Loving Sichuan - The Opera, Panda's, and the Biggest Buddha in the world!!!

For those who know me, I really love Sichuan style beef when I go to Chinese restaurants in the US. This trip, I had a chance to have REAL Sichuan style food! We had quite a lot packed into a small space for this one, so here we go.

Our plan was to go to Chengdu in the Sichuan province overnight to mid-afternoon (this is a long train ride!), walk around and see simple sights, eat Hot-Pot,

then go to sleep. The next morning is where the fun was to begin. We were to wake up early in the morning and go see the Giant Panda's at a reserve,

then travel to a mountain nearby and see the biggest Buddha in the world.

We were then to take a train back home at that point.

That was MOSTLY how it happened. We added going to the Sichuan Opera (AWESOME)

and a funky Chinese-style variety show (LAME).

So, here it is.

We finished our classes at 7:30 pm and caught our train at around 8:30 pm (Yeah, we were cutting it close..). Once on the bus we were greeted very warmly by a group of, what we found out later, academics who were on a 40 hour train ride! They greeted us warmly because it was the Mid-Autumn festival (pretty much everyone gives out and eats interesting little pastries called "MOON CAKES".), and they had been drinking a little handing out moon cakes. They gave us one and they had an egg yoke in them! They weren't bad, I must say. Anyway, it was a sleeper, so not much happened that needs to be on this blog. I slept fairly well on this train and woke up ready for the day. It was a nice morning, waking up with the Sichuan province outside my window for me to look at. There are many mountain villages and farmlands in this region. It was a nice ride.

We arrived in Chengdu (A city of about 9 million people) and were picked up by the hostel we were going to stay in that night. We went directly to the hostel and booked our next day's trips, and decided to go to the opera as well. We traveled by bus around the town for a little while then decided to go set our mouths on fire with the "Hot-Pot" experience. If you have ever had hot food before, this was hotter!! The picture below is of the pot.... notice all of the hot peppers!!

The food was very good, it is just that my lips went numb from the heat!

We then boarded a mini-van with two other people from the hostel, Kobe and Steve (hello guys!).

They ended up bring pretty cool guys from Israel that we ended up hanging around with for the night. We arrived at the tea house where we would watch the opera. It was a pretty groovy building that was semi-outside. It had walls and a ceiling, but they weren't attached to each other, giving the room an open vibe. There were people trying to sell us stuff at very high prices, so we didn't buy anything. I did get to take some groovy photos of the performers before the show, however.

The show was great, There were dancers, singers, martial arts and fire breathing, Hand puppets, comedy, and music.

It was a very good night. I have good video of it.

Steve, Kobe, Jim and I then went to a Russian/Chinese variety show. It was an experience, but certainly not a big deal. We were laughing at how dumb most of the acts were.

So, the next morning, we left early to see the Panda's. They are at a reserve near the city, and we went at feeding time (which was when they were most active, obviously). We were able to see about 20 Panda's in all, including newly born Panda's (we weren't allowed to take pictures of them) and red panda's. It was fun to see them in the habitat. I have a picture of one Panda that looks drunk...

Anyway, we left there and met some new friends that were in our panda tour, Bart and Elaine. They were going to Le Shan, the 230 foot "Biggest Buddha in the world" which is where we were off to next, so we went together. They were from Belgium, where Bart is a train engineer. Nice guy.

So, the Dafo (Great Buddha) was HUGE!

first, you walk up the side of a mountain, passing by many sculptures and monuments. Then you are standing at the head, and expected to walk STRAIGHT DOWN A CLIFF!!! It is crazy! It was pretty cool to see. At the feet were some very kind monks (by the way, monks don't really want their picture taken at these places. They are fairly adamant about it.) and an amazing view of the Dafo. Look it up on the internet, you'll see what I mean. Also, I have lot's of pictures and video that you'll want to check out. The you have to walk BACK UP another set of stairs... ALOT OF STAIR WALKING!! Anyway, it was well worth it.

