So I haven't been writing much lately because things have been pretty boring. And then, of course, everything had to happen all at once so that now I have to catch up!
First of all, last Friday Mitch and I took advantage of a beautifully sunny day to go to the zoo! It was called a "Wild Safari" and it's up at the foot of the mountains that are just outside of the city (the ones that we hope to get a chance to ski in sometime this winter). The place was basically empty and it was quite a game just trying to figure out where to go. We eventually found a bus that took us up into the hills and through some gates. Behind those gates were lions, and tigers, and bears--no kidding! We just drove through them as they lounged about! We saw an elephant and some giraffes as well. The bus ride ended at a big net enclosure that housed hundreds of different birds. We bought a couple packets of seeds and wandered around inside for a while. I must admit that I got pretty good and coaxing the birds around me. Unlike some of the kids in our group. Their main goal seemed to be to see how many birds they could get to flee from them in terror! After that we were left on our own and we wandered around sharing sidewalk space with deer and elk. The biggest part of our adventure was really just trying to figure out what to do next and where to go but that made discovering the animals that much more fulfilling.
That night as we went to bed both Mitch and I felt the beginnings of some kind of sickness coming on. Neither of us were surprised because the children had all been getting sick over the past few days and we realized that it was inevitable for those of us living in such close contact with them to get sick too. Sure enough, we woke up the next morning with the flu in full swing. The flu sucks--swine or regular. We were doing all right though, just taking care of each other all Saturday and most of Sunday--we even listened to church! But by Sunday evening Mitch wanted to see if someone could get us some kind of expectorant. He called Yalune up but when she found out that I had a bit of a fever she decided that we should go to the hospital. We really didn't want to go but we didn't have a choice really so off we went. As we went I began to feel worse and by the time we got there I had a nice high fever of 102.8. That sent off their little heat detector things for sure! Then followed a really torturous hospital quarantine. I won't go into too many details because that's just me complaining but let's just say it included really horrible beds, seriously limited care and far too many needles.
In the end we got to go home after two nights of torture to be quarantined at home which was a HUGE improvement. Fortunately Mitch and I are feeling much better. Mitch just has a little cough to get rid of.
Yesterday was Halloween and we had been wanting to celebrate it with the kids. We'd asked our families to send us some candy and stuff but with the quarantine we were unsure as to wether or not we'd get it in time. We did and yesterday was a blast! We had the kids come over earlier in the day and they decorated masks and brown bags. Then at night we passed out candy to a couple of people in the building and had the kids come trick-or-treating. They sure managed to catch the spirit of the holiday (kids and candy is a universal thing!). After that we watched Hocus Pocus with them while they devoured their spoils. It was really fun and quite exhausting after our week of enforced bed rest.
Now it's November and I look forward to birthdays and Thanksgiving and then before you or I know it we'll be back in the states for Christmas!!
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2 comments:
Wow. Swine flu in China sounds much less comfortable than Swine flu in America! And that's saying something because it's really not very much fun in America.
Funny story.. my little sister Caitlin went to china for about 6 months teaching English at a school in Urumuqi. There was a "safari" around there somewhere, too. Apparently it was mostly deer, like, lots of little deer, and there were lots of old ladies selling crackers to feed to the deer. So my sister and her friends bought some, and went out in the deer park, and were immediately surrounded by little deer, who started BITING THEM ALL OVER to get at the crackers. Biting hard enough to leave bruises on their skin with their little teeth!!
Soooo funny and wierd. I was all ready to hear about the biting deer, reading this post... thankfully the birds were nicer to you guys!
I certainly hope you're taking pictures of humorous English translations and other fun "engrish" mistakes!
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