Juicy Lucy

So my friend Christine and I, decided to do a juice fast for 2 days this week to give our bodies a cleanse and a "rest" from digesting foods. So even after just 2 days of juicing fruits and vegetables, my body has felt lighter and more alert.  However, the best product was the challenge in practicing self-control.  Interesting how physical self-denial flows over into other AREAS of your life? I felt more productive in my school work and more intentional with friends.

Christine, Brittany and baby JoJo asleep

Here are some yummy juice combos:

• Carrot, apple, orange and celery Juice
• Cucumber-Pear Juice
• Apple-Orange Juice

*Whatever you do, don't juice cucumber and carrots (or ANYthing), then try and heat it up on the stove to make soup! The mess'll turn into a poop color with a grainy texture, and worse, the heat destroys the enzymes in the veggies. 
 *Also, if you juice apples, you can use the remainder to make applesauce. 

Choo Choo

21 HOUR Train Ride?!!
Yeah, that was my reaction too. But once we actually got situated in our cubbies...

In each "cubbie hole", there were 3 hard sleeper bunk beds on the right and 3 on the left. Good bonding time.



At night, everyone else was asleep, but we kept stopping at different stations and the loud speakers would come on with a Chinese man, yelling at new passengers to "Qui Dian" on board. When I looked out the window, no way was I going back to sleep with all the SNOW covering the buildings and beautiful night countryside.

We had a peeper stop by 2 or 3 times to practice his English. Surprisingly, after an hour of talking with him the first day, switching back and forth from Chinese and English (mo stly Chinese WowOo), we said goodbye and let our brains rest.   

I enjoy exhausting my chinese, man, i have so far to go.

Man oh man, the sun came early. For lunch the next morning, waiters rolled a vegetable cart with individually cleaned and wrapped fruit & veggies.  Ha China where have you been all my LIFE!  And here we were buying out the street market's Chinese style Ramon Noodles before we boarded!

Dragon Caves and Yong Shuo

Just pictures!
Need to catch you up on Spring Festival traveling during our winter break...

The scenery outside of Guilin is famous around China for it's
unique steep MoUnTaIn PeAks. Pretty snazy McD's!

Touring in Guilin

Charlotte and I are going in! We could have swam through
the cave but took a boat instead.

Dragon Cave

The Night Life! It's pizza and coffee for us

Guilin Pagodas, temples.

Scarf Making

Hungry? Why Wait?

I am constantly being asked, "Will you tutor my child in English?" Walking down the streets of my city, adults often shy away from conversation with the foreigners (totaling 10 of us now), while preschoolers run up to you, waving vivaciously to practice their "Hello"! Most parents in my city can't speak a lick of English, but their children are learning onomatopoeias and Idioms. There's a new trend going on in this country...it's English!


Possibly part of Mao's global power and trade tactics to require this second language taught in schools, but nevertheless, there's a new generation raising up in China, and they have a Strong Interest in You! Never has there been a more fitting opening for a native English speaker to breeze straight into Pandaland. If you have any interest in living overseas, NOW is the Time! I guarantee, you have never been wanted more!

My college students made New Year's Resolutions last week, and ALL 350 students expressed their highest priority as "improving spoken English", EVERY ONE of them.  I often spot local businessmen playing ping pong with students near our rec area, practicing the dialect, bumming lessons from the english majors.

It's crazy how something I have taken for grantit my whole life could be so valued across the Pacific.