Ice Skating and Dumpling Party

My apartment mate Zac introduced me to a group of students who live in the Ilam Apartments who all arrived earlier than I did and spent some time travelling around the South Island together.  The people in the group are a mix of kiwis and people studying abroad from the US and Europe.  Everyone was very nice and welcoming and is nice about inviting everyone to do different activities and hang out, which was great especially since everyone is new to UC.

On Friday afternoon (2/16) everyone was sitting out on the lawn in between a bunch of the apartment buildings and hanging out since it was so beautiful outside.  I joined them and a couple of the girls, Kaelyn and Bryn (who both study engineering at Iowa State) mentioned they wanted to go ice skating that night at a rink they found in Christchurch.  Although I haven’t been ice skating in a while, I thought it would be fun so I said I would love to tag along.  It ended up being me, Kaelyn, Bryn, Katie, and Kari driving in Katie’s car to the ice skating rink.  We rented skates and spent over 2 hours skating around and talking.  It was really fun and a great way for me to get to know them better.

On Saturday afternoon, another girl from this group, Dingding, said she was going to have the ingredients to make homemade dumplings and that we could go over to her apartment for a Dumpling Party to celebrate the Chinese New Year.  She is from China and has been taught by her mother how to make traditional dumplings.  I really like dumplings, but have never had homemade ones, so I thought it would be fun to help out even though I am not very useful in the kitchen.

A bunch of people ended up congregating in Dingding’s apartment and some of us helped chop up vegetables, make the dough, roll it out, and then form the dumplings before they were boiled.  It was pretty fun and really cool to see how they are made.  Plus they turned out to be pretty delicious!