No need for a title

Hody floks....Today is quite a laid back day. Well, maybe it didn't start out that way. This morning I got ready for the day and then I started on my school work. My mom was feeling not so good and my dad was working. I was controlling my sister when my dad called and asked if it would be ok if he could go into town. I said sure and asked if we should eat lunch. He said to heat up some left overs and so I made pb& j and heated up left overs. The day started out pretty crazy for me and then I got a head ache and started watching tv and so now it's turned into a pretty laid back day. Hmm... That sounded confusing. :o)
Heh... so there you have it even if you weren't interested. :o) I'm sitting on my bed with my laptop in my lap tyiping to you guys, now. It will NOT stop raining. We've hit the rainy season. Sometimes, I can't stand it. I don't think we had much of a rainy season in Texas. I should be thankful, though because I've heard how extrememly HOT it is there, right now!! woo wee! Sorry....
I guess that there won't be any pictures this time. Sorry. I like keeping that up but I just don't think I have any good ones right now. :o( Oh wait, maybe not. woo hoo. I just said that it's been raining a lot and stuff so here's a pic. It looks neat to me. This is what you'll see if you walk down our driveway. Pretty awesome! :o) That tinnish place to the right of the lower road is a river. We want to go tubing in it sometime. :o)
Here are some reasons while living in a different country is crazy very much fun:
1. Learning a fun language
2. making friends with people that have a COMPLETELY different background than yours
3. listening to our national friends say our names
4. buying things at roadside or large stores
5. talking to anybody and just listening to what they have to say

So, thoes are some things that came into my head at the moment.
I'll explain
no. 1- I don't know if I've said this before or not but one time I went to a restaurant and orderd my rear end instead of ribs. :o) They sound A LOT alike in this language. :o)
no2 - My really good friend was just telling me last night that her ancesstors had to flee form the Japenese and live in caves in the mountains. The same mountains that are around her village now. That's just one small example. She had many more things to say but I can't exactly remember everything. :o( I wish I could say something to my friends like that. This same friend has not had a lot of schooling and every day she would get up early in the morning to cook and feed pigs then she's go up into the mountains and cut down grass to feed the pigs with the next day. It's just so crazy how different we are and how well we get along. It's most definatly got a lot to do with how we're both part of Dad's family. :o)
no3- My friends don't call me by my english name which is perfecly fine. I like being called by Ma Li. My parents don't use their national given names very much neither do my siblings. When I hear them being said it just makes me smile. I really don't know how to explain how they say it but it's like they put tones on our names and put some of this country's sound into it. It's really great! :o)
no4- My dad was just telling me about how when he went into a store today a lady just followed him around the whole time that he was shopping and when he got something off the shelf she would ask him if she could hold it for him. :o) lol It's quite true! When you walk in a store some people will just stare at you. It's as if they think that forigners don't need to buy anything. When you ask how much something costs they just laugh. Sometimes it's funny and sometimes you want to look them in the eye and say, "I want to buy this, do you mind??" :o) :o)
no5- This one has a lot of stories behind it. My mind has drawn blank on some really good ones. :o( I'll have to write about that one later.

Considering that you probably didn't even make it through this whole thing for fear of falling asleep, I think that I've said enough. My brain can't think of anything creative to write about right now. I just wanted y'all to know that I'm still kickin and I think of y'all all the time. :o) Love you guys!

Holli ( you can call me Ma Li) :o) :o)

Here's a shout out to Kristi who is looking at my blog right now....... Hey!!!!

Our Great Adventure

Hey Guys! It's been awhile since my last update. :o( Sorry......
Today is sunday. It was going to be another lazzzy weekend day but I didnt like that. I was thankful when my dad came down and said that we were going to go on an adventure!! woot woot! :o) We started out by walking on the road twords the airport and then we climbed over the siderails and went down the side of a mountain. Then we walked down another road for a little ways and went to the right on a small side road that led to a flowing river. It was quite beautiful and we had a great time. We fell when it was deep and we sliped when it was slippery. Ahh... good times good times!! Here are some pics of the trip. :o) You can click on the pics to see them larger if you would want. I'm sayin that ya should. The beauty is amazing!!!
woo! woo!
I have mastered
the squat! :o)


