Sunday, April 5, 2009

China- 我居住那裡此秋天

So. I'm moving to china this fall... only 4 months away! But I've been getting all psyched up about it since November.  My good pals Ryleigh and Riley are there right now teaching English to a school of over 4,000 students. Gosh.  But I'm so excited.  Among some of their interesting experiences include the food, restrooms, and overwhelming culture shock.  But I looked up some fun facts on China:

* When a Chinese child loses a baby tooth, it doesn't get tucked under the pillow for the tooth fairy.  If the child loses an upper tooth, the child's parents plant the tooth in the ground, so the new tooth will grow in straight and healthy.  Parents toss a lost bottom tooth up to the rooftops, so that the new tooth will grow upwards too.
*It is considered good luck for the gat to a house to face south. 
*Red is THE lucky color.
*Fourth graders are expected to know 2,000 of the over 40,000 written Chinese characters.  By the time they leave college, they will know 4,000 or 5,000 characters.  Each character is learned by looking at it and memorizing it.
*The Great Wall stretches 4,500 miles across North China.
*In China, treehugging is strictly forbidden.
*All Disney characters were banned in China for 40 years.
*Spitting is considered a sport in certain parts of the country.

Anyway.  I will be living in Hefei.  Some consider it the armpit of China, others consider it wonderful.  Guess I'll have to wait for August and See!






(Photos courtesy of Ryleigh Allred.)

Friday, April 3, 2009

Cereal.....


Breakfast cereal.  I eat it almost everyday.  It's either that with skim milk or some Quaker oatmeal (fruit and cream preferably... blueberry is THE best flavor).  Any who. Ever since moving out I have done sort of a taste tests with different types of cereal.  Growing up we had kind of the same cereals generally that we liked and my mom got.  So I decided to branch out when I moved to Logan.  The first week up at school I had one of the huge costco packs of Honey Bunches of Oats (My favorite at the time. still kind of).  That kept me good for a while.  But after those were gone the experimenting started.  Some of the ones I tried:

Peanut butter crunch- yum yum yum. roughs up your mouth a lot but i love the taste.
Cocoa krispies- delicious.  Also better tasting milk to drink after.
Muffin tops- DisGUSTing.  Worst of the worst. Way way way too much sugar sprinkled every where. Kaka.
Oh's- grahm cracker tasting cereal.... this is also too sugary.  But maybe good to feed your childs in church. ha.
Oat cluster cheerio crunch-  Yumma.  I like the mixture of granola bits and the like 4 different cheerios.
Kroger Oatmeal- Sick.... way too thick. This is what they fed the orphans on the famous musical Oliver.  
Mini Wheats- Definitely my new favorite.  These little nuggets soak up milk like none other.  Make sure when you eat these that you put the sugar side face down (on your tongue). ha.
Wheaties- so so good for when you in that mood of "I'm going to be healthy and eat nothing but apples and grain for a week."
Cookie Crisp- a tad too much sugar but what can you expect from a cereal with this name.  Maybe could have been better in a ziplock bag without the milk in class or something.
Go Lean Crunch- Never tried it. But my room mates love it.  I think it looks like birdfood.  Jen and Paige sprinkled this on their funeral potatoes once.  This might be next on my list ha. 

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