I decided to check the in-box of my old Yahoo Mail account the other day.  I check it every now and again to see if anyone may have sent an email there instead of to my new Gmail account.  Apparently, it had been a long while since I last checked it because I had 1126 messages waiting for me when I signed in.  Of the 1126 messages that I sifted through, 1125 of them were spam.  The one email that wasn’t spam had been sent accidentally by Phil many months ago.   Of the remaining 1125 messages that had infiltrated by in-box, one in particular caught my eye.  The title of the message is what made me click on it.  I just couldn’t turn down a part time job in helping eradicate the Native Ninjas.  🙂

Here is the first part of the message.  The rest of it was your normal boring spam message and I won’t bore you with it.  I wish all of my spam emails were as amusing as this one!

HUNGYAN HAOLONG AGRO ALLIED PLASTICS & MOULD CO. LTD
JINGQI ROAD WEST INDUSTRY ZONE HUNGYAN CHINA 31802

Forgive me for intruding on your personal space and microwaving your hamster, especially as we have never met before. Please be aware that I do not want to offer this position to the native ninja’s that are running amok in your country.

The image below wasn’t included in the email, of course, but I wanted to post it anyway. I found it by randomly searching for ninja images.  It made me laugh.

Not long after we arrived and started teaching English in Fuyang, we got to experience the holiday known as Teacher’s Day.  This is a day when students thank their teachers for all of their hard work and sometimes present them with little gifts.  I knew of the holiday before coming to China, but I didn’t expect the students to give either Phil or I anything, for like I said, we had just started teaching.  I didn’t think it was possible for them to like us enough to by anything for us, given the amount of time they had known us.

So, you can imagine my surprise when I came home from work and found a carved watermelon wishing Phil a Happy Teacher’s Day sitting on the kitchen table.  I’m sure I imagined several gifts that the students might give us, but I don’t think that a carved watermelon was one of them.  I was quite impressed.  The student put a lot of work into it.

During our six months there, Phil got all sorts of gifts from his students – ranging from greeting cards to Final Fantasy posters to Hello Kitty stuffed toys.  Phil’s students were loads nicer than mine ever were.

And just in case you don’t know what a carved watermelon looks like – here you go!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRPim03J8cc[/youtube]

Fireworks were a common occurrence in China, both during the day and at night, and even more so during holidays like Chinese New Year.  I felt all of the fireworks shot of during the day were wasted, though, because you couldn’t really enjoy the bright, exploding colors.  You could never escape the big booms, though, which always made me think I was in the middle of a war zone.

The following video is of some fireworks being set off right outside of my apartment in Fuyang during the middle of the day.  I have no idea what they were celebrating – perhaps a marriage or something like it.  It went on for sometime.  I wish it had been at night, for at least then there would have been something to see.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8n7THA1sGs[/youtube]

I started going through some of my old videos tonight, and sadly, there just aren’t many worth showing.  There is this one video of Phil and I singing the Ghostbuster’s theme song at KTV in Shanghai, but Phil won’t let me post it. Maybe if enough of you ask nicely, he’ll cave and allow me to embarrass the both of us.

I was however able to find a video that showcases the largest lit up Coca-Cola bottle that I have ever seen.  The angle of course blows.  Phil forgot that his camera didn’t adjust, at least, that is what I am assuming.

I’ll keep looking for some videos to share and try thinking of something interesting to say here in the next few days.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxD-SyOQoNc[/youtube]

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The back of the postcard had this to say about the Amazon Theater Opera House :

Built in architectural European Style, the majestic Amazon Theater was inaugurated in 1896 and became a national property in 1966.  The concert hall is in the form of a horseshoe and has capacity for 701, including three floors of box seats.  In the external area stands a dome with 36,000 ceramic tiles in the colors of the national flag.  Built during the Amazon rubber boom, it is synonymous with glamor and richness.

I was curious as to how the inside looked, so I did some searching on the web, but was only really able to find one decent picture that showcased the theaters’ opulence.

I think it is rather impressive.  Someone definitely put a lot of thought and detail into it.  The ceiling looks like it has a painted design.  I’m sure the pictures don’t do the building justice, like many things in life.

