National Day: Part One

In China, everybody enjoys a one week holiday off of work for National Day. This occurs on the first week of October, and everybody travels. So, we took the advice of several wise people, and explored Cangzhou instead of traveling during this time. Here's an overview of some of the things we did with our time.

We bought a camera. Yes, another one. Our Nikon, as awesome as it is, does not have video capability. So after many many hours of researching other cameras, we decided to buy a simple but nice point-and-shoot, and we are actually quite pleased with it. Here's the first video we took with it.

We got Chinese haircuts. To see more about that adventure, click here.

We learned how to make dumplings. When we went to have lunch with Mr. Zhang on Tuesday, we were pleasantly surprised to see that some of his family members were there working together to make a crazy amount of dumplings (jiaozi to be more precise). They even taught us how to make them.

In the middle is Miss Sue, Mr. Zhang's wife. Next to her is Mr. Zhang's sister-in-law. Do I look like a giant? That's because, in China, I am one.

This is one of at least 3 trays that were filled with dumplings to be cooked.

The stove in Mr. Zhang's private kitchen is wood-heated with a large cast-iron bowl above it. There is a metal shield that slides in front of the wood fire to help with insulation.

You can see that the dumplings that we made were a tad flat compared to the pretty dumplings that everyone else made; they were also the last to be eaten.

We ate tonghulu everyday. In fact, we ate a lot of delicious street food everyday; so much so that we made a whole post about it here.

We saw a carnival in a garbage field. Enough said.

We skyped with family. Every Tuesday and Wednesday we get the pleasure of skyping with our parents. When we're lucky, we get to skype with our siblings as well. This week was no exception, and as always, it was great to see their smiling faces. They may not know it, but we look forward to our skype chats with them all week long. Not only is it great to speak to some native English speakers, but we love to see a bit of home every week.

We went to two Muslim mosques. The first mosque we went to was the "Cangzhou North Mosque." It was beautiful. The entrance wasn't grand, but if you have any ability to recognize written Arabic, you'd suspect that a mosque was nearby. The neighborhoods surrounding the two mosques were filled with hints of Arabic influence, from gift shops with paintings of mosques to restaurants serving halal food.

A man in the courtyard showed us where to leave our shoes so that we could go into the mosque and see where they worship. It was really neat.

The second mosque we went to was the "Cangzhou West Mosque." It was also beautiful. Compared to the first, the West Mosque was more ornate and Middle East-looking on the exterior, but the interior was less ornate. Similar to the first, it seemed as though the Muslim community lives in same building as the mosque.

We're so grateful we got to go to these mosques. It was interesting to experience a foreign culture within a foreign culture (if that makes any sense). The mosques were beautiful and the people were very friendly.