That was pretty much it.

We then went to the airport, where we flew back home to get to our classes the next morning on time!

Let's get to bloggin!

Man, I haven't been very good at this. I have traveled to three cities

other than Xianyang (Which is where I live) since I last wrote, so, I will write a few new posts here today.

Let's start with where I left off, my first week of teaching.

Monday, the day after the first weekend of school, evening Jim and I were off on our first adventure together to Lanzhou, China. This would be my first chance to take a train in China, which had me VERY worried. There are tons of stories about how cramped, crowded, and smelly they are. I actually found the over-night (we left around 10 pm) sleeper we were in to be quite nice. There was a nice breeze in our area (because I cracked the window), which was nice, but I still couldn't sleep much. I guess that I was just worried about the train crashing, or something stupid like that, but, I got enough sleep for our day trip to see the White Mountain Pagoda park and more of the city, as well.

Lanzhou is a city famous for their spicy beef noodles (generally handmade noodles on-the-spot!), smog, and pick-pockets. We recognized plenty of all during our visit, thought the smog was not too strong since it rained during much of our visit. When we arrived in Lanzhou, we quickly grabbed a taxi and ventured off to the area where the White Mountain Pagoda was. It was early, so we decided to get a pastry for breakfast. We found a nice large shopping area, which I will talk about later.

At this point, we have walked quite a bit, but we hadn't even started. We arrived at the area for the Pagoda, and it was very cool. It is a mountain littered with pagodas.

There are plenty of pictures already online. Take a look at them if you have some time.

We crossed the Yellow River (One of the more famous rivers in China) on the first modern bridge ever made over that river, then took a tram (really taking our life in our hands there!) to the top of the mountain. We walked around the many pagoda's and even found a communist encampment (It was unbelievable. It looked like some old bombed out buildings, but people were still living in them!).

We saw temples from many religions like, Taoist, Confusionist, Buddhist, and others. They all had their own vibe. It was pretty groovy.

We made it down the mountain, (a many mile hike, and well worth it!) and had quite a few hours left, so we went to the HUGE Muslim mosque in the center of the city. It was pretty nice, and we were glad they let us in. They did follow us around for a while, and we were only allowed on the grounds, which were pretty cool.

We then went to a noodle house, which being in the city that originated the noodles we eat the most, is a necessity! The noodles were VERY good. I must say, they make them good everywhere in China, so the recipe must have traveled over time.

We had an hour or two, so we went back to the shopping center we saw earlier to people watch. It was there that we saw another famous Lanzhou happening. We watched a few pickpockets attempt to steal from a girl, but she was obviously smart and she swiped her hand as the thief put his hand into her bag. It was amazing, because I watched the whole thing!

Our trip back home wasn't quite as nice. We couldn't get a sleeper train, so we had to sit for the entire 9 hours back. Not fun! We did meet some cool people from Lhasa that I played cards with. They invited us to Lhasa, Tibet, and we will see if we can make it next Spring (It's a 36 hour train ride along the highest train in the world!).

There we go.... Please look for more blogs soon....

China has the cleanest street gutters in the world!

Well, my first week of teaching in China is over, and I’ve got to tell you it has been a BLAST teaching these kids! I don’t think I need to go into detail about each class, but just know that in my more basic classes, we just throw a ball around and play games about who they are, animals, and colors. In the more advanced classes, we do more interactive activities that ensure they think and figure things out by themselves. Teaching the younger groups is fun, but not as rewarding as teaching the more advanced groups, who learn every class. My schedule is as follows:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
No classes	No classes	Morning	No classes	Morning	Classes start	Classes start
		Primary		Primary	At 9 am	At 9 am
		Class		Class	And	And
					Finish	Finish
				6pm	At	At
				Classes until	7:30 pm	7:30 pm
				9:30

After the weeks classes were finished a few of us foreign teachers went to a massage parlor (NOT THAT KIND WITH “SPECIAL SERVICES”!) for a foot massage. It was 40 RMB, which is about 5 U.S. dollars. They put everyone in our group into one room where we had HUGE chairs, tea, and cookies waiting for us. Then, they put out feet into a special herb bath and pressure massaged our arms, neck and back. Then they massaged our feet. The whole thing lasted AT LEAST an hour!! It was great, we all plan on going back.

