Good Times!

Hey Everybody. We've been away from the blog for a couple weeks or so 'cause we had a visit from my (Joshua) sister and bro-in-law. They came in on June 19th and spent a couple of weeks with us. The first week we spent here at our home, showing them around where we live and doing things in the local area, playing games and just hanging out. We went to a big waterfall a couple hours away, called Huangguoshu, that is pretty famous around here, but that we'd never been to before. It was pretty cool. We also went to a local park that has wild monkeys running around. Michael (my bro-in-law) almost got eaten but managed to escape due to his lightening fast reflexes. After about a week, the four of us headed out to see some other parts of China. We went to a city called Xi'an where they have the army of terracotta warriors that were unearthed a few decades ago. We also got to ride around the ancient city wall on bicycles built for two. Later we went to Beijing where we visited all the famous sites like the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, etc. We also got to do a 10km or so hike along an unrestored section of the Great Wall which was pretty awesome. All the while in Beijing we enjoyed an array of western food, as I had already done my research and mapped out my targets. Beijing is a much larger and more western friendly city than where we live and it had many wonderful choices. Among them were things like Outback Steakhouse, TGI Friday's, Schlotsky's Deli, Subway, as well as wonderful ice cream joints like Coldstone Creamery and Baskin Robbins. What can I say, "I like to eat, is that such a crime?" Beth and Michael headed back to the US on July 3rd, and we stayed on in Beijing a couple more days to do some shopping. We visiting some large grocery stores and import stores to find things we can't get where we live like pancake syrup, Crisco, vanilla flavoring, salsa verde, etc. It's funny the things we get REALLY excited about these days. Then we came home and collapsed for a few days, 'cause we was tired. Let me tell ya, for us small town folks, navigatin' them big cities gets us plum tuckered out! But it was all worth it and we had an awesome time with Beth and Michael.

Here we are, very wet, standing actually behind the waterfall.

Beth and Michael admiring monkey . . . before Michael almost got eaten.

At the park in front of an Olympics display with all the little Beijing 2008 mascots.
I made a delicious birthday breakfast for my two August birthday girls.
It's all fun and games until your handlebars break causing you to almost kill yourself and your wife and to have to walk the bike back the rest of the way to the rental station. No, I'm not bitter.

At the famous Terracotta Warriors site near Xi'an. We have a picture in this very same spot from our summer trip to China in 2004, but we look a bit different now.

Chilling in the shade to escape the blistering Xi'an heat.

Beth and Michael in front of the "Big Goose Pagoda" in Xi'an.
Tackling the Great Wall. It was a bit foggy that morning.

Enjoying a hard earned dinner at Outback after our hikeYummy! All of us at the Forbidden City in Beijing.

You can see tons more pics on our Picasa picture site (follow the link on the sidebar).

Olympic Torch Relay Video

Here's a little video of us going to see the Olympic Torch Relay. Enjoy!

Olympic Torch Relay

Today we got on a bus at 5:40am to go into the city to see the Olympic Torch Relay. After learning that a number of foreign students were planning on going to see it, the school arranged for us to all go together in a big bus and sit in a "VIP" section at the very beginning of the route so that we didn't have to fight for a place to line up along the road. Everything officially started around 8am with some people talking up on a stage, and a moment of silence for the earthquake victims. Then they lit the torch and started the relay. Since we were at the very beginning, we saw the first torchbearer carry it and pass on the flame to the second torchbearer. After that, lots of reporters were crowding around to interview and take pictures of everyone. Neither Joshua nor I were interviewed, but some of our friends were. It ended up raining the whole time we were out there, so everyone was pretty wet. Even though we didn't actually get to see the torch relay for very long, the whole experience was really fun and I'm glad we were able to be a part of it. After taking some group pictures we got back on the bus and came back to the school. They took everyone to the school cafeteria so that we would drink some ginger tea. Our teachers were afraid that we might all get sick after standing in the rain all morning and, according to Chinese medicine, drinking ginger tea after being in the wet/cold helps keep you healthy. But we declined, since neither of us really like ginger, and instead went over to our friends' house for breakfast and to hang out for a while with some others who also went to see the relay. Fun times. :)

Summer BBQ #1

Yesterday evening we hosted our first BBQ of the summer. We invited all of our foreigner friends to come and hang out and enjoy some hamburgers and hot dogs. The food was really good...and there was so much of it! I think everyone here has learned to really appreciate BBQs. It's a time where we all get together to share some favorite summertime foods that are not easily acquired on this side of the world, such as the KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce my parents brought over in their suitcases when they came to visit. It also takes a lot more work to get everything ready since a lot has to be done by hand, which makes us appreciate sharing things and eating them together. Here is a little list of other random facts relating to our BBQ:

- There were 25 adults and 10 kids crammed in to our little apartment.

