Tuesday was Lynn's birthday! Wayne told us in class on Monday that it was her birthday Tuesday and that he was going to be gone the whole day, so she'd be by herself. Therefore, being the loving students that we are, we planned a surprise party. We ordered a cake from the bakery nearby and told Lynn that we had some questions so we wanted to go to her house. She replied saying that she'd rather just come to the school, which was perfect for us! Asian cakes usually have a lot of fruit on them and are absolutely gorgeous!
The cake came in this giant container. People here sure do know how to make things fancy!
I think the most exciting thing that has happened so far this week is that I am now apart of the CNU ping pong club! Me and a few friends went to go play ping pong for a little bit and during one of our games had a few Chinese students come and ask us to join their club. Me and Jeongsoo (he's from Korea) agreed and right away they wanted to film us saying "Ping pong qiu shi huan ying ni!/乒乓求社欢迎你" Meaning: Ping pong club welcomes you! They were going to show their other Chinese classmates so that more people would join the club. We're meeting every Thursday and Sunday night from 6:30 - 8:30 and I couldn't be more excited!
Today we went to a Daoist temple called White Cloud. This is the only temple that has not been destroyed/parts of it destroyed through the changes in government. It is still functioning - we saw some people worshipping there while we were visiting today.
This is where monks or people waiting to be ordained stay. Rooms like this are lined all along the sides of the middle buildings.
Candles and incense were being burned outside the temple buildings.
People were rubbing the dragon heads on this as they walked through the temple - probably for good luck.
Bad English is my favorite.
This is in a gift shop...why people are putting money on statues in here I have no idea. It makes sense for people to be doing it in the worship/venerating buildings, but the gift shop? We said that if we bought one we'd pick the statue with the most money on it.
Today was a smoggy day. Can you see the sun in this picture? It's there, I promise.
This is one of my favorite places here - Mumu! It's really close to our school and has the best smoothies, coffee, and just drinks in general. It is a bit pricey, but it's a nice place to go to just sip on something and use their excellent wifi. It's rustic looking inside and has cow decorations everywhere. It's just plain adorable.
This weekend we're going to Beidai - a resort city by the sea! We were told that if same resort as last time is reserved that we'll be staying at a place that is actually for retired communist party officials. Needless to say we're all super excited to go!
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