Schoolsss out for Summa!!!!

For those of you who don't know, because I am in China, I actually missed my graduation ceremony in College Station, Texas. I have to admit there was a little bit of sadness when I woke up Aug 11th and realized I would have no special recognition that day. But then, of course my coworkers went beyond what was expected of them and surprised me with a cake. As you can see, this isn't just any cake. It is special because it was from Queen's Cake Shop, a bakery they only have in the Guangdong Province and one that Phil and I walk past everyday with mouths watering. We can't understand why it isnt in america bc it looks very western. It would fit right in with a starbucks and ikea in a shopping center. Everything is so fresh and made with real fruit. This cake was awesome!

Work: Done & Done

SO it is the last day of work and Phil and I just presented. It went great. But now, "I feel like I'm in a glass case of emotion!" For those of you who are not up to date on the recent goofy movies, that is a quote from one called Anchorman. Back to my emotions. I am so sad to be leaving this place and its people. I am basically in love with my host family and the people at work have done so much for me. I feel like I am leaving in such a rush that I am unable to show them any thanks. They have been giving and giving this whole time and now I just leave in a hurry, very ungrateful. Hopefully I will remain in contact with them via email.

We conducted our closing interviews and reviewed comments from our supervisors. They are very flattering and I feel really good about the whole internship.

Tomorrow we leave for Xian which makes me very excited (but not totally over shadowing the sadness). BUT, Xian is one of the most popular cities in China for site seeing bc it was actually the original capital before Beijing. I guess you could call it the Philadelphia of China! Plus, it will be really nice to be able to relax with no work to do.

So on top of all of this, the thought of being home is creeping up on me and I am so anxious to get back and see you all.

Oh, and we might be going out with our French friends after dinner with co-workers, whoo hoo!

One more thing, I posted a picture of me doing what I did most in China, eatin some food! This was yesterday, the day before our presentation and it was the only time during the entire internship we ate lunch in the office. We ordered in or as they call it, (take lunch box). "Will you take lunch box today?" Those are fish balls and rice noodles from our favorite Hong Kong style tea house. Just thought you would want to see me and all my beauty.

It has been almost two weeks since I went to Hong Kong and it has flown by. My co-workers have continued to be so generous and I have really gotten closer to my family. Last Thurs our co-workers told us at lunch that they had activities planned for after work. They always do this, plan these cool activities and then not tell us until 4 hours before. But of course we don't want to miss anything and even if we did, we wouldn't know how to tell them! So, afterwork we went to dinner with them. We ate in a private room, like we often do when we have a larger group. Phil and I road with Sue (our favorite at work, she is too good to us) and Mr. Lang (he is a driver and is a fun old man) and we met Chapman(our boss who showed us around HK) and Jenny (another girl we work with) at the restaurant. After we were seated, Chapman (or Chap-nasty! as I call him, its his street name, hehe) busted out a bottle of white wine. Now this is not like the white wine is America...a little less sweet, a little more rubbing alcohol taste! Seriously, this stuff is stout! You drink it out of cups 1/2 the size of our shot glasses. And they always like to cheers and everyone downs it. It singe the nostrils!!!! And tears were coming down my eyes after the first shot...yeah, they made me drink 4 more!!! Phil had like 8! I couldn't believe, I was sitting at the table with these two tiny Chinese woman and they were throwin em back like men and I wanted to throw mine over my shoulder! But after dinner, they took us bowling so you can imagine how fun that was. Just fyi, the bowling alley is the first thing that is exactly the same as in the US I lost to Phil two games in a row so that kinda killed my buzz, I hate loosing but I still got him in badminton and ping pong!!!!

On Friday night we went out with this French guy we met. His name is Fredrick. His parents were both born in China but moved to France to open a Chinese restaurant, funny huh. He was born in France and speaks good enlish and pretty good mandarin. He is hear living at the same University I live at and is doing a language study abroad to get better at madarin. We went out to eat with him and then out to a club and bar on the Pearl River. The Pearl River is beautiful because it is lit with so many animated neon lights from the buildings. The club we went to was really chic and it kind of reminded me of something that would be in downtown Dallas or even NYC. It had a dj that played really good American music. There is a dice game on all the tables at the bars that everyone plays. I think it is kind of a drinking game, looks like yahtzee to me. So we were there for a while and then went to a more laid back bar. It had a huge outside patio where we sat and listened to a girl play the guitar. And don't worry, she definitely sand "My Heart Will Go On" and Fred and Phil were trying to get me to get up and to a duet with her. A little Karaoke flashback if you will. We got home pretty late that night but it sure was fun!

