Well, May seem like forever ago! As I was choosing the pictures for this blog I was reminded of what a whirlwind of a month May was!!! From Teaching to Friends to New Sisters in Him...It was an amazing time of see the hand of the father(I will write a blog just about the real changes in my life that took place in May but for now I will give the overview:-))
I was invited to attend a special presentation with the Mayor of Wuhan dedicated to foreigners living in Wuhan. He was very kind and 2 other teachers at my University also attended the special day.
This is Nathan, he was a teacher at the University this year and became like a brother to me...I will miss him very much next year! We were at the Marco Polo Hotel for the Foreign Presentation by the Mayor. It is the nicest Hotel in Wuhan...very fancy!!
This is Jeffrey! He was my student and is moving to Canada to study in the fall! He became a good friend and hung out with us many times this year!
My friend Karen(in the Middle) is the PE teacher and Music teacher at the International School in Wuhan. She had her choir concert this night and I got to play the Piano to accompany her as she performed a song for her students and their parents:-) Liping and I love hanging out with her:-)
On Youth Day, Another foreign teacher and I were given an award for teaching!! It was such an honor:-) We are with LiJing, our Waiban.
At the University there are many gates guards....This guy just happen to have the job of standing guard at the award presentation. When I came out he smiled very big and congratulated me...then he asked if we could have a picture together...He is one of my favorite gate Guards:-)
The University treated the English teachers to a 2 day trip to a small town a few hours outside of Wuhan. We had a very interesting time...I rode one of these cable cars up the mountain! But first I waited in line for 4 HOURS:-(
And when I say line I really mean I waited in this mob of people...there were fights and crazy things that happened the whole time. Grown people pushing and shoving and yelling...WOW
But when I finally got to the top it was beautiful! The mountain was covered in Azaleas!!!
Some of the other English teachers and me!
We were so far out of Wuhan that we actually could see the sun set over the mountains without if covered by pollution! I was thrilled:-)
This is one of my favorite English Teachers, Peter, and he is also like my small boss...not the big boss but he is awesome:-)
This is all the foreign teachers that went on the trip and 2 of our bosses!
Well, when there are lots of friends there are lots of Birthdays;-) This was Donna's Birthday! She is the amazing wife of our small grp leader. She is an angel from the Father:-)
This is Mark and Fang...it was also their birthdays...we celebrated at Aloha:-) Black was the color of the evening:-)
After our last English Corner my basketball/sports class surprised me at the Diversity Club and ALL came!!! It was so much fun...most of them can't speak much or any english so they just sat around me and looked at me:-) lol it was awesome...I am going to miss these kids soooooo much!!!!
Sunshine sang a song for me at the end:-) It was so sweet:-)
These are some of my favorite girls:-) One of these girls is a new sister:-) I had such a great time getting to know them all!!! We had a great time at Mr. Mai's!!!
This is Eva and her daughter Ellie! They invited me to spend the day with them and it was great!!! Eva is also a teacher at Jianghan and her sweet little daughter is learning English..we had fun speaking together!!
Some of my friends and I were in a local "Battle of the Bands" competition in Wuhan!!! It was so much fun! from left to right-Taylor, Me, Nathan and Kirk!
This is the view from the judges table....one of our friends took the picture! The guys sang a Chinese song and it was raining the whole time....I don't know if you can see the boy behind me holding the umbrella:-) He was also holding my mic....it was crazy and fun! We passed to the next level!!! We actually made it all the way to the finals but since the guys had to go back to the states before the performance we didn't get to play....but oh well....it was a blast:-)
After we all had dinner with our friends for Kirk's Birthday!!!!
So May was full of Badmidden in Wuhan!!! I actually got very involved in the competition and went to 3 of the days of the competition!
Karen and I snuck around to the back entrance after the girls competition and got to have our picture with the Taiwan team!!! These girls were awesome! It was about 1am:-)
This is Bruce and Angela...they became my sweet friends this year. They Graduated and left school this day..I was so sad to say goodbye but it will not be forever...we will be friends forever:-) They told me I will be the Gan Ma(which is like Godmother) of their babies:-) This pretty much made my day:-) I can't wait!!!
The Best Gift EVER!!!! Nate and Rhea came to visit me in Wuhan!!!!! I was beyond excited to see these two:-)
The first night they were here we went out for Kirk's birthday:-)
Day 2 we visited the open market and had chinese breakfast!!!! Jiao zi and Re Gan Mian:-) Wuhan specialties!!!
We went to the woman's finals for the badmidden Competition!!!
This little cutie and I matched with our face painting so we took a picture:-)
It was an amazing game and China WON!!!!!
I had to take them to the crazy market and we took the bus to get the full experience:-)
This was a very sad day...I made a mistake and bought the wrong tickets for our flight to Beijing...So, thankfully they gave us a new ticket, for a price:-( But the horrible part was that Rhea got on the first flight and Nate and I had to wait in Wuhan for 4hours for our flight:-(
But we found this adorable baby to play with:-)
When we arrived in Beijing I had arranged a car to pick us up and take us to the Great Wall!!! This was in the cable car on the way up....haha...Nate wasn't too sure;-)
This was how he felt when we got to the top...lol Love the sign in the back!
We could not have been blessed with a more beautiful day at the Wall!!! No people and clear skys!!!! A miracle!
This was my second time to the wall and it was even more amazing the second time! Probably because I was there with my besties!
I left my mark on the Great Wall:-)
Rhea and I had a great time sporting our new shoes as we climbed!!
And it wouldn't be China with out a China moment...as we left the Wall we drove by some camels...ha
After we left the Wall we went to our hostel but we passed The Mao building:-)
This was our awesome driver! He was such a blessing to us!
Can't go to Beijing and not have Beijing Duck!!! It was delicious!
This was our super cool hostel!
A very happy Rhea and I after we went shopping at the "Pearl Market"!!! there are some pretty cool gifts inside those bags:-)
Next we jumped on our super high speed train and headed to Shanghai!!!
This was my first time on this kind of train and I loved it! The outside kinda looked like a space shuttle...maybe that had something to do with it:-)
We stayed at the most amazing Hotel in Shanghai!!! It was close to the airport so Than and Rhea could get to the their flight the next day and I got to relax there after they left before my flight back to Wuhan. i can't even begin to express how amazing it was to have 5 short days with these 2!!! I almost feel like it was a dream...but I Thank the Father for them and their friendship!!!
