Christmas is Coming!

Perhaps it's spending the past four years living at college and coming home for visits that makes living on the other side of the planet easier? Whatever it is, I expected this time of year to be harder for me, I expected soul crushing home sickness. Yet I feel fine, I feel excited! I have an awesome group of friends with whom I'll be spending Christmas with.

My Awesome Friends

Plus for the very first time, I have my own Christmas tree which I just finished decorating. Don't judge the decorations too much, remember I'm in China, not too much variety here.

My First Christmas Tree

My wonderful tree! It will be strange waking up on Christams morning in my apartment all alone, but I know I won't be the only one and with the comfort of my friends I'm positive we will make some Christmas memories we will never forget :-)

Plus, I've already decided what my Christmas present to myself is, a five-week backpacking trip through Southern China! Yay for long holidays.

Travel Plans for Vacation

The green line is our backpacking trip, the red line is our flight back (we don't have enough time to backpack the whole thing).

Happy Late Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving in China was much more difficult than I expected. I'm used to large family gatherings at my Aunt's house, not teaching three classes. Luckily I have some awesome friends that made being away from home much easier.

In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving I got to teach all students about it, we even made hand turkeys! That's what they are all holding in the pictures!

It was fun being able to share my favorite holiday with people who had never experienced it before.

However the part that really made my Thanksgiving was being able to spend it with some great friends. As Thanksgiving is not a holiday in China we all had to work, so we had two Thanksgivings. The first one on Thanksgiving its self we went out to eat, the second the Sunday after Thanksgiving we cooked!

Western food on Thanksgiving!

Homemade Thanksgiving Baoding Style

This Thanksgiving I was thankful for the amazing group of friends I have here. Although I might not be able to spend my holidays with my blood family, I get to spend my holidays with my China family :-)

Happy Thanksgiving from China!

Mistakes

This past weekend was supposed to be awesome, a group of us traveled to Shanghai to see my best friend before he went back to the USA.

The trip started off with a train adventure from our "small city" to the great metropolis of Shanghai. Seventeen hours, two trains, a trip to a sex shop, and a strange baiju filled meal later; we were standing in front of Shanghai Railway station.

The trip started out great! After losing ourselves in the depths of a Shanghai black market we went out for a great dinner with the MCLA-ers of Shanghai. I'd post pictures to show our awesome treasures, but too many are USA bound for presents. So instead here are a picture of my awesome new shoes. 

Our second day started great as well, we found the Yuyuan Gardens after a long search. We spend time at a famous Shanghai tea house. Life was good.

That's when things started to take a turn for the worst; a trip to the brewery gone bad. I remember beer, Long Island Ice Teas, shots of SoCo, and being really happy. Then I woke up.

Drunk me said somethings that hurt people I care about. I don't know what I said, I don't know what I was thinking when I said them, but I know that I am so sorry and ashamed for hurting the people I care about. Most of all I really hope that one day we will all be able to see past this.