i'm thankful for toaster ovens and jackie chan

so i had my first thanksgiving in china, and it wasn't nearly as depressing as i thought it would be! in fact, it was really fun. the program had a pot luck thanksgiving dinner on sunday, and that was fun to go and see everyone and have turkey and mashed potatoes and what not, but it felt more like a church potluck than a thanksgiving meal. and while they had a large assortment of goodies, they did not have cornbread dressing, which is basically the main point of thanksgiving. anyways, so since linda and i both really, really, really like thanksgiving, we decided to host a thanksgiving dinner here in yantian, and it turned out really well. i made cornbread dressing, and it was fucking legit. linda made mashed potatoes, and those were fucking legit. kate made fruit salad, and it had snickers in it, so clearly also delicious. jess made queso, which needs no words. and of course, we had chicken from kfc. there were a few glitches, such as when kfc tried to refuse to sell the boys that much chicken. or when the toaster oven broke, which is a story in and of its own. i'm going to tell you what happened, and i would love your opinions, as this has been a constant argument since thursday night. 

so i'm making cornbread dressing for dinner, which requires the use of a toaster oven. we have one in our apartment, and things are going fine as i'm baking the cornbread. occasionally it turns off, but i just let it cool down for a minute and then turn it back on. anyways, after i get the dressing ready and the first pan of it (remember, this is a fucking toaster oven, so we're talking 6 tiny pans, not one normal pan) about halfway cooked, the toaster oven turns off. it does not turn back on. i really, REALLY wanted dressing, so jess and i decided if they aren't too expensive, we'd like to just buy one now so we can have the dressing with dinner. i text stephen "can one of you run to a best and check the price of toaster ovens" and get no response. there are 5 boys at kfc, which is attached to a best (basically our walmart). so i call gavin, ask him to do it and he says of course he'll do it. well, we're waiting and waiting and waiting and they aren't calling. we're about to call and ask them what the hell is going on, and we hear them walking up. confused as to why we never got a phone call, jess throws on some shoes and goes to walk back to a best (20 minutes away) to buy the toaster oven, which the boys told her cost 380 kuai. gavin walks back with her and the other guys come upstairs, and after a few minutes tell us that they have no goddamn clue how much a toaster oven costs, cause they thought it was a stupid question and didn't go look. in fact, gavin got chastised for answering my phone call, because they had already discussed ignoring us. the boys are convinced this mishap is all our fault, because we weren't clear in our instructions. but i don't really think it's too much to ask to expect them to figure out that if we're asking for the price of a toaster oven on thanksgiving night in the middle of cooking something in a toaster oven something has probably gone wrong. instead they thought we just wanted to know, on thanksgiving, the price of a toaster oven for future reference. i don't like to make sweeping generalizations based on gender, but boys are dumb. 

anyways, everything worked out and it was a really fun night and totally satisfied my need for a real thanksgiving. friday we went to guangzhou and saw the opening ceremony of the international tourism festival. it was painfully long, but also fucking ridiculous. there was lots of fire. songs were sung such as "over the sea" but in chinese, something in chinese with the random english lines "eating chips on my sofa" and "mr. greedy, don't you fret, what you see is what you get", and of course, "we are ready" (from the olympics). the absolute high light, however, was when a fake plane drove on stage and fucking JACKIE CHAN came out and sang surrounded by dancers dressed in hand costumes (think hamburger helper). it was probably the greatest moment in chinese pop culture. there was singing, JACKIE CHAN, spectacle, fire, bad dancing. it was awesome. after that we spent the rest of the weekend in guangzhou. i really, really liked the city. i didn't realize how much i miss old neighborhoods. shenzhen is just a baby city, so the "old area" are only 30 years old. but guangzhou is an ancient city and a cultural center so just walking around aimlessly was really cool. i'll probably spend a number of weekends there in the future. 

aaaanyway, things are going really well here, but i absolutely CANNOT WAIT to visit in january. i'm still not sure on the dates i'll be in the g-spot, but i'll keep you updated. also, you should all start planning absurd shit for us to do because the one thing i miss the most about america (aside from family, friends and food) is the absurdity of our adventures.