The next day, I went to eat dim sum brunch with my host family. It was soooo good. Dim Sum is just a type of meal that people usually have for brunch. There are over 2000 different dim sum dishes. They are prepared in small portions and the waiters push them around and you pick what you want. There are many dumplings and sweet desserts to choose from. After that, Xiao Rong wanted me to go with her to get her hair cut. I ended up cutting mine too! It was such a weird/good experience. In China, it is standard in all salons for the washing to last atleast 20 minutes. So you lay on this fully reclined chair and they message your head and shampoo it. My hair guy didn't speak any English but he did a good job!

Ok, my last advernture concerns cooking. My host family taught me how to make dumplings! I cannot tell you how cool that was. I came home from work and they had all the stuff and i video taped a lot of it so I could remember. They tasted so good and aren't that hard, well, kinda hard. When I get back, maybe I could make some for you!!!!!

This is on Lan Tau Island, a small island of Hong Kong. This is the largest Buddha statue in the entire world and it is on top of a mountain. We took the most scary ride to the top, turning corners 90 miles an hour with buses passing on the inside. If you look in the bottom left corner you can see me with my hand up.

Here we are eating the fruit called dorian. It is sooo good and when people find out I like it they can't believe it. It is just one of the things I am going to really miss from China. There are some better pics of it posted on my yahoo album.

This is Tran Chu and she is so fun. We are at the top of Victoria's Peak in Hong Kong. I am trying to get all of these pics up on yahoo but it takes over six hours to get 30 uploaded and I have hundreds!!! I have added a few more albums but still lots to go. The link is a few blogs down if you want to check em out!

This is the Jumbo Restruant we ate dim sum at. We set outside and it floats on the sea.

HONG KONG part two

I have to make a quick summary of the rest of my Hong Kong trip because I will be home in ten days and I have a lot more adventures to write about. The next two days in Hong Kong were so fast paced and busy that we could have taken an entire week to cover what we did. We woke up on Sat morning and tried to change our departing ticket to a later time on Sunday. We ended up having to come back Sunday morning to do that. So after that we met Tran at her hotel and off we were. Like I said, Tran travels all over the world for her work. She got her undergrad from TAMU in chemistry, a masters in information/operations systems from U of H and her MBA in accounting from UT. She speaks three languages and is working on a fourth. Some might call her SMART. Now besides all of the grey matter in her head she is also so fun and had so much energy that Phillip and I could barely keep up!!! But we were so glad she came because she had an entire schedule planned out and was glad to have people with her. She is 31 but you would think she is 25 and she said it was nice to have people who actually wanted to site see with her. Normally, her co-workers just sit at the hotel. (Phillip and I said that is probably what we would have done if we didn't meet up with her.)

So, the first place we went to was Victoria's Peak and rode the steepest tram in the world up to the top. From the top you could see the entire harbor and it was awesome. After that, we went to a Buddhist temple where we had our fortunes read. He told me about my future career and it was pretty good although I was disappointed when he didn't mention me marrying Brad Pitt but hey, can't win em all. After the temple we ate at a huge restaurant floating on the water called Jumbo and it is famous for its dim sum (which is a type of brunch where waiters push around carts with small portions and you pick what you want, there are usually hundreds of options). After relaxing lunch on the balcony of the Jumbo, we headed to a beach called Repulse Bay. Here there were giant statues of Buddha and dragons and more that were made out of ceramic tile. We got our feet wet in the ocean and then headed for Stanley market!!! It was another out door market that was just flipping amazing. About a half a mile of nothing but small stores that sold everything from cashmere sweaters to wooden carvings. I bought some pretty things there of course.

