May Day in Meizhou

Tomorrow begins May, my last month in China. Since tomorrow is May Day, the students have a 3-day weekend. We're taking advantage of the day off tomorrow to travel to Meizhou with the English teacher Kevin and his wife. Instead of taking the bus as normal, we are taking a taxi this time which the school is paying for - and should be much faster than the bus.

May Day as you should know is the 'real' Labor day, an international holiday where we honor the labor movement throughout the world and the men and women who fought and died for the freedom and privileges we have today. We working class Americans enjoy such things as weekends and 40 hour workweeks with overtime pay thanks to the American labor movement. It's a pretty big holiday here in China, not so much in America as I can recall.

Today was Rebecca's turn to visit the Da Jin school in Da Tian village, so I had the whole day off. I decided to take a short bike ride down the river south of town a couple of miles until I reached another bridge near a small village town. I sat at a gazebo thing near the bridge to eat my sandwich and many young elementary aged kids gathered 'round to look at me. I pulled out my camera to take photos of them but when I did so they all screamed and ran away from the camera. I outsmarted them by switching to my camera's video function, turning it on and then pointing at them as they ran away - it makes for a pretty funny little video clip.

I visited a calligraphy artist's shop today to pick up a couple of items for gifts back home. Rebecca and I stopped in last night to ask for prices of certain things, and I returned by myself this afternoon to purchase the stuff. When I entered they served me tea so we sat and drank tea for awhile, communicating what little I could with the shop owners. Then a very old man came to sit with us, who was the shop owner's father. I was surprised he knew a little bit of English so we had a fairly limited conversation. One thing I've noticed living here is that you don't really need to know a language to communicate with someone, as body language and gestures act as universals - but it helps that I know a little bit of Mandarin. The man said he was 92 years old and was fairly excited to see and talk to me, and I shook his hand as I left.

The weather here has been amazing for the past few days - mild temperatures with no rain and lots of sunshine. In May as we draw closer to the rainy season we'll probably get frequent rain, so I'm enjoying this pleasant weather while I can. I'm I'll have more stories and pictures to post after tomorrow's trip to Meizhou.

Where the heck did April go?

This past weekend Rebecca decided to cook a meal at our place. I wasn't involved in the getting food/cooking process too much so it was mostly her thing along with the help of girl student here at the school named Fish. Many of the students have English names that are not neccesarily names as they are things sometimes - others include Watermelon, Promise, Sweet, to name a few. Anyway, so we had a big meal with pork (i think) stuffed tofu, green beans, egg, and rice. Along with the girl Fish an English teacher Kevin and his wife joined us for the meal as well. While the girls were preparing the meal, Kevin and I went down the street to get some eggs as well as 4 bottles of Kingway beer to split between us for the meal.



Lately I've been on a serious music-downloading binge, downloading dozens of albums people have uploaded to the internet. I like to use sites like Megaupload, where people upload a .zip file of an album, i download it directly from the site, unzip it into a folder using WinRAR, and then sync it to my iPod. I'm also using a cool program called Floola that allows you to use your iPod to upload to/download from any computer. Normally you're stuck with one computer with iPods, but this program is pretty nifty, and you can drag and drop the program onto your iPod so you can bring it with you to use on any computer without setting it up, so it's great for traveling, or just for sharing music with your friends. Sharing is caring.

Rebecca and I are each supposed to write up an article for a newspaper or something in English in the next week or so. I don't know too many details about the paper at the moment, if it's local or something or if it more like one of the English Weekly things the students here get.

I've been doing some shopping the past few days - picked up some decent sandals and also got a few nice quality plain t-shirts that are comfy and nice looking. I'll probably hold off on too much more shopping until I visit Hong Kong in a couple of weekends.

I've got less than 5 weeks left now until I return to America, where the nice warm bike friendly June weather will await me, as opposed to the frigid winter I escaped from a couple months ago. This trip is like having an extended summer season for the most part. I'm still not too anxious to get home yet, and I'm actually starting to get worried that I will miss this place when I leave. I think by the last week I'll be anxious to get back home though. This trip has gone by so fast so I'm sure these last few weeks will fly right by.

