so i realize it has been far too long since my last post...sorry about that...my last couple of days in Cebu were crazy! and then the wonderful people here in china have blocked blogspot...along with facebook, twitter, and youtube...but i have gotten a proxy and am now able to access blogspot!! so...i dont want to overwhelm you with 3 weeks of posts all at once...so im going to post them 1 week at a time over the next few days...ive been keeping up with the posts in a word document so im just going to copy and paste them over...so they are dated to when they were written....
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Today was amazing!! Dr. Jesalva recommended that I go to Bohol, an island that is about three hours from Cebu by boat. Bohol is home to the Philippine tarsier…basically the world’s smallest primate…its body is about 6 inches long and its tail is 8 inches long…but before I talk about the monkey…let me start from the beginning..Mam Mayla, Hazel, Alpha Mae, and our driver Ham, picked me up from the hotel at 4:45 in the morning. From there we went to the port to get our tickets….we were very early and there was a lot of just waiting around…but finally we were able to get on the boat…it was a big ummmm…im not sure what you call it…but we drove the van onto the boat…anyway…the ride was three maybe three and a half hours and then we arrived! Once we made it to the island of Bohol we drove for about 45 minutes…the drive was great..the grr! I cant think of the word…the landscape?? Anyway it was like driving through a rainforest, it was green and foresty….it was beautiful.
Our first stop was the Loboc River...we had lunch on a riverboat as we floated down the Loboc River…there we two guys onboard that serenaded us with acoustic performances of classic love songs?? They started with “love boat” and it just got better =] It was a really nice ride down the river…there was one stop where a group performed a native Filipino dances and sang some songs.
After the river cruise we went to visit a mission church started by BBC-Cebu, World in Need Baptist Mission. While we were there we had fresh coconut and fellowship with the pastor and his family. Mam Mayla and I created an amazing game called “Buko Ball.” It’s an intense game played with a coconut, it’s gonna be big I’m sure.
After the mission we went to see the tarsiers! They were crazy, creepy looking little things..there were also sloths and other kinds of monkeys and bats at the same place….it was fun…and after that we went to the natural bridge…it was a big suspended bamboo bridge…on the other side of the bridge we met the “Buko King!!” This guy could unhusk?? I’m not sure what it’s called exactly…but anyways he could unhusk a coconut with his mouth in like 20 seconds…it was crazy cool!!
And the day was not over yet!! We then went to “Simply Butterflies” a butterfly conservation…its not really my favorite kind of thing…but Mam Mayla was super pumped!! She absolutely loves butterflies!!
After the butterflies we went to another church started by BBC-Cebu…we ate dinner…and I ate like a “real filippino” lol basically I ate with my hands…it was messy and fun!! Before dinner got there Hazel, Alpha Mae, and I sang a few songs….in multiple languages and did a sort of video update…we did several video updates throughout the day….im going to try and post them…but YouTube is blocked here…so is blogspot but I have a proxy that I use to post this blog but uploading through the proxy is more difficult…
After a delicious dinner and washing my hands =] we went to another park to take some pictures but the park was closed by that time so we took a few pictures before getting kicked out by the security guard…after that it was back to the port where we waited for about 4 hours before the boat actually left….we slept on the wooden benches back to Cebu…our boat left at 1:30 am which put us back in Cebu about 4 am…and I got back to the hotel about 4:45….so basically we were gone for an entire 24 hours! But it was so much fun…and I love getting to see a few of the works that were started on Bohol…BBC-Cebu has started more than 49 churches on the island…they have an amazing church planting and soul winning ministry….just being around the bible college students and the other church members was very encouraging…their desire to memorize scriptures and share their faith was phenomenal….
The pics from Bohol are at this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=90337&id=588667832&l=31fe55b770
June 26, 2009
Today was my last day in Cebu….Mam Mayla, Hazel, and Alpha Mae picked me up and we went to
McDonalds for some good ol’ americanish lunch…after that we went up to the mountaintop park that overlooks Cebu City…it was awesome…I was able to look down on the city from the same spot that Bob Hughes looked from and talked about in his message “I Sat Where They Sat.”
