Beijing without work.

After a long and hard journey back to Beijing, with a throwing up/crying 5 year old on an airplane by myself, I made it. I AM FINALLY BACK! One month of taking care of this kid by myself was just too much and sent me a little bit overboard I must admit. But here I am back with my friends and my own bed :) A very odd thing occurred the morning after we got home, sad actually. I walk out into the living room to see Feini and Jerry sitting on the couch. Feini was supposed to be at work early that day so I was very confused. This is the conversation:

Feini: Lucy, can you please take out the dog? I'm afraid that he will pee in the house.
Me: Of course!
Feini: Oh, and can you hurry? My mother died.
Me: uh ummm oh uhhh ya okay.
Me: *runs out door with dog*

So, there wasn't a better way to bring up that heartbreaking news? Now her and Jerry are back in Quanzhou taking care of things and I am alone with the nanny in the house. I'm not kidding, the minute my host dad and Jerry left the house I took off my pants and started running around screaming. Haha I hadn't had a moment alone for over a month - it was a big deal....

My moments of Beijing without working:

Valentine's Day was spent alone, in a cafe, reading and eating a whole pizza.

Lets just say I should be a bargainer for a living.

I was walking to meet up with Linda at a mall and was suddenly tapped on the shoulder. I looked over to see a Chinese guy with the biggest smile across his face just staring at me. I was expecting him to want a picture but instead he said so enthusiastically, "It is so nice to meet you!" I just kept looking at him not really knowing what to do and he continued, "Can I speak English with you?" haha so he starts asking me all of the usual questions when you meet someone - why are you here? How old are you? Blah blah blah.... but then things get serious and he turns to me and says, "I am very sad. I love living in Beijing because I live with my friends and family but I am very sad because I have two job offers." My reaction was how could you be sad that you have two different job offers? I would be pretty excited about that. So we get to talking about it more and it ends up he got a degree in the UK for architecture but absolutely hates it. And he got a job offer at an architecture business and at a bank. First of all Chinese people all want to be bankers. Very well paid and automatically put in a good social class. Second of all they don't think outside of the box with "if you don't want to be an architect then don't be an architect." If they major in something then that is what they are supposed to end up doing.

 After all of his explaining is done he stops walking, turns to me, and says, "Lucy, I need you to tell me what to do." By the tone of his voice I knew he was completely serious. I looked at him and said, "Jay, I know I'm only 19 years old, but something that I have discovered in life is we find things that we think we love, and it doesn't work out; we end up not loving them. But that is okay because we can turn around and find something else we love! I think it is so awesome that you went out and got an education and it sucks that you ended up not enjoying what you studied, but you still went out and got your degree. The thing is when I wake up in 10 years and have to go to work every morning, I don't want to be miserable doing it. I want to do something that I enjoy and like doing! So my advice to you is - just because you got your degree in architecture doesn't mean you have to do that. If you want to be a banker, be a banker." When I looked back at him I thought I saw tears forming in his eyes. All he could get out was, "Thank you, so much." It was such a tender moment. Here I am giving a 32 year old this advice that maybe any of us would think is completely common sense, but it was the first time anyone had told him to do what he loves.

Linda came and slept over. We got hungry in the middle of the night of course and ran to McDonalds. We weren't sure if it closed at 12 and had exactly 20 minutes to get there. I ended up climbing a fence, Linda couldn't get over, ran along the side of her trying to get out, came across some sketches and finally made it. The second we found out it was still open we started jumping and screaming. I never thought I would be so excited to eat at McDonalds. I became a true American and had my first BigMac ever. Ya, they aren't good.....

xoxo

Quanzhou, Ziamen & Piano Island.

First things first, only way to survive in Quanzhou, China - 

1) Don’t look inside the food after you've taken a bite 
and 
2) Don’t ask what it is.

I have eaten the most bazaar things the past two weeks. And since it is Spring Festival they are bringing out the big guns…. Chicken feet, slugs, snails (which surprisingly aren’t bad at all), pig veins, you name it. And those are just the things I’ve asked about. The rest, too gruesome. One of them is literally what you find in a child’s nightmare. I couldn’t get myself to eat it let alone really look at it. I sat there and watched one of the aunts eat it for like 10 minutes. She looked over at me half way through and started cracking up because my jaw was wide open and I had the most disgusted look on my face. 

Clams are very good

Chicken foot and the child's nightmare.

pig veins

no clue....

this dinner was actually awesome

and this is what a cloud tastes like. so good!

It has been rough here. No play, all work. And it’s 60 degrees outside! I just want to go explore on my own without anyone yelling at me. Yesterday I was able to go out with my host mom, her sister, husband, Jerry and Emma (the newest babe I've been taking care of). We went to a completely different city called Xiamen which has a beach! Sadly instead of spending the day on the beach we went from home to home saying happy new year to relatives, friends, random people…. haha we ended up stopping at about 17 different houses. Some of them are quick hellos and get out of there as fast as you can, but some of these Chinese people are really good at trapping you in the second you enter through the door. It all goes the exact same - “Who is this blonde girl? Please sit down! Here is this huge box of candy for the children, please eat all of it! Drink our tea! Drink more tea. Okay now here is some more……… (then a bunch of conversing that I don’t know) Let me get you some more tea (this whole tea thing isn’t very good for a girl with the smallest bladder known to man) Okay before you leave drink some more tea really quick. Okay bye! Happy New Year!”

And that is what I went through all day long. Haha but get this, I found a candy that I like! It’s Chinese but tastes like a starburst and laffytaffy mixed together. So all day I smuggled as many of those as I could whenever everyones heads were turned. 

After the visitations were done we got in a boat and went to Piano Island. My host mom said during Spring Festival is a terrible time to go because there are so many people, and boy was she right. Took a couple pictures with people here and there, carried my babies around, the usual, but it was actually really awesome! Some very beautiful scenery that I wish I could have spent the whole day walking around and looking at. And I got to be right by the ocean :) 

Emma, aka the cutest thing on Earth

Xiamen city

This line was fun to wait in....

Dinner was weirrrrrrrd. We met up at this restaurant with a bunch of people I don’t know that spoke English. First time I’ve wished that someone didn't speak English…. They were so rude! And is it weird that I get offended when someone asks me if I need a fork and spoon? Haha 4 months ago I would have been asking for one myself, but now since I am pretty much a pro I feel like I’m being made fun of almost. Like, “haha stupid American can’t use chopsticks.” K hold on, I use chopsticks better then some Chinese people thank you very much. My ego is not my amigo… Anyway, later on in the meal I randomly got this feeling of, hmmmm lets use the word content. Yes, content is a good word for it. As I was looking around watching all of these Chinese people slurp up this disgusting food in a disgusting way I realized that they all have this cute way about them. Every single one of them had something so beautiful about them. So as one of the moms was opening and closing her mouth with the baby that she was feeding like it would make her child open it’s mouth, as one of the Children were screaming Cinderella at me, as one of the nannies was lecturing me that all Americans are fat, and as one of the men that I strongly disliked was making rude remarks at my Chinese, I was happy. 

Fast forward to today.

More visiting home, more tea, more small talk, more people laughing at me whenever I speak Chinese. I don't know why they do so much! I don't know if it's a "we are laughing because it's so cute when you speak it" or if it's a "wow, you are dumb and need to stop." So thanks to them I am too self conscious to speak...... BUT GUESS WHAT? We went to the beach today! Only for like 10 minutes but I was so giddy. 

"oh hey there cutie" (the ocean)

just chilling with the babe.

Then I got mad and threw him in.

k but not really... xoxo