Summer has been so fun. I can’t believe it’s almost done! this summer we have been swimming, shopping, and playing with friends. Almost all of our community is gone in the States. even though my best friend is here sometimes I get lonely. But I have been having a lot of time with my sisters and brother. I am really EXCITED to go to 6th grade but do not want to start school work. I’m going to try to use every little time to enjoy the summer before it’s gone!
Well in China the 4th of July isn’t quite as big as in America, but with the people here that weren’t on vacation or in America we had a fun time:) A potluck was organized at our school and we had a picnic outside on the soccer field!! Then we got to light a few sparklers for fun!! And as you can see in the photos we all got into out 4th of July red,white,and blue outfits!!!
The day Dad arrived in Beijing from his trip, Mom the kids and I drove up to meet him. Mom and Dad had made arrangements to stay in a hotel near the airport for a couple of nights to rest and have a little vacation! The hotel had an outside pool for us to swim in and lay out by!!! Outside pools are not very common in China so we enjoyed our time a lot! When my Dad met us at the hotel he brought some goodies back with him from America including the new monopoly game that uses credit cards, and some yummy snacks! The second night we were in Beijing we went out to dinner at a restaurant called Peters that serves western food and that’s only in Beijing. Then we got to go to Starbucks which was a real treat!!! At Starbucks my Dad ordered the wrong thing on accident and the workers just let us have it for free then made him a new one!! Plus they were both venti! 🙂 We had a lot of fun!
When I was younger I always remember eating lunch then having to go to a nap. I even tried to hide to get out from having my nap. Well as you all know I am far from the age of taking a nap (even though sometimes I wish I had the time to!). Here napping is a totally different story! You are never to old to take a nap!! Here in China at around 1-2pm everyone has a nap! If you go to one of the out side markets you’ll see the people manning their booths just sleeping on their chairs. You might also see a construction worker taking his nap on a bench! It is pure culture to take a nap in the afternoon! At school my Chinese class is at 1:30pm. So when my Chinese teacher comes in he is usually yawning of stretching and he tells us, that he is missing his nap!
As you can see workers get some time off of work to take there nap!
Zzzzzzz....
Yesterday Me, Michael, and Jessie went to a Chinese Market. This Market is huge and you can find about anything in it! It’s actually an outdoor Market but with tarps on the roof so it doesn’t get too hot. There are many little passages some crowded and some empty. people just set up there shops and try to sell things. Some of the stores are actually little rooms and some are just tables with stuff piled on it. you also can bargain there. bargaining is when you try to get the thing for a cheaper price! It’s really fun to Bargain! You can never go empty handed out of that Market!
Jessie wrote a blog called Bike People. I guess I’ll piggy back on her topic. We are trying our hand at biking now. It’s pretty crazy and dangerous riding bikes here in Tianjin, but so far so good. The traffic here is pretty heavy and it takes some getting used to driving among the cars. The way people move on the streets is very different than in America. It is more like constant motion. When a driver approaches an intersection they just glide right in to the mob of bikes, taxis, trucks, three wheel vehicles, etc. No one really stops at the intersection, so if I decide to stop to see if it’s safe to move out into the street, I often get interesting looks. But this sort of driving is the kind Sean really likes…just go with the flow. That is why he is driving the electric bike, while I will stick with the good old standard bicycle.
One thing I love about China are the venders! During the day people sell fruits, and vegetables right inside our neighborhood so if Mom needs salad ingreadiants or if I’m craving a pineapple all I have to do is walk right down to get one! There are also street food venders that sell breakfast and dinner foods! There are a couple of vendors that sell this really tasty egg-bread thing that I always get! We call it egg bing (bing is what the Chinses people call a certain kind of bread that they make).The pineapple pictures below are pictures from May when pineapples were in season, everyone was selling lots and lots of pineapples, but now that its watermellon season everybody is selling watermellon. If we walk down to Mcdonalds or KFC (which are a few minutes from our neighborhood) we pass atleast 5-7 big trucks full of watermellon of all sizes:)
A few days ago our whole family went to Beijing for about two nights! The main reason went was to pick up my dad at the airport. We were also excited to go swimming at the hotel pool because they had an outdoor pool ! It was really nice! We brought a lot of snacks and hung out. Also near the pool they had a playground that was nice. One night we went to our favorite restaurant in Beijing called Peters. It’s a Mexican restaurant! Another fun thing we did was play Monopoly. So we mainly hung out in the nice sun and had lots of fun!
On the 4th of July, starting around 6pm, we had a “picnic” (Really it was just every one bring something to share for dinner and you get your food and sit down in on folding chairs [preferably inside because it was so hot!])! Amelia, a girl that just moved here, and her sister, she’s Maddie’s age, came with us to our school (that’s where the “picnic” was). After we ate a delicious dinner of various picnic-ish food Maddie, Josie (Amelia’s sister), and another of Maddie’s friends decided to wage a water gun war! Now you need to know something: I like playing some rowdy games, but when it comes to water fights…. just NO! I hate getting wet when I’m not in the proper mood; I am rarely in the proper mood for water gun fights! So when the the girls shot me I confiscated their weapons, took hostage their ally, and… made them promise not to get me wet again!!! It was a fun night all the same. Amelia and I got on the swings, raided the dessert table three times, and slapped carnivorous mosquitoes! When it got dark some of our friends set off fire works. It was a better 4th of July than I could have wished for!
Amelia and I
Me holding a sparkler!
Sean traveled to the U.S. in June for curriculum training in the AP Computer Science class that he will teach this coming fall. We were sad to have our daddy gone for two weeks, and happy to meet him in Beijing when he returned. We took advantage of a low cost ride to Beijing on one of our school vans going there to drop off departing staff. We stayed at a nearby airport hotel that has an outdoor pool! (One of the few in Beijing with one). I’m not exactly sure why, but cities in China do not have many (if any) outdoor pools, maybe the cities are just too dirty??) We all enjoyed catching up with Sean and relaxing by the pool.
Airplanes flying over the pool, notice at the bottom, I caught the top of a pagoda in the picture.
Monopoly fun in our room.
Daddy and Megan at breakfast the next morning.