Friends that came to visit!!

Was so excited!! Two friends came and visited!! It was so much fun getting to show them around my city, seeing my life, and meeting my friends!!

Anthony, Sarah, and I

Temple of Heaven in Beijing

Great Wall!

The Cube!! Olympic Site!!

Riding in the taxi! (all taxis have bars in them)

The little car we took to go see the pandas

Terracotta Soldiers

Sarah and Anthony excited to find a bike shop! (they're some serious cyclists)

Anthony and Ma arm wrestling... I'll let you ask Anthony who won

Meeting Big Momma and her family

Hanging out with friends and family

Met up with some of my friends and went to the Great Mosque

Sarah, Anthony, and I


The Drum Tower

The Wall on the right surrounds my city

Where you can ride bikes on top of the Wall

Yummy food!!

Hanging out in a park

A really crowded subway

Riding through town

Small cars that we ride

Sarah and I representing USF on Hua Shan Mountain

Sarah and I at the entrance of my market

Downtown on the streets - awesome fried rice

A night with the kiddos making pizza!

Had the kiddos over for dinner! They were so excited to come over and help make pizza!

We put them to work!

Helping wash dishes

Home cooked pizza!

Fun times!

All cuddled up with Momma Rach

Things I love to do:

Some of my favorite things to do:

-Hanging out with friends
-Studying Chinese

-Finding interesting things (this guy was selling cleaning supplies off the back of his bike, while riding through town)

-Riding in crowded types of transportation (subways, buses, taxis, etc) -Exploring my city
-Going to class
-Riding my bicycle

-Finding fun things in the market

-Walking around in the evenings

-Eating this for breakfast - its a thick mixture of tofu, red beans, rice, millet, and probably other stuff (but its really good)!

-Hanging out with these two! I love my roommates!

-Going to the villages

-Eating a spicy bowl of noodles
-Finding new restaurants to eat at

-Hanging out with the kiddos

-Hanging out in Hui Men Jie (Muslim section in my city)

-Cooking (hunting down and translating ingredients into Chinese) and even trying to find out if they are in this country

-Getting my haircut (they give you a head and shoulder massage during it)
-Playing basketball and soccer

Hanging out with Rach and Sean

-Eating crazy things

-Getting packages (and hunting them down in the city - sometimes its brought to the door, but if we're not home then we get a slip, and then have to try and guess where the package is at any of the 4 different post offices we know in this part of town, track it down... and hope the carrier (who rides a bike) doesn't still have it when we visit the post office (when their out riding). I won't complain about ever getting packages because I love receiving them, its just always an adventure getting them sometimes

-Getting packages (especially from my mom) -this is the one from X-Mas where she sent us all goodies!

-Visiting friends and their families in their hometowns

-Finding new ways to stay warm during the winter

-Eating rice dishes

-Reading

-Finding new flavors of popsicles (corn, green pea, red bean, etc)

-Continuously hearing fireworks (which are lit for weddings, funerals, and store openings)
-The constant sound of construction


This is only a small list of things, I'm sure there are a few forgotten ones. However, this is a little taste of what I experience - I love it!