The lion dance competition

I am glad I got this picture of Seantay because this is the perfect look of pure amazement that I was feeling. This was one of the coolest things we have been able to see!

Ok, I did a bad job at downloading these in a good order so just bare with me as I tell this little story. Then we will get to the competition. These little kids behind us we so cute and so we kept turning around to play with them. One time Katie was playing this game with them where she would hide behind the chair and pop up to scare them. Their reactions every time were so funny I was laughing really hard. So as I am laughing Seantay yells over to me. "Hey you guys are on the t.v.!" So I looked up at the big screen and there we were. Katie was hiding behind the chair and I am just laughing my butt off. I GOT ON THE BIG SCREEN! I have never been on the big screen at anything!

The competition was incredible! There is two guys underneath this costume and they have to do this routine on these poles. I couldn't believe the things they were doing! They would get on top of each other and do all this footwork from pole to pole. They would even do these cool jumps from pole to pole. I was so nervous for them the entire time I was letting out these involuntary screams. I am glad it was noisy in there. I would have been really annoying to everyone around me. IT WAS SO COOL! These pictures don't even do it justice.

Candice, me, Katie, Seantay and our Kung Fu teacher Spring. Spring is so good to us. We have been able to do Kungfu for the past 3 months, 3 times a week, for free. We have learned a lot. I really enjoy it. I especially love the kicking. I have come to a couple of conclusions about myself. I was born to be in the mountains and I was born to kick things. I can't get enough of either one. I miss the mountains so much. Ok, I have learned more about myself than that while I have been here...I promise!

Chinese night... karaoke style

This was a really fun night. It was so fun being able to get to know all the teachers more. It is hard to really get to talk to them or be around them at school. I was surprised at how much everyone opened up. YES! it is about time!

Chinese people love to go do karaoke. I was so excited that we finally got to go for chinese night. We know a couple of chinese songs so when ever one would come on we all would start screaming and jump up to sing. This is just one of those moments when we were all really excited.

Cute little Tina and Seantay. Tina is one of our coordinators. She and Candi teach us Chinese every monday, tuesday, wednesday, and friday. They are so good to us all the time. I am so grateful for all the hard work they put in for us to have a good experience here.

Aiki and Tina just doing their thing. You should have seen some of the dance moves that Aiki pulled out. She is quite the little dancer. I have a lot to learn.

Katie, Debbie and Annie. You gotta love that coke mixed with a bunch of spazes!

Coke a cola... our saving grace from the tea and alcoholic beverages. I wish I liked it because every time we go out with our friends they always make sure we have as much coke as we can drink.

Jasmine and Amy. These are two of the many people that I just wish I could talk to about more in depth things than "what do you like?" "I have this many people in my family." I hate being so limited! Jasmine is the lady over all the Chinese teachers and is an incredible lady. I am really lucky and get to be her chinese friend. And Amy is one of the great Chinese teachers for the little baby class.

The Rice Terraces

What is this?.... This is what we saw as we got out of the bus. We drove 4 hours to see these rice terraces but instead we drove 4 hours to see a cloud as Annie so realistically put it.

Luckily the clouds rolled out about an hour later. It was clear for the time we were there then as soon as we were getting on the bus the clouds were coming back in. We are so lucky!

The Rice Terraces. This was just one side of the mountain that was covered in them. It was quite the site to see.

Right when we got off the bus all these ladies flocked around us trying to sell us everything they had. This little lady wasn't as pushy but she stayed right by Debbie's side the whole 5 minutes we were there. She was so cute I just had to get a picture of her.

Oh, the animals we have held...

Check out our little crowd. When we were getting our pictures with these birds it felt like you were getting a photo shoot from a handful of Chinese people. Debbie and Annie actually got them to "Oo" and "Aw" with their posing skills.

A waterbuffalo...

Weird birds that were going to peck my eyes out at any moment.

A CAMEL! We wanted to have a ride on it's back but instead we got to hold the string. Oh well, we got to pet it so that should count I guess.

Monkeys! It was so cool to actually be able to hold a monkey. These monkeys were quite the posers. Their feet feel so weird. I was scared they were going to pee on me the whole time but I left without any pee stains on my clothes.

We all have this new goal to get pictures with as many animals as possible. We crossed a lot off the list this trip. We are still looking for a place that has elephants and baby tigers. Hopefully we can find them somewhere. However, as of right now I am pretty happy about the monkeys.

The bike ride to the mud caves

This Banyan tree is huge and incredily old. There are areas of the tree just covered in little red envelopes put up there by women with babies. When ever their little babies would cry at night they would go put the little red envelopes in the tree hoping that by doing this that their babies would sleep that night.

In front of the huge Banyan tree.

This is just another example of the beautiful mountains in Guilin. I couldn't help but feel like I was in a Dr. Suess book the whole time I was there.

We biked for most of the day. It was so nice to be in the middle of all these beautiful mountains and wide open spaces. I loved not being in a crazy city for one day.

Our Awesome Group!

Our group with some of our native coordinators. We have all become such good friends. Celina is on the left of me, Candi on the right, Cherrie and Eden are in the hole... We are missing Tina, Kari, and Linthy. They teach us Chinese every day and help us with anything that we need. They are lifesavers!

On Monday we all went over to the park to take a bunch of pictures because it was Tiann's last day. This is our full group from left to right... Seantay, Kate, Tiann, Annie, me, Debbie, Candice, and Katie.

This is a picture of all of the kids we teach and the Chinese teachers.

After opening when all the kids found out Tiann was leaving they all rushed over to give her hugs. Half of the kids were crying all day because they were so sad she was leaving. We are going to miss her.

Sanya

I WENT SURFING!

Lindsey, Kate, Mandy Amy and Emily. We were just waiting in the van for our surf instructor to get over his drug high so we could go back home. He was a funny man.

SURFING! This was definitely the highlight of the trip. We drove for two hours to this pretty beach where the waves were bigger and there weren't any people. We surfed all day. It would have been the best day of my life if I hadn't been sick. I would have gone out so much more. It was still a blast.

Jeanette, Debbie, Katie, me, Annie and Kate just enjoying ourselves on the beach.

There was a guy just walking up and down the beach with this alligator. The last day Katie stopped him and forked out the money to get a few pictures with him. One by one we all got the courage to do it. He loved us because he got a lot of money from us and it gave him some good publicity. BAH! I KISSED AN ALLIGATOR! My excuse is that I was sick... I wasn't in my right mind.