Bits and Pieces

1. I am getting really good at eating with chopsticks. I can even eat soup with chopsticks!!

2. Yes, I am sick. I have a nose/throat illness, but several others have had it over the last week and it has had very mild symptoms. I think our temp classroom is so small, we will pass illness around a bit.

3. I learned a Chinese poem in school while sitting in on Chinese mandarin classes. I like learning new words, but it is funny to be a student alongside third graders. "Ma ma you yi zhu gou, Ba ba you yi zhu mao...."

4. I'm getting better at looking very casual while walking across the street as cars bear down on me at high speeds. Did I mention yet that cars drive on the roads and the sidewalks, and people walk on the sidewalks and on the roads??

5. I have begun to put out feelers for the post office and hope to send fun mail to people soon.

6. I am also looking for a spa, where I can pay for a ten dollar -hour and a half- massage... exciting! This afternoon the girls are going out for manicures, so I figured I would tag along and get a pedicure- my first one! But it is so cheap that I might as well try out a new experience. then we are going to a hot pot restaurant, where you drop raw meat and vegetables and other things into a pot of boiling broth in the center of the table. It cooks instantly and you fish it out and eat!

7. I am going to have a week off in the first week of October, so I am going to a city shortly north of here to hike and camp. There are many taoist temples there and a famous hot springs. There is also a remote (read tourist-free) section of the great wall to explore. Oh, and the city is very close to the border of North Korea (On the pink border line on the map.) Apparently once you hike the great wall segment, you can take a boat down a river to get back to the beginning, but you must stay to the right bank of the river (chinese side) because the left bank (Korean side) is patrolled by North Korean Soldiers with machine guns....

8. I am in process of purchasing a ticket for Thailand for christmas as well through a travel agent. Leslie has found a place where you can volunteer on an elephant refuge for a week. You sleep in a hut, get fed great thai food and each morning herd the elephants, feed them and wash them, etc... So we might try it for one week and spend the other one+ travelling around. I will fly into Bankok on December 21 and back to Dalian on Jan 7th.