JINAN, A NIGHT OUT.

Attached is video clip of Jinan and our adventures here last Monday night on Family Night. There were many lighted kites in the sky that night. It was beautiful and quite striking, even though the video does not catch that very well.

This is a video clip of our night out at the Park and dinner with all the other Jinan (BYU) English Teachers together with Midge and Kirk Evans, our supervisors from BYU. They are assigned by BYU to come and visit all of us in China for a few days to observe our teaching styles, teaching failures and successes. It was their annual visit.

We were all glad to see them and to host them in Jinan.

I made a 7 minute "Thank You DVD" movie/card for them and Dana presented it to them as they left for their next adventure as they travel throughout the entire country of China and continue to meet with BYU English Teachers.

More China Pictures

Work and Play

Hello, Jay here

Dana and I are University Oral English Teachers here in Jinan and these photos show us at work and some at play.

Chinese go to Pizza Hut one time through salad bar... They are masters at "salad stacking".

This young couple got their money's worth.

Either way, one time through salad bar costs 32. yuan, about $4.50 American at Pizza Hut here.

We enjoyed the LDS General Conference Weekend with our Jinan Group and streamed the sessions from www.lds.org. to our apartment.

It worked very well, even here in China.

We failed to receive the DVD's of Conference in time for Sat and Sun Meetings, (Sent to us from Beijing) so we went to the web.

Then we enjoyed a real American spaghetti dinner together,

with Home Made Rolls thanks to Dana.

Mens Diving- 10 min of fame.

Hello, Jay here....
On Thursday last week on our holiday, we went to attend the China 11th annual National Games, Men's Diving in Jinan's new sports complex, and I was interviewed about my impressions. Here is the spot of the diving off the TV station which aired that same night.

Here I am being interviewed by the TV station.

You can see the birds nest from the Olympics in the background.

We enjoyed the Diving Competition and the atmosphere with all of the Jinan and really all over China, Chinese people. I enjoyed talking to them in my limited Chinese. This is the same Jinan city Vanessa Bergman came to participate in a similar Diving Competition many years ago, but in the old pools. Our English Students and the fans at the water cube, were all so great and so friendly to us.
Here is Dana at the spot where you have to get your temperature taken. They are very serious about the Swine flu and no one gets in with a temperature.

We went out for dumplings afterwords in a Chinese Restaurant named "Dumpling City". Dana loves Dumplings now. Below you can see the intense security measures behind us to enter the stadium.

China's National Holiday

Dana here....Yesterday was National Holiday, like the 4th of July. We watched the parade in Beijing on TV. After we got finished watching all the soldiers (thousands) march by, then came the floats. Now this is the first year of having floats and after seeing what they did with them I don't think the Rose Festival floats will be the same. It was amazing. It was like watching of the Olympics in Beijing last year, it was amazing.

In the afternoon we got together with Twig (Branch) and hiked to the big Buddha on the mountain. When we got there Dad got a 3 seat bike and everyone road around on it. When Dad and I did it together the person was really worried that our weight would cause some damage to the bike. But we were able to ride it and not break it.

While we were out in the morning we went to this one store that has a children's play area and this great zip line. Then we all went to an Chinese restaurant and ate and had a really good time. After that we went to the top of the hotel and watched 6 different places that were doing a 1/2 hour of fireworks all at the same time. Then it was home - it really was one great National celebration in China.