School's OUT

Merry Crisis and a Happy New Year

I found that outside a store at Wanda. School is official done for me. Today is students' finals and then they blow this popsicle joint and bust out of here. I am following suit, taking on Beijing and Xian and maybe other fun places with Nikki and Dionne the next few weeks.

Wouldn't be surviving and thriving without my fellow American homeys :)

Here we are at Starbucks at Wanda. we drew enough attention that word got
around the mall we were at Starbucks and we were offered jobs to teach English
at an after school program. Just being foreign we get random job offers a lot.

Here's an artistic picture of me and Nancy.
By artistic I mean I terrible.

My favorite Chinese person, Nancy, told us about an awesome sale on tickets to Beijing. Since most people work there but don't live there, everyone leaves the city for the holiday leaving super cheap tickets to travel to Beijing. Thank ya Nancy!

Now on to just some things that I have found at the mall and around Wenzhou:

This is a hat you can buy at like their version of a Limited Too,
a store with so much sparkle and gawdiness for pre-teens.
Does anyone remember Limited Toos?
I thought that store was so cool when I was in middle school.

This churro place was legit! Mexico would be proud.

The other day I went to an old shopping road called Wumanjie (I don't think that's how you spell it...) anyways, it's a cool place with some neat shops. I bought fire engine red boots. And I love them.

This is a little wall thing, I have no clue what or why it is, but it sure looks interesting.

And the other night, a nice big group of us expats went out for Nikki's birthday and we have discovered our new favorite hang-out, Dansen Pub. We are usually the only foreigners but it is always fun. Last week Breckon and I sang for everyone. They really liked that haaa

This was everyone after we sang haa

One of my favorite parts of that night was that a group of Chinese guys came up to us and one of them was talking in Spanish! He wanted to talk but didn't know English, so he was asking around who could talk to him in Spanish, and I was all:

And I had a real conversation! I felt so awesome! I forgot how it feels to actually communicate with some one in another language and not do charades, haa. He is only the second person I've met in a city of 9 million that spoke Spanish. It felt good. I feel pretty stupid here sometimes, but being able to talk to him was a nice reminder that I'm not completely incompetent.

This is the lie I tell myself everyday in China....haaa

Anyways, I'm excited to get out of Wenzhou and be in a touristy part of China. And see other foreigners! I'll probably be overwhelmed when I hear English or any other language. I already get all Chinese when I see a foreigner once in a blue moon here.

To explain it better:
The cookies are other foreigners
And I am Cookie Monster

Because when every time you leave your apartment people stare at you like this:

Or follow you around in the grocery store like this:

Or give you these reactions when they see your face:

"Why...why...why are you here..."

...I sometimes forget that there are other people out in the world that look like me. So yay! I look forward to a month off and more exploring :)

I'M GOING ON A TRIP!