September 14th

Dear Everyone,

So life has been pretty good…busy but good. Everyday something exciting happens and I just love the surprises China presents us with. Today is Zhong Tou Jie, a.k.a. the moon festival. So moon cakes are the popular item right now. They are these bread things with fillings, usually a fruity kind of jell with fruit chunks or sesame seed type things. Most of them taste pretty bad to us Americans, but the ones with red bean paste in them are probably my favorite. I really like a few of them, but it is true that most of them are just a little too strange for the western pallet. So because it’s the Moon festival here, we went to a concert last night that was held in honor of the festival and it was waaaay fun! We actually found out about the concert the day before when we were touring the San Yat-Sen memorial park. There is a really nice outdoor amphitheater we happened upon, and someone told us there’d be a concert the next day. Since it had been cheaper to buy year long passes to the park than to even by a day pass, we could come back for free and we were even told that we could get into the concert for free. So we rented a bus and all headed up to the park at around four in order to look around and save seats, etc. But the bus that came could only hold ten, whereas we’d wanted one to hold about fifteen. And even then, twenty two people showed up!! So the bus had to make two trips and some people grabbed a taxi. I went on the first bus ride. After arriving at the back entrance (the bus driver got a little lost and took us around a different way) we flashed our cards and totally made it in! We were really thrilled since the concert was supposed to cost 80 yuan, which is something like 12 dollars. So we set up our blankets and settled in, but it got pretty boring cause there really wasn’t that much to see just in the amphitheater. And by five thirty I was also really really hungry. So Greg (this guy from Colorado who is into violins, Audrey Hepburn and is a return missionary from England-mandarin speaking) and I went out of the amphitheater and looked around the park for something good to eat. A lot of the places looked closed, so we had to go further and further away. We stopped at a few convenience store type things, but the only warm food they served was corn on the cob and all the meats were just packaged things hanging on the walls at room temperature. There were bags with pig intestines, whole ducks, chicken feet, chicken wings, etc. They all looked cooked and then vacuum sealed, but I still didn’t feel like eating anything like that. So we continued on and found this one place that had two people eating in it, so we went there and ordered a really yummy noodle dish. But as they were making it, it looked like they were trying to close as well. They pulled down these garage door looking things over all of the entrances except one mini one, and so we felt kinda bad sitting there eating. But the Chinese people thought we were really nice and didn’t mind us being there. So after eating we headed back to the amphitheater, only to find out that they wouldn’t let us back in with only our passes!! They said that after 6 you needed a real ticket to get in! But luckily some other guys we knew were stuck out there too, and they had made friends with this Chinese guy Michael, and he somehow managed to get four tickets (for free) from the ticket lady! Only problem is that there were six of us, not four. But he was like, don’t worry, we’ll just hand them the four tickets and they’ll let us all in. So we tried it, and they people totally just laughed at us and let us in!!!!!! Lol, China is soo different from the US. The show was absolutely amazing and totally Chinese, so it was a great cultural experience. Tons of beautiful dancing and a variety of styles of singing, it was awesome! I'm so happy to be in China!
Love,
Brooke