Lao Shan Field Trip

Lao Shan literally means "Old Mountain." Friday, all of the elementary classes- pre-k-5th grade got on a bus and headed to Lao shan for a field trip. After last week's experience of climbing, I was a little weary. Last weekend Christy and I climbed up 3 hours worth of steps to reach the top of a mountain and I just couldn't see my students being able to climb that many stairs! There were a a few stairs, but not many. The bus took us up most of the way and then it was only about a 30-45 minute hike. We stopped and ate near a waterfall as a group and then made our way back down the mountain.

The students had time on the way down to go out on the huge rocks that were there and also to look for tadpoles!!! Some of my students caught a few tadpoles and brought them home. I am sure the parents were quite happy about their new pets!

Every year there is at least one student that falls into the water! This year was not the exception:) Thankfully, none of my students fell in! (The water is very shallow) We had one student get completely wet and several others who went home with wet feet!

The pictures I posted were some of my favorites from the trip. As always there are more on my shutterfly acount! The first picture is of the other ESL teacher, Barb. I have had to ask her many questions this year! The next is of John, Harry, and Joseph on their way up the mountain! Next, Mr. Cao with the group of boys. Last- Heather, Julia, and Annie catching tadpoles. Heather was the queen catcher! She caught at least 4 tadpoles!! I am looking forward to going on this trip again next year!

Dad's to Lunch Day
Thursday was Dad's to Lunch Day at QMIS! I had 4 fathers come, which was a pretty good turnout! Most of my students' dads have factories and are often traveling outside of the country- I had a lot of notes that apologized for them not being able to come b/c they were in Korea, Japan, etc...

The dads arrived for lunch with their children and then we had an hour of time outside for them to fly kites, play basketball, soccer, go for a walk, etc... I think the students really enjoyed having their fathers come to school for a few hours.

Mummy!

This week we finished our theme on Egypt by re-enacting the process of making a mummy. As you can see in the pictures below, the students had a great time helping turn John into a mummy.

They began by preparing the body for mummification by removing the brain. (the brain is taken out through the nose... as you can see in the picture below...Lisa taped the brain to John's nose to demonstrate.) The students then removed the organs and placed them in the canopic jars, leaving the heart entact. They then placed him in salt for 40 seconds (to represent 40 days), treated him with oils, resin, and make up. They placed an amulet on his throat for protection and then began the wrapping...John had a difficult time being a dead pharaoh! He kept laughing and making the other students laugh. Enjoy the following pictures!

Trip to JiNan
This weekend Christy and I went to JiNan with our chinese langauge teacher and her husband. We began our trip at 7am on Saturday morning. We took a long distance bus for about 4 hours to a place called JiNan.
First stop- Underground cave (dxdxg.com)
The first thing Christy and I bought was pineapple on a stick. (This would be our main source of nutrition on the trip, as our stomachs did not seem to care for some of the chinese dishes that were served) We put on our beautiful tour hats... (When you go with a tour group you are given matching hats and the tour guide carries a flag of the same color)... we kept the hats on long enough for the picture! Then we headed to the caves. The caves were lit with different colored spot lights, christmas lights, and rope lights...it made for a colorful time! About halfway through the cave we were given the option of taking a boat ride (kind of like an amusement park ride) or walking. We decided to go with the boat ride! After our cave exploration, we headed to our hotel for a rest!

At dinner we met up again with 2 ladies and their children who we had had lunch with earlier in the day. One of the ladies has a daughter with special needs and has been feeling very discouraged. She has had a lot of emotional pain in her life. Our group talked for quite awhile... mostly Ruth since we have limited chinese. Ruth shared with her about Him in chinese. The one lady shared how she had gone to fellowship before but nothing changed so she decided that she would try to fix it by herself. We shared with her about the pain we had experienced in our lives and how He gives us hope. We then sang G is so god in english and in chinese (they asked us to sing and this was the only song besides happy birthday that we knew in English and Chinese) and then we spoke to Him. Christy and I were so exhausted at the end of the conversation! It was so tiring to only hear chinese for 2 hours!

two friends we met on our trip

Next stop- pa shan (climb mountain!)
We got up early on Sunday and headed to breakfast. Neither of us were feeling very well so we passed on eating most of the food and ate only bread. We then boarded the bus and headed to the mountain. The day was beautiful... our main problem was that we didn't know ahead of time that we were going to be climbing a mountain so we only had jeans packed! Not really hiking material! Climbing a mountain in China is much different than climbing a mountain back home. Instead of a dirt trail, you have hundreds... felt like thousands of stairs! You climb stairs up the mountain!!! I was so exhausted! I felt like I was on a stairmaster for 3 hours! We bought more pineapple on the way up!
After climbing up, we decided to take transportation down. We thought we were buying tickets to ride the cable car down, but ended up going down in a shuttle bus. We then boarded our tour bus and headed to the restuarant. Again, Christy and I ate some Chinese food, and then we went exploring the streets for someone who might sell chocolate! We were unable to find any chocolate, but we did find more pineapple on a stick! We ate our pineapple and rejoined our tour group. We were supposed to be home by 6 pm... BUT... halfway home our bus broke down!!! We had to sit on the bus for 3 hours before another bus arrived to take us home! We didn't arrive back to our apartment until 11:30 pm!
All in all it was a great weekend! full of chinese language and culture. We are hoping to meet up with our friends sometime soon... please be lifting them up!

