Five, Four, Three, Two, One!!!

For New Year's this year, we had a bunch of guests come to Yichang. Some of them were friends of Beth but others were friends of friends (all from the same organization that Beth, Brad, and Amy came to China with). Everyone knew someone but no one knew everyone . . . if that makes sense. The first thing we did New Year's Eve was an Yichang Scavenger Hunt (thrown together by me at the last minute . . . thanks dad for passing on your creative game skills but also your last-minute preparation tendencies). We divided into three teams and then proceeded to run all over Yichang trying to take pictures/videos of certain things. It was quite fun and we got to act crazy, let people stare at us more than usual, and then just run on to the next thing. It was also interesting for me to try explain what we were doing in my floundering Chinese. The Scavenger Hunt ended at Pizza Hut where we ordered 7 pizzas and made the world's longest straw going from a pitcher of Pepsi all the way across the table to the other end.




After Pizza Hut, we all came back to Katie's and my apartment where we looked at our Scavenger Hunt pictures and videos.

Then it was time for the Apple Drop. Last year, Brad came up with the idea to drop an apple down a chopstick to simulate the Time Square ball dropping. Somehow this year word spread about it and everyone wanted to see Brad's Apple Drop. Amy found some sparklers so we decided to pull out all the stops for our guests. Brad and Amy stuck the sparklers in the apple and lit them as the apple got push down the chopstick as we counted down to 2008. So ridiculous, but so hysterically funny!