Goodbye to
Dalian
August 2, 2015
By Sarah Ann
Since today was Sunday, it was
our day to go to church. There’s no place we can go to church in Dalian and, in
fact, the nearest church is many hours of driving away. So instead of going to
church, we attended a call in church for people in our religion like us in
China. We skyped in and everyone else at church had skyped in too. So we just
sat in our room and listened on the computer. Christian just played Legos the
whole time – probably because he didn’t really think of it as church. We turned
our computer on mute so they couldn’t hear us – and that was probably a good
thing.
Then for several hours, we just
stayed in our new room while my parents got things ready to leave. The kids had
a new room when we came back from our two week trip that was much bigger than
our old room and much bigger than my parents’ room.
At about 5 p.m., our host family
picked us up for dinner. We gave them some presents (everyone in China gives
each other presents).
Walking in downtown Dalian before dinner
We went to dinner with them and
the director of my dad’s institute (DICP) and his wife. At the front of the
restaurant, there was a giant fish tank – lots of Chinese restaurants have
these. Everyone had to sit in a certain seat at the table based on how
important they were. Daddy was pretty important so he sat on the right hand
side of the director. Ning, the host, sat next to my dad. We ate dumplings,
noodles, rice, Mao’s favorite dish – this pork dish, asparagus, sweet lotus
root, shrimp, some kind of fish, spring rolls, and some other things that I
can’t remember. After dinner, the kids and the director’s wife sat on the floor
and played Chinese Uno. It was fun. Taylor and I talked to Danika (the
five-year-old little girl there) in Chinese.
Playing Chinese Uno
I’m really sad to leave Dalian
although I’m excited to go to Beijing, Hawaii, and California. For the past
month, I’ve been calling Dalian “home”. It’s crazy how fast this trip is going
by.
Good to hear from you. It may seem like it's gone fast to you, but since our communication with you has been limited to blog posts, it seems like it's been a very long time to me. Glad you are still having a great time! Love Grandma Albrecht
ReplyDeleteI am impressed you were talking in Chinese. You'll have to teach us Chinese Uno.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, Sarah Ann! Liked hearing about church, your bigger room, where people sat at dinner, the food you ate, Chinese Uno and that's impressive you can speak any Mandarin! Your pictures are good, too! We have pot stickers here and wonder if they're like the dumplings you've said you like. Looking forward to seeing you soon! Love, Grandma Huber
ReplyDelete