Harbin Ice Festival & more

I don't always post twice a month, but when I do you know it's because there have been more than two noteworthy events. But seriously! The winter has been fairly mellow, even so I've managed a few different excursions around town and in Harbin as well.

But before that, here are a few extra photos of the Christmas party from Elaine's camera.

Vickey with the big SpongeBob

Elaine with the sickliest of poses!

Kelly chillin with Nate

Kurtis was a pretty, pretty good Santa

This one isn't from Christmas, but it might be the most epic class photo we've had yet.

A few days after New Years, the school had a little party for the teachers and it was actually pretty sweet. We went to a spa on the outskirts of Xincun for a relaxing day of swimming and soaking in a bunch of different hot pools. There were five or six different types of saunas ranging from "Steam Room" to "Smog Room," I imagine it was a translating error, or at least I hope so.

After that we headed to a banquet room and had a dinner party, and the Chinese teachers love to sing songs and play games so of course there was a ton of that.

The spread at our dinner table, not bad!

The Chinese teachers performing a dance/song

The next Monday I bundled up and prepared to brave a -5 degree evening in Harbin, why would I do that you ask? The simple answer is the Harbin Snow and Ice Festival, and I'll let the pictures speak for themselves! (All buildings are made of out bricks of ice, with different colored lights within).

Panoramic View at Dusk

It was coooooooooold, but so awesome and worth it!

Full Moon

The Entrance

Pretty Epic

Took a ride on a Yak, like the shameless tourist I am...

They even threw in some slides for good measure!

Night and Day!

Other than that, the Yixi "fog" still rolls in from time to time...

Nice day eh?

And we finally got our first snow, unfortunately it was nothing more than a dusting.

First "Snow"

Chinese New Year is on Monday the 23rd and the town is already illuminated with red lanterns and other colorful decorations.

Yixi Main Square

In case you aren't up to date on the Chinese calender, this will be the year of the Dragon! For all you 1988 homies, it must be a sign of a good year to come.

Year of the Dragon!

And if that wasn't enough, tomorrow I'm heading to the Philippines and meeting up with Meaghan in Manila. We are planning to travel up to the Banaue rice terraces and then take a trip over to the island of Palawan to relax on the beach, hopefully all goes as planned!

Happy Chinese New Year! Set off some fireworks for the year of the Dragon!

Christmas and New Years

Ni Hao! It's finally 2012 and I'm still reeling from the holiday fun, not to mention I have my real "winter break" in the Philippines very soon. Here's the express version of what's been going on the past month or so.

We had an epic day of cooking before our epic Christmas party for the kids:

We had a breakfast of pancakes and homemade sausage
Elaine might look super hyped, but knowing her sense of sarcasm...

Eatin' that Breakfast

Mixin' that batter

Makin' those cookies

We probably made 200+ cookies or so, we wanted to make sure everyone got their fair share and Kurtis got a few pounds of chocolate chips sent over so we made sure to use 'em up!

All of these cookies were a special surprise for our students, we had told them all to invite a friend and join us for a big Christmas party and it was a blast.

Santa (Kurtis) giving out the cookies (I'm posing for photos bottom right)

NOM NOM NOM NOM

There are a TON of better pictures and I just haven't had a chance to get them from the assistants yet but when I do perhaps I'll post a few. The party was a success overall, minus a few bumps here and there. Even the local T.V. station sent a camerawoman and I've heard rumors there will be an article in the newspaper too. I'll try to track that down.

The Christmas Choir is over for now and while it was a blast I don't know if I want to hear "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" again for a few months...our 4 songs were: Rudolph, Jingle Bells, It's a Small World, and The Hokey Pokey (why not?). Here's the crew getting down with part of the Hokey Pokey!


And for Christmas day I watched Die Hard with Liam and Leo (British), then we went over to the Orange Bar where Leo (Chinese) had a big old turkey for us!

I had a blast skyping with the fam for presents and with the Staebells on Christmas day, and I want to thank all of you for just saying hi cause I know it was a bit hectic.

And for New Years Eve I went to Kingsley's place, it was his birthday and everyone was having a great time.

Especially these dudes

And I hate to say it, but unfortunately my first kiss of the new year came from a highly inebriated Matt (a new arrival, and one of the homies).

Sorry Meaghan!

But to tell you the truth, even if Matt had not dove lips-first onto my cheek that evening, my first kiss of 2012 would still probably be from a dude, one of my students Tom.
Tom is a chill little bro, despite having a rat-tail (15in or so?), and he does this thing where he runs up and grabs my hand and he always wants to kiss it. SUPER WEIRD I know but what are you gonna do, the kid thinks you're the coolest right? Plus it's just on the hand, no harm done.
Buuuuuuuut, one day I was unsuspecting and he motioned like he wanted to whisper something to me so I leaned down and next thing you know he smacked one right on my cheek! Owned.

Another moment of absolute cuteness was just last week in my Shen Tong 1 class (5 year olds). I usually play a game where the children chant the new word and pass a magnet down the line while I'm not looking and then I guess "who has the magnet?" But I almost always purposely lose, the risk of upsetting the children is too great! And when they're happy they are much easier to teach! But last week Emily came running up and began making a scene while I was about to take one of my "lives" away. beleaguered by the frantic Chinese coming out of her little voicebox I looked over at Elaine and said "what?????" Apparently Emily said "Jake you always lose! I just want you to win for once too!"

Today in a different Shen Tong 1 class, I had a new student and he was sitting at the end of the row next to Melissa and Glynn. Melissa is super cute and one of my brightest happiest students, Glynn tends to goof around but when it comes to speaking English he's right up there with the best. Anyways, after class Kelly stopped me and said "did you notice Glynn was 'fighting' with the new boy?" I had noticed something, it wasn't really fighting but something was definitely amiss. "Well Glynn was fighting with the new boy over Melissa!" and sure enough they were both sitting right next to her showing off the whole class!

Finally, I'll leave you with perhaps the funniest moment of the past month. I walked into my Shen Tong 2 class and before I could even look up I heard Leo.

The first words of the first class of the week: Jake is a Poo Poo Monster!!!!!

I knew it was gonna be a good week.