I woke up to lightly falling snow on Tuesday. It makes me so happy! Here are pictures from my window and on my walk to class. They say it hasn't snowed here for five years, so everyone was pretty excited! I love the white mustache on Lenin.

 

Some spots of Christmas around my apartment:

 Do you like my lamp turned Christmas hat rack?!

 And a Chinese winter scene that looks a little Christmasy.

           Merry Christmas
       from China everyone!

Chinese Dumplings

These are 5 cute girls from my Sophomore Reading class. They took me to the Qingdao Museum one day. Then they decided I needed to learn how to make dumplings. They brought pork, onions, and ginger. I had the rest of the materials.

Here's a demo of the rolling process:

They're very good at it. I couldn't turn out round dough to save me.

Some dumplings ready to cook.

They sink to the bottom of boiling water.
When they pop to the top, they're done!

Two of the chefs.










Notice the clothes - Layers of cuteness!

Nothing is plain. This one has fur at the top, then lace, and knit designs - to cook in.

Another fancy, detailed outfit!
My friend Kris came to learn the art of dumpling making.
Dumplings seem to be a part of every festival in China. These girls are lucky that their mothers passed on the art. And I'm lucky they would come teach me!

A Qingdao Thanksgiving

We postponed our Church Thanksgiving dinner so more people would be able to attend. It didn't seem to matter much since we all taught on Tgiving anyway. We ordered tables on Monday and they came the morning of our dinner! Yay! Before this we just held food on our laps whenever we had a dinner.

Some things that were hard to find - Turkey!, pecans, jello, whipping cream, canned milk, pie pans, 9x13 pan, ovens for turkeys & pies (we have toaster ovens), cranberry sauce, and Jiffy corn bread mix. We finally managed to find or borrow everything except the Jiffy mix. We found an import place, but everything is very expensive - i.g., Jello cost me about $3.50 for a small pkg.

Two of our YSA girls (our Branch missionaries)

The three on the right are nonmember friends that they invited.

An overview of the dinner in our Sacrament meeting room. The beautiful ocean view is right out those glass windows.

The family in the foreground have an oven, so they agreed to cook the turkeys and two of the pies. The older couple (Akiyoshis) at the back of the table are Japanese and just started coming to Church again.(That's cute Moko, who just agreed to be a VTer. And next to her is Mimi, the Fr Canadian who translates my English into Chinese for Moko who's learning Chinese. Crazy!)

The couple in the center is our Branch President and his wife - Dale and Joan Campbell, my next-door neighbors and Joan is one of my best friends. On the outside is Kirk and Midge Evans, our instructors from the BYU training we received last summer. They are traveling around China visiting each of the 80 BYU China Teachers. They will also be at our Hong Kong training conference in January.

Two more couples who came over with me in August, the Murdocks in front and the Granvilles in back.

A wonderful Korean family living here. Hyun Ah is my 1st counselor in RS. Their son Terry (16)  is our translator in Sacrament meeting. Isn't she beautiful!

Shelley Zhang(Chinese) and Peter Hwang(Korean) and their two daughters.

Buddhist Monastery

Another weekend adventure!

We visited a Buddhist monastery or temple grounds. These are the living quarters of the monks there.
Another view of the statue and stone in front.

The more holes in the rock, the more holy. This is considered to be very holy.

Here I am in the bell tower, bonging the bell.

Some of the buildings on the monastery grounds:

Here we have a lecture hall and a temple with a reclining female Buddha made of jade and precious jewels. It's quite exceptional!

Details on the front of the alter.

We weren't allowed to take pictures in most of the buildings that were being used for prayers and worship, but these two were empty:

This brass warrior was in one of the scripture/souvenir shops.
Lots of people were here  on the temple grounds, praying and burning incense.
I find it all fascinating.

Ocean Sights

It has been so cold and blustery lately, so when Saturday came and it was sunny and mild, we decided we need to get out of our apartments. These are some students we met on the bus. They walked us through this neighborhood of old German homes, complete with castle, and helped us find this beautiful stretch of beach.

It has become tradition for young couples to take wedding photos here.

 

with some of their treasures from the sea!

Lots of fishermen out today,











This is a great beach for swimming. This happy guy was telling us the water was fine and we should come on in!

Here's some of the art and statues we saw along our way.

Lori Hargraves and Donna Radunich

And two more just for fun!