Badminton and Brownies!

As I told you in my previous post, last week was a holiday and I had the entire week off of school! During the holiday, one of the English teachers from school invited Camille and I to climb a mountain with her and play badminton at the top. 

Of course we said yes...

I am playing badminton with our new friend from school. Her English name is Betty. I haven't played badminton since junior high so I was not nearly as good as all of the Chinese people. Badminton is right up there with ping pong in China! They love it and they are realllyyyy good!

Camille and Betty practicing their skills. 

This badminton court is tucked away down a beaten path, about half way up the mountain we were climbing. 

These lovely close ups of the two of us were taken by another teacher, Mr. Xie, who was playing badminton with his family during the holiday. There was a lot of picture taking going on this day, mostly of us. They shared their pictures with us and I tried to find some of the less embarrassing action shots to post!

Mr. Xie playing with Betty's niece. 

Betty and one of her former students, who is now in university but was home for the holiday. High school teachers in China move through the grades with their students. They start together in Grade 1 and then onto Grade 2 and finally Grade 3. After 3 years together with the same kids, they form deep relationships with some students!

After badminton, we continued to hike. This is the temple near the top of the mountain.

Inside the temple.

There were dragons located all along this rock wall. 

The dragons led to this cave. 

A view of part of Huangshi from the top. Huangshi is surrounded by mountains, but this is the first time I have climbed one!

Another view of the city.

Our group: some teachers from school, family members, and former students!

This is a picture of the temple we were at, taken from below. It looks like is part of the mountain! 

Later the same day, we had a few friends over to our home to teach them how to make brownies! We had made brownies for Wu Xia's birthday dinner earlier this year and her friends loved them! It was so much fun to share western things with them. They don't have things like measuring cups or measuring spoons or baking powder or vanilla extract in China. It was quite a challenge to explain what these things are and where you can get them. We brought ours from America, but anything can be ordered online nowadays! 

This was the best idea ever...they did all of the baking, Camille and I just told them the steps, and then I got to eat brownies! 

The plates are the finished brownies, I promise, you just can't see them! 

Enjoying the finished product! 

What a great way to end the holiday week! Now its back to work! Only not really...I went to work for one week and now I have a holiday again! My students will have military training so I have most of the week off. Camille and I are going to take a quick trip to Guangzhou so I'll put a post of the trip as soon as I can!