I suppose it’s time to tell you a bit about the people I’m here with. I won’t go too deep because they probably don’t want their whole world on the internet, even if I don’t have a problem with it.

I will start with my roommate, Jim. Jim sounds like a fairly normal American name, but this Jim isn’t just a regular American guy! His mother is Chinese, and his father is of Scottish lineage, so he’s a bit funny from that, I think. We get along VERY GOOD, and are planning our first get-a-way for Monday! Jim is from north California (He calls it Sac-town), and is a very conservative guy that shares many of my political views. Which is nice and not something I will see very often out here. When I first arrived, Jim was in Shanghai visiting his mother so I didn’t meet him until Wednesday of this last week. I was told by some of the Chinese teachers that he spoke very good Chinese, but when I met him, he said he didn’t speak much Chinese (even though he has an Asian accent when speaking English). I slowly got it out of him that he is somewhat afraid of the parents complaining of a non-foreign teacher in a foreign teaching role, so at school he speaks only a little more Chinese than I do. He also refuses to be a translator for all of us English speakers, which, I think is good because he would be bombarded with questions from both sides, and it would get annoying very quickly. Plus, it is great comedy when he hears people say things in Chinese thinking we had no clue about us. One more thing is that it will help me to work on my Chinese more, which is nice.

Regarding the cleanest street gutters in the world title, in China (at least in this area) there are individuals who walk around with essentially big brooms and sweep the street gutters. Every day, there are tons of them, and they always sweep the same areas. People need jobs here, and they get them! Hehe.

My next blog will be about my trip to Lanzhou, China. It should be fun.

CIC

Sorry for the lack of contact...

For those who are wondering where is the info about what is happening here in China, I appologize but the internet at my apartment hasn't been working because it was tied to the last guy who lived here. We are trying to get it takien care of, but things tend to happen slowly in China.

There have been plenty of things to share since I last wrote and I will upload at least two more blogs that I've completed since then ASAP. I have taught my first weeks of classes (VERY fun!) and went on my first Chinese travel Excursion (Google Lanzhou, china and look at the White Mountain Pagoda). I have TONS of pictures and video of the trip and, again, will upload them ASAP.

Things have really been fine here. The people REALLY DO treat me a little like a celeb, it's kinda cool. Again, the food here is great, and I have a great roommate, his name is Jim, and I work for a well-respected school here.

Please don't worry for me any more than when I am in the states.

Thanks

Signing out, from CIC blog

It has been a BUSY few days!

My first day in China would be a busy one. Wendy, my manager (great name, eh?), and I first went to the school. It was a short 7-10 minute walk from my apartment, but it was an interesting one. My apartment is in the center of the city, right across from the “Times Square” (actually named the “Peoples Square”) of Xianyang, so there are a lot of people to see along my walk to school. Along this simple short walk, we saw people stop, stare, and turn around to keep watching us walk past. One guy even rushed over to wake his sleeping friend so he could see us as well! I saw some old men playing a board game similar to Chess, but it had pieces that looked like they were from Checkers. I couldn’t really follow why they moved the way they did, but, it was interesting. I will try to film it sometime.

We arrived to the school to see many parents signing their children up for classes. I met most of the Chinese teachers at this time. They were very nice, all but one female, and all had given western names like Julie, Mable, Jean, Maggie, etc. I enjoyed talking with them, and seeing who could actually speak the English they were teaching (not all could speak very well).

