So to continue on with our China plumbing adventure, the workers came back on Sunday morining, and of course, what did they find? Nothing. The toilets worked, the showers worked, and nothing was coming up from the drain. So they look around in the drains and flush them out and such, but nothing was wrong anymore. So our a yi comes on Monday and I ask her to disinfect my bathroom and bath tub. So now everything WAS good. I decide to take a shower at 10:00 on Monday night, and I worry the whole time about it overflowing, but so far so good. So I get out, and start brushing my hair, get ready to leave the bathroom and hear gurgling from the sink. I freak out because I know exactly what is happening, and of course what is it? Water coming out of the drain! So I freak out and go get my mom and Dad and they say there is nothing they can do to fix it. So my dad starts checking it out, and turning the shower on and off (since this is what set it off) and he flushes the toilet and we go and try his since it affected it last time. But of course, nothing happens. So we really do not know what is wrong, and I am against all bathrooms and hate using them because I am cursed! But anyway. It is bound to happen again, and I am worried that it will!
Happy Plumbing problems!
Love, The Busaths
Monday, January 08, 2007
Saturday, January 06, 2007
EWWW!!!! Our first bad experiance with China's Plumbing
Ok. So we are currently having our first bout with China's plumbing. I don't know whether they have septic tanks or normal sewers like we have in the states, but what ever it is, its not working right now!!! So at 10:30 tonight (Saturday) I went to go get ready for bed, and went and used the bathroom and such, and I flushed the toilet and then started to leave, when I hear what I shouldn't be hearing of a "normal" toilet. I hear water NOT going down. I look over and see water rushing out onto the floor, but not from the toilet itself. I run and get my father, and where is he? IN the bathroom of course. So I run back ready to cry because I do not know what is going on! I put towels down (I do know that) and try and figure out where the water is coming from since it isn't the toilet. In the houses here in China, there are drains in the floors of the houses and such, and we put heavy duty tape over them so that the coch roaches do not come out of them. So I look over, and yup, there is sewage and water coming up THROUGH the tape. So I proceed to run around and put towels down, and while I am pulling up the shower curtain, I notice the same contents coming up from my shower drain. Great! So I am calling management, and of course, is there anyone there at 10:30 at night that speaks english? No. So I pull out my never been used English-Chinese dictionary and start looking up words for plumbing, pipes, flooding, and all sorts of things. The only thing I can rememer of the top of my head in the state I am in was "water" but that wasn't helping them! So I tell them just a minute (dung yi sha) and give the dictionary to my dad and said look up flood because I already had pipes looked up. So he looked it up and I said PIPES FLOOD! And then they were like OOOH (hao de) And so I am assuming they are sending someone but just to be on the safe side, my mom goes outside looking for one of the many guards that walks around Jing Shan. She brings him into our house and shows him. He is completely and utterly confused. I try and explain to him that "Wo men yao yi ge ren" which is "we want a person" (since I know want, but not need) and then look up the word for "fix" in Chinese and proceed to try and get the message across that we need someone to come and fix this. So he radios in something and proceeds to leave. Finally, we get a call from someone with JingShan that speaks ENGLISH!!! It was wonderful. We told him that we were having the pipes overflow, and so they sent someone. So the plummer man comes and he goes into the bathroom which has water and "other stuff" all over the floor. He turns on the water in the shower and sees that the water doesn't go down the shower drain and that stuff comes up through the other drain on the floor. He then flushes the toilet (which I knew was a bad idea) and that narrowly escapes over flowing. By now I am freaking out! Since I am the only one that uses that bathroom, mainly, I feel it is my fault that it is all blocked up. So the guy says something to me in Chinese, which I don't know what he says, picks up his tool box and leaves. I am like, great. So I go give the synopsis to my parents, and my dad says, well lets flush the master bath toilet and see what happens. I am like sure. So he flushes it while I watch to see if anything happens. And lots happens. So I say that is a very bad idea and no toilets should be used, and seeing that it is church tomorrow, we are going to need to take a shower! I should have taken one today