We left Stanley market and headed for the electronics market where there was store after store of cellphones, mp3 players, cameras, computers, etc... It was never ending and I took a picture of my camera with my camera. Except this one was half the price of the one I own!!! Oh, well. Ok, I know this is getting boring and I am sorry but I just have to write all of it down for the sake of remembering it for myself! Next we headed back to Temple St. Where we were the night before and this time I did some actual shopping. We shopped for about hour and a half before we had to race back to Tran's hotel to see the laser show from the bay. It was crazy because all of the big sky scrapers have lasers on the top and there lights coordinate to music. The area we watched this from also happened to be the Hong Kong hall of fame sidewalk where famous people got stars. I took a pic with my hands in Jackie Chan's prints. We took a cab to the fish market where we got to pick out our dinner and have them cook it in a restaurant down the street. We had two lobsters, a crab, 6 razor clams, a fish, a fish head soup, a vegetable, and beer all for under $100 U.S. It was amazing. After that we went and grabbed some fruit at the fruit market and this is where I ate some more dorian, which is a very popular fruit in China. People say you either love it or you hate it and most people hate it! I of course, love it!!! When my host family found out, they said I must be part Chinese!

Ok, this is getting too long. After dinner, we went back to Temple St, where I really tore it up on the shopping! My mom would be so proud. And then, when I thought I couldn't do anything else, we went to the new bar district that is supposedly the hot spot in Hong Kong. It was! There were so many bars and clubs and people were everywhere. A lot of Europeans. Well, the moral of the story is, we stayed out until 3am and woke up to check out of our hotel at 6! On Sunday we saw Macau island and Lantau Island which I loved. Lan Tau has the largest Buddha statue in the world!!! Sorry this is soooo long, I just love Hong Kong!!!!!!!!!!

HONG KONG part one

This entry has to be two parts because there is so much to tell! But honestly, I don't even have the energy to explain how much fun I had in Hong Kong but I will do my best.

SO, I am back from Hong Kong and I have pretty much decided I want to move there!!! I was looking forward to this visit but I was not expecting it to be this fun. Phillip and I left from our work around 12:30 on Friday and our co-worker dropped us off at the train station. I had never been on a train before and I really liked it. Nice and roomy and it went by fast. The ride was two hours to Kowloon (which is the part of Hong Kong on mainland China). Chapman, our boss, picked us up from the train station because he arrived the night before. He is from Hong Kong and goes back every weekend. He had also bought us a bus pass with 100 H.K. dollars as a welcome gift. So we road a double decker bus to our hotel! Because HK was originally a British colony, they still drive on the left side of the road, have double decker buses, and all learn English with a British accent. So, we take the tunnel under the ocean to Hong Kong island and we get off at a bus stop by our hotel. As soon as I step off the bus stop I am blown away by how many people there are and how fast paced it is. And I love it! We walk to our hotel that is about 1/4 away and we pass 3 malls on the way!!! You can imagine my excitement. We get checked in and have a couple of hours to walk around the block until Chapman will meet back up with us for dinner. We stayed at the Excelsior hotel which was very nice and expensive. We thought it would be a nice change from the mats and no airconditioning but we shouldn't have spent the money because we were only there for about 8 hours the entire weekend!

Chapman met back up with us about 7. We took the trolley to the seaside and from there we took the fairy across to the Kowloon side. There, we just walked around a little bit and saw some really amazing building. Oh, I forgot to say, the trolley was sooo cool. It was dark by then and all of the streets were lit up with bright lights and there were just people everywhere. It was like Time Square in NYC but never ending!! Also, if you stuck your arm out of the trolley it would get knocked off by other passing trolleys, they passed that close. And the trolleys were decorated with very upscale adds. There are some pictures of them in my Hong Kong album which I am trying to get loaded ASAP. So, the fairy was just as cool because you could see all of the building lit up and I got some great pictures of that. After walking around for a bit, we decided to head back to HK island for dinner. Chapman took us to this little hole in the wall that is famous for its spicy crab and it was out of this world!!! It was not more than 20 feet across and maybe 50 feet deep and it was so crowded. The three of us were seated at a table with 4 women who were regulars. I am not even going to be able to explain how good the food was so I will just skip that but we also got a free dessert bc we were sitting with these ladies. It was a sweet red bean soup and it was good!

After dinner, I thought I was going to burst (which would soon become the trend of the weekend as you will see). Chapman suggested we visit an outside market called Ladies Lane (the name was derived from the large number of hookers who use to frequent it back in the day, now it is not like that). I had heard a little about it but didn't really know exactly. OMG, it is like shopping heaven. I am getting goose bumps right now just thinking about it!! But, before we go there, we meet up with a friend first. He name is Tran Chu. She is actually the Aggie that noticed my ring in the Tokyo airport. We exchanged contact info in hopes of meeting up for some site seeing in Beijing. She has been in China as long as we have for business. She does internal audit for a company in Houston and travels all over the world. Basically any country you name, she has been to. She is very very energetic and spunky but we will talk more about that later.