After about an hour, we decided to go and get me a cell phone and look for a power transformer for my electronics (My camera and laptop were already out of charge and I couldn’t recharge them without the right plugs). We took along one of the teachers, Maggie, to help us with these purchases. We went into a few stores by the same company, China Mobile, that were located within two blocks of each other. Each time we went in the store, it felt like an old western where everyone stopped for a second once we walked in. There were probably more workers in each small store than are in an entire Best Buy! Help was everywhere, and they were selling so many off-brands of phones even my head was spinning! I decided to only buy brands I knew of. In China, you buy a phone, and then you buy a sim card separately. There are no contracts just minutes on the sim card. It is essentially a prepaid system (This is how many things are bought here, even electricity.) for cell service. I ended up choosing a nice Nokia 5200 that was both all that I need and within the budget I had set for my phone. It cost me 850 Yuan, which is around $125 US dollars. Then we went onto the street and found about 10 vendors selling the sim cards. They all sod them for the same price, so we just picked one and paid for 100 yuan’s worth and activated my phone then. Simple as that, and I am up and running with cell service in China.

We went into a few stores looking for a transformer or power converter, but the stores had no idea what we were talking about, so, we gave up on that for the day. Instead, we decided to go eat. Maggie had already eaten, so she went back to the school. Wendy knew enough Chinese to get us some food, so we were off to find a decent place for dumplings. A staple and what I wanted for my first meal in China. Again, I saw a neat part of China that isn’t really available in the U.S., the little side street marketplace. We walked down a very busy and crowded alley with shops and street vendors selling all sorts of things. One store had an apple as their logo colored red, white, and blue where they sold “American” clothes (really just clothes with English writing on them). We soon found what seemed to be a nice restaurant, with regular seating, so we entered and sat down. Wendy ordered 30 pork dumplings and some vegetables, which sounds like a lot, but the dumplings are very small (like a small wonton, but not fried). THEY WERE SOOOO GOOD!!!! I couldn’t believe the flavors. If they sold those in the states, they would sell like crazy, I’m sure. The vegetables consisted of broccoli, asparagus, cucumber, and lotus root. They were all flavorful, but the lotus root was very good. I had a Sprite with my lunch (there is Sprite and Coke everywhere here!), and it tasted just like the Sprite back home. One more thing about eating here, most foods are served family style. The portions are very large and not really meant to be eaten alone, although there are some dishes that you can. The price for food here is sick. The lunch above cost only about 5 dollars total, and we were stuffed! One more thing, there are NO FORKS here! It is chopsticks or nothing. So, eating rice has been kinda fun, but you just pack it together so it sticks, and off you go.

We next decided to walk to the park that was nearby. By this point, from looking on the internet, I already have a good idea of where we are within the city and can pretty much get to where I need without a map, so when I told Wendy where the park was, she wasn’t quite sure (she has been here only one day more than I have), but she followed me anyway. Along our way we say many people playing cards on the sidewalks. The cards were very skinny and long, had interesting symbols, and a weird numbering system. We stopped to look at some of the games, and the players looked up, most smiled, some said “hallo”, some spoke to the others and laughed, but they all went on playing. We also saw some REAL Mahjong. The pieces were very detailed and beautiful. It was fun to watch them play. We arrived at the park, but it was too hot to hang around long, so we decided to get back to the apartment and take a nap before our trip to Xi’an later on for two days of training.

At around 5pm (17:00 here) we headed to the bus station, which is just about across the street, to leave for Xi’an. I was in for an adventure here as driving is quite a ballet and there were plenty of near misses along the way with other cars, buses, and people! We took two buses for the length of the trip and it cost less than $1. If we drove a car to Xi’an ourselves, it would take less than 40 minutes, but on the buses, it took nearly 2 hours. Along the way, I saw some very historic sites. The Drum Tower, Bell Tower, and the Xi’an city wall (one of the oldest standing city walls in the world!) were all very cool, and I look forward to visiting them in the future.

