November in Review

Here's November in review.

Not much video this month.  Features a "holy walk" around the town, and Thanksgiving/Hanukkah.  Also, there's about 30 seconds of just a black screen.  Sorry.  This video was about to become a November and December in review, since it's already the middle of December, so I just wanted to post it.

September in Review

Here's a video compiled from last month's events...or anytime I remembered to bring a camera. Footage includes a trip to a village, Bathing Festival (where all the locals go to the river to bathe or wash their clothes), ultimate frisbee, frisbee golf, soccer, and other random clips. 

A lot of jumpy video this time. Just close your eyes, and the spinning should stop.

Picnic, the real post

So Aaron said I would post about our picnic....so here it goes:

The local people where we live love to picnic.  It's one of their favorite past times.  I can (and did) get behind that.  So when a friend from out of town came to visit, we decided to treat her to an authentic experience.

Aaron already included a few of the pictures from our picnic, so here are a few more you didn't get to see.

this is what a picnic looks like y'all.

guy in the front is filming a hip hop video.  guy on the left is doing the classic "girl at a ____" pose.
See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDpX1X4uBO0 for the reference

Pretty much our local friends don't like pictures where everyone is smiling -  so this picture and the picture in an earlier post where Aaron is looking awfully girly, are what happened.  Also, Aaron's pose is a classic Chinese pose.

The Climb Up Mt. Fuji

Aaron had never even thought about climbing Mt. Fuji until I surprised him saying that on our way back to China, we were going to stop in Japan to climb it.

Most tourists start the climb up Mt. Fuji more than half way to the top.  There are 10 stations on Mt. Fuji (each station has resting areas and hostels to stay in), and most people start from station 5.

I should have known what I was getting into when I told Aaron we were hiking Fuji....Aaron doesn't consider starting halfway up actually climbing Mt. Fuji. So we started from before station 1, in the town closest to Mt. Fuji.

A non-snow capped Mt. Fuji from the nearest town

The start of the trail for us began at a Buddhist temple

He's ready to go.

We left the town around 10:15, and made it to station 8 where we spent the night (just a few hours) by 7:30pm.  Then we got up at 2:30 to make the last little hike up to the very top to watch the sunrise.

We got to the top around 3:30am and the sun was starting to rise.  We still had about an hour left from this picture.

The line of people hiking up Fuji
all of those lights are the head lamps of the people climbing the volcano

They play the Japanese National Anthem when the sunrises

trying to get a picture with the sunrise in the background

the crater of the volcano behind us

It was a hard hike for me.  We climbed from around 2,000ft to 12,388ft at the summit.  But it was worth it in the end.  And now I completely understand the popular saying about Mt. Fuji: 

"He who climbs Mout Fuji once is a wise man; he who climbs it twice is a fool."

Whoever said that must have started from where we started.

Nihom - Tokyo City and the Tokyo Dome

We spent two days in Tokyo, and two days getting to Mt. Fuji, hiking it, then coming back to Tokyo.  It was a lot of fun to be in Japan, but Aaron left pretty much convinced he never wanted to go back to Tokyo.  So I'm glad we went at least this one time :)

the city from a viewing tower

The world's busiest fish market was closed the day we went....so we took a picture and called it a day.

Yakitori under the train tracks.

Lonely Planet Tokyo told us that there were a lot of yakitori (meat grilled on a stick, like a kabob) stalls under this one train station - so we went there hoping to find a lot of places to choose from....after an hour or so of walking, we finally stumbled upon one.  Lonely Planet also told us that yakitori was cheap.  Double lies.  It was delicious when we finally ate it, a few hours after normal lunch.

Ask this guy what he thinks of Tokyo and he'll tell you hot.
And confusing.  And that we're never going again.

A must see in Tokyo:  Baseball in the Tokyo Dome

In our seats ready for the game.  

In Japan, they love baseball.  When you go to a baseball game, it's like going to a college sporting event in the states.  Each baseball team has it's own cheering section, complete with a band.  When their team is up to bat, the band plays, and the crowd cheers the whole time.  It went crazy in the dome when someone hit a home run for the home team.  This was definitely one of my favorite things we did and the tickets were only $10!  Cheap date.

