Friendship Gardens

I planted about 15 trees today, all of which contributed to Zhongshan's own "Friendship Garden". It is Friendship Day. We met at the stadium this morning with about 75 other foreignors in the Guangdong Province. The Mayor of the city was there with a number of other leadership figures and there was a big ceremony. The vice-mayor gave a speech. It was very nice. Apparantly Zhongshan city has been trying to open its borders to foreignors and make it an international city which I think is such a great thing. We first went to the tree planting ceremony and toured the park. That was followed by lunch.

Lunch was a new experience today. Up to this point, I have been brave with food and I have not been too disgusted or disappointed. My stomach has handled things quite well, but today... my stomach was having a really hard time with everything. Even things I have tried in the past at restaurants. I took one look at things and just felt queezy. So strange. I tried the chicken feet, because I tried it and really didn't like it before but today when they brought them out I felt like I needed to give them a second chance because they are such a big thing here. So. I did, and it did not go well. We had pigeon as well. And pigeon is what Zhongshan is known for, it is a delicasy. We've had it before but today they served it, as the whole pigeon. Head, eyes, face, beak... the whole little things staring up at you. I took a picture. I will post it soon. Anyway, today was a fun day. We met a lot of new people. It was strange carrying on conversations with others that spoke your language, or being able to evesdrop and understand, or having to watch what you say because everyone else understands you. Something we've not been used to the past little while :)


Group picture at lunch


Chicken feet. Mmmmmm.


Pigeon heads


For the Friendship garden ceremony, we were each given a balloon and once they cut the string and the speeches were finshed, we all let them go! It was fun.


Speeches!

When we returned, at around 5 o'clock, half of our group went to dinner with a few of the other bond teachers we met today, a couple went home, and I went to the kindergarten. Unfortunately, we are switching our SPE's this next week and I am going from Kitchen to Drama. Yesterday when I was preparing my lessons, I was really struggling and didn't get anywhere with my plans so I decided to go to the school today and try to focus and get them done. It was nice to be alone for a little while though. It was such a lovely evening, and the walks to the school and back to the bus stop were so nice.

I was thinking on the bus today. Someone said something that triggered something in my mind about home and a plethara of childhood memories just bombarded my thoughts. I thought about being home, and growing up with my brothers and sisters, and I missed it. Like a lot. I miss passing notes during sacrament meetings, and singing opera when the notes were unreachable. I miss pulling weeds on Saturday mornings with the country music cranked, "She thinks my tractors sexy...da da da da da. It really turns her o-o-on!” Kenny Chesney baby. Mmmmm. I miss mud pools in the flower beds, and running around in the sprinklers. I miss little Jordan singing really loud, or doing things just to bug us because that's what little brothers do. I don't know. I was thinking about that today and how I would love to just go back to that... and just be a young kid again and hang out with my awesome brothers and sisters all day everyday. All the time. :) It was fun to think about. Wo ai wo de jia!