The good, the bad, and the pee-er

So... our little bunny who has the potential to be all so cute, fluffy and lovely also has a bad side to him as well. We, lacking first the ability to sit down and think about our decision to purchase a rabbit and the responsibilities it would entail, also lacked the judgement about how to best raise and care for this little bunny.

We had read that rabbits can be house-trained. All one needs to do apparently is to use some newspaper that has been dipped in his pee and that will attract him to the same place to pee again. However, we did not have a "beeny proof cage." The cage that you can see above was in laughable condition to Benny. In just a few days, he could easily jump out of the cage in one clear jump. When we escalated to a much larger box. However, he would jump and claw himself up to the corner of it and hop out. Or, he would repeatedly try and hit the roof of the box until it caved in and would then allow him an escape.

Therefore, Benny won the first battle and was given free reign around the house. This proved to be disastrous and confusing for both Benny and us. We think that because he had so much territory to roam and constantly explore for food (as this rabbit never stops eating/looking) he just peed whenever and wherever. This includes as you can see... lisa's slippers, my nice leather briefcase that I bought, both of my jackets here, me twice, poop on my shoulder, and constant other places around the house.

This is why Lisa and I were ready to give this little sucker up for a new adoption! Haha. Yet, there are other days where he is great and a lot of fun to watch and play with, as when Lisa and I took him outside near our house to play and eat some wild food instead of eating us out of house and home.

(We also figured out that though he loves celery, he is definitely a CHINESE BUNNY, and if you read the last post, likes to share what he has with us. So therefore, celery makes him pee constantly. We had friends over last night and were playing Settlers (I came back from last place and won. Yay!) and he peed 3x's in like a span of 8 minutes. It's amazing to see how quickly and how much comes out of this little guy.

Also, he can poop a lot too. We have finally gotten him pretty much litter trained. Of course, we don't have a container. Just a cardboard box and newspaper, which we have to keep buying new supplies of. Lisa was laughing that some democrats may like the use of newspaper, as it had GW Bush on it, and was being used for his pee catcher.

He is a great fellow, but who would have known that a dog may have been easier than a bunny. I still like to pick him up and play with him, but it can be under constant fear of the next pee attack! Ha-ha!

Under-wear on the Flag Pole

It's interesting to think that in America one of the most embarrasing acts to do to somebody would be to take their private clothing and hang it up for everyone to see.

However, as you can obviously see... China does not adopt that philosphy! Haha. What's mine is yours is certainly the idea here.

This applies to things such as personal space: where the other day when the bus was so crowded that people were literally hanging out the door as the bus was taking off from a stop. And, because of the lack of space, I was definitely spooning with the person behind me. Haha.

Also, the what's mine is yours idea applies to eating and dining. They would like you to know what food they ate for lunch as the bones and other inedible food has been left for you in a nice, little pile on the table. It's just really strange to see people eat this way, where all of a sudden they just spit up the bones and other materials right onto the table.

However, I will admit that I have adopted this at times when I'm eating pork meat and then all of a sudden come to some real grisle or tough part of the meat that I can't eat. When Lisa and I bought some ground up pork meat for taco's, there definitely were about 7-8 times that I spit some of the meat up as I couldn't chew it.

I was pleased to hear last night that one of our Chinese friends here doesn't enjoy eating fish that much. He, like us, doesn't enjoy all of the sharp little bones getting caught in your throat and stabbing you. Glad to know that we are not the only ones.

Finally, I pity the people who have to clean out the desks in our classrooms. China just really is an interesting culture. It's not that we are better, it's just goes with the more indiviualistic nature. As you can see from the picture and the above observations, people just share and put their stuff everywhere. In class, they leave all of their trash and junk in the desks. They wait for someone else to come by and clean it up. I just haven't gotten used to the idea of dirty empty wrappers and have consumed drinks all in the desks.

People know that I'm not the cleanest person, but I do have a thing with food. I don't like food being left out too much, or to a point at least. But this idea of trash being left everywhere applies to the street also. People just throw their trash into these 2 feet high concrete squares with a high opening in the front, or right onto the street. By the end of the night, the refuse is pouring out from them. Someone then comes by and sweeps everything up.

Oh, and speaking of sweeping everything up... you know that the street sweeper is approaching because it plays the ice cream truck songs! Haha. We got a kick out of that as we heard it approach. Good thing there weren't any little American children with us, as instead of ice cream that would have been blasted by water to clean the dust off the street.

