Happy Halloween from China!

万圣节快乐! (Wànshèngjié kuàilè!) HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

It has been a great week! And I had hard time narrowing down what pics to post sooo... there's a ton. Like a ton. Sorry, not sorry. These kids are too adorable!

On Tuesday (when I usually have 7 classes) I only had one! All of the students throughout the whole school had mid-term tests on Tuesday. Lindsay didn't have any classes which was good because she was sick on Monday and still getting over it on Tuesday. She's doing better now :) So Tuesday I went into town all by myself! I just wanted to see if they had Halloween stuff at the Carrefour and found some garland for my apartment!

All week we have been preparing our students for Halloween! We celebrated on Thursday instead of Friday because the students go home early on Friday but the teachers wanted to trick-or-treat with them. It was so fun to see all the kids dressed up! And all of the English teachers! Thursday morning we had a little assembly where Lindsay and I told the students why we celebrate Halloween and we sang a Halloween song that we had been teaching them. All day the kids were "trick-or-treating." Every time we saw them in the hallway or in class or in our office they'd say "trick-or-treat!" and wait for candy. Luckily the English teachers collected A TON of candy from parents of the students. So there was more than enough for all the kids. 

In my classes, I taught them some Halloween words like "ghost" and "jack-o-lantern" and we sang Halloween songs and did color by numbers. They loved it! Then we hung up their pictures on the classroom door. They also loved watching "This is Halloween" from "The Nightmare Before Christmas." The kids would keep screaming at different parts. At first I thought that I was totally freaking out my little first graders but turns out they were just screaming for fun and always wanted to watch it again.

Cat friends doing what cat friends do best!

Sylvia and I! She let me borrow the cat ears :) 

Not sure what's with his pose....

Favorite!!

Cici :)

Sylvia getting attacked in the office by kids "trick-or-treating"

Lots of Spidermans... spidermen?

One of my crazies ;)

More of my crazies!

Thursday after dinner, we had about 22 students that I guess were picked to go trick-or-treating. They were in our office getting make-up and costume adjustments. They looked so great! Then I went with Sylvia and Yoyo to lead 11 of the 1st and 2nd graders to trick-or-treat to all of the grade 1 and 2 classrooms. Lindsay took 11 4-6th graders with Cici. It was CRAZY. The kids would knock and yell trick-or-treat and then it just turned into a big, crazy, candy handing out party! It was nuts, but I think the kids had a good time! I was sooo tired when I got home!!

Corn flavored candy? Oh China.....

'

My favorite little batman! I don't hear him speak English much but he now knows "Krista" and on Thursday he said "cat" when he saw me! <3

Getting ready!

The boy on the left is Leon, the half-Irish boy! He's gotten way more comfortable speaking to me and I am realizing how good his English is! 

Sassy vampire queen ;)

Love my cat friend!!

That is Daisy, the one who took us out to dinner last weekend! 

This is Yoyo! She's awesome!

Friday night, Lindsay and I decided to celebrate actual Halloween by watching our favorite Halloween movie, "The Nightmare Before Christmas." When I went to the Carrefour earlier this week I miraculously found tortilla chips and salsa in the imported section!! So we snacked on that during our movie :)

We were going to go out with Daisy and Journey (another English teacher) on Saturday, but they had to cancel so Lindsay and I decided to go to Huaxi Park which was a couple hours bus ride away. I met a University student on the bus named Julia and she spoke excellent English. It is always so exciting to meet people who I can talk to! It's a good thing too because she helped us know which stop to get off for the park or else we might have missed it.

It was a pretty cold day and very cloudy but the park was beautiful! It is right by a University so we saw tons of college-age students there. Everyone was riding bikes! We walked around for awhile and had a nice time. Sometimes I forget how beautiful Guiyang is when you get out of the city a little bit. I wish the pictures I took did it justice! Anyways, it was a perfect way to start of the first day of November!

Hope you all had a great Halloween! Happy November!! :)