Oct 11 2013: Wings Of Tea

Friday started up with speed. The whole week had just flown by! It had been about a week since our trip, and it seemed like yesterday. Time was flying by! So we wandered around the house eating our yogurt [it kept getting thicker, so obviously they’re like everything else that basically expires after a day or two to opening]. Definitely a possibility of getting sick later, we realized.

All the same, we finished them up and finally headed out for classes that day. We got to the school about nine, a little later than we had planned but swell all the same. For a while we fiddled on our computers then Katie plotted her early class. I skimmed over my PowerPoints and found one I hadn’t yet used for my Grade 5 class, so I was good for the day!

I read a bit and downloaded conference along with all the Harry Potter books while Katie went and taught her class. Then I had two kids invite me to go with them to class a few minutes early just as Katie returned from teaching her class.

More chaos about the DVD, as usual. The kids love writing it down and like most young kids, their writing is huge! Usually takes up the board. Super funny, but it’s cute. Anyways, we eventually got that down. The kids whined a bit all through class about the DVD though, didn’t have patience for the time or anything you know?

Anyways, I went over Halloween costumes and taught them the words as well. There was a commotion because a kid in the front slammed the desk behind him back, cutting into the next kid’s stomach who was quietly crying. I had two kids from the opposite side of the classroom cut through my lesson so I could give him attention. While I was talking to them, the class mostly murmured and such. Not too bad, for once.

The poor kid was trying so hard not to cry but it must have really hurt. Except that the kid in front, active but pretty good, was nearly in tears and feeling super bad about it or something. I started feeling so bad for them, so I called the other kids off, and didn’t punish the other kid.

Then I was called to the other side of the room where one of the girls had punched Lisa on the side, and it was red along her hairline. However, that was quickly made okay, she was fine, and so I brought the class together and reminded them no fighting or hurting each other.

We spent a ton of time on my slide, sorting out the costumes, names, and deciding how cool they really were. But when the time came, the kids reminded me to play the DVD. So I shut down the slide, told them to shush it, and then I invited one kid up to find it. Except she couldn’t, nor could the next boy. Eventually they did, but it took them forever. Eventually though, they got a little something playing for a few minutes. I told the kids maybe we’d do more next Tuesday if they were good.

Class ended super loudly as they started somewhat lining up for lunch, and then I returned to my office. I went with Katie to lunch, which was all these awesome leftovers or something. They brought out these little crispy chicken nuggets like popcorn chicken- tasty! Magi joined us for lunch, which was great to see her again. But then she teased me about eating so little again, which is frustrating because I feel like a pig half the time even though today I didn’t even finish my cake and because she thinks she’s fat. She’s not! That’s the problem with a mostly skinny nation. Everyone knows everyone should be skinny and if they’re not, then something is wrong with them. I feel that if Americans aren’t stick thin either, then they’ll feel like crap while being here in China.

She joined us back to our office and we were able to finally give our little gift to her, and then she was super happy and excited and nearly ran off to open it [secrecy!]. It was super cute.

Then more time on the internet. And SUU classes came up! I’m going there in the spring, since I don’t have enough for SVU yet, I don’t want to go home or do anything more online. Katie got SO excited about classes and we started looking through them. Her schedule got filled up with Philosophy classes freaking fast and I couldn’t decide on which classes I’d like to do. Very distracting. We spent a good two hours going over them after that.

It was about 2, and I wanted to head home before our dinner invite at 5. So we went home for about two hours, washed our sheets, ate, and cleaned up before laying around the house and finally returning to the school. We goofed off for a little longer before we grabbed our gift and headed out the door.

Truth be told, it was definitely fun watching the students come and go. All of them super excited and happy to see family members, ready to have a fun weekend, you know? One grandpa pushed one of my students over to watch us talk, but the kid got all shy again. Then another dad had to get a picture of Katie and I with one of my girls. But it was pretty cool.

We kept an eye out for Jason, trying to keep track of which one he would be, you know? He was a pretty good student, quiet but definitely talked to his friends often, a little lazy at first but always does the schoolwork. Just quiet enough not to be too well remembered, to be honest, which made me feel crappy, but there really are so many kids- I feel like I’m constantly finding a new face in my classes.

Anyways, we finally saw him jumping down the stairs, and we saw his parents not too far back, walking with Journey. We got up, introduced ourselves, and gave him our little gift [came from a little shopping bag, we gave him our leftover candy and an American dollar bill- which was a huge hit, thank goodness, because we had no idea what else to give him and we know gift giving is vital in the culture].

They were so nice! Journey is pretty cool, but she’s a little bit of a rebel, or at least tries so hard that she kind of pulls it off without doing too much? I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. It’s hard sorting her out sometimes. She’s pretty cool, but she has these ideas about America- and almost wants Americans to have a weird view about China.

We crowded into the car and took a long way about town to a super cool restaurant. Very traditional, the girl serves in bright dresses and heavy headdresses. So fascinating! On the way Jason asked if we liked fish. We were going to eat their local delicacy, yum!

Yeah… yay…. I caught Katie’s eye and she tried to ignore it. It’s the one thing she can’t do. And I can eat fish, but… I can’t eat fish. My main refusal is always if there are scales or bone or face or anything- as long as it doesn’t look like it was once a fish.

So we stepped inside the super nice place, made of wood and very spacey, we sat down and Jason finally went through the stuff. Loved the dollar bill, and we were super glad about that. His parents know a little English, so we talked with them as they got the hotpot ready and brought out the fish. It looked like it was alive five minutes ago, only clobbered into sections. And there were little versions of the fish nearby, looking like they could get up and swim in the sauce any minute.