Wendy had to go do some manager stuff, so she brought me to my hotel, which was in the same building as the Aston school we were training from, and went on her way. She later asked if I wanted to go to dinner, but I was tired and felt like sleeping, so I slept, instead. The next morning was the beginning of training. I arrived and met two guys from Ghana, two Canadians, three from the UK. That made me the only American, which was weird, but no biggie. The teacher was from Hungary, and has lived in China for 7 years, teaching English the whole time. After a few hours of training, we went to lunch as a group to a fancy restaurant up the street (Xi’an is MUCH larger than Xianyang with about 8 million people, so think of being in the middle of Chicago). We had rice, Sweet and sour pork (!!), real good asparagus, roast duck, and some noodles. It was a good lunch. Most around the table had beer while I had Sprite (again). After lunch, we had more training, then, I went back to my apartment for a rest. At around 7:30, we all gathered in front of the school and went to eat. This was a fun experience as I saw and ate things I wasn’t used to. Some in the group weren’t in our training, but had been in Xi’an for some time and knew where and what to eat. We followed them obviously into a small, cramped restaurant grouping (three or four different restaurants serving out of the same dining area.) where we had a side room to ourselves (there were about 11 of us). Quickly food began to get ordered and served. In China, food get served when it is ready, and not necessarily in any order. We ate meat on a stick, noodles, some good flatbread, rice (of course), some veggies (no clue what they were), spicy chicken wings (!!), and I drank sprite, while the rest had beer. The private room we were in was well lit, had a fish tank on one side (for fish to eat, not for decoration), AND AN OPEN ELECTRICAL BOX (great). While eating, the fish tank was drained, with the fish still in the tank, then refilled with equally dirty looking water. After dinner we went outside and were determining what to do or where to go next, when I spotted something interesting. Some guys were cleaning a gun in plain sight! It looked like a mean gun too. A few of us were surprised, but one of the guys who had been here said they used the guns to shoot things to eat usually, not people. Anyway, we decided to go to a bar up the street to hang out for a while longer. It was a nice bar with a live singer (he was pretty good) and a bunch of dice, and sunflower seeds on every table. We sat down and played some dice games, drank (again, I had a Sprite), and had fun for an hour or two. While going back to my room for the night, I spied a group of guy’s playing cards (this time with regular looking cards) and I stood around and watched the money fly. The game was interesting. I couldn’t figure anything out. 5 cards were dealt, with the top card on the deck up. Then everyone turned over their cards and either gave money away, or took it in. No skill at all. Anyway, that was the end of my day. Wait, it wasn’t….. When I arrived at my hotel room (at around midnight) a call came on my room phone. I picked it up and the lady asked if I wanted a Massage, and that they even offered a “special services” massage, if I wanted! I declined and hung up the phone. I found out the next day in training, as I relayed the story, that this is a common practice in China. Crazy, huh?!

The next day, we had more training, but for lunch, we went to a noodle restaurant and had some very, very good noodles and Szechwan style beef (my favorite back in the states). Then, we went to…. WAL-MART!!!! Yup, Xi’an has a Wal-Mart! It looks like any usual Wal-Mart, other than the Chinese writing and the different products. Very funny. I purchased my Power converter there, which was cheap, then, we went back to training.

After training, I rode the bus home. On the bus ride home, I met some people who wanted to practice their English, so I also was able to practice my Chinese. That was nice.

It has been two days since the above, and not much has happened since then. I should start teaching Friday now. It looks like my schedule will be a 3 hour preschool class on Wednesday and Friday mornings and 5-6 hours on Saturday and Sundays, and that is it. I signed up for a gym here. I bought a 50 entry pass for about 90 dollars, which should last me 5 to 6 months. It was funny, one of the selling points was that there were pretty girls that worked out there… That helped, I guess… hehe…

Well, I’m going to play some Playstation for the next little while then go out and explore the city a little more. I should be getting the internet running by tomorrow, so look for this to show up about a day after it was finished being written.

I am really liking it here in China, even if I’m currently feeling a bit alone since I’m the only foreign teacher currently in town.. There will eventually be 5 of us and most should arrive in the next few days, so it will be fun to show them around.

Long day/ everybody stares!

