国庆节

Hiya! This week has been 国庆节, the Chinese nationalist holiday. What does that mean for me? No school baby! Its been a great week so far. On Sunday five of us who decided to stay in nanjing went with lily and a classmate to visit lily's hometown. Her dad picked us up and we drove to 六合, which is a suburb district of Nanjing that's about an hour away from our district. We drove to the 金牛湖 or golden ox lake, which is where the youth Olympic water sports will be held in 2014, and walked around for a while. The lake was beautiful even though it rained the entire time. After wandering we lily's parents took us all out to dinner, which with the amount of dished seemed to be more of a banquet than a normal dinner. While I've met lily's parents before, I also got to meet one of her little sisters, who is a 10th grader.

On the ride to the lake Lily's dad provided us with some snacks, two of which I've never seen before.

 

There were small crab apple-type apples called 枣子(Chinese date) , and then nuts that you bit in half and tasted like chestnuts, called 菱角 (water nut). They were both very interesting tasting. 

 There were monkeys! The meaner ones were chained :( but the rest got to roam around.

The lake also seemed to be a popular destination for wedding photos, I think we saw three brides dressed to the nines. And yes, those are small children in the bubbles!

 

Group photo!

 

We got wine, had to take a picture of the full glass for mom and dad!

 

There was so much food! And of course you need a close up of the fish!

 

Vera, Darius, and Cathy!

 

Lily and her lovely little sister.

On another note, I made another trip to ikea yesterday with Dennis for a comforter and man was that a nightmare! There were so many people, probably because of the holiday. But now I am warm in my bed with my awesome winter blanket that makes me never want to leave my bed. Yay!! Erin's birthday is tomorrow so we're all going to dinner and then out to celebrate. If only I had an oven...

Love,

Maggie