I’ve never been to an opera before.  People say that they are emotional and powerful, but I’m not a big fan of the way opera sounds.  In Xiamen, China, a troop came to our neighborhood and put on a Chinese Opera.  I swear it lasted all day, and it was by far the loudest, most annoying thing I have ever heard so far in my life.  Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more had I walked down the street and watched it.  Who knows?

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When I got this card, I was excited because it was my first card from China.  When I read the back of the card, and found out where it had come from, I was even more excited.  Of all of the places in the world that a postcard could have been sent from, this postcard was sent from Xiamen, China, the city I lived in for six months.

Gulangyu is a beautiful little island.  I loved to go there and just walk around because it was quiet – at least once you got off the ferry and ran past the vultures trying to sell you over priced crap.  They loved to try and sell you those annoying magnetic rocks.  It was also quiet because cars are not allowed on the island.  If you want to go anywhere, you either have to walk or take an electric golf cart – which isn’t free.  The island is small, though, so walking isn’t a big deal.

Also, when you are on the island, you sorta feel like you have been transported somewhere in Europe because almost all of the buildings look like the one above – very Victorian.  Why are there Victorian style buildings on a Chinese island?  Well, the island was populated by foreigners for many years following the Treaty of Nanking in 1842.  Most of the buildings were offices and residences of Consulate-Generals.

Guylanyu is particularly famous for its Piano Museum – the only one of its kind in China.  I didn’t visit the museum when I was there, but I’m sure it’s nice.  There are speakers throughout the island that constantly play piano music.  It’s very relaxing.

Another awesome thing about Gulangyu are the trees.  Compared to many other parts of China that I saw, Gulangyu has lots of old trees.  You can sorta see how big they are in the picture.

If you ever find yourself on Gulangyu, I suggest that you either bring some bug spray or leave the island before the sun starts to set.  When I was there I was attacked by the most ferocious mosquitoes.  For a week, I had the biggest, reddest, itchiest mosquito bites that I have ever had in my life.  Mosquitoes don’t normally bother me too much, but man, these were absolutely horrible!

The back of the postcard said the name of the building was Eight Diagram Pagoda, but I don’t think that is right.  For one, the building does not look like a pagoda at all.

If you are visiting Xiamen, you can take the ferry for free to Gulangyu, but when you want to leave, you have to pay one yuan to get back.  Tricky little devils, eh?  You also have the choice to take the ferry, or pay a little extra to take a speed boat.  Unless you are in a huge rush, take the ferry.

Oh, and if you haven’t noticed, I have uploaded all of my postcards.  To see them, click on the photo tab and then click gallery.

This is going to be a teaser post because I don’t want to reveal what exactly we have done until I have pictures.

On Sunday, Phil woke me up bright and early at about 8:30 AM.  This is highly unusual because Phil loves to sleep all day.  Usually, it’s me asking him to get out of bed so that we can enjoy the day doing something outdoors.  And he hates me for it.  So, I guess he was just trying to give me a taste of my own medicine.  Well, anyway, half asleep, Phil informs me that I need to get up and get dressed because we are driving to Atlanta to get some lamb.  Why do we need to go all the way to Atlanta to get lamb, you ask?  There is a grocery store there called Super H Mart, and it sells all sorts of yummy, Asian goodness – food – not people.  Particularly, they sell thinly sliced lamb that we love.  We fell in love with it in China and it was by far our favorite dish.  When we last went to Atlanta in July, we bought several pounds of it.  Seven months later, our supply is nearly gone.  Since having no lamb in the house would make us unhappy, it seemed like a great idea.  An hour later, we were in the car and on our way to Atl.

30 minutes away from our destination, we came across the Pendergrass Flea Market.  The place is huge and I mean HUGE.  Phil had been there before, but since I hadn’t, he wanted to let me see it.  The place was a complete mad house.  There were people everywhere.  It took something like ten minutes to find a parking place!  Once inside we strolled around seeing if there was anything worth buying.  I really didn’t see anything, I never really do at flea markets, but Phil found a Playstation 1 controller that he needed.  Phil thought they had animals, so we walked around looking for any they might have. We didn’t see any at first.  As we were just about to leave I saw a sign with pets written in red, pointing down a hall way. I think it was the one area we hadn’t looked before giving up.  Why does that always seem to happen?