First thing, I AM IN FREAKING CHINA!!! Second, the journey was long, but not as bad (or expensive) as I thought. Third, EVERYONE STARES AT ME (and sometimes they touch)!

I will start with the journey….

I left Utah after a very good day with my family. Everyone behaved, for the most part, and we had a good time together. My flight to Vancouver was fine (the view of Mount Rainier was AMAZING!). I need to say that Vancouver is a VERY picturesque city! There are huge mountains and an Ocean bay surrounding the city (The mountains jutting out of the water are amazing to see.), which is MUCH larger and more modern looking than I had expected. My time there was short, but what I saw made me interested to go back to see Vancouver in the future.

The flight to Beijing was a LONG flight, but a nice one. I first saw the way the Chinese treat foreigners while at the boarding gate. The agent was VERY kind, and when she looked up the information I gave her, she said that the assigned seat wasn’t a good one for me, and she offered to give me a new seat where there would be nobody sitting next to me. I appreciated that I didn’t need to ask for a seat with nobody sitting next to me, as Delta and US Airways certainly didn’t offer that accommodation. While standing at the boarding area, I obviously recognized that I was one of few non-Chinese, and many of the Chinese were staring at me. This will be a common occurrence for the rest of my trip. As I boarded the flight, I was greeted by four or five smiling Chinese attendants (there were at least 10 on this flight!) and one of them grabbed one of my HUGE bags and helped me to my seat. She was very cute, and throughout the flight would come and ask me if I needed anything, and would get it for me without hesitation, if I asked (I only had her get me a water and a sprite, but she was great about it).

The plane was a BRAND NEW Airbus 330 (we were on its first flight!) and it was a VERY nice plane. EVERY seat had a personal video monitor with movies, TV programs, video games, and viewing cameras (VERY cool! During taxi and takeoff, you could see in front of the plane and during flight, you could see in front of and below the plane at any time!), and video games! I was in a middle row where there were three seats and the other seat taken was by a surfer dude from the Land Down Under, Australia (He proudly exclaimed that he was from Bondie Beach and was a swimming pool tiler there.). He was an interesting guy. When he first sat down, the strongest smell of Deep Woods OFF bug spray hit me like a train. It was like he used it as cologne! He had groovy dreadlocks and a big smile (one that you get from smoking the Ganja, I believe.) and was good for conversation at any time as he didn’t sleep the entire flight (he also had seven free beers before they cut him off!)! During the flight, I slept, watched a tv program where people were doing practical joke to other, and listened to Chinese language podcasts. We were fed twice on the flight, with another two periods of snack and sandwich giving (It seems that China Air isn’t as worried about making a quick buck off of food as the US airlines are). The first meal was a very nice beef and rice dish with a vegetable I had never seen before (It was very good though), a salad, roll, a cheesecake type thing, and fruit. The second was similar to the first, but it was a pork dish with noodles and was much less US Chinese food-like than the first.

Seeing China from the plane was very difficult as it was fairly overcast, and REALLY smoggy. I was looking forward to looking at Beijing, but never had the chance. Landing and exiting the plane went fine, it was the next part that began to increase my awareness that I wasn’t in the US anymore. Although many signs are in English as well as Chinese, I had very little Idea of here to go once off the plane and I couldn’t really ask anyone, since I didn’t know Chinese and they don’t know English. I was lucky, however, that the Paralympic games are going on and there was a nice guy who seemed like he could help, and he did… There are people staring at me…

So, I was forced to go to baggage claim, pick up my luggage and transport it myself to the Domestic (Chinese domestic) transfers area, where I checked my baggage. Oh yeah, this is another interesting item. Some of you know that I was planning on paying upwards of $300 on shipping my baggage because of weight and numbers. I PAID NOTHING!!!!! Unbelievable! They don’t really go by what their website says, and I suppose that it is fairly customary to do what you want in a particular situation, if it is good for others, and not always what is written. This seems to be the ultimate “spirit of the law” country. Then I went through security (Going through security with two bags with electronic items was a hoot. This was for all of the times I went through security (three times total). I had to take out my PS3 and my laptop and put them in separate bins. I had my PS3 packaged very well and surrounded by stuff, so it didn’t get damaged, so unpacking and then repacking was quite a process). As soon as the agents helping me (they were VERY kind) saw the Playstation 3, their eyes lit up! The GIRL asked me how much and the guy just wouldn’t stop saying beautiful.