So, we meet up with her at the Renaissance hotel and all four of us go to ladies lane. Here, we spend about an hour walking through passing stand after stand of stuff. They had everything from shoes, to bags, to belts, to picture frames to jade and there was sooo much stuff I wanted, but I held out ( I made up for it the next day!) and we ended up getting to the hotel about 1 :30am. I couldn't go to sleep because I was sooo excited so about Hong Kong. I finally fell asleep around 3 only to get up at 7! Ok, this is the end of my first entry about HK and it looks like this might be a three parter.

Crystal and I after 4 1/2 hours of singing!

This is Crystal, the sweet receptionist at our office. She does everything for Phil and me. She could use a biscuit or two though.

This is my karaoke group, we were gettin down!!

This week is flying by. I think this can be attributed to the fact we have not been in the office much this week. Mostly driving around to visit sites. And the fact that I am going to Hong Kong this weekend so I am focused on that. There has been one event this week that deserves addressing and that is my Karaoke adventure.

So my bosses announce on Tues. That we will attend karaoke after work. Phil and I have talked to some people about it and we know it is a popular past time but we don't really get exactly what it's all about. We soon discovered that the U. S. Idea of karaoke pails in comparison to the grand event it is taken for in China. We leave work and arrive at the karaoke place at about 6:30. It is called KTV and it looks like one of the grand casino hotels you would find on the Las Vegas strip. When we walked inside, it resembled the hotel lobby of one. It had thee stories and was soo decorated very flashy and expensive looking. At this point, Phillip and I are just looking at each other, trying to figure out what is going on. So Sue gets us a room and we get up to the third floor. When we get out, the hallway is lined with lights and mirrors. I will try to post a pic on my blog but I am not sure if it will work. So we go into our personal room, which looks like a VIP lounge at some swanky LA club. It has a huge flat screen with a remote and two little tvs to choose songs from. We order our food, because of course you eat while you do karaoke, and the fun begins.

Now, what Phillip and I had been wondering about this whole karaoke thing was, do these people do it to be fun and silly, or are they actually serious. Turns out, its the second. KARAOKE IS SERIOUS! So even though nobody in our party of seven could sing decently, we all sat with straight faces or encouraging smiles. This is probably the cruelest form of torture I can think of. I had to get up and go into our private bathroom a couple of times in order to avoid offending someone.

Of course the first song they pic for me to sing in "my heart will go on" by celine dion. I swear I am not making this up, they picked the Titanic song. Luckily, my 50 something co-worker who sits in the back of the office always has this song on repeat during the day. And when I can't hear him snoring, I usually can hear him singing this so the words were fresh in my head. Other songs they had us sing were Whitney Houston "the greatest love" and "I'm saving on my love for you", several songs by the carpenters, who were apparently a big hit in China, Miss American pie, and many songs from artists who couldn't make it in America but were huge in Hong Kong. They did songs in Chinese, except for Chapman, who is from Hong Kong. He was the one picking all the songs for us from people we had never heard of.

After 5 hours of karaoke, yeah, 5, Phil and I were exhausted. Mostly because we had spent the better part of the night avoiding eye contact BC if we looked at each other, we lost it and also bc... We had been singing for five hours! So we ended up getting home around 12.

Now I am complaining like I didn't like it but in all honesty, it was amazing. When I get back to the states, I think I am going to open my own karaoke house. I mean, this would be so popular in a college town, and it is actually really fun to try and sing all the songs you usually cover in the shower. The only thing I would change is the background video played. I guess bc they do not have rights to most of the English songs, they can't play the artist's music video. Instead, they just play random footage like a dolphin show, a 1970's family picnic, or maybe a girl with a big sequin belt ad shoulder pads strolling in a park to the Beatles "let it be". I dont know, but they were funny.

I will write after this weekend when I go to Hong Kong, and I am trying to get my pics up as fast as I can. I am adding another album tonight. Miss you all!!!!!

Weekend of fun!!!

I had a great weekend in China! It still feels funny to say that. I have noticed that this going by extremely fast though. Well, on Sat I went with my host mom and sister to look at some houses. They are interested in moving so I went along to check out some new sites. The first place we went to was a huge apartment/living community. Most people here live in apartments and the apartment buildings are about 30 stories high! The one we visited was no different and it was 4 bedroom. Really nice. It also has a garden on the roof for people to have their own plants and herbs growing. After that we went to a cute house that reminded me or a cottage out of a fairy tale. It is about 8 years old but overlooks the city on a hill. It has three levels with little terraces and a big porch on the roof. I wanted it for myself!

