Mid October Festival Adventures

  What is the Mid October Festival?  Many of you are probably thinking, "Wait a second, our October break isn't until the last week in October".  Not so in China.  The Mid October Festival week is a celebration of The first full moon in Autumn, and China's Independence Day.  The Full Moon is commemorated by fruit being delivered to all the workers.  Also, everyone recieves Moon Cakes.  Now I know that I have said that the food here is amazing and we haven't come across anything that we didn't like, but it is different with the Moon cakes.  Moon cakes come in a variety of flavors and they are to celebrate the harvest time, but to our American tastes, it just doesn't gel.  The first time I was offered Moon cake was in the village.  A nice family offered me a bight while I was buying some drinks at their store.  I didn't want to offend them so I gave it a try.  Besides, the whole family was eating it and seemed to be enjoying it immensly.    I took a nice big bight and then proceeded to do the best acting job of my life.  To this point it was the worst tasting thing I had tried so far.  It even beat out the shrimp eggs attached to the half kilo of shrimp I had for lunch one afternoon.  Besides aren't shrimp eggs considered cavier.  Anyway, as I thanked the family with a warm smile on my face and a good healthy swallow I turned and walked briskly back to my family that was waiting for me to have lunch.  Thankfully I found a gap in the buildings on my way back and deposited the mouthful of Moon cake in a very polite manner in the opening.  I still had a piece of the Moon cake when I returned and put in a mouse hole near the dumpling restaurant where my family was waiting.  Now you know that something is not so good, when the mouse came out of it's hole, sniffed the Moon cake and then ran back into his hole.  Eventually he came back and took the rest, I guess figuring beggars can't be to choosy.  So that you don't think that I am insulting the culture here, while talking with a couple of our Chinese friends we found out that most of the people here don't like them either.  There are a couple of types that are good.  They make an ice cream version that is supposed to be very good.  There is a great story about Moon cakes that we learned recently.  Apparently they played a big part of the Chinese Independence.  The way the story goes, the Chinese were being ruled by the Mongols a long time ago.  So the Chinese wanted to get rid of the Mongols.  In order to get rid of them, they planned a revolution and uprising to throw them out of the country.  The way they passed the word was by putting the notes in the Moon Cakes.  The Mongols hated the Moon cakes and would not eat them, so the notes were passed successfully.  So on the planned night the revolution went off without a problem and they threw the Mongols out.  That is a paraphrased version, so don't quote me on the whole story.  I just thought it was interesting how a pastry helped cause a revolution.

  Well, we didn't teach this week so I thought I would share with you some of the adventures we went on:

Sunday: We took the Scooters to the Driving Range.  I have included a short video documenting this trip.  It included a drive through the local countryside, some of the city and our local village.  I have tried not to make it terribly long, but at least give you an idea of the dichotomy that we live in here.

Monday: In the compound we live in, we have mentioned that we have a nice resort pool, basketball courts, tennis courts, badminton courts, bowling alley and a couple of really nice restaurants.  But, we also have an amusement park.  So we took the girls to the local Amusement Park and flower garden.  The amusement park was very interesting.  The rides were more like rusted carnival rides.  We went on a couple, but roller coasters were out of the question.  The highlights were the bird sanctuary and the family tumbling act.  The bird santuary was awesome.  It had Macaws, Parrots and Cockatoos.  This is not like the bird experiences in the US, where you pay $10 and hopefully a small bird will land on your hand and slurp out of your cup.  This is more like a scene out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.  You step into the cage with a handful of sunflower seeds and you instantly have 5 to 10 birds on you.  They land on your head, shoulders and arms, waiting to be fed.  Claire and Cecelia even had a Cockatoo that tried to eat their hair.  I had a Macaw sit on my shoulder and even had a Cockatoo befriend me and sit on my hand like a bird of prey.  The birds were very friendly and respectful.  None of us had a bird relieve themselves on us.
  The family that did the tumbling act was a young boy and three sisters.  They did some amazing feats of acrobatics.  The most amazing feat was the older sister twirling her younger sister end over end, while laying on her back.  You really needed to see it to believe it.

