I just ate a good piece of fruit I bought from a street vendor the other day. It looked like a peach, and tasted much like a peach, but it had the texture/consistency of an apple - great because I got the goodness of peach flavor but with the behavior of an apple - no messy juices dripping everywhere.

The past couple of days Rebecca and I have been going on walks through the city at night. At this one place down by the river at night there is a nightly carnival-type scene complete with rides for small children, dvd, toy, and food vendors, and a couple of areas where people can dance to music. It makes for a lively and interesting scene. Last night on the walk back we stopped by a place that had pool tables in a building but in the open air next to the main street, so we paid roughly a dollar to play for an hour, and got in 3 games of pool.

So I'm gradually building my 'illegitimate' DVD collection - I found the first three seasons of Prison Break - apparently it's found a niche over here with some people. I've never seen the show before, but I figured I'd try it out since it was only a couple of bucks or so for three seasons. I've watched a few episodes so far and it's pretty good. I just have to put up with Chinese subtitles and an occasional advertisement logo-thingy on screen but otherwise it was a good buy. You get what you pay for but hey, I can't complain.

I'm glad that I've gotten back into a habit of reading again on this trip. I brought a handful of books over with me to read, but we also discovered a small but decent collection of books here in our apartment that previous interns left. So far I've read Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums (thanks Maddy!), and just finished John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley today, where I immediately started Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance. The last two I've already read, but they are deserving of another read, as I still learned new things from the Steinbeck book - it's apart from his other novels as it's a non-fiction account of his epic roadtrip across America with his dog Charley, I highly recommend it.

Rebecca and I were sort of planning a trip for Hong Kong next weekend, but the headmaster here is not allowing it. I can understand, it is a bit early in our stay here and I can understand they are worried we might get lost or whatnot. However, we need to make a trip to Hong Kong at some point since our stay here is about 100 days, and our visas only allow for 90 days without exiting and re-entering the country. No big deal though, I think we will just make another trip to Meizhou for some exploration and shopping in the bigger city.

Check out this video of the Chinese version of hackey sack, called Jian Zi. It's some random video I found on Youtube, but it gives you an idea of how it's played - much like American hackey sack. It's popular with the students at my school and I love to play with them, since my hackey skills transfer well to this game. I've never seen a Jian Zi, the feathered shuttlecock you kick around in this game, in the US, so I plan to bring several back to the states.