After house viewing, Xiao Rong's mom dropped us off at Yue Xiu park. This park is famous in Guangzhou bc it holds the statue of the 5 celestial rams. It is an old story about 5 rams coming down and planting wheat and that is how the city of Guangzhou started or something like that. Sorry, it was one of the less interesting stories, you can google it. So Xiao Rong, Phil, and I walked around the park and eventually to the statue, all while listening to Dave and his views on American politics.

We left there and went home for a few hours before dinner, and I took a nap! For dinner, the four of us went to a popular sea food restaurant where we picked our food out of the tank. We had the choice of over 20 different fish, eel, mussel, turtle, frog, crab, lobster, etc. All things are alive when you pick them out by the way. I almost chose the turtle just for the fact that my mom always claimed we would be having turtle soup for dinner but never delivered! Dinner was very good, and Fresh! Afterwards we took a scary taxi ride home.

Yesterday, Sunday, Phil and I met with Sue (our fav coworker) to go to Baiyun Mountain. It was absolutely beautiful! It took about an hour to climb half way and then once at the top, Sue bought us some snacks (of course she did. They think that we need to eat every 5 minutes bc we have a little more meat on our bones!) After a tasty snack of jellied bean curds and flat rice noodles, (which really are two of my favorite foods here, just filling) we headed back down the mountain. After that, we took a cab to dinner where Sue ordered tea, soup, fish, beef, fried rice, two vegetable plates, and dessert for only three people. She is tiny and does not eat enough to feed a bird. After the first 4 plates came she said, "I order two more." And Phillip and I insisted that was not necessary but she was afraid we would be hungry later! When ever I, Lindsay Day, the Queen eater, am having trouble finishing my food, you know it is too much.

So, after making it back home and receiving Sue's phone call from her acupuncture appointment, making sure we made it ok, I met Phil and Dave for some ping pong! Dave came prepared with a backpack full of supplies. We found an open table in a building on campus. They have one in the lobby of almost every building. Phil and I started playing while David "warmed up", yeah, I know. After Dave was all stretched out, I let him take my place. As he stepped up to the table, I could see the Hulk like morph taking place. His eyes became dilated and his muscles became tense. He was, the Ping Pong Master!!!!! haha, talk about taking yourself too serious. He didn't speak when he was playing at first and would just wait until you hit a ball too high and too soft so he could slam it back at your face, as hard has you can. I guess I should have been expecting this from all the talk I have heard from him about the Chinese being so dominant in this sport. Apparently, "no other nation can produce players like them", and "people keep trying to change the rules in the Olympics to make it tougher on the Chinese." We give Dave a hard time but he sure means well and can be quite entertaining.

Ok, this has gotten a little lengthy. If you have any questions about what I write or want me to talk about other things, just leave me a message on my comments!

Pictures, here at last!!!!!

So I have finally uploaded some pictures to my yahoo picture account. Here is the link. http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lindsayloulou83/my_photos There are only two albums done so far. My trip and my first night in Beijing. I will post this link every time I update more albums! Also, if this doesn't work, please email me so I know!

Just some other info, Phillip and I went to a popular bookstore in Guangzhou. It is 6 stories high! It sells every book imaginable, but not that many in English. I did buy a packback there for about $9! I really needed it bc I am sick of carrying a brief case all the way to work.

Also, Phillip and I did eat lunch for the first time by ourselves yesterday. It was very interesting. We went to the nice Japanese restaurant two blocks down. When we got there it was very crowded and we pulled a ticket to wait. Luckily, I do know my numbers so we waited until we heard si shir san, 43, but we never heard it. After about 15 minutes, we tried to communicate to the hostess but that was no good. So we were just going to leave but then they grabbed us and just toook us to a table. Luckily, this menu had a lot of pictures so we ordered. We got a platter of 25 sushi pieces, 3 salmon blossoms, porridge, and juice for $11! And this is a nice restaurant. It was a good lunch.

Last night my family had a great dinner and we ate in front of the tv watching MTV just like at home! I have a sinus infection so I am feeling kinda bad. I went to bed early and I feel better this morning. Ok, check out the pics!!!