There's a mom in our apartment!

Me, Joy, Christy, and Melissa

Christy's mom arrived safely in Qingdao last night! Melissa and I rode a very long bus to the airport to meet them! We took along our own entertainment for the bus ride- We brought Melissa's computer and finished the movie "French Kiss" while riding the bus:) (The bus ride and their flight from Beijing took about the same amount of time... but it was definitely the cheap way to go, and we had the time...) We also wrote a sign welcoming them back to Qindao in Chinese characters.
We started this morning with some coffee, which is how we start most Saturday mornings. We enjoyed some very good chocolate raspberry coffee courtesy of Christy's mom, out on our balcony. Then we headed to Debbie Sue's for some of Cindy's famous sticky cinnamon buns! Cindy used to be the prinicpal here at QMIS, but is now a recruiter in the states. We heard about her famous cinnamon buns during our PreField Orientation. They were definitely as good as we had been told!

We then began our favorite things of QinDao by going to JUSCO, one of our grocery stores, so that Joy can experience our everyday life! Then it was off to Tai Dong where we were able to get a Chinese dress made for her. We also took a walk through our Super Wal*Mart- There was a "fashion show" going on!! There were a bunch of cute little girls modeling some of the clothes to some music by AQUA! The clothes were in piles in a shopping cart, they would model, then change right there, get in line, and model a new outfit... much different than a store's fashion show in the states...

We also took her to Hot Ice, which is one of our new favorite places in Qingdao. Hot Ice is a chocolate fondu restaurant and it is GOOD! Now when we go to TaiDong we have to choose between fondu and cheesecake!

Next, we headed to xiao yu shan... Little Fish Mountain! This is a great place to get a view of the city and point out some of the different landmarks/buildings... On your way down you can choose to walk down a path that has miniture buildings with a brief description about the landmark. Melissa, Christy, and I posed in front of the train station... Christy's is trying to hold it up for the picture...:)

Next stop- the pier... This is a group shot of us using Christy's famous and almost perfected technique of taking the picture herself by outstretching her arm... pretty good job, but you can't really see the Yellow Sea behind us...

We took some alternative transportation to La Villa- great restaurant- supposed to be french, but they have a chef from Italy... really good German potato soup and chicken salad! We rode a little cart like vehicle to our restuarant. It was a tight squeeze and a somewhat adventurous ride, but we made it in one piece!

Missy and I at HOT ICE trying to get the camera away from Christy! Not really... but we did have quite a few pictures taken by this point!

We ended the evening by watching the movie "Return to Me" with Melissa and Jane! Tomorrow will be fellowship, maybe the Lennon Bar, another favorite restuarnt, and perhaps a head massage... Back to school on Monday!

As always, more pics are on my shutterfly.com account. Email me if you need the user and password information!