- We used 9 lbs. of ground beef to make about 34 hamburgers. We also made 20 hot dogs.

- We only had 5 hamburger patties left over at the end of the night.

- Even though there was an even number of hot dogs and hot dog buns to begin with, somehow there were 10 hot dog buns left over and no hot dogs.

- Two children's books went missing throughout the course of the night.

- About 30 minutes after the guys finished grilling it started to rain.

Gearin' Up

The Olympics are just around the corner, and people around here are pretty excited. We know there are lots of different opinions over issues surrounding this year's Olympics, but all that aside, we are having fun being excited along with everyone else here. Next week the Olympic Torch is passing through Guiyang, where we live, and we are definitely planning on getting out there with the multitudes to see it. Recently people have started popping up on our campus selling Olympic t-shirts and stuff, so today we decided, in an attempt to fit in at least a little bit, we'd suit up and show our support!

China Bans Plastic Bags

As of June 1st, China has put into place some new regulations regarding the use of plastic bags. Apparently they have banned the use of ultra-thin plastic bags and are now requiring shoppers to buy the plastic shopping bags they get at the supermarket or other shops in an effort to better protect the environment. As a result of these new plastic bag policies, we have noticed lots of people carrying around reusable shopping bags. As you can see from the picture, we decided to purchase a couple reusable totes from Wal-Mart. These handy eco-friendly bags come in a wide variety of sizes and colors, some even with cute printing on them. They already appear to be turning into somewhat of a fashion trend and, if it helps cut back on the estimated 3 billion plastic bags Chinese people use on a daily basis, I hope it never goes out of style.

Trip Video

Here's a video of our recent trip to the southern part of the province.

Recent Travels

We had the opportunity to travel to the southern part of our province for a few days last week with four other foreign friends. The friend who invited us to go works as researcher here researching the minority ethnic groups which are largely located in the area we visited. For the most part of the trip we were going to different little towns to visit officials who are friends of the girl who took us. Along the way we were able to stop and see some village areas. One official even drove us to his village which was a couple hours away. He lives in the city now, but most of his family still lives in the village. In a village near his they recently had a fire and a large part of the village was burnt down because his minority ethnic group builds their homes out of wood and the houses are very close together. As a result, when one house catches on fire it quickly spreads to all the houses around it. In his village they said we were the first foreigners to visit there since 1944 when two American pilots parachuted there after their planes crashed. The father of the man who took us was a young man when it happened and said that one of the pilots got caught in a tree and the people had to cut him down. To show his appreciation, he gave them his gun. As soon as the planes crashed the people from the village ran to collect the metal and other scrap materials they could find. They even showed us a box they still use for fishing that was made with pieces of fiberglass from the plane. During the trip we were also able to eat some interesting things like brain (which, surprisingly, tasted a lot like tofu), different parts of stomach and other intestines, frog legs, and bamboo rat (kind of like a large guinea pig that only eats bamboo). We also stopped by a middle/high school and ended up being asked to give an impromptu English "class" for all 900+ students. We ended up just introducing ourselves and answering some of their questions about learning English. They were all very excited as that was probably the only time they have heard fluent English speakers and met Americans. Overall, we were able to learn a lot about the minority ethnic groups in that area as well as some new things about Chinese culture that we had not had explained before. Joshua took a lot of video and will probably try to get some videos posted, but it might be a while as we are still very busy with school. To see more pictures, go to our Picasa picture site at http://picasaweb.google.com/jrodenbaugh

Wooden houses in a village we visited. Notice the satellite dish on the left hand side.

A minority lady moving bundles of rice seedlings.

Ladies working in the rice fields.

Fertilizing the field before transplanting the rice seedlings.

Posing with some students from the school we visited. At one point I had a bunch of girls waiting in line to give me hugs. They were very sweet.