As the Gong Tolls: dessert

We pushed through a hard morning of teaching with the wonderful knowledge that we were going to go to our first day of kung fu lessons. Can you say awesome??? We went to the other ILP kindergarten downtown to join the other group of teachers for their lesson. The teacher's name was Spring -- like the water spring, not spring the season, he was really particular about that ;) No pictures to show from it but it was SO GREAT. A ton of fun and more intense than I EVER would have dreamed but I have two cool moves to practice and perfect so I'm on my way to greatness :) Kung Fu Panda, here I come...for reals!

From the school we walked to a monument that strangely reminds me of home-- because it looks like the Brigham Young statue on BYU campus! Expect it's a lot bigger. Sun Yat Sen (who must have done something great...founded the city, maybe?) was born here and there's a good sized park paying tribute to him. We've passed it every time we ride the bus to Walking Street but finally had time to explore.

We were a little enthused from our kung fu lesson--can you tell?

There happened to be a group of Chinese tourists there who were quite fascinated with us. We mingled around them innocently until one brave woman asked for a picture. We spent the next 15 minutes posing for pictures with each and every person in the tour group, in every combination of people possible, it seemed. My smile hurt after but I kind of enjoyed feeling famous ;) We couldn't help but sing Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" the whole way down the stairs.

Where's Waldo? Hehe

We continued downtown to Walking Street--pretty much just a big outdoor mall where store employees clap to get your attention and there are sale signs everywhere but I can't ever buy anything because I don't understand what they say. We stopped for the best ice cream I've had in China-- choose three flavors from their selection of crazy unique flavors for 5 yuan and this time I chose almond, kiwi, and dark plum. Oh. My. Golly. Goodness. I wanted it to last forever. There had better be this ice cream in Heaven.

Next we decided to get our hair washed at a salon. It was 15 yuan, which is equal to $2.50 American dollars. Hindsight says it was the best $2.50 I've ever spent. Start off with a wash/ head and neck massage that was so incredible. There are no words to describe it so here's a picture that I won't pretend does it justice either:

Then....they dried it for us!!!!!! For the very first time in a whole month I HAD FLAT HAIR!!! Super funny to have an awkward Chinese man blow dry my hair, loved the experience immensely :)

We were so thrilled to look cute that we had to take pictures in places we had been putting off posing by-- seriously, you have no idea the hair struggles we've been having here with the humidity and a teeny tiny straightener! It felt good to look normal :)

We shopped some more and before we started getting too carried away with the over-whelming feeling of clothes, DVDs and accessories that are CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP everywhere you look, we grabbed some dinner before heading home. Debbie and I once again got brave and ordered two dishes from a little restaurant where the man knew no English, by merely pointing at pictures and saying "noodles" and "fried rice" in Chinese (that can get you far :D ). We really get so lucky with good food, I don't know how we do it!