More rainy day fun

So my daily trip to work starts off with a mile or so walk to the bus stop where I take the company bus into the factory.  I leave the house at 7am, and usually get to work around 8:15.  The walk is very interesting, every day I see tai chi, people carrying their pet birds, walking their dogs, or just other people on their way to work.  It is on this walk that I get to see some of my most interesting things.  It is here I saw the three pigs on a motor bike, and I see entire families riding on one moped.  Well, last week, I get to our building door and realize it is POURING rain.  This means my plans have to change.  So I get out my umbrella and walk to the nearest public bus stop.  This bus will take me relatively close to my company bus stop.  I still have to walk about 200 yards in the rain, but it is better than the full mile.  So I make the trip, the whole way getting absolutely soaked (it rained so much that my umbrella was saturated and started dripping through).  But, I did make it safely.  My bus stop is under a bridge, and is at the intersection of two major Beijing roads.  The road I walk along, and the one our apartment is on, is the East 4th ring road (dong si huan), this is a very busy road, especially in the morning when everyone is trying to get to work.  It is three lanes accross and usually has one lane filled with moped and electric bikes.  Today however, with the rain, all of the moped and bikes decided to stop under the bridge.  In doing so, they had completely blocked two lanes, leaving only one lane for traffic.  There were probably 150 mopeds/bikes.  Most of the owners had stopped to wait out the rain and have a smoke break.  This was good for them, but left about a 10 mile wake of traffic behind them.  I couldn't believe it.  Every car and bus that passed was honking and yelling, but the moped drivers didn't even seem to care, they were just chilling under the bridge.  Even a cop went by with his lights on and no one even noticed.  Finally, my bus came and I made my way through the crowd and headed to work.  I can't wait to see what winter and snow brings me!

Chaoyang Park

Everyday for months we would look out our window and see the beautiful park accross the street. We were busy getting settled, and visiting big attractions... so we never visited the park. Finally we did, and it's pretty cool. Here are some pictures.

I love those spinny balloons!

Bumper Boats

Double bike

They have kid rides and carnival games too!

-KAMALA

MuTianYu Great Wall - Women's Retreat

The women at my church organized a Women's Retreat at MuTianYu Great Wall. This was a relaxing time away from the city. My good friend Lauren was the speaker, and she presented questions we women face.

(1) Am I ____ enough? (2) Am I too much? (3) Is God holding out on me? We were able to get into some really deep discussion groups, and God really worked on me through this.
After the first to meetings, I went to the Great Wall. This was my first trip to the wall, and Jason has never been. As you probably know... it's LONG.

One of my favorite parts of visiting the wall, was the way down.

That's right ... we took a toboggan ride. It was lots of fun. I suggest waiting at the top so you don't have to slow down for anyone.
After the great wall we met together some more, and relaxed. Simply sitting outside with clean air and grass was stupendous.

The next day we went for a walk and did some yoga. I like Pilate's and yoga, but this yoga ... was insane. It was crazy hard, and I even do P90X yoga. I was extra-embarrassed because I was on the front row, and the instructor kept saying "not like her". The instructor also chose an interesting way to breathe. Instead of a soothing exhale, she would go "AAHHH" with her tongue out like she was at a KISS concert.
We fit 3 sessions, the great wall, noodle making, hot tub, chatting, walking, and yoga into a day and a half. So we were exhausted.

-KAMALA





Baketballers

I miss sports! Now I am a fan of any American team. It does matter what...soccer, badminton, basketball, etc. When Jason was invited to play some basketball I was excited, and tagged along to watch.

The first time we played, I filled in for a tired player. This made me look great! Everyone had been playing hard for at least 30min, and I was fresh off the bench. Next time we played, they were down one guy. So I played a few games from the beginning.
There are three courts side-by-side. The courts were filled with Chinese (Duh). My favorite game to watch was 5 of our guys against 5 old Chinese guys. It was hilarious...and completely unfair. The old guys had skill, but our guys dominated.
-Kamala

Forbidden City

Our first week in China, we visited the Forbidden City. This was long before we had a vpn and could access sites like facebook and blogspot. Some US friends are visiting in October and we are excited. So after remembering our favorite places, I decided to post it now.
The Forbidden City is HUGE! We enter the first courtyard area and took a ton of pictures becuase it was so beautiful. Silly us ... we had only seen the enterance and the courtyards got more and more beautiful as we traveled deeper. Nowhere have I seen so many beautiful, intricate, ornate, buildings. They just go on and on and on. Each picture is from a different courtyard in the Forbidden City.

We went with two friends from the Hostel, a Canadian/Peruvian couple. They were hilarious. They travel all over the world taking videos of him doing a silly dance. Jason joined him for his Forbidden City segment.

-KAMALA