Bike stuff mostly

So I haven't made a new post for almost a week. I know, I'm getting sorta lazy doing this plus I just don't have much exciting stuff to really talk about.

I got my first flat tire on my bike the other day. I was riding out to the mountain by myself to go climb it when I look down and see my front tire is flat, so I get off my bike and start walking back, looking for a bike mechanic. I stop at a motorcycle mechanic and they pointed me to a place across the street where a bike mechanic was. The guy put my bike on a stand and removed the tube from the tire without taking the wheel off, something I never do - I like to take the wheel off the bike and the tire off of the wheel, but this guy did a good job fixing it without doing either. He patched the hole in the tube and found the culprit - a small bit of sharp metal in my tire I must have picked up.

There were a handful of young boys hanging out at the shop and after I got my bike fixed I played with them some by trying to ride their 2-wheeled skateboard thing. I've seen these things in the states, it's basically a skateboard in two parts that can be twisted, and each part has one wheel that swivels. It looks completely unstable, but I tried to get it going and had some success after watching and imitating how the boys were riding on it.

I'm glad I decided to buy one of those LED headlamps before coming on the trip. I'd been wanting one for a while for biking and camping purposes and figured it might come in handy over here. It has, as I use it for biking at night - it really helps light up some of the darker roads and helps me be seen by other people at night. I plan to use it in the future for biking, as it makes a decent headlight to see somewhat and mainly to be seen. It'll be great for touring since I'll be able to set up camp in the dark with both hands free.

Speaking bike touring, I'm currently planning a fairly big bike trip this summer soon after I return. I'm planning to drive to Pierre, South Dakota in my car with my brother Will and my bike and gear. My brother will drive my car back separately, and I will be left to bike back to St. Charles following the Adventure Cycling Association's Lewis and Clark route, which follows the Missouri River for most of the way. The route I'm doing is about 1000 miles and will probably take about 2 weeks to complete.

Bike touring is a great combination of two of my favorite activities - cycling and traveling. I do unsupported, fully-loaded touring, which means I do not have a support vehicle and that I carry camping gear in order to camp along the way. Everything I need to live is on my bike - it's a pretty interesting way to travel. I started doing this last summer, mainly taking short, overnight trips. I want to try something a bit more ambitious this summer, so I'm riding part of the Lewis and Clark trail. And I'll most likely keep a blog or a crazyguyonabike.com-journal of the trip. Other than that, I still plan on taking lots of short tours again around Missouri.

I started (re)reading Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions a few days ago, and I'm already about 2/3's the way through. I finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for the second time recently, and I enjoyed it again. I used to think reading books twice or more was useless, but now I see that reading a book multiple times isn't so bad, and helps you enjoy and know the book more.

Piiiiiizzzzzaaaaa!!!

Saturday Rebecca and I took a weekend trip to the city of Huizhou (Hway - Joe) to stay with Martin and his wife Amy. Huizhou is on the way to Shenzhen/Hong Kong and it took about 3-4 hours from bus stop to bus stop. When we arrived in Huizhou, we literally stopped and got off at a spot on the highway where Martin and his friend with a car waited to pick us up and drive us to Martin's apartment at the school. After a quick settle in to the apartment, we went for a walk around the high school campus where Martin and Amy teach. It was a very large school and to us it looked more like a college campus.

Later Martin and Amy fixed us a good lunch at their apartment, and then Rebecca, Martin and I took a city bus into the city where we walked around. We walked through a pedestrian shopping street free of traffic and also along a lake. At one point we entered a large mall and one of the first things I saw was a Papa John's pizza. Jackpot, I knew where I was going to have dinner! After roaming around the huge mall for a little bit, we went back to the Papa John's to have dinner. I ordered a 9" pepperoni pizza and a bottle of Heineken that came with a frosted glass. It was a very expensive meal by Chinese standards, but about normal for a comparable meal in the states. It was very delicious, made with real cheese and it was definitely authentic, as much as Papa John's pizza can be. It was the first time I've had pizza for about 2 months, since coming to China.