In conclusion, none of these things are bad as long as you don't let it get to you. I will admit that seeing not only clothes hanging from the BRANCHES OF TREES but also FISH, that I was a bit shocked. Yes, fish were hanging from tree branches to dry out I guess. Underneath a humongous rabbit in a cage that was waiting to you know what.... China...an interesting, adventure filled place. :) -Shane and Lisa

Basic Observations of China

I thought I'd like to do some basic observations, good and bad, just to record this thoughts of mine for anyone interested, and for myself. I will try to always balance the negative observation with a positive one, sometimes related, sometimes not. This will hopefully reveal my thoughts about my surroundings.

N: The electricity is rather unstable, sometimes going out, or only carrying a very small charge so you can't run very many things at once (like the heat and the fridge).
P: I am grateful to HAVE electricty so often. I am sure there are rurual areas that still don't have it.

N: People sometimes laugh at me because I don't understand their Chinese.
P: More often, people are very patient and try to help me. Lately the lady at the grocery store has been telling me the chinese names of the items Im buying. How kind!

N: Things are much more expensive than people think. Its a bit crazy.
P: We are used to managing our money, and given that we don't have to pay rent, we can still afford most things we need/ want. Probably in some ways we are "wealthier" than in the U.S. at least while we are living in China.

N: There are NO mexican restaurants in this city...not one.
P: I will appreciate Tex-Mex all the more when I return...and I can buy some ingredients to make my own Mexican at the foreign store.

N: The food is rather spicy and oily.
P: The food is salty (which I love) and cheap enough to eat out a lot.

N: I always have to go to the grocery store for fresh foods.
P: Yay fresh foods! And veggiesand fruits are cheaper here than in the U.S. Its good to et veggies.

N: Its challenging to do things without speaking Chinese.
P: We have been surrounded with so much help (foreigners and english speaking chinese), that the challenge of it is greatly diminished.

N: The weather here changes ALL the time. It crazy- even the students say so.
P: Makes life an adventure. Plus today all of a sudden it was warm enough to wear a t-shirt, in mid-november.

N: Our neighbors have loud chickens...and people set off fireworks at all hours ofevery day.
P: I love to see that glimpse of china (the chickens) as it probably once was. Hey- maybe he'll have us over for a chicken dinner:) mm...

N: Our apartment is actually colder than the outside- yes, no lie.
P: This has some advantages in the summer I suppose.

N: We live in a city, so there aren't too many rolling hills, etc. Certainly not my disney idea of China.
P: Going to the city at night always feels like 'going out' with all the lights and huge buildings. PLUS we have a lot more modern convenicnes than we would else were.

N: Public transportation is ridiculously crowded...you'd never believe the buses.
P: Public transporation is readily available and cheap. A blessing for sure.

N: We of course miss our friends and family from home.
P: We have made many wonderful friends, foreigners and chinese a like, that we will miss grateful.

N: The public smoking here is atrocious, absolutely absurd! Not to mention the pollution.
P: Unrelated- you can't beat a shorter work week. It definetely has its advantages. Shane and I sometimes feel like we are in college again, as we go to classes and often hang out with the college age students.

N: Sometimes students here are suprisingly immature, maybe the only child syndrome.
P: Students are generally much more respectful and also, they are immature in good ways. They aren't so 'knowledgeable' about violence and sex as Americans are- definetely good!

N: The clothes often don't fit me- I am too big. Or they just aren't my style.
P: The women dress modestly. What a breath of fresh air for everyone.

That is all for my basic observations for now. More to come!

Window of the World

This was called "Lover's Fingerprint Magpie Bridge." It was said that the Herd-boy and Weaving girl were permitted to meet only once a year, on each 7th day of the seventh lunar month (the chinese have two calendars, one regular and one following the lunar cycle), when a thousand magpies formed a bridge for them to pass over to the River of Heaven. On the 7th day of the 7th lunar month in 2004, there were 2,000 lovers who pressed their fingerprints down into these molds to form the brick bridge, showing true love. :)

So last week we had kind of a crazy schedule. There was supposed to be a sports meeting to be held on the weekend. However, as you know from my previous camping blog entry, it rained that entire week prior and weekend. Therefore, since it naturally became nice and sunny the day after my camping trip, the school decided to hold their sports event in the middle of the week: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Therefore, Lisa and I no longer had to teach on Tuesday. We decided to try and check out this amusement park that we had heard about called: The Window of the World./" Lisa and I really had a great time. It was nice to have a date together and to do something like this.