like I felt like I should. Anyway. So we decide that no more toilets should be flushed. Then the plummer guy comes back with a plunger. I wasn't too sure what that was going to do since the water wasn't coming out the toilet, it was coming out the pipes! But I figured he knew what he was doing! So he starts out by flushing the toilet and then plunges it down, while he has his foot on the drain to keep the water from coming up (which while I couldn't see it, I bet just made it come up the bath tub). Then he needed to take off the...I don't know what it is called, but you know how in the bath tub, there is the stopper for if you want to take a bath? And it is attached to the little flippy thing that you push up or down to make it plug or unplug? You know that thing? Well anyway, he couldn't get it off, so he tried plunging over it but that didn't really work. So then he tries taking it all apart but it isn't working. In this point in time, he says something along the lines of blah blah blah ming tien (so something about tomorrow) I take it to mean that he will come back tomorrow. Which isn't good, since 1) we have church tomorrow and we all need to take showers and of course, you always have to use the bathroom in the morning and 2) you just can't live like this! So he says something else, and I think he was going to take dad down to the management office (that is what I got from his actions/chinese) but Dad wanted to check the other bathrooms and see what happened when you flushed and turned on the shower. So in the girls bathroom, nothing happened, and in the "maids bathroom" nothing happened to my bathroom, so we thing that we will be ok to use those bathrooms, but I don't want to use any!!!! I am so worried about waking up and having our house filled with water and "other things". But I know that is fesably (how ever you spell it) not possible. It wouldn't even over flow outside the bathroom. But anywho. I feel better now that I have told the whole world, but it still doesn't make my situation any better, and I still feel like it is my fault since I am really the only one that uses it. But maybe it was my parents fault too because like I said, when we flushed their toilet, the water and "other things" came out of my drain too. Well I hope you all have a good weekend. I am just glad that a plummber was able to come look at it tonight. If we were in the states and the same thing happened, I don't think it would have gotten fixed until monday!!
Love, The "pipe exploding house" of the Busaths
Love, The "pipe exploding house" of the Busaths
Monday, January 01, 2007
Christmas, Trips and more!
Hey Everyone!
It has been a while since I have updated, and in that time, we have had Christmas, a trip and New years!
Christmas: So for Christmas Eve, we invited those members of our branch that were still here to our house for sandwiches and soup. We had about 40 people and the food was all gone! 
A lady in our ward had the 2nd of 5 new baby boys, and so we all got to hold him. We was only about 11 days old. So that was fun! Then for Christmas, we started opening presents about 8:30. We all got books, gameboy games, clothes (except for Ben) and other fun things! It was small but good. Then we were planning on going out to dinner for Christmas dinner with a family in the branch, but they bailed out because they were leaving for Vietnam the next day. So we went by ourselves to a place called Mustang Sally's. Most of us had steak, except for Camille, who had a hamburger or chicken nuggets or something like that!
Guilin: So the day after Christmas we went to a place in China called Guilin. It is a one hour flight from Shenzhen to Guilin.
Day 1: So our plane left about 4 PM on Tuesday December 26. We arrived in Guilin around 5:30 or so, and met our tour guide James. He took us to a chinese restaurant where we had some good chinese food. Now here is the funny thing. So us kids are not very adventerous in what we eatbut we failed to mention that we don't like duck (or have never tried it) and so he ordered us some fried duck. So we are eating and eating, and here comes the duck, all cut up, but with the head still. And guess who is the first to try it, with out any pressure or taunting or anything. CAMILLE! IT was so funny! She was like, I think I am going to try the duck first. And she loved it. So then everyone else tried it, and it was really good! Though then again, anything that is deep fried is good! It tasted like chicken. Honestly. The only person who wouldn't try it was Ben. We also had this beef that was spicy beyond spicy. Ben was crying at the end it was so spicy. It was cooked in about 100 hot peppers. It was crazy. After dinner, we went and watched this type of fishing with birds that the Chinese used a long time ago. That was really neat, but was kind of hard to see because it was dark! Then it is off to our hotel for the night.
