25th December 2009, my 41st day in China, my first Christmas in China! Today we have a full day plan and it's gonna be fun!!! Gerard and I will be up early in the morning to go to Carre Four for some Christmas shopping. Jordan also got up real early to make us Christmas breakfast. He said it'll be a surprise for us and we will definitely like it. Hoho. 
By the time Gerard and I came back from Carre Four it's near 11am and to our surprise, the table is full of food! Jordan made french toast for us~! I miss the kiwi breakfast!! Everyone of us have a bowl of fresh fruits as well, and guess what? Look closely at the photo, there's kiwi fruit!!! Haha, thanks Jordan! It really makes us happy to see something that reminds us of home. Kiwi fruits are so expensive in China, it's like 8RMB for one or something. Man..... kiwi fruits will be so cheap now in NZ, especially in the summer time. After breakfast, Jordan and Josi were washing the dishes, Gerard is preparing for his gifts to his students, and I'm busy packing. I'm moving out tomorrow >_<
By the time Gerard and I came back from Carre Four it's near 11am and to our surprise, the table is full of food! Jordan made french toast for us~! I miss the kiwi breakfast!! Everyone of us have a bowl of fresh fruits as well, and guess what? Look closely at the photo, there's kiwi fruit!!! Haha, thanks Jordan! It really makes us happy to see something that reminds us of home. Kiwi fruits are so expensive in China, it's like 8RMB for one or something. Man..... kiwi fruits will be so cheap now in NZ, especially in the summer time. After breakfast, Jordan and Josi were washing the dishes, Gerard is preparing for his gifts to his students, and I'm busy packing. I'm moving out tomorrow >_<
What's more exciting than opening up presents on a Christmas day?! We sat down around the coffee table and started giving each other presents. I gave my Christmas presents to each one of them few days ago whenever I bought it. I don't want to leave it till Christmas day just in case if they bought the same thing for themselves. For Gerard, I bought a pocket-size book for him to learn practical and easy Chinese; for Josi, I gave her a pair of pink ear muffs so she can stay warm and look bright (I think she didn't really like the bright pink, hehe, it's too happy for her); for Jordan, I picked a black and white scarf and force him to wear it too (Jordan don't like scarfs, but it's too cold in Beijing to not wear a scarf).
Josi started sharing her presents too us too: she bought a long grey scarf for Gerard because his one was too short, it looks really good on Gerard; she gave Jordan a pair of gloves, again he don't like wearing gloves (and also because his own gloves was too feminine, haha, I think this is the real reason); and thanks Josi for buying me the red scarf!! I really really like it! Thank you thank you~! Now I really look like I'm in Christmas, haha, so red. 
Jordan gave us the presents too: he bought Gerard a pack of Mentholatum facial products (facial wash and moisturiser); gave me a cup (for work) and a spoon to add to my collection; and lastly to Josi a pair of warm slippers because the ones she's wearing in the flat was too big for her. We all bought stuff for each other based on what we will need, this is really good! Things that can be used are much more practical and won't become a waste~! Thanks guys!!
We tried to watch our Christmas movie today, it's called Four Christmas. It's a 2009 movie by Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn, a love comedy about a couple who have to visit all four parents during Christmas time and how the things change between the couple with the influence under the four different families. It seems to be quite an interesting movie but our stupid TV is so quiet whenever we played movies through our laptop!! Josi and I couldn't really hear what they're saying and only Jordan still knows what was going on, why? Not because Josi and I have bad hearings but because Jordan had already seen this movie before, hehe, 'cheating'. We eventually decided to not watch the movie during the day and will try again at the night, it's more quiet, hopefully it'll be a bit better.
At about 3.30pm we started packing and start to make the trip to Changping. We need to go to Sun Village for the special Christmas party the school is holding for their students. When we finally arrived at the party venue (which is another site of the school) we were so shocked by the amount of children attending this party. Originally Gerard expected just few of the classes to be here but in fact, this room was packed by students and their parents. Frank (the owner of Sun Village) welcomed us and showed us the special seats they reserved for us (right at the front facing the crowd of students) and told us that they didn't expect that many students either. 
