a day in Bengbu with Tina and Nathan

After reminding Nathan that he’d told us he was going to take us in to town to buy paintbrushes we rushed out to the street to hail a taxi. We had such a fun afternoon. We went to the paint shop. We bought some paints, paintbrushes, and stamps that Nathan is going to carve our Chinese names into. Then we walked around the streets of the city. We were in an area that we hadn’t been to before. We took lots of pictures. Nathan was so sweet and carried all our things for us. He is such a sweetheart. It just warms my heart being around him. He’s so thoughtful and such a gentlemen. He makes me happy. We have wanted to find sweet potatoes on the street and finally with two weeks left we found them! They were so yummy. We ate them as we walked through the shopping center. Then we went to Joymart to buy the ingredients for dumplings. Nathan and Tina were going to teach us how to make dumplings that night for dinner. Joymart was all decorated for Christmas. It was so fun! The meat section of the market was my favorite, NOT! It was so gross. First off I felt like I was at a pet shop because there were frogs, turtles, snakes, fish…and much more in tanks. You could pick out the animals you wanted to eat. None of the meat was packaged. It was all just sitting out. You choose what you want and put it in a bag. There were hearts, livers, kidneys, intestines, tongue…much more. I lost my appetite but was so intrigued. We had a great time. After the store we went to the train station to pick up Nathan’s brother. He was visiting Bengbu for a few days before he heads back to his University. He’s so cute. We named him Scott. When we had picked him up we walked to the bus station. We had no idea that this bus station even existed and we’ve been here for 4 months. It was great. Only 4 kuai to ride on the big nice bus and it took us straight to Mayflora. We didn’t have to get off once. It was amazing! I wish we had found out about this sooner. Tina, Nathan, and Chad had to go to a meeting so after there meeting they were going to come up and teach us to make dumplings. It was so much fun! They are the best little cooks. Nathan is such a gentlemen. We had such a fun time preparing and cooking the meal. And especially eating! Halfway through Nathan, Chad, and Tina had to go to there meeting so Scott, Rachel, Cam, and I finished making the dumplings and we taught Scott some English. He named us Teacher 1, Teacher 2, and Teacher 3. He was darling. When the others came back they were starving. It took a little while for the dumplings to cook so they were scrounging around trying to find things to eat. Chad was squeezing honey on to a spoon and eating that while Tina was sneaking some of Hailee’s cereal. When she realized it wasn’t ours she felt bad and we gave her one of our bananas. Poor little thing was starving. It was such a fun day with our friends! I made the best friends in China and will miss them dearly!