After a bit, Jason walked over and showed us where they keep the fish, and we stared at that for a bit. And the cooks stared at us for a bit, before we walked back. Jason had so much energy now that he was out! It was pretty funny. And he was very hungry, which he didn’t mind saying over and over, and that was funny, too.

Soon it was ready, and we got nice hunky chunks of the fish! Apparently it got translated into sour fish, but it wasn’t really sour. Also we had little bowls of flavoring, like onion and garlic and cilantro, with some sweet sauce. It was perfect through. Definitely a fishy texture but the flavoring turned out pretty good.

Katie has the harder time with fish, but I was having a tricky time of it. People here eat the skin but I slid it off, preparing to defend my actions with excuses if need be. But then I found everything that was not skin and bone, and powered it down without complaint. By then they brought a rice noodle dish that was covered in something like sweet salsa, and a brown sweet dish made of rice but sticky and still good- Jason loved that!

There was also a bowl of sweet rice with green beans and potato chunks in there. Odd, but it definitely worked. Katie leapt at the chance of filling her bowl with rice after that fish, but I was too late, and given a whole fish onto my plate. Every time I turned to Katie, the fish was staring me down with it’s gaping ugly mouth and I wanted burn that little thing- far, far away.

I even got bone in my mouth. Like three times. But I ate all the fat once again! To be honest, the flavoring was bland without the bowl of flavoring. There was the fishy smell but it was well masked and Katie’s always had SUCH an issue with fish but she powered through. The texture is much more like delicate tofu than meat though, which I thought was weird. But I ate it!

And then powered through more food. They added vegetables and two types of tofu to the bowl, which we tried as well. The vegetables were lettuce, the usual [super hard to eat since they are usually big chunks and they do NOT cut well with chopsticks], and potatoes. The sauce was a bit sweet, but the potatoes even tasted a bit bland in there. A bit bland, and a little fishy. But we ate a ton.

We were also given a very, very mellow tea. They didn’t have much else to drink there, so I had a few sips and it wasn’t terrible by any means- I’ve had strong tea here and I can’t handle it but this I did fine with. Throughout dinner, we talked a little and played some hand games with Jason, and talked and ate and raved about the food and finally how full we were!

Eventually, we got up to go, and walked down the street to a little corner to the parent’s coffee shop, Wings of Tea. They own 9 around Guiyang. It was so nice! Very chill and welcoming. There are pictures of drinks and cakes on the wall as you go straight downstairs to a lot of roomy brown furniture, empty book cases, a few bird cages, and a small stand you can order from- or they’ll come around and take your order. The books are super nice, covered in felt with thick pages.

We weren’t sure what we’d like, so Katie let them choose for her and I mentioned chocolate, so they got her a cappacino and got me a mocha. We talked for a bit before they came out, and they were in these super tall and skinny almost milkshake glasses. Super cool though. And super strong. We couldn’t finish them. Nor do we drink these drinks on a normal basis, ever. But coming to China, we agreed to get more of the feel of the people. We haven’t agreed to alcohol and we have a limit there, though. Because it sounds like we’d get offered that a lot more often if we did.

Anyways, we talked for a bit about coffee shops in America and such [we discussed the differences a lot, like Chinese kids are way smarter but Americans are a bit more active and definitely creative], and they don’t really know chai tea. But they brought out the popular milk tea- green for Katie and black for me. I liked the black more, because the green is so strong. They were pretty good though. And they had little white rice ball chunks at the bottom, super gummy. Pretty tasty and chilled. Then they brought us a hot Indian coffee or tea drink, which was pretty good. Katie enjoyed it a bit more than I did.

We shared as much as possible, but it still left us with five drinks between us. And we had definitely eaten a ton during dinner, so through the night we managed to sip through and get almost half way in all of them- but there was so much and they were very well sized drinks!

They had a few conversations in Chinese, the three other adults, so Katie and I talked a lot on our couch. It was so spacey there at the coffee shop, super chill and relaxed. Very nice coffee shop! We loved it. And our bladders were pressing so hard against us… It was a little rough towards the end, haha. Oh though Journey had gotten a cherry drink, which was tasty, and Jason had some sort of green apple juice [bright green, super cool]. We talked with him when we could but he was literally running in circles and then meeting all these new friends and watching them play games on their phones.

Jason’s parents were so nice! Very courteous and friendly as well as welcoming. Very content where they are at life with Jason and business and overall life, it seems. I don’t know, it’s just very relaxing and it was great talking with them. We discussed a bit about growing up, and switching countries and trying out new places for a bit. We stayed for such a long time, but really enjoyed it!

By the time we got into the car, it was 9:30. Not that late, but considering all the time we spent at dinner then the coffee shop, it was quite a while. We ended up dropping Jason off to his grandfather who loved waving to us. Super cute! Jason was ecstatic, so cute!

The drive back was pretty quiet. They stopped near our place, and walked us across the street before we finally said goodbye and thanked them for the hundredth time for everything! Such wonderful people, seriously.

Katie and I made it back to our apartment in time for the bathroom, yay! Haha. Anyways, we cleaned up the apartment and did some more laundry before finally settling down to start talking. I have no idea what even got us started. But for the next six and a half hours, we sat on the couches laughing till we cried, having some serious talks, and trying to think some things through for our futures. It’s been one of the best talks yet that we’ve had. That I’ve ever had with anyone, truth be told. It’s crazy how much we talk these days- sometimes it’s all we do.

Anyways, it was just before five when we finally climbed into bed.