Qingdao Lighthouse...
We have been watching the construction of a lighthouse from our school window for some time now. The lighthouse was recently finished! I thought I would share a quick picture that I took on my walk home from school yesterday. Before I came to China, Mrs. Barnes told me how similiar Qingdao was to Maine. As I was riding in the can with my students this morning I realized how true this was. Qingdao has the ocean, mountains, and now it even has a lighthouse! My chinese home is hen pialiang! (very beautiful!)

Factory Field Trip!
Today my students and I went to visit Lisa's father's factory. (Lisa is one of my students)We had a great time on this field trip:) First, the teachers were treated to some traditional Korean tea. I am not a tea drinker, but it was actually pretty good! Then, we were given a nice tour of their factory. When our tour was finished, we were brought into what I assume is Mr. Kwon's office. He had it set up with materials for the students to make their own jewelry! Mr. Cao and Mr. Wu also made some necklaces! Mr. Kwon even let the students take home bags full of beads so that they could make more jewelry at home! The jewelry that his company makes is shipped to the US, Germany, Australia, and the UK! The students really seemed to have a good time:) At the end of the tour I was taught how to say Thank you in Korean - come som ni da!(written in a mixture of english and chinese phonetics!) We were escorted (called song-ing, although chinese do not use past tense endings...)back to our van by Mr. and Mrs. Kwon. We all took turns bowing to one another before parting! I love asian culture!


Lisa with her dad

Jewelry making....

Some fun making faces on the van....

if you want to see more pictures from this field trip go to my shutterfly.com account....

Spring in Qingdao

Cherry Blossoms

I thought I should share some more pictures of how beautiful Qingdao is in the spring. What Qingdao lacked in the autumn, it has made up for in the spring:)

Christy and I with the tulips in the background!

Lisa, also an IWU graduate, and I with cotton candy!

Some very cute children from a chinese kindergarten that were also at the park enjoying all of the wonderful spring flowers!

Random information:
Often when waiguoren (foreigners) go out, there are pictures taken- some ask, while others pretend to be dialing something on their cellphone... Some of us have perfected their techniques. I thought I would share an example of this: While at ZhongShan Park on Friday we happened to pass this elderly lady in a wheelchair. As we passed she puffed a cloud of smoke into the air. We thought she was quite an intersting lady so we decided to do what often happens to us and take a picture. The first picture is of 2 of my friends pretending to "pose" while a picture is taken. The next is of the woman that we thought was picture taking worthy:)

Black Heart/ White Heart...

PTL- On Thursday we had a specia all elementary chapel to celebtrate Good Friday. Before chapel, each of our studentw were handed a black heart to take with them. Some of the high school students came in to do a drama and then our high school book teacher finished by inviting students for exchange their black hearts for a white heart. All of the elementary teachers were waiting at the front with a white heart. All 12 of my students came to the front!!! These 12 students pictured above our now part of our family!At least 1/2 of my students have never attended a fellowship before. I have invited them to come with me. Please lift up my students and their families! (Over 100 students came forward during the chapel service- PTL!)

PTL#2- I found out this weekend that I was getting exactly enough on my tax return to pay for my summer ticket home!! I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to afford the ticket and then HE came through in a big way!

Zhang Shan Gongyuan
On Friday some of my coworkers and I met up at Zhang Shan Park for a picnic. The park was beautiful!!! We had a nice lunch and then we watched some of the kids go on rides and then the adults decided to go on the BUMPER CARS!!!!

Me, Nuo-Nuo (dog), Jane, Melissa, Kris

Diana (my TA!) and Kelly

On Saturday, I took Christy to the park. We took a lot of new "spring" pictures of us!(which will soon be added to my shutterfly account) We watched some of the Chinese take photos- they love to strike poses- and then, after they had left, we would copy their poses! We ended up with some good pictures! Here is one of my favorites of us... (This one is not a Chinese pose:)

Spring time is absolutely beautiful! The streets and parks are filled with tulips, cherry trees, and other blossoms!

Happy Easter to you all!

Bu Hao ChuzhucheSiji!

Christy, Jane, and I had yet another adventure involving a taxi driver... We finally found a taxi at Jusco (the scene of the not enough money grocery trip) and were having a nice conversation with our driver... At the beginning of our ride he seemed to think americans were very good (he may have changed his mind since then...) we learned he had a wife and a son... When we got halfway into our complex the driver pulled over and refused to continue! He took the money out of Jane's hand and Christy's... Christy told him wu kuai since he would not take us to our apt... and we got out of the car- we refused to pay him the other 2 kuai(which is actually only about 25 cents, but it was the principle of him not taking us to our final destination). The next thing I know he was yelling at us and came running after us!! I was the last one to get out of the car since I was sitting in back so he jumped in front of me, blocked my way and made it so that I had to go back to the car...We got back in the car after he agreed to take us the rest of the way, we paid him the 2 kuai and said goodbye! I really do miss my little silver jetta!

VARSITY!!!

I got 2 emails from my brother Sam which totally made my week! I love and miss him sooo much! He wrote to tell me that he was cleared to try out for the high school baseball team! (This was something that I and my team have been lifting up for awhile... I know Sam is excited about being able to be on a team again. I can't wait to talk to him this weekend!!!) Then he wrote and told me that he was going to get to be on VARSITY! I am WICKED excited for him! I can't wait to come home and see him play! Also exciting, is that he is going to get to wear the Number 1 again, which was my number, Chris' number, and his back in Jr. High!! Keeping the number in the family! There will be another Hiscoe wearing the Houlton #1 uniform! I hope to have a picture of him with his uniform on soon! Stay posted!