A Beijing Easter!

How do I begin to describe everything that went on during Easter Sunday here in China? It was great...despite the nontraditional celebration. I got in the cab Sunday morning with the happiest cab driver I've ever had. He cracked jokes and said that laughing keeps you young. Definitely showed a lot more emotion than your typical Chinese. He brought me to church, which is an international congregation with English/Chinese services. I had to show my passport to get in because the church is not "official," unregulated by the government, and therefore unavailable to Chinese citizens. The people were from all over the world, and I had quite a few Southerners come up to me and tell me how they loved South Carolina.

Our Easter lunch was fantastic. It was a very long, very large Romanian meal prepared by Mrs. Rusu. We had about four courses with everything from appetizers to soups to desserts and cheeses. I particularly like the egg game, which is shown here in this video:

The Easter cake, chocolate sauce and cheesecake were all particularly outstanding. By the end of the meal, we all collapsed on top of each other on the couch...all 6 people...and watched some American TV. Somewhat reminiscent of an American Thanksgiving.

An interesting part about our Easter, is that we also made plans to go out that night with friends from school. An Italian girl arranged a dinner at a Chinese man's house in a historic part of Beijing. It is a little house with a dining room set up where he entertains foreigners for a true experience. Here's my little tour of the place before my cell phone rang and cut me off:

After dinner, our charming host played the Chinese Erhu for us...which is two-stringed instrument that sits in your lap with the bow stuck between the strings.

I gave it a shot and could barely even get the thing to make a sound!

This is the French boys giving it a shot:

This is a photo of the whole group who ate there that night:

Happy Easter Everyone!