Ningbo Trip Nov 19-20

Class trip to Ningbo

Xikou city in Ningbo is the old hometown of Jiang Jie shi (Chiang Kai-Shek), the generalissimo of the Nationalist party from 1928 to 1948, opposite to Mao's communist party.

We went to see his old house, his family & relatives houses and we saw 'Mi Lo Da Fo' (The giant gold big Buddha in the picture. Mi Lo Fo in Chinese is the Buddha to come, 'the kindly one', who is a principal figure in all Buddhism)

We also crossed the World's Longest Sea Bridge in China - which connects Shanghai and Ningbo. The bridge runs 32.4 km (20.1 miles). It took more than 3 years to complete this bridge and it opened last year.

It was so cold on the first day......... on top of the mountain...but beautiful scenery of the moutains and the waterfall though.

The second day was quite warm... :) but I was so tired so no pictures today.

French Fly and Flied Chicken

I went to a Japanese restaurant in Shanghai

and it said:

French Fly

and

Flied Chicken

right next to each other...

mmmmmmmmmmmmm

Michiaki's Place

New friends from Shanghai

We hung out at Michiaki's place because his parents went to Australia for a business trip.

4 of us are classmates, and others were friends from Australia, Scottland, Columbia and Korea, Japan. Erik was the only "official" American. hehe

We ate dinner and played Wii, darts etc. I had sushi for dinner and I came down with a bad stomachache.......... :(

Chinese Jamaican Raggae Rapper at Church

Some pictures I took this morning on our way to Church!

I met a Chinese Raggae Rapper and his girlfriend (who is a great singer) at small group today.

ahhh the picture is too small..........

but apparantly he told me he is the ONLY Chinese rapper who does the Jamaican style raggae rapping. He has his own CD and all that. He tells me his music is underground. Really neat!

I love meeting people from different backgrounds. They are so interesting. Really unique brother and sister! I wonder if he will compose music for His glory. That'll be super cool.

IKEA!!!

Erik and I went to IKEA yesterday evening - because I had to buy a french press (sadly I left mine back in the States............sniff)

And while we were there, we went to their dining area and ordered Swedish meat balls (mmm the gravy and the lingonberry sauce taste the same whichever IKEA you go - not sure about the meatballs though...)

SO MUCH FUN at Ikea... I never knew IKEA was so much fun...

It's scary sometimes what MNCs and big corporations can do to your brain... because I have happy family memories associated with IKEA while growing up in Singapore.

Our family used to go there to shop, or to eat their Swedish meatballs and Salmon puddings, and on our way home mom & dad bought me and my sister a bag of DAIM (chocolate covered caramel noughats).

I found the exact same things in Shanghai that I remember growing up with. AHHH -

Shanghai has everything! I love this city.

Japanese Food and No Halloween

Our Chinese language class had a dinner this Friday (on Halloween)

My class has 2 French, 2 Americans, 2 Vietnamese, 2 Mongolians (who I rarely see them in class) and 1 Australian (I see this guy sometimes) and 1 Spanish guy (who's Chinese is really good)

and everyone else is Korean and Japanese! (we have 28 students)

We went to a Japanese restaurant and if you pay 158RMB (about 22~23 US dollars) you order unlimited food and drinks! It's kind of like a buffet but you order it from the a la carte menu! Anything! Until you can't eat no more. The food was really good! Not bad/cheap buffet food.

It was fun to interact with them outside of the classroom

I got to get to know them better too!

(one Japanese guy brought a milk cow suit! haha -)