Christmas Happenings

On Christmas Eve we had a party for our entire team at Shi Yi the school that is about 30 minutes from us. They warned us that it will be really really hard to find a cab on Christmas Eve b/c a lot of people are coming into our district for a Christmas Eve service and it is also rush hour. So four of us left really early in order to get there on time. I had to take 4 two liters of pop and the other girls had dishes of baked goods. We waited outside for 45 minutes for cab, and we were freezing so we called the Shi Yi people and found a bus number that we could take. The only problem was the bus was the most commonly used bus and it was rush hour. It was SOO crowded, after we got on there was a man standing on the street with his arms stretched out shoving people into the bus so that he could get on, and the bus driver was yelling b/c he could not shut the doors. It was insane. Then this sweet Chinese lady started talking to us in English and helped us figure out what stop to get off on, and she told us we had to move to the other end of the bus in order to get off. Well I could not even move my arms let alone walk to the other end of the bus. So she took my arm and started pulling us through the bus, she was hitting people with pop. It was unreal. The bus was really hot and stuffy and one of the girls with us was not feeling well, and the bus was really jerky, and the girl threw up but held it in her mouth for 10 minutes until we got off the bus (sorry for the details but it was unreal).

We finally got off and thankfully there was a cab right next to the bus stop that we were able to take the rest of the way. But when we got in the cab we did not know where to go b/c the directions are complicated to get to Shi Yi. So I called someone and figured out the directions but as we were nearing the school I could not remember which gate was right so I told the cab driver to stop like 3 times and then go again and he was so entertained by my mistakes, he would laugh every time I messed up. We finally made it to the right place an hour and 45 minutes after we left our school.

Once we got there it was great and we had a lot of fun and ate a lot of good food.

Christmas:

Christmas day was great, we had a gift exchange in the morning with brunch. Then in the afternoon all of us are either sick or exhausted from a crazy week with activities with students that we all napped all afternoon and then ate dinner together. It was a relaxing really enjoyable Christmas here in Beijing. Although, it did not really feel like Christmas but it was still a fun day. We ended the day watching the nativity story (the movie) and it was a great reminder of why we celebrate Christmas.