Yuexiu Park and Halloween

Yuexiu Park, October 29th. Enjoy some pictures:

Five Ram Statue, it was the "centerpiece" of the park

It's a little hard to tell but there's one on the far left, eating grass, the middle one standing tall, gnawing on grass, the baby in front drinking from it's mother, on the right, the last one is in the back, just standing there.

The Five-Ram Sculpture is one of the most famous structures in Guangzhou. It has become the emblem of the city. Legend has it that more than 2,000 years ago, the city was a barren land with people who despite hard work were suffering from famine. One day five immortals in five-color garments came riding on five rams, playing their legendary music. The rams held sheaves of rice in their mouths. The immortals left the sheaves of rice for the local people, gave blessings to the city and left. The rams turned into stone and the city became a rich and populous place. 

Lovely Waterfall in the park

Old Men playing..fish flutes?

Herculean Statues!

Some statues were a little...strange...

Jaguar attacking Horse 

Hey! That's me! 

Yuexiu Park East Lake

Too bad it was gated off... Looked pretty neat

SEAMEN! Yea, yea, yea, I think like a 12 yr old boy...

Seamen Pavilion

Still Seamen Pavilion...it was neat!

Plaque at the top of the "100 Step Staircase" (Note: 100 step stairs were actually 498 steps)

Hey! That's me, too! On a weird bench in the park.

More stuff I thought was neat...

There were trees growing out of the walls!

Better picture of the trees growing out of the wall.

Waterfall!

Still waterfall! And stream!

And stream continued. It was such a pretty park!

View of the water through trees.

We went and walked around this massive park last weekend, it was gorgeous. There were statues and a little theme park (that had terrifyingly breaking-down rides). It is home to the Five Ram Statue, which was pretty neat. This town has so much history. We decided to walk up the stairs of the 100-step staircase (or so we thought), turned out we went up the back way. Oops! Once we got up there, we looked around, the view was...the city. I couldn't help but think of how amazing it must have been when it was new. When we left we decided to walk down the 100-Step Staircase (which, according to a sign was really closer to 500 steps). As we're almost all the way to the bottom, we realize it's an exit from the park, which we were not intending to do. So, we walked probably 2/3 of the way back up and got an awesome calf workout! There were also basketball courts, the local university's soccer stadium, an outside bowling lawn (their bowling...is not even close to our bowling! It looks more like curling than bowling...minus the sweeper...and the ice...) and a LOT of table tennis tables..because along with badminton...ping pong is huge here. 

Also, here are funny signs from the park:

"Behawe Civilized NO Crossing" 

"Don't hurt me for your pretty"

After the park we decided to go for some delicious Dim Sum:

And Milk Tea

Don't remember what these were called but most of them had shrimp and were delicious!

The thing in the middle is a "fruit salad," with a cheese sauce dressing....
Egg Tarts on the right and duck egg rolls on the left.

This was purple sweet potato filled with some veggies and deep fried, I think. It looked like a rock before you bite into it.

Fast forward a few days to Halloween...

Terrible picture of me. And Brianne! (My mushu who is awesome)

My Disney family :) Well..most of them.

Halloween was...interesting. Pretty much only foreigners dressed up. The first bar we went to is a Canadian owned bar so there were quite a few foreigners, they were even offering gory face painting. Then, I went to my first Chinese club. It was tiny, and since it was a Saturday, it was packed. Some foreigners, some in costume. We're in there, dancing and stuff and this tall black guy comes in, followed closely by two equally as tall black guys, they looked like his bodyguards or something the way they mobbed in. The first guy is wear this African dress thing, all white, one of the guys he was with was completely suited up with sunglasses on, and the other guy just mildly suited up. The go straight upstairs, where there is the glass area that juts out over the main aisle that is the "dance floor" downstairs. They go straight to it and he starts dancing, like shaking his butt, getting down dancing. I find this completely hilarious. I turned to my friends and I was like I have this urge to just go up and start dancing with him. My friend goes, "I'll give you 50 kuai (RMB) if you do it." I finish my drink and I'm like hey..why not. So, I walk straight up to him and start dancing with him. Now, keeping in mind, he is in a long (by long I mean down to his ankles) dress. Dancing with a man in a full length dress is not an easy feat. We ended up getting pushed back from the window rather quickly so one of their dancers could dance there, apparently what that was really intended for. As soon as there was a break in the song, "Uh, so...my friends are down there... I gotta go..." He thanked me and I walked away. He ended up dancing in the window again as soon as the girl left and kept making eye contact with me, when he wasn't shaking his butt in the window. Yeah, that was my Halloween... No candy for Haley. But, I survived my first holiday away from home. 

Also, for all of you I swore up and down to I wouldn't... I've lost my heart to a Chinese boy. His name is Long Long. I'll admit, there's a bit of a language barrier as he's just learning English. But, he is smart and has a smile that lights up a room. Oh, and he's four. :-P 

Eva is one of our center's GRCs (parent relations and sales, basically). She observed one of my classes Tuesday and called some parents to touch base on how their kids are doing with me and how they feel about the teacher change and if they had any concerns. So, after work Eva came up to me and told me she called Long Long's mom and was talking to her about it. She told Eva she asked Long Long who his favorite teacher has been, Mike (his first year teacher), Tiffany (who I took over for), or Haley. He said ME!!!! :-D She also said that in August he'd been having a hard time coming to Disney English because he'd just started kindergarten and was tired and would cry when he had to come. But, I guess now when mom tells him it's time to go to English and play with Miss Haley he gets excited. That made my heart so happy, first true compliment I've received since I started.

Brianne bought a turkey today and Thanksgiving murmurs are starting. My first big holiday away from home, but, I couldn't ask for a better home away from home family. I feel blessed and nervous. Bring on the holidays!