Tonight's party is like a gala show. There's a long list of shows where some studetns and some teachers will be performing in. Some of the performance tonight include hip hop and ballroom dancing, singing, taekwondo performance, magic tricks, quizzes and etc. We were first up in the list and we started off by giving a little introduction of ourselves. Gerard is the main host and I was at the side translating for him. A lot of the students and parents who have never seen Gerard before were obviously realy curious and won't stop looking at us. Then we got together and sang some Christmas songs for the crowd and asked the kids to follow us too. There were just way too many kids in this room and the noise level is insane. Luckily we used microphones and speakers, but yet, it's still not quite enough to talk over the noises. 
When we told the students that we'll play games with them and whoever that answers our questions correctly will receive a gift from NZ. OMG, this stirred up even more noises and 'competition' between the kids. LOL! It took us a while to finally get the game going, and it was really just we ask a question (in english) related to Christmas or New Zealand, and the student must answer correctly in English. Some answers were really funny, e.g. Gerard asked 'what is the name of the old man in Christmas time', and some students answered 'Snow man' or 'Old man'. 
Unfortunately we couldn't stay until the end of the party because we made a special dinner booking at Max Brenner. That's right, Max Brenner! It's the chocolate boutique shop Josi saw around PKU and we decided to make our Christmas dinner a special one. Chocolate fondue for Christmas, hoho, sounds sooooo good. After a long journey back into Beijing city, we finally arrived at Max Brenner just before it closes. We flipped through the menu and we decided to only have chocolate fondue with bananas and mashmellows to fill our cravings. It was a little dissappointing to see how little the chocolate fondue was but you know what? Anything to do with chocolate is enough for me. mmmmmmmmmm anything that's chocolate can make me melt in joy, mmmmm cold winter Christmas night, close friends, chocolate fondue, there's nothing more I want for tonight~ mmmm ^_^
We walked out from Max Brenner after chocolate fondue and was very much still hungry for more food (LOL). Most restaurants around the area are closed, Christmas isn't really a special day for Chinese shops to open late for. But guess what we saw outside the gate of PKU?! The little carts selling street food, like BBQ skewers and skewers of spicy food which you can pick and choose from. This is it, this is our Christmas dinner, hehe. Each skewer was only 50 cents and the noodles is 1RMB. Even Josi and Gerard joined us for the food. Tonight was sooooo cold and we are standing on the street eating food in the cold, haha what an experience. The spicyness really helped us against the cold but our fingers are so red and frozen after the meal. I love these spicy skewers~ Cheap and tasty, haha, but I bet it's not too healthy and clean. Oh well, a little treat every now and then is not too bad right?!
Home sweet home, finally after a long ride we're back home. We thought about the cake Karen sent us. Oh yeah, haven't wrote about it yet. Few days ago, Gerard received a call from the delivery company confirming our address, he directed the call to Jordan. Ever since then we've been guessing what the delivery could be. Until eventually we found out it was Karen (AIESECer from Auckland) who ordered a cake online and will be delivered to us. So nice~~! Thank you Karen~! We got home, fooled around and started sharing the cake. The cake is yellow with a 'happy birthday' sign and 2 little santa claus figures as decorations. Jordan thinks the santa claus looks like that octupus guy in Priates of the Carribean. The cake is a very typical Chinese style cake with the Chinese style cream. Only Josi liked it because she think the cream in NZ is too sweet for her. The rest of us thinks the cream here in China is very plastic and fake taste. What we found that's really funny about the cake is that the decoration on top of cream was tomatoes!! Yep, that's right, tomatoes!!! It was so fun laughing about our cake, thanks Karen for the sweet gift!!!
The night ended with Jordan going crazy while eating the santa claus man (refer to photo) and us finishing our movie, The Pursuit of Happiness, together.
Merry Christmas =)
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