Baby Chaps

At long last, I have captured the phenomenon known by some as "Baby Chaps" on camera. This one is for you Marisa. Well, in China, they apparently don't enjoy changing dippers very much, either that or they are just too expensive. Well, for whatever the reason, they have found an alternative to putting dippers on their children. This is a perfect example of what I have dubbed "Baby Chaps", for reasons that aught to be rather obvious. Now, granted, it isn't every baby that dons "Baby Chaps", but you sure see it often enough. Especially when your house is just down the street from the Children's Hospital. My first experience with these "Baby Chaps" was on the subway. There was some cute baby boy sitting on his mom's lap. Upon second glance, I noticed that he was flashing the whole train, via a proper use of his baby chaps. Some of these chaps are just a pair of baby pants that have the seam ripped out from the back all the way to the front. Others are a little more intense, such as the ones you see here. So there you have it, the famous "Baby Chaps". Marisa, I hope you enjoy. :-)

Huang Shan

They say that there are 5 beautiful mountains in China that after you see them, you have no need of ever seeing another mountain.  They also say that after you see Huang Shan, you no

 longer need to see the other 4 beautiful mountains.  In English, we say, "A picture's worth a thousand words."  But there is no way for a picture to actually capture the experience of being up on top of Huang Shan and seeing the beauty for yourself.  But since not everyone gets that kind of a chance, I'll just post some of my pictures that I took.  We also went to this place called HongCun, which is about a 7oo year old city.  It was pretty cool too.

Chinese Girls, America Boys

Well, last night was Zhong Qiu Jie, or Mid-Autum Festival. The way you celebrate Zhong Qiu Jie is you eat yuebing, or moon cakes and go out and look at the moon, which is full and very beautiful. So that's what we did. The hotel that we go to curch in (yes, we have church in the basement of a hotel, it's a really nice one too) got everyone some yuebing. It's always kind of a surprise what kind of a yuebing you are going to get. Some are ok, some are outright gross (I had one that the insided looked kind of like green playdough, and it kind of tasted the same way too...) but as far as I know, there aren't any yuebing that are just really good. But it's part of the traditon, so you eat them anyway. Well, there is this really old Buddhist temple a littl futher south of where we live, still in Nanjing city called Fuzi Miao. So we figured, it's a pretty cool place, big tourist attraction, there has to be something going on there. So we piled into 4 or 5 taxies and took off down there after we had our quick weekly Sunday devotional. Well, there were TONS of peopl! I had forgotten my camera because it was piled under all of my laundry (that's a story for another time), otherwise I would have taken some pictures of how many people there were. But we didn't really do much but look arround and walk arround. It was still really intertaining though. But I think that most of the people there found us as interesting, or more interesting even than the things we went there to see. You see, as a white person in China (especically one who speaks Chinese) you are a celebrety. You always look like Brad Pitt, or Tom Cruse, or who ever the popular actor/actress (for the ladies) is who is within 20 years or so of your age. Well, the guys were all rather enjoying all the attention that they were getting. It was really funny to see groups of people looking at us and taking pictures of us, attempting to not let us see. They failed misserably at hidding it, but it was great. Then one of the guys would ask if they wanted to take a picture with them and before you knew what was going on, you had a whole crowd of Chinese college students (some times High School students) arround you, flashing the peace sign, taking a picture. Some of the girls were thinking that the guys were letting it go to their heads a bit too much. I just thought it was funny. I tended to stick to the kids a little bit more than the people our age. Little Asian babies are just so stinking cute! Them and their baby-chaps....also a story for another time, after I get a picture. hehehe... Anyway, so today, we were walking down the road and these two 12 and 13 year old girls came up to Greg and started talking with him. It was all fine and dandy until they tried to give him this little plush olympic doll and asking if they could make friends with him. Hahaha! It was so funny! Anyway, I'm about out of time now.

Just a few more things before Igo... We have a blog for all of us students her in Nanjing to post stories and pictures. You should check it out. There is a link on the side of the page. And to see some of my pix, click here. It's on facebook. Enjoy! More updates later!

I'm in CHINA!

Well, I've been here in China for just over a week. And I LOVE IT! It was quite the experience getting here though. Nothing major happened though. Just long layovers. But after talking to some of the others who are here with me, I have nothing to complain about! I have taken a few pictures, but not very many. And besides, I'm not at my own home right now, I'm at a friends house using her computer and internet. It's probably going to be next Tuesday, at the earlest, that we actually get internet at our place. Well, I'm not sure how fast word travels, but the apartment that I've goten here is with 6 other guys. It's quite intertaining. It's rather big actually. 3 rooms, but only 1 bathroom. But for just about $430 a person for 4 months total rent, you can't complain too loud, right!? Classes are going to be kind of intense, being in the advanced class and only having class Monday-Thursday, but I am for sure going to learn a whole lot! I really hope that my Chinese improves a lot over the next 4 months. It has been an exprience getting used to simplified Chinese. I got myself this really cool electronic dictionary. It's pretty much a little palm computer who's main function is a dictionary/translator. It was about $130 USD, but when I can eat, and be full none the less, for $4-5 a day, I felt like I can afford it. Anyway. I don't have a whole lot of time, so I'll have to save some stories for next time I get a chance to post something. I'll try to get some pictures next time too. I'm just having a blast. I'll update you all later!