Tuesday:   We went and got lost on the Metro in Guangzhous.  We had an enjoyable time with the masses that represent China so well.  They have a funny cartoon in the subway that depicts a man squished up against the closed doors of the subway.  The meaning is that people shouldn't push and shove.  Obviously, they don't pay attention to the sign.  The great thing was that we had Paul with us and his broad shoulders acted like a bus in the middle of a street filled with scooters.  Basically he just ran people over as we were pushed from behind.  The rest of us just followed in his wake.  Actually the Metro is very nice.  It is definitely well designed to move millions of people efficiently.
  The other find we made on this day was the biggest book store that you will ever see in your life.  It is basically a seven story building filled to the brim with books.  It even had a basement filled with CD's and DVD's.  Amazon has nothing on these guys.  If I haven't mentioned it before, they do everything big here.  I know they say that they do everything big in Texas.  Well Texas pales in comparison to what I have seen in this country.

Artwork in Garden Area of local Home of Interest

Wednesday:  Today we decided to go on a scooter adventure to a town called Clifford.  We wanted to eat lunch at this Thai food restaurant that we had seen while eating with a group of our teacher friends.  The food was outstanding and the atmosphere was great.  They have big tanks of live fish, toads, shrimp and crabs to choose from for lunch.  There is just something about picking the fish you are going to eat while it is swimming in front of you.  I guess you can't get it much fresher than that.

The carpentry is amazing here

  After lunch we stopped at a shopping center to see if they had inexpensive DVD's that a friend had told us about.  Paul likes to use them to help teach English in his class.  He plays sections of the movies with the English subtitles on the bottom and then stops to discuss different aspects of the language.  It is quite effective, and he is doing very well.  I told him he should have been a teacher long ago.  We also discovered a great looking Indian restaurant run by a man named Phillip.  Phillip was very helpful and allowed the ladies to use his restroom.  We got a menu from him and he also gave us the address to the church in Guangzhou.  We left and told him would be back. (More to come from Phil's place later).
  What would a nice ride be without a little adventure and mishap.  As you already know, my adventures with two wheeled vehicles has been a story unto itself.  Well apparently my scooter did not get a full charge the night before and on the way back my battery died.  I basically had to push my scooter the last mile and a half until we got back into Country Garden.  At that point I pulled the battery out and rode the bus the rest of the way home.  Imagine the looks of "What an Idiot" I got as I boarded the bus carrying my battery.  Thankfully my wonderful wife was waiting for me at the bus stop and gave me a ride home.

Stairwell inside Local Mayors Home

The Gardens are Amazing!!!

Thursday:  Today was all about getting homework done for the girls and then going to the Chimelong Water Park.  There is not much to say about the homework other than to say that when you go to an IB school, you get homework over the vacation.  The parents basically demand it from the teachers for their kids during the time off.  Claire had a Math packet and three, five page reports to write over the break.  Of course she waited until the last few days of the break to start.
  About midday, our faithful cab driver Sam came by and drove us to the Water Park.  I know that I already mentioned that they do things big here, and the Water Park was no exception.  Imagine Disneyland in Anaheim as a giant Water Park with only Water rides and exhibits.  It was Awesome, with a capital A.  The lazy river isn't just a lazy river.  There are waves, tunnels and people shooting you with water cannons from the very beginning to the end.  Oh yeah, Taylor told me not to forget about the Southern Hemisphere Penguin tank.  "They were so cute", she says.  We even saw a stage show while hanging out in the wave tank.  The highlight of the show was the fire dancers.  They were very good, but I questioned the ending stunt.  The show ended with a fire dancer sticking a flaming torch down the front of his pants and then they burst into flames.  Now you can interpret this in two ways.  No. 1 is that the guy thinks he is really manly and that he is proving his manhood.  Or, he is already fixed and had an accident with self cauterization.  I tend to lean toward the latter.

The random pictures are from house that Cecelia and I toured on one of our walks near home.

