Home Visit with the Chin Wan's

Today I went on a 'Home Visit' with my student Mimi and her family, the Chin Wan's.  A Home Visit means we spend time with their family and observing the culture/language, not necessarily in their house.  They picked Sarah and I up and we drove for about 45 minutes, then we got out of the car to eat the lunch that Kathy had made for us.  I'm holding a fon-ton (?) here.  It's like a burrito but stuffed with egg, pork, etc and wrapped inside sticky rice and seaweed.  It was delicious: Rice, seaweed, pork is my fave combo! (I might sound sarcastic, but I'm serious).  Also, matching family t-shirts are ALWAYS a good idea!!

Then we got in the car and drove til we arrived at a Towel Factory that we toured with Mimi's Chinese School classmates and their parents.  I must find myself an adult sized pair of these fanny-pants!  

This wedding cake is made with nothing but TOWELS!  Supposedly the biggest wedding cake in the world.  It might be false advertising, but I'll play along.

Mimi and Ivy made ice cream cones, shown below.

After the towel tour, we went to a puppet show and then found this competition.  Whoever looked/acted most like the character off of some T.V. show would be the winner.  Their costumes were beautiful.

Some were a bit too 'Warrior Princess' for me.

But this one was simple and beautiful.

Ivy and Sarah playing with the puppets in in the Japanese Story House, which is nearly 100 years old and they use it to do puppet shows and tell other stories.  

For dinner we ate rice cakes, which is about the same thing as what we had for lunch: Rice, Pork, but with chili sauce!  I was thrilled!

After a long day, we were all tired!  I love these pictures of Mimi, the girl is too funny.

I have yet to figure out why the cars here have seat belts...and I don't want to talk about it.

I LOVE this picture.  Mimi and I have come a long, long way in the last two months of class.  She is now loud, giggly and fun in class, but outside of class, she crawls back into her shy shell.  This picture melts me because it's been a battle getting her to warm up.