Chinese NewYear

So much is going on right now I don't think I can remember everything I want to tell you. On Wed. we had our new year celebrations at K3. The pic on the last blog is from that day. It was actually a very good event for the kids. I had had my doubts because of the dumpling making. I had in my mind a vision of an adult showing the children how to make a dumpling while they watched but actually everyone got in on the action. The children really enjoyed it. The children then performed the chopstick dance and sang the chinese new year songs for their parents. I don't have the words to the song or I'd give them to you. I'm still going to try to get them in english. I have learned about the banners on the doors - one across the top and 1 down each side. These are to keep the monsters away. Firecrackers have been going off more than usual (it seems we are never completely without them) for the past week. We will be hearing a lot more over the next 2 weeks. There should also be some great fireworks displays over the next couple of weeks. Firecrackers are going off as I am typing this. Oh yes, after the above mentioned performance we got to eat those dumplings. They were pretty good.
Today I was out sightseeing with a few of my friends. We went to the Longhua Temple and Pagoda. It was interesting but even more interesting were all the sights and chinese streets around there. When I get the pics from Mary Catherine I'll show them to you. It was one of those times when we said, "Now we're in China". We then went to the Xujiahui Cathedral - "a gothic Jesuit cathedral completed in 1910. It is the city's largest cathedral and a fine example of early European architecture." I took that right out of the yellow pages which is a little book about 3" x 4" that is used for sightseeing. The church was really quite interesting and although it looks small from outside it really is quite large. You can actually go to mass there but it is quite far from here so I doubt that I'll make it. We actually had a lot of fun today, sightseeing. We haven't done that for quite awhile and are feeling like we need to do more as we did when we first got here. We easily got into a rut of work and home and only going to the places around us so not really experiencing the chinese culture. In the stalls around the pagoda we went to, today, there were lots of firecrackers for sale. They have big packages of them in which they come in a big circle of them (they look like a round of bullets). There are packages of 500 and 1000 as well as tons of fireworks that you can buy also. To even it all out though with my electric bill this week there was a notice not to set off firecrackers as they could damange the electrical wires. We see a lot of interesting notices and signs. I will have to take a picture of the sign in our elevator for you to read. It is quite hilarious. That's all for now. I will keep you up to date on the new year happenings.