From there it was about time to go to the airport…but first we went back to the church and school…I was able to spend some time in the principal’s office…but I wasn’t in trouble =] I talked with the principal of the Bob Hughes Christian Academy and then was able to sit down with Mam Jasalva…she is an amazing woman and it was great to be able to just sit with her and hear her talk and have her speak into my life…
From there we picked up Mitch at the dorms and headed to the airport…it was tough…I did not wanna leave…the relationships that I made with these girls this week were indescribable. I can truly say that I love these girls…so it was a hard goodbye…but it had to be done…and so I left my friends in Cebu…it was bittersweet…while I hated to leave I am so very excited to be going to CHINA!!
The pics are up at this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=91632&id=588667832&l=5e8b3c8b37
June 27, 2009, 5:30 am
Right now I am sitting in the South Korean airport…it’s 5:30 in the morning so everything in here is pretty well shut down…I am worn out! My flight left Cebu at 7:30 pm and then I had a 3 hour layover in Manila…I arrived here in SK about 20 minutes ago…I am tired!! So, I’m about to lay down on this bench right here and crash for a bit =]
June 27, 2009
IM IN CHINA!! So I’ve been in China for about 10 hours and they have been jam packed already! First of all, I’ve been sick for the past couple of days…I’ve had a pretty disgusting cough and a runny nose…neither of which is good when traveling internationally…so when we landed in Yanji health officials boarded the plane and checked everyonEtter’s temperature…I passed that test…and then another guy in a suit boarded the plane and had my name on a list….so I, along with the other white person on the plane, got off the plane and proceeded to go to a quarantine area…the entire time I am just thinking to myself, “I don’t have any way to get in touch with the Etter’s and tell them I’m stuck!” I was really afraid that they were going to keep me there for like a week…but thankfully the just took my temperature and let me leave. Basically the pulled us off the plane, even though I hadn’t been in the states for 6 weeks and the other guy hadn’t been in the states for over a year, because we were white…there was a whole group of Korean-Americans from LA sitting right behind us…but they didn’t get pulled off…it was pretty funny…once I got out =]
The Etter’s and two of their girls were waiting for me when I got out of the terminal…it was so nice to see semi-familiar faces…we loaded all of my stuff into 2 taxi’s and headed to Gina’s Place…which is the restaurant I will be working in while I’m here. We ate the pizza buffet…which was great! I got to meet a group of people from the states who are going to be teaching English at one of the universities here and they are going to help me with the basketball camp in July…After lunch we went to my apartment where I met my new roommate, Helen…she is Korean-American and is working with a team here. After dropping my things off at the apartment Regina, Charis, Alia and I walked down to the market to get some food for dinner…my apartment is in a great area…very central to everywhere I need to go! Basically, I live about halfway between the market and Gina’s Place…
So, tonight there was a “community meeting” this is a time that some local believers who are working towards the same goals get together for fellowship and updates…this is a monthly thing...the night started like any good gathering…with food!! =] we had a great Korean dinner, followed by worship, and then a time of prayer…
And now I sit in my room…small but sufficient…I am so excited about my time here…it is going to be amazing…I can feel it…already!
