First off I have an important announcement. We have changed our picture’s location to a website instead of Facebook. You can find the link to the right and when you go there you will be able to find all of our old albums as well as 2 NEW ALBUMS! One is of our visit with my mom and the pictures she took while she was here and the other is of our time in Hong Kong and our coming back to Xian.
Well my teaching hit another snag when school was cancelled yet again. China celebrates two bigger festivals back to back at the start of October and so the school made the decision to wait until October 9th (which marks the end of both holidays) to start again. So part of the cancelling was H1N1 fears and the other was the scheduling of these two holidays. It’s nice to have time off, but I was really looking forward to getting into a routine, which will now have to wait.
This week was a big week for all of China as they celebrated 60 years as a nation. As you may or may not know 60 years ago was when China officially became a Communist nation. It was celebrated all over China, but nothing like the military procession that they had in Beijing which was unbelievable. Chinese people now are celebrating Mid-Autumn festival, which is another larger holiday here.
For the Mid-Autumn holiday Chinese people traditionally eat Moon Cake. They come in many different flavors some are unnaturally good and others are not so good. The best has to be the Strawberry moon cake which I’ve desperately tried to find recently to no avail. It is said that the Strawberry Moon Cake can cure many illnesses, tests are still pending, but that gives you an idea of how good they are (they don't cure illnesses that was made up). My quest to find them lead me to a local super market named Ren Ren Le. What was funny and sad for me was that I grabbed a handful of them to buy and when I got to the counter the cashier couldn’t find the price. So for 10 minutes or so she’s trying to locate a price or the person to tell her the price and vainly attempting to tell me why she can’t sell them to me. My heart sank when she turned and threw them in a box on the ground next to her and refused to sell them to me (because of not finding the price). I told her I would pay 1 kuai per Moon Cake (truthfully I would have gladly paid upwards of 10 kuai a piece and/or re-named Sydney Ren Ren Le if they would sell them to me). In the end I came home with no Strawberry Moon Cake and a hole left in my heart. Thanks Ren Ren Le.
Thanks always for checking in, we hope all of you are doing well.
The petersons
