Whew...what a week it has been.

This week in Ningbo has been pretty incredible! It rained all week long but I suppose I am used to that by now. It rains almost every single day here, but on the plus side it is (according to our new Chinese friend Carol) it is supposed to warm up on March 10. So we will see this weekend I guess. The week was off to a great start when me and Nicole got the news that our packages from home were here!

Me and Nicole after we ran outside in the freezing cold right after waking up!

Best. Package. Ever. Thanks Mom!

It was like Christmas in our apartment that morning!

Tuesday was also great because I got an email from a nice someone! It made my entire day, and pretty much my week! Tuesdays are wonderful now because I can expect that great email! I also have Chinese lessons every Tuesday which is good fun! It is seriously such a challenging language! After teaching me, Megan, Nicole, and Caitlin decided to go down to the gym and test out our badminton skills, which we are pretty dang good. So good in fact, we decided to make every Tuesday mandatory practice.

Wednesday was a pretty relaxed day. We just hung out and watched some One Tree Hill. It was nice to have a re-charge kind of day.

Thursday was another re-charge kind of day as well. I skyped my family this morning which is always fun! We usually skype on Monday but we had to stray from our usual schedule becasue my mom is such a busy bee. We also had the pleasure of having two of our new Chinese friends, Vara and Laura, join us for a movie. They came in with literally bags and bags of food. They pulled out chicken sandwiches, which they call  hamburgers, fries, some weird omlette things, chicken on a stick, and two full size chickens. Yep, this was a first for me. Anywho, we let them pick the movie and they chose Lord of the Rings, which me and Caitlin were totally fine with. The girls looked terrifed the entire time though. It was a pretty fun evening all in all.

Friday we spent the evening in downtown Ningbo! It was freezing cold and rainy but it was fun nonetheless. First we hit up this incredible art museum that blew me away! Then we met up with Mara's chinese friend who is super adorable! She showed us around a bit and it was so much fun! We also found our way to the train station to pick up Caitlin's friend Lindsay who is super awesome! While we were at the train station though it felt like we were major celebrities, or just peices of meat. Everywhere we went people, mostly Asian men, would follow us and say hello and stare and take pictures and tell us how beautiful we are. So that was an experience. We also found the coolest little Irish Pub which had the best food I've had since I've been here! And I also got to play a game of pool.

Found this gorgeous little place in downtown Ningbo so we had a mini photoshoot.

Me and Megan at Shamrock Irish Pub

Saturday was one of the best days I've had here! We all went to the Tiantong Buddhist Temple and it was awesome! Getting there though was most of the fun. We took two buses to get us to a place where we would find another bus to take us to the temple. However, we did not find that last bus to take us there. Instead we found this little restaurant, which would be shut down in one second in America due to health regulations, with some extremely friendly Chinese people. Lindsay speaks Mandarin so she was able to talk with them. The man said that he knew where the temple was and that he would take us there. We said sure! Mom, it was all okay. They were very nice people, but before we left they insisted we come in and eat a little bit. Who knows what we ate but the dumplings were fantastic! The lady also told us that our meal would be cheaper if we sang for them. We contemplated a song for a bit and came to the sad realization that the only song all of us knew was Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and yes we did sing it for them in the middle of the restaurant. Our meal was about 9 U.S. dollars total for eight of us so the singing was worth it! After that we finally made it to the Temple and it was incredible!

The walk up to Tiantong Buddhist Temple

The van that took us to the Temple! It was a bit of a squeeze.

We found a nice little duck on the bus today.

Buddha outside of the Tiantong Temple

Part of the Tiantong Temple. It was massive!

Sunday, we were able to go to the Davidson's house for church and lunch. They are such a fantastic family and are so welcoming! We also met some new people in our branch, Forest, Tori, who isn't really new just new to us, and Megan. They were such nice people and two of them are from St. George! So that was fun news!

All in all it was a pretty fantastic week! I hope this next week brings just as many adventures!