I’ll give you this much:

It’s cute.

It’s furry.

It’s about 9 weeks old and weighs about 1 oz.

It isn’t native to South Carolina or any state for that matter.

I’ve wanted once since I first saw them at an exotic pet show at Jamil Temple years and years ago.

He makes the strangest, but cutest sounds ever.

He’s nocturnal by nature.

And his name is Quantum.

And for the record, this was totally Phil’s idea.  I just gave him permission.

Can you guess what it is?  I’ll take some pictures of him soon.  He’s a little scared right now, and I don’t want my camera to cause him any more stress. I imagine that when he gets acquainted with his surroundings – he is going to become a regular on this little blog.  I hope you all like him as much as Phil and I do.

PS My boss said that I just need to get married and have a baby.  Whereas I am sure that would help with the need to have something to love at all times,  human babies aren’t furry and they don’t purr.

It happened last night.  I dreamed in Chinese again.

For some reason, it sounds like something that I would say to a shrink.  And no, for the record, I do not have one.  Although, I am sure there are countless people out there who think I need one.  🙂  I’ll leave that discussion for another day.

The dream itself is rather fuzzy, but the little I can remember may amuse you.  I always ponder who all the yous are.  The stat counter Phil built says 50 some odd people come every day, some longer than others, but other than the few that leave comments on any sort of regular basis, I have no idea who they are, and if they care a wink about me.  I guess I never really will.  Oh, well.

So, yeah, I dreamed again in Chinese.  In this particular dream, I was at a big celebratory venue.  I am not sure if it was the New Year or if I was reliving a piece of the Olympics that I never witnessed in person, but it was big.  And there were lots and lots of fireworks.

The only reason I can remember that I was in this stadium like place was because it was also the start of new school year, and I was in charge of the freshman class.  I had to speak to them once the celebration came to a close – about what to expect and all that jazz.  This made me nervous in my dream just like it would have in real life.  I hate speaking in front of people.  How I managed to teach 30 some students nearly every day for a year is beyond me.  I guess I just got used to bull shitting on a regular basis.  🙂  (Yes, Mom, I just used the BS word!!)

As soon as the event was over, everyone started heading for the exits, all except for me.  Something distracted me and kept me back.  Well, before I knew it, everyone had left and I didn’t know which door to take.  I called up the stair wells, but no one could hear me.  I was too afraid of getting lost that I stayed there hoping I would figure out where to go, but my dream said I had to stay. Slowly, I noticed that my surrounding were changing.  It was getting darker, and the walls were turning into stone.  Lights on the walls turned into torches, and bars with electricity came down by the doors, keeping me from trying to run away.

I looked around and started noticing that there were some Americans chained up along the passage ways.  I ran over to them and begged them to tell me how to get out, but they wouldn’t unless I would unchain them.  One even handed me a key, but I told him I didn’t want to get in trouble.  I have no idea why a prisoner with a key would still be chained, but he was.  What can I say?  My dreams are weird.

At about that point, I heard some noise behind me.  The prisoner told me that I should hide, but I didn’t listen.  I ran to see who it was in hopes that they could help me.  The noise ended up being a line of freakish monsters.  The one in front looked like Skeletor from He-Man.  Behind him were some wickedly evil creatures that only my mind could create.  Insert you own creepy guys and you’ll know what I mean.

He looked almost exactly like this!

Well, since my dream was in China, the creepy guys had to speak Chinese.  This made everything super frustrating.  It is times like this I wish I had studied my Chinese a little more because I have no idea what they said to me.  It was all comptlete gibberish to me.  I’m sure they were saying something like, “How did you find our secret dungeon?” And, “We must kill you now.”  I just kept saying over in over in Chinese, “I am American.  I am a teacher.”  I added some “help me” in English, but they didn’t seem to care that much about my presence.

I was feeling pretty helpless, but for some reason I did not run.  I just kept standing there pleading with them hoping we’d finally be able to understand each other.

And then Phil’s snoring woke me up.

Part of me was greatful that I didn’t have to deal with Skeletor anymore, but I was mad that I wasn’t going to be able to find out what was going on.  I quickly closed my eyes and hoped that I’d be able to go back to the same dream like I am sometimes able to.

