The big countdown

Life has moved into super speed...we are leaving this place in 15 days!!! Augh! I'm so ready but so terrified! Here I have no food I like, but back in America I may have no job to buy food I like either!

Princess and I do like these candied haws on a stick

What's worse seeing and smelling yummy food at the grocery store and not being able to get it or looking a websites and drooling over food that you can't possible cook in your itty bitty oven in China? Hopefully tomorrow I will wake up and get one of those zillion jobs I applied for and I will go home and eat happily ever after. The US media is filled with horror stories about unemployment so it does make me appreciate the ignorance is bliss media approach in China. My experience from rejection letters is that the zoo field is having about 25-30 applicants per job. The Husband actually got a nibble today from someone saying that due to the holiday season they hadn't had enough applicants so he can come in and fill out an ap. So that kinda made us think it maybe just a myth that there are no jobs. Last year we were thoroughly scared enough that we came back to China for another round...course we were still in line for adoption (naturally you don't leave the country without your completed family). Now we have Little Guy

Little Guy

and he really needs some services that can't be found here (it's not really fare to let him drool over sign language websites, when he can go have real friends to chat with) and Teenager is already in America. So we are starting to pack.
Speaking of food, I was getting down those pretty mooncake boxes so I could pack some breakables or something in them. I was quite shocked to see that we still had 5 mooncakes left. Lets say I'm not going to be wasting my luggage space with those little tidbits. I tried presenting them again to Little Guy and Princess. They took a bite and ....
I don't feel that bad about disposing the rest. I know the donkeys eat the food scraps outside. Everything gets recycled here.

Some of the store displays are so interesting

To end this journey on a positive note, I'm going to countdown stuff I'll miss in China.
I will miss my students....they are so cute! They have told me more amazing stories than I have ever read or seen in movies. They will and would do anything for me. Today I came to class and they thought it was the last class. My boss had told me last week I was mistaken, I will be teaching until Dec 23...there was some confusion about the school calendar and the loss of the National Day week and then possible the few days we had "the illness". I was kind of like "oh". So I go to class and the students had wanted to have a little

Wallyworlds Christmas Gingerbread Land-luv Santa!!!

Christmas Party (always a strange idea of what Western Christmas must be like) so I made them gingerbread cookies (from the mix I hoarded all year) and brought them candy canes (hidden from my munchkins) and sowed them our advent chocolate calendar (I didn't dare try to steal that from the munchkins). So I said, "you know we have another week of class" as I walked in. They screamed, and hugged each other! They said "we get to see you again!!!" They immediately texted the person who was absent from class because she had to sub. They were so happy. The other teacher left her class and ran over to mine and said, "I'm so happy, I wanted to come to class so much today!" I have other students, I call them my English junkies and they come to all my classes that they can. I will really miss them. How often do you get paid to do a job where people are soooo happy to see you and want to learn from you? I can't remember ever having kids in America scream of joy because we had to make up a snow day and they get to spend a nice sunny summer day in my class.
We had a nice little party and they were so sweet. They brought little bitty oranges (always they bring these to all events) and pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, chestnuts, and Russian instant coffee. I showed them how to stir the coffee with the candy cane and they thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. And they are so polite, Teenager used to have a class down the hall and would come visit. Last week the Husband subbed for me when I took her to the airport. They were so worried about her traveling alone.

Gingerbread girl...thinking of warmer places

So today they asked about her test and I told them her scores were 96 and 98 out of 100 and they screamed again. In their mind their is only one college entrance exam and it is such a life changing score that they think her test is just as important. It was sweet that they cared and are so enthusiastic. I will miss them.

Harbin, China