Day 2: So the next morning we have to get up kind of early to catch the ferry to Yongshuo. Now this ferry ride was 5 hours on the ferry and I wasn't looking forward to it either! The kids all sat together and my parents sat with another couple that were on their honeymoon and are from Mexico. So we had fun talking with them for 5 hours. They were really nice too! So after the boat arrives in Yongshuo, we go to the hotel (or what ever you would call it). It wasn't really a hotel, but then again it was. Anyways, we change into warmer clothes because we were going on a bike ride through the country side. This was my favorite part. The whole ride took about 2 hours or so, and it was a total of 12 miles. It was so amazing. You got to see how people live in the farmlands and everything like that! We even got to take pictures with water buffalo! After the bike ride, we went back and had dinner at a place called the Red Star. We really wanted mexican food after talking with Hector and Julieto (from the ferry ride) about Mexico and mexican food, and Red Star was the only place we could find. So Noelle and I ordered chicken enchilladas, but we got beef and Ben ordered beef burritos. Mom had fajitas and dad had pizza and Camille had spaghetti. Her spaghetti was sooooooo good. It was probably the best. So then we went back and went to bed.
Day 3: The third day we got to sleep in a little, but not to much because we were going to go on a bamboo raft down the Li River. That was a lot of fun too, except it was a little long, 2 hours! Since the river was low, there were dividers that we would have to pass over. Most of them we would stop, get off the raft and then the driver person-thingy would push the raft over the divider thing, then we would get on and put our feet up, and he would push us over the edge!!! That was the most fun part of the rafting. There were also some dividers that we would just go over the edge, like down a little waterfall. The highest one was probably a good 5 feet! That one, there was a man who went over with his wife, and he got all wet, so after that, they wouldn't let dad and Ben go over. They would have their raft go over, then they went to the stairs and got on because otherwise they would have been wet up to their waist. So that was fun! Then afterward we went to Moon Mountain. It is a big mountain with a huge, natural hole in it. Some of the family hiked up at least part of it, but I didn't want to so I sat in the bus with the driver, and he tried to talk to me, but I didn't really understand what he was saying. So I just responded with an answer to what I thought he was saying. Mom, Noelle, Camille and Ben climbed about half way up, and dad went all the way to the top with our tour guide. It was so funny. There are these little old ladies, probably in their 70's or maybe some were even in their 80's and they have their little boxes of goods and they will follow you all the way up to the top of the mountain trying to get you to buy something. And there was one lady, and mom didn't have any money, so she told her that maybe when dad came down we would buy somethings. So she went and sat down on a bench and waited there for dad to come down! She didn't go bug anyone else. She just sat there. It was so funny! After that we went and had lunch at another Chinese restauraunt, and then the rest of the afternoon was ours to shop. We then met our tour guide at 6:30 or something to go to like a Chinese broadway show. It was on the water, and the mountains were the back ground. It was really an amazing show. I don't know how to describe it really. There was some singing, not really any dancing. There were a lot of really cool light effects and other things. We then went to KFC at like 9 for dinner, since we had had a late lunch.
Day 4: We were able to sleep in this morning and that was really nice. We did a little bit of shopping, and then were on our way to this remote art hotel. It was litterally in the middle of no where and was surrounded by farmland. The hotel was the Yuzi Art Hotel. It was founded by a Taiwanese man who needed something to spend his money on. There are many acres full of sculptures. It was pretty cool, but after waiting forever for my dad to be finished taking pictures, we were done. So we went back to the hotel and had dinner. That was probably the best dinner. Everyone ate everything. I forgot to mention we were literally the onlyones in the hotel. There was no one else.
Day 5: We were able to sleep in a little bit this day. We got up for breakfast, ate, and then the family went to look at the sculptures again, since we kind of went through fast on the last section, but I stayed at the hotel and watched CNN, waiting for the execution of Saddam Hussin. SO that was interesting. We then left to go back to Guilin and to go through a cave. That was also a lot of fun. There were huge stagmites and stagtites. (or what ever they are!) After that we went and had lunch, also very good Chinese food again. Then we took a walk around the city, which was fun, afterwhich we went...SHOPPING. But by that time, we were all out of money. Oh well. Noelle got some fun things for her birthday (it is on Saturday and she will be 14!!!) After that, it was time to go to the airport and go home! It was nice to finally be able to sleep in our own beds!