Fortunately, I was, but the interesting part of my dream was gone.  The little man operating my dream center hit the fast forward button.   I entered the dream looking over a lot of paperwork – all of the stuff I had missed while being stuck in a secret Chinese prison.   Hey, at least I didn’t have to speak to the freshman class.

I was going through the pictures on my computer and decided to post a few that have never made it on this little blog of mine before.  As you can tell by the dates on the pictures, they are all rather old.  I need to go through all of my China pictures and see if there are any interesting ones I forgot to post.  I’m sure there has to be a few.  Phil and I took something like 5,000 pictures.  And if there aren’t any more photos, I’m sure there are still a few blog worthy videos.  I’ll try to find some this weekend.

I’m anxious for spring to roll around again.

I love taking pictures of flowers for some strange reason.

I am pretty sure that this was taken at Swan Lake in Sumter.

Maybe I will go again this year – get their when more flowers are in bloom.

RIP Dopple

Dopple was my favorite orange cat ever.  He totally could have been a real life Garfield.

RIP Morgan Rose Ireland Yvette DeWitter

She was the best kitty ever!

RIP Thames

Thames talked with every step he took.  He was one strange kitty, but I still loved him.

I found this grasshopper behind One Eared Cow Glass several years ago.

He stayed on that stick just long enough for me to snap a picture of him.

I don’t even know what this is, but it’s scary!!

Anyone have any idea what this critter is called?

I don’t know if other people do it, but I sometimes dream in Chinese.

It started sometime after I arrived in China.  I thought it was pretty cool, even though I didn’t understand all that was being said.  When people would talk to me, I would respond to them like I would in real life – a few key phrases or words to try and explain what I needed or wanted them to know. My vocabulary has always been rather limited.

I always wondered why my mind didn’t pretend that I knew Chinese.  I guess it didn’t know how to fake the language.

Even after coming back to America, I still sometimes dream in Chinese.  It amazes me that in my sleep I can recall vocabulary words that I haven’t used in ages.  My most recent dream was rather entertaining, and I thought you would enjoy hearing about it – although I doubt you’ll find it as funny as I did.  I think it is hard to appreciate other people’s dreams because you lose so much in the explanation.  It’s like trying to turn a book into movie or vice versa.

In my dream, me, Phil, and Holy(our Chinese friend) were running away from some Chinese bad guys. We had been running for a long time, but the bad guys were still hot on our trail.  At some point we decide to hop on a train.  The train was headed to Hong Kong.  Well, once we boarded the train and left the station – my dream decided to go completely nuts.  The train, in its attempt to flee the bad guys, jumped the tracks and started traveling at very high speeds over mountains, valleys and streams.  It reminded me of a cartoon.  Somehow we managed to put some ground in between us and the bad guys and were able to rest for a while in our seats that I don’t remember paying for.

As the train started to pull into the Hong Kong station, we started gathering all of our stuff.  In real life, I probably would have been running from the bad guys with only the clothes on my back, but obviously, the same does not hold true for my dream life.  I had apparently crammed every single one of my possessions in numerous suitcases, pockets, and bags and had waited until the last moment to gather them back up.  This is not what I found funny though.  If anything, this part of my dream cause me panic and loads of stress.  What made me smile in my dream would have sent me into side splitting laughter in real life.

As the train pulled closer to a stop, I noticed that there were thousands and thousands of Chinese people waiting to board the train.  There were so many of them, that they had built stadium like seats in the station.  All of them were standing.  And of them were chanting.  Can you guess what they were chanting?  If you have ever been to China for any extended amount of time, you should probably be able to guess.

For some strange reason, every single last one of them was chanting “Jia you! Jia you! Jia you!”

For those of you who don’t know have any idea what “Jia you” means – there happens to be a YouTube video that will teach you all you need to know.  If my dream doesn’t make you giggle, the video should.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7uJ_ExULDw[/youtube]

I have no idea what happened once the train stopped because I woke up.  I can only imagine what would have happened had I stayed asleep and the dream continued.  All I know, is that it was the strangest dream I have had in Chinese yet.