After leaving the security area, everything began to seem VERY different. Everyone stared at me. Without question or hesitation, they just couldn’t stop looking. There are two reasons for them staring. Number one is that I’m NOT Chinese, and racial diversity is NOT common here. The second reason is that I’m MUCH larger than anyone they have probably ever seen before. They aren’t staring for any reason other than curiosity, and they are very curious. Then, while sitting at my departure gate (with two American teachers and an American student) a man sitting behind us began to ACTIVLY listen and stare. He turned around and got as close to us as he could. Then, out of nowhere, he began to touch my body while saying “beautiful” as if he was amazed. It was kinda weird, but I didn’t freak out, we asked the man to sit with us. Before long the man had given me half a Yuan (NOT MUCH, but still funny), a pen, and his business card (business cards are very important in China and most people have them, even if they are the street sweeper.) . I tried to get video of him being funny, but he only soluted during filming.

Well, shortly after this, I boarded the plane and was off to my final destination. This was a simple flight and landed in only 1.5 hours. Upon arrival, I picked up my baggage and saw my current and soon-to-be managers, who were there to pick me up. They had reserved a cab and he was waiting for us in a parking lot a bit away. We loaded the cab up but before we could leave, a man stopped us frantically. It seems one of the tires had gone flat (maybe because he had MUCH more weight in the car than ever before!). I took a picture of this and will post it in my photo section. We soon went on our way with the driver going slowly since he though the axels were going to break! Alex, the soon-to-be-going home manager spoke fairly good Chinese, and that is how we knew why we were going slowly.

Driving is quite an experience in China. Lights are usually recognized, but there are very few of them. There are many areas where lights would make sense, but it is in those spots that Chinese driving shows its ballet. Cars weave through each other with amazing precision. I have no doubt that driving mistakes are common and it’s kindof crazy, but, I get it. We soon arrived in Xianyang and I began to see Chinese culture in the flesh. Remember, I arrived around 10:30 pm but there were people all over the town going here or there, playing cards, Mahjong, dancing, etc. It was very interesting to see. We arrived at our apartment in a funny kindof Chinese way. The cab driver drove onto the curb and stopped there. As we got out of the car some of the people walking buy stopped dead in their tracks and just stared at us. It is interesting that the Chinese people are so used to seeing JUST THEIR culture and not a mix of cultures as you see in the U.S. that when they see others they are very curious.

We entered our apartment and it was much larger and nicer than I expected. The first BIG issue showed up a few minutes later. You can’t flush toilet paper so you have to put used tissue in a basket near the toilet! Other than that, it seems to be a very nice apartment, even though there really isn’t much of a view.

Well I will write again soon about what is sure to be a very exciting first week in China.

Sorry about the lack of info, it isn't for a lack of info to give...

Ni Hao all,

I'm sorry that I've been unable to write anything or communicate over the past few days. I have been in training and that meant traveling our of my city. I hope to have the internet set up at my apartment by tommorow.

Things have been VERY interesting so far, and not quite as different as I would have thought. The main difference is the people. I will write much more in my next blog. I have already written a few on my personal computer and will upload them once my internet is running. Also, I have some pictures and video that I hope to get up.

I look forward to teaching (I start tonight) and am beginnning to feel more settled.


This is just a little quick blog, but They wilol be flying for the next few weeks, I'm sure, then they will begin to slow as life begins to get more "normal" for me.

I hope to jump on skype by tommorow as well.


I may have a difficult time losing weight here... The food is SO GOOD!!!!


See you later!

Adam

I do miss most of you!!