We celebrated our first Christmas and New Year's in China! We had a blast. Our friends Nick & Haylee Hughes, from our small group, came to visit us. They got here on Christmas Eve, and we met them in Beijing. That brought us presents and a lot of goodies from back home! On Christmas day we went to the Great Wall. And oh my, what an experience!! It was -20 degrees with wind blowing 40mph!! The coldest any of us have ever been! We hiked up and down the wall, I think about 5 miles. Thomas wore a pedometer, but it quit working there because it was so cold! I had a full water bottle and it froze solid!! Needless to say it took us a while to 'thaw' out.
Another great thing about Beijing is that they have tons of American restaurants!! We got our fix for the rest of the year. (TGI Friday's, Outback, Starbucks....yum!)
We brought them back to Hangzhou for a few days. They got to meet some of our students and tour our campus. We took them downtown to do all the 'touristy' things (West Lake, Night Market, Temples, Green Tea Village). And of course we got 2 of the famous $6 China massages!
On New Years Eve (their anniversary) we went to Shanghai. We walked down some popluar streets, and to our surprise, found a Dunkin Donuts!!! (I think that was their favorite part of the trip!) We sent them home on New Year's day.
We had a great time with them! I was so nice to have friends from home be with us for the holidays, we're so blessed. This is definitely a holiday we'll never forget!
Students are about to start heading home for winter break. We're enjoying our last few days with them. We've had an American football day, dinner at our apartment, the usual ping-pong games, and going out to dinner. We're starting to build good relationships/friendships. We plan to visit a few students in their hometowns during the break.
Thanks for all the support and thoughts, we love and miss yall!
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