s right, ladies and gents, this Florida native can now predict snowy weather based only on looking at the clouds.

I am so cool.

It snowed a ton this afternoon, huge flakes falling thick and fast, wind blowing them into your face.  It was SO awesome.  I know in a few weeks I’ll be praying for warm weather and hiding in the apartment to escape the bitter weather, but today I pulled a Mary Tyler Moore and spun around in a circle, arms upraised, laughing at the sky.  If I’d had a hat on, I would have tossed it up.

Connor was thrilled, and we spent a while outside playing in the snow.  Thus, pictures follow.

Happy Snow Day to you all!