Take me out the ball game, take me out the crowd,
Buy me some peanuts and sushi?

Iced Coffee from Krispy Kreme before we head back to China.  Yes, please.

Crazy Doughnut Eyes picture in another Asian City.  Yes, please.

the grill is always a crowd pleaser

During our recent Oktoberfest party with the foreign students we celebrated by grilling sausages, steaks... and rice.

Celebrating the Middle of Autumn.

This past week was China's National Holiday during which most offices and schools get a week off for vacation.  It just so happened that right at the beginning of the week long holiday (of which our school got 3 days - Saturday, Sunday, and Monday), the fullest the moon will ever be during the year happened (also known as Mid-Autumn Festival).  To celebrate Mid-Autumn festival the foreign students at our university decided to throw a little party, potluck style.  It turns out more than 50% of the students are vegetarians.

Our teachers, snacking first....the one on the right is really into it
(she's our favorite, by the way)

The students jumping in.  There are 27 foreign students.  Most are from Japan.
The left side and center tables are vegetarian, the right side - meat.

Marie (German student) and me

Aaron and Stowe, one of the English teachers at our "Uni,"
as the aussies and kiwis say

ya suspect

We must've been looking a little too long and hard into the neighboring complex causing them to wonder what we would do, because the neighboring complex put up barbed wire around the wall that separates us from them.


Either that, or our complex decided we are in general a danger to society and we may try to escape the complex they have made to contain us.


It makes the gray skies feel even grayer.  Plus - those tree branches up there are next door's delicious fig tree.  How are we supposed to steal figs anymore?

Our friend Graham came to visit us for a week!  It was a whirlwind of a trip.  In the week he was here he spent only two nights at our apartment, ascended to 17,000+ ft, fled a oncoming blizzard at Everest Base Camp, ate Tibetan, Indian, Nepali, Taiwanese fast food, and Chinese, rode around in a Land Cruiser, picked up a hitch hiking nun.....the list goes on.


Unfortunately I don't have pictures to cover all of the things above - but here are a few pictures to get us started. 

Meet Graham

His album drops soon.

 Locals

The Girls

 The Boys

The Boys with Locals

The Land

Everest

The boys survived a blizzard at Base Camp....only they left before the blizzard started.  They FLED a blizzard at base camp.  Not many people can say that. 

Below is an artist's rendering of what it would have looked like if Everest wasn't being bombarded by snow.  She's a beaut, Clark, a real beaut.

Artist's Rendering

Also, please note - it took me forever to do that. If we had something like photoshop or even paint, that would have taken no time.....but i had to turn the picture into a pdf, then download onto another website, then embed into the blog.  phew.

Thank you, Eliza

Eliza introduced us to this  - both to Robyn and to the SNL version of Robyn.


Hilarious.

本地人 （locals）

we've been here a while, and it's starting to show.  remember that sausage hanging outside that i posted a while back?  well, guess what?

we have some hanging outside of our window.


the family that sells us vegetables gave us some as a gift when i went to see them the other day.  the sausage still needed to dry some, so it's been hanging out of our window the last few days.


in the province we live in, locals like to walk around in their pajamas outside.  their pajamas are generally a thick matching quilted set, that look quite warm, yet still quite tacky.  well, guess what?

  
Aaron and I got some pajamas the other day.  ours weren't quilted and really thick like the locals, they were just fleece awesomeness.  Unfortunately, the size that aaron bought was too short and too tight in certain areas (let's just say he very likely could've been arrested if he ever went out in them).  we bought these pajamas to wear to a new years party...and when one of our Chinese friends came to spend the night with us.....and later this week when we fly to see Josh and Danielle for a night on our way to Thailand.....and to wear to the airport to pick up our friend Graham when he comes to visit in February.  There were just so many good times to be had in those pajamas.  But, alas, Aaron had already bought the largest size ( XXL) and there's no going up from there.


so we returned them.....but not before we had a photo shoot (it's the model in us, i guess...)

It's winter, y'all!

that was said in my best Oprah/Paula Dean/Maya Rudolph being Oprah.

This is how you know it's winter around these parts:

sausage, and other raw meats get hung out to dry.

Merry Christmas, y'all!