New Years Eve: So we got back the night before New years Eve. On New Years Eve day, we had our friends, the Stevens, over for turkey dinner. We were planning on having them stay all night, but their oldest 3 children, Ben Jenny and Alex decided to go home. So then their daughter Michelle and I decided to go to their house as well and watch movies since my father and Ben were watchin Star Wars. Noelle and Camille had their daughters Katie and Kelly spend the night and I stayed at Michelles. We went to Sea world about 11:30, figuring their would be fire works, and apparently everyone else thought there would be too, so midnight comes around, everyone says hurray and waits. And waits and waits. And no fireworks. So everyone leaves, and we were like, ok. So that was our New Years Eve. I am hoping that we can go to Hong Kong next year since it won't be a Sunday.
Well, I think that is all. That was really long. I posted some pictures with all of this but it was being slow, so I will make a new post with some of the pictures to go along with what I talked about, and I am also going to upload some to Flickr as well, and I will post the link to those later, once I upload them!
We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!
We love and miss you all!
Love, The Busath's
It has been a while since I have updated, and in that time, we have had Christmas, a trip and New years!
Christmas: So for Christmas Eve, we invited those members of our branch that were still here to our house for sandwiches and soup. We had about 40 people and the food was all gone! 
A lady in our ward had the 2nd of 5 new baby boys, and so we all got to hold him. We was only about 11 days old. So that was fun! Then for Christmas, we started opening presents about 8:30. We all got books, gameboy games, clothes (except for Ben) and other fun things! It was small but good. Then we were planning on going out to dinner for Christmas dinner with a family in the branch, but they bailed out because they were leaving for Vietnam the next day. So we went by ourselves to a place called Mustang Sally's. Most of us had steak, except for Camille, who had a hamburger or chicken nuggets or something like that!Guilin: So the day after Christmas we went to a place in China called Guilin. It is a one hour flight from Shenzhen to Guilin.
Day 1: So our plane left about 4 PM on Tuesday December 26. We arrived in Guilin around 5:30 or so, and met our tour guide James. He took us to a chinese restaurant where we had some good chinese food. Now here is the funny thing. So us kids are not very adventerous in what we eatbut we failed to mention that we don't like duck (or have never tried it) and so he ordered us some fried duck. So we are eating and eating, and here comes the duck, all cut up, but with the head still. And guess who is the first to try it, with out any pressure or taunting or anything. CAMILLE! IT was so funny! She was like, I think I am going to try the duck first. And she loved it. So then everyone else tried it, and it was really good! Though then again, anything that is deep fried is good! It tasted like chicken. Honestly. The only person who wouldn't try it was Ben. We also had this beef that was spicy beyond spicy. Ben was crying at the end it was so spicy. It was cooked in about 100 hot peppers. It was crazy. After dinner, we went and watched this type of fishing with birds that the Chinese used a long time ago. That was really neat, but was kind of hard to see because it was dark! Then it is off to our hotel for the night.
Day 2: So the next morning we have to get up kind of early to catch the ferry to Yongshuo. Now this ferry ride was 5 hours on the ferry and I wasn't looking forward to it either! The kids all sat together and my parents sat with another couple that were on their honeymoon and are from Mexico. So we had fun talking with them for 5 hours. They were really nice too! So after the boat arrives in Yongshuo, we go to the hotel (or what ever you would call it). It wasn't really a hotel, but then again it was. Anyways, we change into warmer clothes because we were going on a bike ride through the country side. This was my favorite part. The whole ride took about 2 hours or so, and it was a total of 12 miles. It was so amazing. You got to see how people live in the farmlands and everything like that! We even got to take pictures with water buffalo! After the bike ride, we went back and had dinner at a place called the Red Star. We really wanted mexican food after talking with Hector and Julieto (from the ferry ride) about Mexico and mexican food, and Red Star was the only place we could find. So Noelle and I ordered chicken enchilladas, but we got beef and Ben ordered beef burritos. Mom had fajitas and dad had pizza and Camille had spaghetti. Her spaghetti was sooooooo good. It was probably the best. So then we went back and went to bed.
