YEAH!!!!!

I'm home!! I can also do my blog by myself. Since I was in China, the country blocks certain and a lot of websites, so I had to send an email to my mom in order to post an entry. Now, I can do it via the actual website.

The last few days have been going pretty well I haven't been too tired but my body isn't really on Minnesota time yet because this morning I woke up at 3:30 am, which in China is only about 4 in the afternoon. Its getting a little frustrating but it's so hard not being able to take a nap! For this post I'm going to try to add some photos, but I don't know how that will turn out seeing how I haven't put pictures on here before.

I have lots of things to say but I have to go for right know.

Carly

Leaving Liping

I just wanted to write a quick entry before I leave for Beijing for a day and a half. We're going to Beijing to see the Great Wall and The Temple of Heaven. We get to stay at the Yosemite Club Hotel, which is really nice.

We leave for Minnesota on Thursday morning and get to Minnesota Thursday morning!! I don't like that at all!!:~)

Well I need to spend the last half hour with the kids.
Hope to see everyone soon.

Time is winding down!

Its hard to say but I only have 3 more days with Jake and Monica. Were leaving on Tuesday to go to Beijing for 2 days. We get to stay at a really nice hotel and we get a personal driver that will wait for us when we go to the Great Wall and places like that.

The last few days have been very repetitive. Creed and I have been going to the number one high school just down the road for his Chinese lessons. Creed plays games and talks in Chinese for an hour and then he gets to go to Andrew's high school art class and then gets to paint for another hour.

The other day on our way back from the high school Creed and I got some fried rice. You're probably wondering how I, who doesn't speak any Chinese, ordered the food. A couple days before Jake wrote a card for me to order something out on the street and this was my first time using it. When we went up to the stand I think that they were pretty nervous about a foreigner coming up to them. Once I showed them my card everything was fine. We got the rice and they made it through a terrifying experience.

Well I need to start getting ready to go out to eat. I might be posting my next blog entry in America!! Even though I am sad to leave I am excited to be in my own bed!!

Carly

My new friends

Felisha and I


Lilly, Piao and I

Hayley and I

Haley, Lilly and I

Lilly and Felisha

Photos from the past few days

Under the Natural Bridge. So pretty!










A hole in the wall under the Natural Bridge













The walls of the Dragon Caves
















The city of Liping from the mountain top











Catching water drops from under the Natural Bridge

Dragon Caves, Crazy Bridges and Noodles for Breakfast

Wow, yesterday was the busiest day so far. My new friend Lilly came and picked me up at 8 o'clock and we went to a noodle shop for breakfast, which was kind of weird for me to eat something that I would eat for lunch or dinner. After we ate, we went to Lilly's friends house to pick up Haley and her sister. From there we went to the bus station and got on a bus that we took for about 45 minutes to our first stop.

Our first stop was about 15 minutes from the main road that we got dropped off on, so we walked that little bit to the Red Army Bridge. The bridge is 70 meters long and 3 meters (in feet... 230' x 10') wide and is SO scary!! The planks of wood aren't even nailed to the stays and the planks of wood bend and move a lot.

Haley's sister has a friend that lives in the village, and her brother has a wooden boat that we got to ride in just down the river and back. After the boat ride, Haley walked us around the village just to look around. After we left the village we got a motorcycle ride to the Natural Bridge, which was only about 20 minutes away by motorcycle or car.

The walk to the natural bridge was very pretty. We walked through a bamboo forest and just a "regular tree"forest. (All of this, by the way, is up and down stone stairs.) The walk took about 30 minutes because we had to go UP stairs the whole way. Once we got to the bridge we walked down a whole bunch of stairs to the river that runs under the bridge. We played there for 25 minutes of so. When we left we took these really old looking stairs. It turned out that it led to a small river and there was a path to some rice paddies across the river. Haley and her sister ended up carrying Lilly and me across the river!!! It was just one of those things that was just really, really funny.

Once we got back on to the path we walked for about 10 minutes to the road where we waited for a bus to come and pick us up to take us to the Dragon Caves. The caves were really cool. The only thing that was really both strange and funny was that it was lighted up by neon lights. I can't really explain what they looked like and my camera couldn't take good pictures because the lights were so weird.

From the caves we took a small van that belonged to Haley's brother-in-law, which was nice because then we didn't have to ride a public bus. The funny things was, was that we were waiting for a bus to take us back when Haley's brother-in-law just drove by so she called him and he turned around and came back and picked us up. We got to Haley's house and Lilly and I took a taxi back to Jake and Monica's. Once we got back Lilly and I collasped onto the couch and took a rest before she had to leave.