Today there was a guy outside of the school gates playing electric guitar. He was obviously pretty poor and was playing for money. Rebecca called me on my cell phone to let me know about the guy at the gate, so I went there, but decided to run back to the apartment to grab my camera and my guitar. I attempted to play along with him on my guitar, but it didn't work out too well since I think he was tuned a full step down from what mine was. He had a generic stratocaster hooked up to what looked like a homemade amplifier. I was surpised to see he was using a multi-effect pedal that was pretty much the same one I used to have for my bass guitar. I listened to him play and sing a few songs and then sorta asked him if I could play using body language. I played a little bit of "Red House" and part of a solo from "Suzie Q" then handed it back to him. He said "xie xie lao shi" (Thank you, teacher). I put a few yuan in his bag and left. I ended up getting a couple of short video clips of him playing with my digital camera, which has a video function. I figure now that I have an 8GB card I should take advantage of it and capture some video as well as audio. Maybe when I return I can edit it all into a short documentary of sorts. I'll definitely try to get some video of the crazy traffic over here.

Today was my turn to visit the Da Jin primary school in Da Tian village. I got up early in the morning, walked to the bus station and rode to the village and got dropped off at the school. I taught two classes today, and the kids seemed to be a tad less rambunctious than last time. I taught what I was supposed to from they book they provided me, and I had to improvise the rest. I took advantage of their energy and did a couple of simple Total Physical Response exercises, like having the kids "JUMP!" or "Sit quietly..."

I had a nice lunch at the school with the headmaster and a couple of teachers. After that I had about an hour and a half until the bus came, so I used most of my time walking down the road a little ways from the school. I spotted a tempting foot path off the side of the road, so I took it and it led me up to the top of a moderately big hill. At the top there was a big grave, like many of the ones seen in this countryside. I also had a decent view of some of the village homes and farms below and the mountains in the distance.

This weekend Rebecca and I are going to visit Martin at his home in Huizhou. Martin used to work at our high school in Shuizhai and was the main liaison for the past interns, but ended up moving to another city fairly recently. He recently stopped by the school a couple weekends ago and we chatted with him briefly, and he invited us to visit him at him home sometime soon. I'm trying to look up the population for the city, and I found one site that says it has about 2.7 million people. Pretty big city...

I went to the Bank of China today to exchange some more of my American dollars for Chinese Yuan. The exchange rate is pretty amazing, and I come out of the bank feeling a lot richer than when I entered. It's about 700 Yuan to every 100 American. While they were dealing with my paperwork to exchange, a woman behind me brought in an old US 20 dollar bill, so I showed her a $1, a $5, and a new $20 I had with me.

So we finally got permission to take a trip to Hong Kong, which will likely happen in early May as we're planning. We need to take this trip in order to renew our visas, since our visas are valid for 90 days per entry and we are here for about 100 days. Hong Kong should be fun to visit again.

Also, I've neglected to mention it yet, but I have to talk about my awesome mosquito killing device. It's basically a handheld bug zapper that looks like a tennis racket. You plug it into the wall to charge it and then you go around and zap mosquitoes with it. It has an on and off switch, and to activate the electricity you press a little button on the handle with your thumb and swat away. When you hit one, you get the satisfaction of a loud POP with a little blue spark. Sometimes it will sit and electrocute for a second before popping with a spark, and sometimes it will sit there and sizzle if you keep holding down the button and you'll get a fried mosquito smell. It's a whole lot easier and satisfying than trying to squash them.



Here are some pictures from the day - check out facebook album 8 for more

view from the top of the hill I climbed


some kids excited to see a waiguoren

Met another foreigner today

As I mentioned in my last post, this Sunday was Easter and I ended up attending a Christian church here in town. It was my first time going here, and it was very packed for this weekend. It began with some singing, and I recognized some of the tunes and the word "Hallelujah." The sermon got kind of boring but at the end there was a variety show with a choir performance, children's choir, and some women dancing with percussion and saying things. All in all it was pretty interesting.

Inside the church


Leaving church


Today we only taught 2 classes instead of 3, since we do not teach grade 1 this week. This means no classes tomorrow and 2 again Wednesday. For the lesson today and this week we wanted to get the students to talk and creatively produce language on their own, so we did an activity splitting the classes into 9-10 groups of 6 students or so. We gave each group a slip of paper with a list of people and we had the students create a sort of scene with the characters and come up with questions and answers each person might say. For instance, on slip had "Doctor, Nurse, Patient" for a scene at the doctors office, or "Restaurant manager, waiter, customer" for a restaurant scene. Near the end of class we tried to get the students to volunteer to act theirs out, and we actually had some success with this - in the first class a group of girls acted out their restaurant skit and they seemed to have fun with it. Not all of the students were as into it, but I'm glad some were and I consider it mostly a successful lesson.