Day 3: The third day we got to sleep in a little, but not to much because we were going to go on a bamboo raft down the Li River. That was a lot of fun too, except it was a little long, 2 hours! Since the river was low, there were dividers that we would have to pass over. Most of them we would stop, get off the raft and then the driver person-thingy would push the raft over the divider thing, then we would get on and put our feet up, and he would push us over the edge!!! That was the most fun part of the rafting. There were also some dividers that we would just go over the edge, like down a little waterfall. The highest one was probably a good 5 feet! That one, there was a man who went over with his wife, and he got all wet, so after that, they wouldn't let dad and Ben go over. They would have their raft go over, then they went to the stairs and got on because otherwise they would have been wet up to their waist. So that was fun! Then afterward we went to Moon Mountain. It is a big mountain with a huge, natural hole in it. Some of the family hiked up at least part of it, but I didn't want to so I sat in the bus with the driver, and he tried to talk to me, but I didn't really understand what he was saying. So I just responded with an answer to what I thought he was saying. Mom, Noelle, Camille and Ben climbed about half way up, and dad went all the way to the top with our tour guide. It was so funny. There are these little old ladies, probably in their 70's or maybe some were even in their 80's and they have their little boxes of goods and they will follow you all the way up to the top of the mountain trying to get you to buy something. And there was one lady, and mom didn't have any money, so she told her that maybe when dad came down we would buy somethings. So she went and sat down on a bench and waited there for dad to come down! She didn't go bug anyone else. She just sat there. It was so funny! After that we went and had lunch at another Chinese restauraunt, and then the rest of the afternoon was ours to shop. We then met our tour guide at 6:30 or something to go to like a Chinese broadway show. It was on the water, and the mountains were the back ground. It was really an amazing show. I don't know how to describe it really. There was some singing, not really any dancing. There were a lot of really cool light effects and other things. We then went to KFC at like 9 for dinner, since we had had a late lunch.
Day 4: We were able to sleep in this morning and that was really nice. We did a little bit of shopping, and then were on our way to this remote art hotel. It was litterally in the middle of no where and was surrounded by farmland. The hotel was the Yuzi Art Hotel. It was founded by a Taiwanese man who needed something to spend his money on. There are many acres full of sculptures. It was pretty cool, but after waiting forever for my dad to be finished taking pictures, we were done. So we went back to the hotel and had dinner. That was probably the best dinner. Everyone ate everything. I forgot to mention we were literally the onlyones in the hotel. There was no one else.
Day 5: We were able to sleep in a little bit this day. We got up for breakfast, ate, and then the family went to look at the sculptures again, since we kind of went through fast on the last section, but I stayed at the hotel and watched CNN, waiting for the execution of Saddam Hussin. SO that was interesting. We then left to go back to Guilin and to go through a cave. That was also a lot of fun. There were huge stagmites and stagtites. (or what ever they are!) After that we went and had lunch, also very good Chinese food again. Then we took a walk around the city, which was fun, afterwhich we went...SHOPPING. But by that time, we were all out of money. Oh well. Noelle got some fun things for her birthday (it is on Saturday and she will be 14!!!) After that, it was time to go to the airport and go home! It was nice to finally be able to sleep in our own beds!
New Years Eve: So we got back the night before New years Eve. On New Years Eve day, we had our friends, the Stevens, over for turkey dinner. We were planning on having them stay all night, but their oldest 3 children, Ben Jenny and Alex decided to go home. So then their daughter Michelle and I decided to go to their house as well and watch movies since my father and Ben were watchin Star Wars. Noelle and Camille had their daughters Katie and Kelly spend the night and I stayed at Michelles. We went to Sea world about 11:30, figuring their would be fire works, and apparently everyone else thought there would be too, so midnight comes around, everyone says hurray and waits. And waits and waits. And no fireworks. So everyone leaves, and we were like, ok. So that was our New Years Eve. I am hoping that we can go to Hong Kong next year since it won't be a Sunday.
Well, I think that is all. That was really long. I posted some pictures with all of this but it was being slow, so I will make a new post with some of the pictures to go along with what I talked about, and I am also going to upload some to Flickr as well, and I will post the link to those later, once I upload them!
We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!
We love and miss you all!
Love, The Busath's
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