I found out that this is Changsha's most expensive project. Inside, you can find little miniturettes of various places, such as the Great Pyramids, London Bridge, Leaning Tower of Piza, Japanese Garden (life-size), the castle that Disneyworld was built after, and more. I tell you what though, it was very strange to walk around and see things like Red Square in a scale model that you could just walk up and climb on if you wanted.

Many of the actual rollercoasters and other rides were not open, so that kind of stunk, but we were able to do a lot of fun things there. It was definitely worth our one visit there though!

Camping with the Cows

Uploading images to this blog is somewhat weird, so I guess first you can see some pictures of a memorable hiking trip that I went on. Below is one of my friends that I have met here named Ian. He speaks very well due to the americanization influence of various bands and it's culture. Makes for interesting conversation too with his outlook on things. Hopefully our light can be seen and known in him. We also went to a small concert a couple of weeks ago. That was a funny time.

Last week one of my friends that I have met here asked me and Lisa if we wanted to go camping to a place called "Moon Island." It is given that name due to the cresent shaped island. As the picture above shows, it is a smallish valley with few trees. There is a large river on one side, and a small river on the other. However, as I was soon to find out that next morning, there are wild cows and even horses that freely roam this island! As I was trying to sleep that night I could hear the cows mooing. In the dark you don't know exactly how close they are, but the 1st picture above gives you an idea! Ha-ha.

The whole event though proved to be quite a debacle as I agreed to meet my friend the week before to buy some camping equipment. We had been told that tents and sleeping bags are not that expensive. However, when we went to the camping store, it was 500RMB for a tent, and 100-300RMB for a sleeping bag, and then you need a blanket, and so on. We tried to go to another store, but encountered the same problem. It looked as if this trip was going to cost about 800RMB!

Finally, we found out that we could just rent a tent. We still bought a sleeping bag, because after finding out that the winters get SO cold here that a girl we met from Minnesota/Wisconsin slept with full clothes, several blanket layers, and hot water bottles in her bed last winter, we decided it wouldn't be a bad idea. I just bought a cheapy one at Walmart, of which I was teased about while we were out there camping.

But, at this point, Lisa was not so interested in going. I had already now spent 3 full days trying to go around and find the stuff that we needed. Also, it had been POURING down rain for 3 days and the weather forecast didn't show anything different. So that day Lisa punked out, but to a guy... let's reassess the situation.

1. You have hiking and camping to an island in the pouring down rain and cold.

2. You have no hiking boots because the ones you bought don't quite fit your big feet. (It kind of stinks having big feet over here. That and the underwear over here is just laughable. Unless I wanted to buy a red speedo looking thing! Haha)

3. I didn't have time to really buy any real type food to eat. Just a lot of breads and protein from peanut butter, pistacios and peanuts. So, with all that in mind, I was definitely game for some adventure.

So, with all the said and done, I met my friend Ian, and began our long journey there. We must have been a strange sight trying to take a crowded bus with huge packs on in the pouring down rain. We we got the the last stop where we now had to begin walking, one of the other guys tried to put on the litte "booties" that you wear over your shoes to keep floors clean! Oh, and I forgot to mention that he had a pink umbrella with flowers that he was using. So.... you have three grown men with manly packs on, but bright blue booties on our feet, and a pink umbrella walking through this town. Haha.

We then came to this like mile stretch of just mud. We were walking along the bank of a river that had been pounded by rain and was under construction for I guess a road. So it was just orangish clay/ mud with puddles everywhere. I was wearing glasses for I thought for camping it would be better than contacts to sleep in. I could hardly see where I was going due to the rain coming into my face. Also, I had decided to wear some nylon type cargo pants. However, they don't have a belt, only a pretty much broken drawstring. That were already loose on me back home. But now with the weight I have lost here, plus having things in the pockets, and a heavy pack pushing down on the back of them, my pants kept falling down. I was in a hurry when Ian called to pick him up, so the belt that I grabbed also, does not go tight enough! So that was funny trying to walk with one hang holding my pants up through the mud and rain with a pack.

When we finally got there, all of our shoes became soaked after trying to reach this cool little house we saw there. My friend said that it must have been some sort of earth temple that a farmer built. But I was purposely walking at the end of the line so as to, (and correctly s0) find out where there was water. This of course being noticed whenever you hear a groan and an "Oh no!" as their step suddenly sinks and water comes rushing into their shoe! Ha-ha.