June 28, 2009
Today was Sunday…I went to an English service at YUST…a university here in Yanji…Chinese law allows foreigners to gather and have church services…but the Han Chinese cannot attend…so it was nice to have some semblance of normalcy…China is so very different from the Philippines…I knew it would be but it is still taking some adjustment… after the service we ate lunch in the cafeteria…cafeteria food is pretty much the same in any country…not the best =] david, regina, and I took the bus down to the west market and did some shopping…we got a fan for my room…the apartment is nice…but no air con so it gets a little hot…after shopping we went back to their apartment and I started to watch a movie with the Etter’s girls and a few other kids. During the movie Regina had a guest drop by, a woman named Gloria, she is a Filipino lady who is living here and working as an English teacher. I was able to talk with her for about an hour and it was nice to hear that familiar accent again and see the body language…someone who understands my eyebrow communication! Nothing much happened after that…we had egg salad sandwiches for dinner and David and Regina and I drank some coffee and just chatted for awhile before I ventured home in a cab all by myself!! I can say my address in Chinese…which I’m pretty stoked about!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Some other members of the Etter’s community have a coffee shop here in Yanji, Morning Dew. This morning Regina, Charis, Alia, and I went to Morning Dew and had some coffee and milkshakes and I played “Sorry” with the girls while Regina talked with her Korean language partner. After Morning Dew I headed over to Gina’s Place to meet with the manager in charge, Tommy. He is a Korean-American from LA…we had a good meeting and discussed goals for the summer and his expectations for me and my time here. Basically, his goal is to have a re-grand opening in two months. He is working on re-training the front of house staff…and my job will be to completely overhaul the kitchen and develop a system to make it run more efficiently…I will be analyzing the menu and food costs and developing new menu items…I am really excited to start…the baker unexpectedly quit a couple days ago so I start tomorrow at 8 am…I’ll be helping to bake the bread…I am definitely nervous because I am not a baker! It will be an interesting day……
I ate dinner with the Etter’s again tonight…we ordered in Chinese…it was the craziest thing…they delivered the food on regular dishes…we ate the food and then we just set the dishes outside the door and they will come back in a couple hours or days and pick them up…so that’s pretty cool…the food was delicious…and I picked up a peanut with a chopstick!! That was a huge accomplishment for me…considering I couldn’t use chopsticks at all when I got here…after dinner I sat down with the whole family and we just talked…they let me ask any kind of questions I wanted…just about life and what things are like here…it was really interesting…
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Today was my first day of work...Tommy met me at the restaurant…he made breakfast for us and we talked some more before getting to work…and then BAM!! I was in the kitchen and baking…Young-Hee is the wife of the other manager, John…they are from South Korea and she has taken over the role of baker for now…she was already hard at work when I joined her…we were mixing dough, kneading dough, rolling dough, and then of course there was the laughing…mostly her laughing at me…I didn’t do very well with the forming of dough balls…some would say it was disastrous…
I took a couple hours off in the afternoon and then went back to the restaurant at 5…we were dead…I had just one table in 2 hours…so I left at 7 with the Etter’s oldest daughter, Rachel. We went back to their apartment and just hung out…we ate Korean food this time and it was great! One thing I absolutely love is the food here…well so far! I haven’t tried anything I haven’t liked yet…and even though Sunny warned me to stay away from the Kim Chee….I love it! After some more talking with the Etter’s I went home…I have be at work at 6 tomorrow morning!
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Well yesterday was my first full day of work, going from 6 am until 8 pm…I get a small break in the afternoon..but it is still a lot of time at the restaurant…the baking is getting better…kind of…we made sandwich bread today and well…ill post the pics because it was bad…im not quite sure what happened to my loaf but I think it has something to do with my inability to roll and form the dough into smooth balls….Regina and the girls came to meet me at work so we could spend the afternoon together today (I didn’t work tonight) and they took pity on me and decided to by my sad loaf of bread (which tasted great…just looked…not so great) and John laughed when he saw it and gave it to them for free!! It was pretty funny…
Anyways, Regina, Rachel, Torie, and I went to the west market so I could buy some shoes for work….the shoes the kitchen Emo gave me were too small…big surprise! =] so I got some shoes and then we went and had pedicures done…which was a lot of fun…we got some waffles before heading back to the house…they were shaped like fish and were filled with red beans…they were not very good…I told the girls they have been living in Asia too long if they like those! We got back to their apartment and had a fun little girls night…we ordered Korean food, Kim Bop (which Is a lot like a California roll) and watched a movie…David is inside working for a couple of days so it was just us girls…
