Thief in the Night

Yesterday I thought to myself I would write a blog post about my latest adventure in China. I had gone to this beautiful gorge called Dragon's gorge. Nestled right outside of Beijing are serene mountains with a beautiful lake in the middle. They have all types of outdoor activities such as bungee jumping, water gun fights, tabaggon, walk across a zip line and you can go canoeing. It was a beautiful day, followed by dinner and drinks.

Then last night something insane happened. Around 10 oclock in the evening a security guard buzzes at our door. Not thinking twice we open the door. He starts montioning in Chinese something about delivery. I decided to call my friend Emma to translate. He tells her someone smelled gas and he wants to come and look. So we let him  in. Meanwhile in the hallway you can here other security guards on their walkie talkies. He comes in, he checks the stove. I call my other friend. He tells her oh he has to check the box. (What box we wanted to know, but figured it was a translation issue). He looks around smelling the electric outlets (which was just weird, gas doesn't come from outlets!) He leaves. An hour later my room mate is like hey I can't find my phone can you call the phone. So we call it and its turned off. That is a sign your phone has been stolen in China. We tear apart the apartment, no phone. The security guard stole her phone!

So we get are other room mate and march down stairs to find the guy. We run into this guy who happens to help out in the building with translating. He helps us. We call the police and decide to search the compounds for the guy. We find him. We start yelling at him, you stole the phone. All the guys looked sheepishly and say no he didn't. My room mate persisted, about five minutes later the security guard pulls out the phone out of his pocket. He then is like oh sorry sorry. (in Chinese). At this point the police have already been called. We want the guy fired, they just want to let it go.

The police show up, we are showed into this little office and have to wait for a good 30 minutes. Then we find out the boy is only 14 years old and he was kicked out of school for bad grades and his dad found him a position as  security guard. He can't be arrested because he is so young, he is a minor so he is protected. The security guard is now crying, his dad is full of shame. He comes and apologizes. The dad apologize and the manager of the guards apologize.

The biggest thing of all that irked all of us is that he came into our apartment and stole something. And all the other security guards just wanted to let it go. They wanted him to save face, and not own up to it. They all knew he took the phone. Its better for him no to admit he stole the phone then own up to it. Meanwhile a 14 year old boy should not be working as a security guard of an apartment complex. We also think that is was some kind of initiate thing for the guard. We heard other guys in the building, the whole situation was just out of ordinary. Honestly the whole thing I could have seen being on an episode of cops, Beijing style.

Parks

One thing that I find amazing in Beijing are the parks! When you first think of Beijing parks do not come to mind. One of my first discoveries upon moving here was the amount of parks. The second day I was here I went and explored the parks. The parks here are amazing! They have pagodas that people can sit in, beautiful lakes, grassy lands with trees.

When friends get together back home, they usually go to each others houses. They hang out in the background and BBQ. You usually play games, talk or do other activities together. Here in Beijing people live in small apartments and have no backyards. The parks are the backyard of Beijing. People meet at the park and do all of these things! While they don't bbq they eat steamed buns, weird food in bags, corn on the cob and sausages on a stick. I have seen the Beijing matchmaking at work in the park. (Parents meet and try to find prospective brides and grooms for their children). Woman knit and gossip about the day affairs. Men sit around chess boards playing Chinese Checkers (it is literally called that!)

 A beautiful lake surrounded by trees in the middle of the park. People like to sit near the lake and take in the view!

 One of the many pagodas that people will sit in. As you see below people sit in the pagodas doing various activities!

The community feel in Beijing is inspiring. I love going to parks here, people back home need to go out and enjoy each other. Too often we see neighbors where the streets are quiet, no one is outside playing with each other. Instead people should gather at a local park and just hang out. Its a nice feeling. Its nice coming home at night and seeing people gather outside. They just enjoy being with each. Parks provide that opportunity for me. I love parks, they are one of my new favorite things!

Crazy May!

So the month of May has been absolutely crazy! So much has happen in the past two weeks!

First off my sister Emily came to visit me! I had such a great time with her! I took her on the grand old tour of Beijing! We went to the Summer Palace, The Great Wall, the Lama Temple, Forbidden City, Tienanmen Square, Miaost Temple, Confucius Temple, Pearl Market, Temple of Heaven, Silk Market, and the Olympic Parks! She was here for five full days and we manged to squeeze it all in!

Above are some pictures of the trip!
During her visit we had our picture taken about 100 times by random Chinese people. They must have thought it rare to see two beautiful American girls that look alike!
We ate all kind food from the Asian region! Emily got a taste of tofu and greasy eggplant! It was so nice to have family in town! Its the comforts of home and just being able to be yourself!

After Emily left life returned back to normal. Back to work and the drama that ensures there. Then this past Wednesday I took part in something truly awesome! Disney has this program called Voluntears. I took part in cleaning up a part of the great wall. This part of the wall is in its natural state. It was built in the 1300 and hasn't been restored. It is called the Wild part of the wall! 60 of us went out to the wall. On the way we stopped at a farmhouse and had lunch there. We had traditional chinese food for lunch cooked by the farmer. Then we had to pick up trash along the path and up on the wall itself. We were split into three groups. I was team Goofy. Naturally my team had the most trash to pick upon the bottom part of the trail. The big bosses got to clean up the actual wall. Then after we picked up the trash they allowed us to hike up this steep hill and go see the un restored part of the wall! It was so awe inspiring. Words can't describe how awesome the Great Wall is in its natural state! It was a once in a life time opportunity!