Click on the pictures if you know what's good for you!!! :o) bye for now
Holli

Fun in town

So, yea I love living here more than anywhere else in the world! The other day we went into town to eat and just hang out. At the restaurant my sister met a little cute crippled girl and made good friends with her. She is supposed to come over today. They had some much fun by playing with a baloon!!!
Then, we went and just drove all over town looking at things, new and old. The first pic is of the apt. building that we stayed at the very first time we came here for two weeks. Then there's a pic of me in the truck :o) My dad went into a store to buy a couple of light bulbs and I took some pics of these girls. They were bewildered that they could see themsleves in the back of my camera!!!
We went into the grocery store to buy a few things and about five girls stood there in a line just staring. :o) It's so funny to me that in their culture, that's not offensive. We were at the check out counter for quite a while and they never moved a muscle and they knew that we knew they were there. I love it! I bit my lower lip until it almost bled to keep from chuckeling. Our family has just gotten used to the staring. We make jokes like... Staring at 1oclock 2:30 4 7oclock 8oclock 9:30 and 11. :o) I know that that was horrible grammer.. kill me! We also say, dont look now but we're being stared out. I forgot the rest. In town my dad and I were waiting for someone to get their bike fixed and we were outside. We played a game to see how many times people turned back around to look. Our highest number was, I think, six. :o)
Then, my favorite, the new restaurant to eat ice cream. It's ok american food.
My dad took us to a small place on the top of a hill/mountain (couldnt tell which) and looked over our city. :o)
Home again.... Home again... jiggity jog.
I recently spent the night with my good friend. We talked about big differences in culture. Like, when her boyfriend left they shook hands.To me that's a big wow! In villages, people dont like hugs. :o( I love them!!! Husband and wife even shake hands!!! aaaaaaaa Anyways, we were talking and she said that she wondered why Father put us to live so far apart. I said I didnt know but when she said that I got goose bumps. I've always felt that I was so american which that is my nationality, but wow I don't really know how to express how I felt. I just thought that it was so cool how Father let me have such great friends over here and how cool it is to know that I'm loved all around the globe. Now, I feel like I have apart of this country in me and American. I dunno it's way cool. :o)

All for now,
Holli Ma Li

My Hong Kong story

My mom and I had a BIG adventure, right off the bat! Our plane, that was headed to a costal city had to land at a different airport about 40min. away because the winds and rain were too high to land where we wanted to. We were in the airplane for about four hours and then they sent us into the airport. The airport was small but atleast it had pringels and a coke. :o) We were there for probably another 4 hours, when they called us to board the plane. yipee!! We FINALLY landed! Altogether, we had about a nine hour delay!!! :o) The pic is of my mom and I when we finally landed. We look tired, dont we.
So, when we got off the plane we went straight out to the travel desk bacause we had to get to Hong Kong that night.eek... we were a bit freaked out about it!! The lady told us that it was pretty simple. She wrote three places down in characters. She told us that we had to get to the first place by taxi, the next by bus and then the last place by subway. We payed for the taxi and then followed the lady out to our taxi. We got into the car and then our driver and another driver started a fist fight!! :oO!!! I told my mom that we needed to get out. I got out and got our stuff. After watching them fight for a while another guy finally came up and offered to take us. The ride was nice. We made it to the bus station. We were totally confused but random people kept on pointing us in the direction we needed to go. We went through a small customs desk and then we went on through. Buying the ticket was a little difficult. We were confused until another random person came and told us exactly what to do. We bought the ticket and boarded the bus. :o) yipee! We rode the bus for about 3 min. and he parked. We were, yet again, confused, then another random guy told us that we had to go through customs and then get back on the bus. THat took us about 45 min. but finally we found the right bus, agian and rode it for about 20min. I took that pic, above on that bus. We look REALLY tired, now. We started to get off the bus when a man told us that it wasn't our stop so we sat back down a little bewildered. The bus stopped again and he told us that we could get off here. Wow!! :o) That was the subway. Another person came over us and asked us if we were going to Mae Foo. We said yes and then told us to follow him. Buying the subway ticket was pretty simple. We got them and then went to 7/11. I bought FRESH MILK!!!! I hadnt had that since leaving America. It was g-o-o-d exclamation point! We found our sub. and off we went. When we got off the next place we had to find was our flat. You guessed it! We were not sure were to go. In the middle of the night, we were standing there, not sure were to go when two teenage girls came by and led us there. whoa... I was completely blown away when we finally could sit on our bed at our apt. :o) Halleluja!!
This is our apt. It was good enough for just a couple days and big enough for two people. :o)
The next day, we got up fairly early. :o( no good. We went to McDonalds for a quick breakfast and then hopped on the subway to go to the doctor's office. To get there the subway had to go under the bay. aaaaaa!!! that kind of freaked me out. My mom and I were having some fun by holdig our breath. So, after having a couple tests run.... I didn't have to have anything removed!!!! woo hoo! Thank you Father! My mom and I went to Starbucks after the good news was heard! YUMMMM! Carmel Frappachino... licking my lips at the moment. :o) So, after that we went back in the subw(I'm not even going to say that anymore just know that we practically lived in the subway) We went back across Hong Kong and ate at KFC. Then, my mom found out that she was allergic to the meds that the doc gave my mom so we had to go all the way back. :o( Then, we went back to the mall where we ate at KFC and did some fun shoppin! :o) Look at the BIG crowd!! That night we ate at Dan ryann's Chicago grill. Good stuff....good stuff...! That's a pic of me eating there.
The next day was pretty crazy. It was the last day and we had to get tickets and all that good stuff but we did get to go up to the peak and look over Hong Kong which was a blast. :o)
We rode this awesome hydrofoil on our way to the airport from Hong Kong to the coast of the country where I live. It was pretty awesome. I've never ever ridden anything like it before. :o)
On the way we saw some pretty awesome sights, too. :o) Well, that was all. I had an amazing trip. I'm glad that I got to see Hong Kong. :o)

Holli

So, yea, I couldnt deal with xanga anymore!!!!! I have returned! Pictures will be coming by the millions since I'm back on this thing. Well, I really want the people that I have been in contact with through xanga to keep giving me comments and reading up on this. Please dont leave me! This is Hong Kong. Crazy, hugh?! I will be back with an update about Hong Kong with several more pics. Love you guys!

HOlli