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I Fell in Love in Hong Kong... With Noodles.

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After recreating a significantly darker adaptation to the ending of Super Mario: Odyssey with the kids, in which Princess Peach stabs Mario in the heart and Toad opens fire on her machine guns blazing whilst yelling “YOU’VE BETRAYED THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM!”; plus the added anxiety of watching Hank play the final boss(es) on the actual game over 20 times before beating it... you could say I’m rather tired. But what. A. Week. We went ice skating on Friday, and let me tell you… with my ankles, I really don’t think I was cut out for the stuff. Or I got the wrong shoe size. Either way, it felt like a never-ending cycle of pain and torment on a slippery sheet of ice. The kids enjoyed it, though. Immediately after, the Mom bought us movie tickets and we watched a bizarre, R-rated sci-fi action film with a Chinese protagonist and Sylvester Stallone for some reason, because… why not? The next day Hank and I went out to West Lake for some sightseeing. I saw a 1500 year old Pagoda, tons of koi fish
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Shanghai Noon (With Significantly Less Owen Wilson)

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Although we didn’t watch Shanghai Noon this week, we did watch the horrible trainwreck that is the Percy Jackson movies, and I just about had an aneurysm. Luckily we’ve made up by playing a lot of Super Mario Odyssey, a truly inspired, quality game. Hank and I are getting along pretty well. Me, him and Oscar played a live-action interpretation of Dynasty Warriors for almost 2 hours the other night and there were laughs all around. I was amused to find he knew all of the same characters I knew. Also, apparently there’s a saying here about Cao Cao that roughly translates as “speak of the Devil” and I want to use it all of the time now. We went to a big Safari park about a mile out of town and it was awesome. Lots of wildlife in large open areas. There was also a winter-themed indoor ice park, complete with snow, sledding, and ice sculptures. We played there until our faces were numb and then headed out for 5 rounds of bumper cars. After that, we ate lunch right in front of a window whe
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How to Get Cursed at a Buddhist Temple

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I hope you all realize that Chinese tourists are just as touristy in their own country as they are anywhere else. Not that there is an issue with that; I mean, who wouldn’t be? This place is incredible! So incredible, in fact, that it’s made me lose all concept of time, and this post is going to be very scatterbrained. Hank has been out of school this week so the parents suggested we go out traveling around the city for a couple days. Thursday we went to SongCheng, a Chinese history themed park with an array of shows, architecture, and activities to behold. It also had an assortment of food available, but Hank insisted we have the most popular, authentic item there: Instant Cup Noodles. They had a pretty cool ninja warrior themed obstacle course, with floating platforms to run across and all sorts of balancing beams and chains. I tried them out much to the amusement of everyone there, and took a few selfies with random teenage girls who were amazed at the sight of a living, breathing
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The Traditional Chinese Art of Making Sushi While Listening to K-Pop

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Unsurprisingly, this week started with me being moved to genuine tears on the bus by Paul McCartney’s sweet and simple words from The End of Abbey Road: “And in the end, The love you take Is equal to the love you make” The words have become poignantly applicable to my life. Past romantic relationships that have faded away, family relationships straining and growing through time and change, new relationships with my host kids and the emotional tole my responsibilities can sometimes take… Through all of this, much is given and much is taken. And though it is hard, I try to give more than I feel I’m capable of on my own, in the hopes that it is returned somehow. Well, slowly but surely, it indeed comes back. And I’ve felt it. After a conversation with my host Mom, I decided to spend as much time as possible with the kids this week. Thursday and Friday were full of robot battles, chess games, dog-walking, and homework, before our host Dad finally came home from his business trip in Guangdo
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On a Scale of 1 to “Accidentally Walking onto a Chinese Movie Set During Filming”, My Week was Literally “Accidentally Walking onto a Chinese Movie Set During Filming”

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Can I just say something? CAN👏I👏JUST👏SAY👏SOMETHING👏 One of my greatest joys in life is meeting new friends around the world, and finding something in common that binds you together despite vast cultural differences. This week was full of that. Thursday and Friday went by quickly, packed with lots of time with the kids. The host Dad has been out of town on business, and the Grandma left for a few days to her hometown of Ningbo, so it’s been especially busy around here. Saturday morning I left very early (too early, it turns out) to the Hangzhou Zoo. I had invited a few people to join but the only one that ended up getting time off Saturday morning was Jasmin, a German Au Pair. We met up at the gate (about an hour after I’d gotten there (my fault)) and beheld the marvels of wildlife, the likes of elephants, giraffes, zebras, various monkeys and chimpanzees, highly-trained flipping seals, lions, tigers, bears (DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT SAYING IT), and of course, pandas. The zoo hosts
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Push Peace, and Keep it in Motion

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So I have a deal with Oscar that while he’s working on his homework, I reserve my time to strictly studying Chinese; That way, we can do our homework together. This works out great, except that he has a LOT OF HOMEWORK. I mean, A LOT (Props to him for only having a few minor meltdowns a day, all things considered). And though it can get quite exhausting studying 3+ hours of Chinese a day, I feel as if it pays off very slowly. Like, I end up remembering something I studied a week ago as opposed to something I studied that day. So hopefully that means, in a month or two, my Chinese will be ballin’. This week felt like the prelude to an exciting month ahead. Not to say that this week wasn’t exciting, just that it’s about to get a lot more happenin’ than the current day to day. Thursday I went on a small venture back to West Lake, this time to the lake itself. I took some pictures of the gorgeous scenery, happily accompanied by unintentionally deft candid models. I walked down the shore
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Behind Every Dynasty Warrior was a Tenacious Chinese Mother Nagging Them to Finish their Homework

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I was just running around the house with the Grandmother hunting down a house fly to no avail. So my time may be limited for this one. Nevertheless, here we go. Friday the Au Pair representatives came up to Hangzhou for a series of meetings so they dropped by the house. We had a very long conversation about religion and politics over some delicious chicken and crab. It mostly involved explaining the origins of Judaism and why they are different from Christians, and how Chinese communism is drastically different than Karl Marx communism. All parties involved left informed, educated, and full of crab. Saturday morning we all went down to the school for their annual 5k fun-run fundraiser event. We got their just in time for me to be thrown into the 5k starting line and start running without stretching. I definitely regretted this afterwards. But hey, between waiting for the kids to come within eyesight and the traffic stops, I still ran a 30:00 flat. After that the kids went
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