Halloween and Flying Hills

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Our Halloween party was a success! We started making the snacks Sunday afternoon. Everything turned out well except that rice crispie bars. Now I know it should be like the easiest thing in the world to make, but it really isn’t. I’m attributing it to the fact that none of us had made them before, the instructions were in Chinese, and we had weird marshmallows. They ended up being just a shapeless blob on a plate since we didn’t have a pan to spread them out in. I tried some of it later, and it wasn’t too bad, but I won’t be making those again. Our more successful treats were some witches brooms made with pretzel sticks and Fruit by the Foot, dirt cups, brownies, and grilled cheese sandwiches (our Chinese friends specifically requested these). I tried making some mouths with apple wedges and almond slices for teeth, but that didn’t really work either so we just served apples and almonds. I figured those were autumny enough to work.

Miss Li had invited some of her teacher friends and their kids so we started with a kiddie party. We put in Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin on the projector screen which caught their attention right away. I guess kids everywhere are the same: put on a movie, and they become TV zombies. Our Chinese friends arrived a little later, just in time to watch me and Carey try to teach the little kids a Halloween song. They did not want to sing along, so it was more than a little embarrassing. We never got a hold of any pumpkins, but we did have two dozen apples. We set up a table with a bucket of water, put some apples in it and invited everyone to try. The young girls were the first to try, but the apples were too big, so we put some dates in for them. Then the big kids attempted it. Most of the American students hadn’t even bobbed for apples before. I got to observe since bobbing would mess up my whiskers.

We gave all the kids a jack-o-lantern bucket with candy as they left and the real party started. Not really, we just watched Scream. It was a little funny because the Chinese girls were terrified. I was pretty scared myself, but they took it to another level, hiding behind someone else or screaming at everything. But the movie ended and everyone left.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. We’re reviewing for the midterms and studying like crazy. On Saturday we went to Lingyin Temple. It is near West Lake, and stands next to a large hill with several Buddhas carved into its sides. The legend behind this is that there was once a monk who everyone in the village thought was crazy. He predicted a large hill would fly over from India and crush their village in front of the Lingyin Temple. He ran around the village trying to get everyone to evacuate, but no one listened to him. Finally, he saw a bridal procession coming. He stole the bride and carried her off. The villagers started chasing him to get the bride back, but they couldn’t catch him. Everyone was led by the monk away from the village. When they finally caught him, they were going to kill him, but just then, a huge hill came flying over and landed on their village. It was supposed to fly up to go to another village, but the monk said that if 500 Buddhas were carved into it, it would stay there and not harm any more villages.

The temple was pretty cool. There were several buildings with different Buddhas in them. One building housed 500 statues of different Buddhas, and each statue was different. We got to climb up Feilai Feng (Hill Flying from Afar). The hill really is carved with many statues which is pretty cool to see. The hill itself is crossed with several paths up to the top. On our way down, the path we chose was really overgrown, so it was a little adventure crawling through the vines and trying not to slip on the stones since it was raining a little bit. Miss Li brought her son Guagua along so we had fun with him. He’s only two, and he doesn’t really say much, but he’s the most adorable thing ever! He’s finally warming up to us after crying every time we came too close since we’re scary foreigners.

The rest of the day was spent studying. I never realized how much we’ve learned until I was looking at all my flashcards. I only got through six chapters. Twenty-two more to go! My first final is on Monday morning. Hope I’m ready for it!

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Photos

Crossing the stream
Someone slipped on the rocks and slid down the hill. It took him awhile to get back up since it was so slippery