So, we were trying to approach this house looking building, thinking it would be cool to get out of rain. They stepped in a puddle and soaked thier feet, but at this point they were close to the house and didnt' care. I tried to go the long way around. After about 5-10 minutes of trying to find a way to reach them, they were just like: come on! and I ran through a big puddle. Not one minute later did my friend approach the house and say that we couldn't tent there because of all the rain! Arrgh...

So, we pitched out tent in a little round clearing. I was grateful for a patch of tall grass near us that I began clearning and using for bedding on top of the soaked grass to keep my drier. Of course, I had to laugh the next morning because it was this same long grass that I was so happy about that drew the cows late at night and early the next morning. There is nothing like being woken at night by a mooing cow and wondering how close it is. It's a good thing that I couldn't quite tell until the morning. Haha.

It was hard to sleep all cramped up. I had bought some foam padding that I slept on top of, but I couldn't quite stretch my legs out because literally, a small puddle had formed at the back of my tent. But, I had brought my I-pod and just listened to some great music and sermons. It really was a sweet time just laying there listening and growing from it all.

Around 1am, I prayed that God would have me fall asleep because I just couldn't sleep. I would turn on one side, and then the other. And mind you that we had decided to go to bed around 7pm! No lie! We were so tired from the hike that after we were in our somewhat dry tents and had dinner, we decided that it was too cold to go into the other persons tent to hang out. Plus the idea of a fire was ludicrous.

But anyways, He must have granted my request, because I like blacked out and don't remember ANYTHING after that. All I knew now was that it was morning. Haha!

I explored the island a little bit and then the next morning we just hung out and talked. It stopped raining for a few hours, in which we walked around the island a bit. On the way home, it began to rain again, but I just listened to another great sermon to keep my mind off of the aching shoulders. Was a good time though!

A Great Vision, a Longing for Home

I think its time for me to post, Shane usually does all the Blogs:) I believe it will be my experience in China to have this duel emotion- a great vision and passion to be here, and a desire also for the things of home: friends, family, food, and convenience.

So I decided these two pictures represent both. The picture on the left is Shane and I enjoying a real American meal (Steak, Mac and Cheese, and Green Beans) made possible by the lovely care packages my Mother and Jay have sent from the U.S. We are SO grateful. The picture on the right is from one of our "dates" a couple of weeks ago. Back when the weather was nice (sigh..) we took a walk along a river near our college. The setting sun (gorgeous even through the obviously smoggy sky), and our path provided a perfect view of the city in which we are living, teaching, and have a passion to help. We were able to pause from our walk to look out over the city and remember the many reasons why we have come, and to have great hope. These two months have been such an experience, I have learned so much. I am very glad to be here, especially now that things are really going in the direction we'd hoped. I am being more familiar and comfortable with the food here, and mom & jay's care packages have helped with some of the things we miss. (Jennifer- I"m on my last bag of Dove dark chocolate- what a blessing they have been). Perhaps now that I'm getting a bit used to the spice, I'll think American food is boring. Things are busier now for many reasons, good and ok. Shane was also asked by the college to teach two extra courses (four hours extra a week) which he volunteered to do, so his blog time is gone. This week, we had off on Tuesday and Wednesday for a special sports meeting (but you don't get to 'miss' school here, so now we teach Saturday and Sunday). I am continuing to practice Chinese, slowly but surely. I can order food and do some other basic things. I need a lot more practice. I am finding that I am enjoying alone time...those of you that know me well might be shocked. I have always said that I need little, "me" time, but here I've come to cherish those few hours when Shane has classes and I don't, to get things done, read the word, and do some cleaning. (I am always cleaning here...the dust is constant). Shane and I have started reading 'The Chronicles of Narnia" (we have all 7 books here) and that is a great way to spend some rare and precious alone time together. This week, on the Tuesday class was canceled, we also went to "window of the world", which has some rides but is more of a cultural exhibition- it has minitature models of the 7 wonders of the world, plus some other famous buildings (like the white house, etc). It was definetely interesting- and the signs had English! Shane and I have had a hair cut, as scary as that was to do with such poor Chinese skills, but they both turned out quite nicely:) Last week was Halloween, and we went to a Halloween party with our friend Cynthia, where they told ghost stories and had yummy food! We took a few students as well, so we had a good time. I hope we'll be able to post soon- Shane should upload some pictures from his camping trip this past weekend: He went all weekend with a couple of guys camping in the pouring ran- real 'man' stuff. So I'll let him do that blog. Much love to all our family and friends- keep in touch, come visit us, and be thinking of Benny- he's acting strangely. (Once I was afraid he'd die I wanted to keep him). Love, love, love!