Friday: This day was a low key day.  We cleaned up and workded around the house.  The girls continued to work on homework and I went and had my weekly Massage.  Of all the creature comforts here, the massages are the best deal.  You can get an hour and a half massage for 60 rmb, which is $10 us money.  I get the hour and a half Thai oil massage that costs 180.  Yes folks that equates to 30 us dollars.  We can't help it, we live in paradise.  I also got a haircut and had lunch for an additional 60 rmb.  So to do the math, one 90 min. massage, a haircut and lunch for a grand total of?  Wait for it, 240 rmb. That is a grand total of 40 bucks state side.  Man you got to love this country.
  After the Massage and homework, we went to have dinner at Phillip's Indian Restaraunt.  I told you we would be back.  We had Mutton Curry (Medium by the way), Butter Masala Chicken (Recommended by Phillip for the Girls), Chicken Drumbstick kabob, Garlic Nan Bread and a beef rice dish that was amazing, but we can't remember the name.  This was capped off by beer and mango yogurt smoothy.  Are you salivating yet?  To top it off, Phillip made us an Indian Pancake with Strawberry filling that was on the house.  He said it was because our girls were so beautiful.  He is a man of good taste, after my own heart.  Even Sam our trusty interpreter and cab driver helped us finish dessert.  We departed from Phillip with a hearty, "We will be back soon" and headed for the Chimelong Circus.
  The Chimelong Circus was going to be Claire and Taylor's first circus.  We were hoping that it was going to be good.  We were not disappointed.  The Circus started out with an amazing laser light show and these amazing bungee jumpers that wore suits that had neon stripes on them.  It is hard to describe so I will try to add a picture.  The girls were not disappointed by the number of amazing acts and all of the animals that were involved.  This was the first circus that I had ever been to that had giraffes in the parade of animals.  They are amazing and majestic animals.  When the circus was over I asked the girls to give me their impression of their first circus.  Taylor said, "It was Awesome" and Claire commented that it was, "The most Amazing thing I have ever seen".  Now those are priceless statements.  Take that Visa!!!

Saturday:  On this day, Cecelia and I started the day off with an awesome Yoga workout.  Who needs Bikram Yoga, when the temperature in the morning with the doors open is about 80 degrees and the humidity is 90.  It is tough holding Triangle Pose when the sweat from your arm that is in the air drips into your eyes when you are looking up.  Anyway, I digress.  After Yoga, Paul and I set off on an adventure to find the Southern Rail way station for the Bullet Train and the Southern most entrance to the Metro.  We took off on our scooters and headed along the river near our home.  I had Google Mapped the route and had an idea of where to go.  I know what you are thinking about now, "Oh know, not another story about Rusty and a two wheeled vehicle".  You will be happy to know that I didn't have any mishaps with my scooter this time.  Anyway, Paul and I rode along the river and then made a right turn to check out a Budhist temple near our route.  It was really cool and even had a Budhist monk that spoke enough English to tell us about the monastary.  He told us his name, but I couldn't remember his Chinese name.  I was not aware that each Budha represents a real person that did something meaningful during their lives.  It is rather strange to see a Budha with a swastika on it's belly.  Apparently this symbol represents peace and harmony, much like ying and yang.  It is sad to think that Hitler took a symbol that represented peace to do the horrible things he did.  The other cool thing about the monestary was all the incense and the unbelievably huge bell that they gong during the week, calling people to pray.
  After our short visit with the monk, we were on our way again.  We meandered through a couple of small towns and then arrived at our destination, the Guangzhou South Railway Station.  Did I mention that they do things very big here in China.  The terminal houses 17 high speed bullet trains and the southern most stop to the Metro to Guangzhou.  It is so large that it is rather Orwellian in nature.  You could put Grand Central Station and the Los Angeles Rail Station Inside this behemoth.  All of the supports on the inside are egg shaped and massive.  You can tell that they built this building to not move millions of people, but tens of millions of people effeciently.  The amazing thing is that their only about 7 trains running at any given time.  Parts of this building almost seem like a ghost town.  Paul and I agreed that their are sections of this building that we wouldn't want to be in at night.  Not because of safety reasons or being attacked, but because of the erie feeling that one gets from just being inside something so large.  I don't think I have been inside a bigger building in my entire life.  It has to fall into one of the engineering wonders of the world.  After doing some scoping out of where to park scooters we headed home.
  On the way back home, we stopped at a restaraunt just down the street from the Budhist temple in a small village.  This time I picked half a kilo of freshwater shrimp for lunch out of the fishtanks out front.  We met a friendly local named James who helped us order from the menu.  By the way, did I mention that most of the time when we order from the menu we usually have to point at the pictures.  We really get in trouble when the menu only has Chinese characters on it.  We can usually muddle through Pinyun, but forget about it when it comes to the characters.  Anyway, James helped us order bar b qued chicken and fried rice, as well as my shrimp.  I pointed at the shrimp to complete my order.  Who needs pictures.  The food came and Paul and I were amazed by the amount of food.  Half a kilo of shrimp is a mound of about 30 on the plate.  The entire chicken came on a seperate plate.  When I say the entire chicken, I mean the entire chicken head and all.  At least the head was bar b qued as well. (We took the bar b qued head home to Taylor)  Finally the fried rice came.  It was mounded on a plate by itself.  There was so much, that it looked like they took a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket and filled it up and then turned it upside down on the plate.
  At this point James finished his lunch and we invited him to stay and have a beer with us.  He couldn't have a beer because he a driving instructor and had a student coming to take a lesson after lunch.  (He must run a pretty brisk business, because all of the drivers, except Sam need lessons).  Anyway he did stay and have tea with us.  He spoke English very well so we had a nice conversation with him.  We commented on the food being so much and he explained to us that the village we were in didn't get many forigners so they were feeding us well so that we would come back.  He also said that because Paul is such a big guy they didn't want him to leave hungry.  Did I mention that we love the people here.  During lunch James talked with us about their tradition of not accepting tips, politics and their economy.  It was very pleasant and we felt like we had made an instant friend.  As we departed, we exchanged numbers with James and he invited us back to have dinner with him and his family one evening.  We will definitely be taking him up on his offer.
  Paul and I then made it back to our home without any eventful scooter stories to tell.

