just the sound of your voice, the light in your eyes

jaime being a model at the park

today was a lot of fun. this morning before my chinese lesson i went to play with jaime and joyce at their house. we colored and hung out. it's funny how they're shy for the first 20 seconds i walk in and then the next thing i know, joyce is hanging all over me like a little monkey.
blurry joyce, cute as can be

chinese was easy today. we focused on 'yo mei yo' which is 'have/don't have' and 'yao bu yao' which is 'want/don't want'. linda and i had a pretty funny argument about how you say 'i see the table'. the book has an exercise where you write 'i see _____ but i don't see _____' and i wrote table and pen in the blank and she said i can't say that. you can only see/read/look at newspapers, magazines, tv's and movies. i was trying to ask, what if you want to say 'i see the table?' and she said you need some context like 'i went to linda's house and i saw her new table' but no one would just say 'i see the table'. i tried to explan that i wouldn't usually say that, but we have words to say it. who knows!

after that, bobo called to tell me she and jaime and joyce were riding bikes at the park by the dorm, so i took my camera and went over to play again. i brought a package of pretzels with me and they were a big hit. joyce and i tried to play badminton but it really wasn't working out for us. she rode her tiny bike all around and i walked after her. another parent was saying 'meiguo lai!' to his kid which means 'an american is coming!' which i thought was kind of funny.
when we were done, bobo took me to hot pot (a restaurant) with them to thank me for playing with them all day which was really nice of her. hot pot is kind of taiwan's special thing. you have bunsen burners built into the table and then they give you a big bowl of vegetables, tofu things and cabbage and you cook it in broth for a while. kind of like the melting pot. it was pretty good. i ordered beef and she ordered congealed blood, which i passed on. maybe next time..
i had a ton of fun today. girls between the ages of 0 and 12 are my target audience. i hope i have a whole gaggle of girls or a husband who doesn't mind me girly-ing up my boys.

if you want to see more pictures of us at the park, you can click here to see the album