Chinatown My Chinatown

Today has been a crazy long day, but I’ve had fun. I had a lazy morning and didn’t really do anything until after lunch. Then I went out to Tesco (a local grocery store) to stretch my legs and buy some bread for the guy’s Bible study tonight. When I got back, Adam and Tabitha were playing chess in the Blue Room, and Eri, Zeke,Elizabeth, and I watched them play. We also had the movie “Tarzan” playing in the background, and got into a big discussion about Disney. (Did you know that “Tarzan” came out 10 years ago?! Crazy! I feel old…)

So at about 3:00, we (we being pretty much everybody) decided to take a double-decker bus to Chinatown to celebrate the Chinese New Year. We all went down together, which was fun because we had the entire top floor of the bus to ourselves. So that was fun.

We got to Chinatown, and it was mad cold. It was really cool though. Everyone broke into groups. I was with Adam, Tabitha, Eri, and Zeke. There were Chinese lanterns and Chinese people and Chinese music and Chinese restaurants everywhere. We even saw a Chinese dragon! It was really cool- it was surrounded by a crowd of people and went down the street, doing this weird little dance at the entrance of each restaurant. I got some sweet videos, but they were too big, so you lose. At one point, we were lucky enough to be right in front of it as it crossed the street. I’ll show you when I come home. At one point, Adam got on hands and knees and let Tabitha stand on his back so she could get some cool pictures. Oh, and we saw roasted ducks hanging in the window. Yum?

We were pretty cold and hungry, so we went to this really cool Chinese restaurant. They only gave us chopsticks, but it was ok because I’m semi-able to use chopsticks. Sort of. I managed. Adam and I ended up splitting a meal because we ordered the same thing and the waitress got confused and thought we only wanted one meal between the two of us. But it was ok because it was cheaper that way. Oh, and Tabitha and I also split some rice because we were still hungry after our meals. It was funny at the end- Eri is Japanese, but the guy who gave us our bill didn’t know that and started talking to her in Chinese. Ha.

It was dark by the time we left the restaurant, which made everything look ten times cooler. There were fireworks in this one square, but the crowd was too big and we didn’t get to see them. We heard them though, and they were pretty ridiculous.

The five of us made it back to the HC and watched “101 Dalmations” along with Dave and Elizabeth. I know I said we did that last week, but we ended up not watching it. But oh my God, what an awesome movie that was. I remembered like half of it right off the bat, but some parts I had forgotten about, but I remembered them completely when they came on. Like Sergeant Tibbs. Remember him? I forgot he even existed! And I also forgot that the Dalmatians rolled around in soot to disguise themselves as Labradors. We all had a lot of fun remembering stuff. All of us had forgotten different scenes, and all of us remembered different scenes. We decided that we were going to try and watch one Disney movie each Sunday. Just to have some nostalgic fun, you know? And I am all about nostalgic fun.

After the movie, I went back to my room for a bit. It started snowing today, and it’s REALLY coming down now. But some people went out to the tennis court and drew a big face in the snow, which I thought was cool. Then I went to the guys’ Bible study. We looked at the first chapter of James and pigged out on bread. Then I went down to the lounge and caught the first part of the Super Bowl while I typed this blog. Go Steelers! I guess. I don’t really care, but I have a lot of friends who like the Steelers and I’ve rooted for them in the past, so yeah.

Tomorrow we’re taking a train (!!!) to Bath for an overnight excursion. It should be fun. A nice break from routine at least. But I’m leaving my laptop here, so I won’t have it again until Tuesday. So I won’t be able to talk to any of you. But I’ll make a blog about Bath at some point. Oh, and the Highbury Centre post is still coming too! That’s probably a lie. But oh well. I’m so excited about taking a train though! The tube is nice, but there are subways, and there are trains, and trains are better. So yeah. I’m pumped. But I should probably go because its 12:40 and I have a lot to do. Love you guys. Bye.


PS-So I completely intended to put pictures up but the internet is being slow and crappy and it's taking forever. So you all lose. For now.