To summarize our transportation today, I rode: a bus, a boat, a motorcycle, a girl, a van and a taxi!

Today I babysat the kids because Monica woke up and couldn't really move her neck or shoulder, but know tonight she already feels a lot better.

Tired but excited for what is to come.:)
Photos coming soon!
Carly

Comments and contact

Hello again,

My mom changed my blog settings so that anyone can now leave a comment on a post (click 'comment' below the post). Mom will send your comments on to me, but you can also just email me at ceocon16@gmail.com.

I can't access this blog from here, but I CAN do email and I'd love to hear from you.

More about my latest adventure soon...

Hey everyone!!

Sorry its been a couple of days since my last post. We have been a little busy because school has started again for Jake so Monica and the kids are home.

About 2 days ago we were invited to dinner, but not just any kind of dinner-- it was like the Chinese Thanksgiving. Its called the Mid-Autumn Festival and they celebrate the good harvest that they had during the year. So we ate good food that night and had a fun time trying to communicate with people who don't speak any English.:)

Today(which is the 6th of October), I went out with a couple of Jake and Monica's friends who are around my age. There names are Lilly and Felisha. First we went to Nonchen Mountain, which is one of the very pretty views in Liping. You can also see all of Liping from the very top. Something that is funny to me is that at the top is the city's TV center building.

After we came down from the mountain we went to the city's "Old Town". "Old Town" is basically a street that is a mile long that has shops packed together in old houses. After we walked down the street we went to a dumpling restaurant, which was sooooo good. It was a little wierd because EVERYBODY was looking and staring at me.

After lunch, we went to go buy a cell phone for Felisha's father. So, the day was very fun and exciting and tomorrow I will go with Lilly to the "Dragon Caves" and then to her friend's house in another village about 30 to 45 minutes away.

I'll post some more pictures soon,
Hope you enjoy!!
Carly

This is Felisha and I near a rice paddy in her village.





Walking along the dikes in the ride paddys. See the stacks of dried stalks in the background

This is harvested rice drying in the sun.

After harvesting, the stalks are bound and stood up to dry.

Be sure to notice how PRETTY it is in the country!

The next picture is a house in Lotuan Village. Pretty cool place!!

Finally some photos

My mom finally got to download, resize and upload photos of the food we ate at lunch at Felisha's. It was SO good.

Tell your local chinese takeout place I said 'You're Welcome!!'.

I'll post more later,

Carly

Zucchini

Cooked rice

Spicy beans and peppers

Carrots

Sour beans and peppers and Cauliflower

A visit to a Dong Village

Hello!!

Sorry it's been a while but we haven't been doing very much so I didn't think it made sense to say "Well I can't tell you very much cause we haven't been doing anything." It just sounds bad!!

Anyways, yesterday was awesome. The name of the people group who live in this area of China is "Dong". They say it as "gum". In May of 2008's National Geographic, Amy Tan (a famous author) wrote a long article about DiMin Village, which is very near to Liping. It is much like a Dong village we visited yesterday to see one of Monica's friends. The village is called Lutuan (it sounds like Lootwan), and is just off the road so we didn't have to do alot of walking. We spent the whole day there eating and hiking which was amazing!!

I have finally have pictures to share with you so you can see what we ate and where we were hiking. I tried to send them to my mom, but she can't get big photo files, so I'll resize them and resend them. She'll post them as soon as she can.

At around 1 o'clock we had our 1st meal. We had cooked carrots with garlic, green beans with hot peppers, cooked califlower, zuchinni with a little bit of hot peppers, sour green beens with hot peppers and pork, tofu or dofu soup, bean sprout soup and of course, lots of rice. After we ate, Monica, Felisha, Chloe, Creed and myself went on a walk to see if anybody was cutting rice but nobody was out so we just kept on going. We ended up walking to the Flower Bridge, which is about 1 and a half miles from Felisha's house. When we were walking to the Bridge we were walking on dikes in between the rice paddies for at least half a mile of more. Once we got to the Bridge we played in the water for a while and there were these really pretty dragonflies that I tried to take pictures of and I got a picture but it isn't very good but I'll put it in anyways.

So after we took our walk Felisha wanted to feed us again!!! Remember it's only about 4 o'clock and we had already eaten at 1. This 2nd lunch was mostly a repeat of the first, but we also had cooked onions which were very good. At around 5:15 we left her house and took a small van back to Liping. The road is this windy mountain road and we were going as fast as we possibly could go saftly. The ride is probably an hour long ride, we got back to Liping in 35 minutes!!! It was a little scary. And I hope the pictures are sutible enough to look at:)

I'll write more again soon,

Carly