Our new Church Home. The Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Sunday:  So today we all hopped on the scooters and headed for the Southern Rail way station to catch the Metro, in order to go to church in Guangzhou.  We had lost internet service at the house the day before so we left early in order to camp out at Starbucks.  Good old Starbucks.  You can't beat their consistancy for worldwide service.  Paul needed to watch the Oregon Duck game and I needed to work on the blog and get some email done.  Cecelia and the girls were still working on homework.  The staff at Starbucks was great, they allowed us to camp out for about three hours at their store.  After we all finished our respective internet activities we headed for McCawley's Irish Pub for lunch.  You can't always eat Chinese food.  I had lamb stew, Taylor had Tacos, Paul had a Taco Salad, Cecelia had a beef wrap and Claire ate an omelette.  After spending some time eating lunch and meeting the owner named Paul, who is from Northern Ireland by the way, we headed back out to the Metro.  We found our way to Haizhou Square and to The Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to our new church home.  There are not many to choose from in this part of China so this one will have to do.
  One of the most suprising things about going here is that when we walked in, we actually thought we had time warped to a different country.  98% of the parishiners at the 3:30 English mass are from Africa.  Obviously the Catholic Church has done a great job with missionary work in Africa.  We met a few men that were from South Africa and Uganda.  Another interesting fact that we have learned is that the Catholic Church does not recognize this church for some reason.  I don't know all of the details, but apparently it has something to do with the politics of the church between China and Rome.  I don't know what to tell you, the mass was the same as any other mass that I have been to in the States.  I will tell you one thing though, when all of those African men start singing the Lord's Prayer, you get the feeling that a band of angels have decended into the church and the trumpets of heaven are playing along at the same time.  The accoustics of the church and all of those deep voices creates a sound unlike anything I have ever heard in a church.  It brings chills to your body and a tear to your eye.  I know I am a sap anyway, but it was still a beautiful sound.

  Well that is enough for this week.  I know that I was a little long winded, but it is really difficult to condense what we are experiencing here in a short blog.  It is truly amazing and beautiful here.  There are some challenges with school for Taylor and some of our schedules, so it isn't all bright and rosy.  But, for the most part we having the time of our lives and we have only been here four weeks.  This next week I will be back to my normal blog of Teaching, Adventures and Misc.  Paul has also asked to add a section from him so he will have a little blurb next week as well.  
  By the way, for those of you that were feeling like we were being spoiled by missing a week of school, our next break isn't until mid January.  So enjoy those cushy schedules that you have back in the states with October break, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  The grind will be worth it though, because we get a month off starting mid January and we are planning to go to Thailand for two weeks and then to the Great Wall then.  That will give you something to look forward to during your winter duldrums when you come back from vacation.
   So, until next week.  We miss all of you and would love to Skype with any of you.  My Skype name is rustyoety.  Give us a call, it is free.  Just remember, if you are on the East coast we are 12 hours ahead of you and on the West we are 15.