With my short day, I decided to walk my bike down to the shop I bought it from to have it repaired. It has cottered cranks (ancient bike technology) so they are a bit shabby and come loose sometimes, so I had to get that fixed. I got my cranks fixed and my saddle level and tightened again so I was ready to go. I brought my camera along because I figured after getting it repaired I would ride out to the mountain and climb to the top. The bike is very classy with the upright posture and classic single speed look, but it's not without its problems - it's falling apart slowly and its heavy and inefficient. I miss my Long Haul Trucker touring bike at home, and returning to it will be so much sweeter after riding this heavy clunker around.

Someone told us that we are now in the rainy/wet season here, and apparently it stormed last night, but early on today it was really nice and sunny. Without my usual afternoon class, I figured it was a good opportunity to go to the mountain. At the foot of the mountain, I hear some distant thunder and figure it may rain. Oh well. I finally make it to the top and am greeted by 3 mean dogs at the main plaza place. The place is totally empty except for a young girl and boy hanging out at the top in the little Chinese gazebo thingy. I go there to read and it starts to rain, then pour heavily with some wicked lightning. I could see the town below when I first got there, but now it was completely covered by the storm passing through. Luckily the gazebo thing gave me shelter from the heavy rains, so I just waited it out with the two other kids until it finally calmed down. I knew I was stuck on a mountain in a rain storm, but I didn't worry since I figured it would pass, and it did.

Back down in the city I was riding back home on the main street on the sidewalk I see a white person walking by. I stopped and went up to him to say hi and we talked for a few minutes. He was Spanish and said that he was in town because his girlfriend lives here, and that he runs an import/export business. I'm not sure if he was an American citizen, but he did say he was living in America for a little while and he showed me his Florida ID/driver's license. I told him I was teaching English here and he said something like "good, because no one here can speak it!"

I'm still playing lots of Ping Pong, and am definitely improving my skills at the game, so hopefully I can find people to play with back home.

I don't think I've mentioned it here yet, but China ended up blocking Youtube on its internet, so if I try to access it I get that oh-so-familiar "Page load error" message. It happened a few weeks ago during my stay here, so I was able to access it before but no longer. The Huffington Post is also blocked, which is kind of a bummer, but having Youtube blocked is a much bigger deal. Oh well, I can live without it, but it gets annoying because about EVERYONE uses Youtube to show video on the internet nowadays. But it doesn't matter when I can buy cheap, nice suits.

My bike with a dog at the foot of the mountain. Someone was kind enough to get it out of the rain while I was away.

Met a fellow American today...

Rebecca and I decided to take yet another trip to Meizhou today, leaving on the bus at about 7 am. When we arrived at the bus station in Meizhou, I waited in the lobby while Rebecca used the restroom, and I just stood there kinda zoning out and staring blankly at a map when all the sudden I hear someone say "howdy." Whoa! An American! He asked me where we were traveling and I told him about how we were living in a nearby city teaching English and were in Meizhou visiting for the day. I forgot where exactly he said he was going, but he and his Chinese wife were traveling though the country, coming from Guangzhou (near Hong Kong) and passing through Meizhou at the moment. He said his name was John and he was from North Carolina, and I told him he was the first American I've seen in several weeks.

Rebecca and I chatted with him at the bus station for just a few minutes, but it was really cool finally getting to see another Westerner. It was one of those moments I've sort of been waiting for, not sure if it would likely happen or not because Westerners are so few and far between around these parts. Plus it was nice to talk to someone new who could comprehend every word we said.

From the bus station we decided to take a motorcycle taxi to the lake in Meizhou, and when we arrived it was pretty awesome. Meizhou has been the most impressive city I've ever been to when it comes to public parks - they are all over this city and each one is really great. They had some carnival rides running at this park, so we rode in the Ferris wheel and got a good view (and photos) of the lake and park. Afterwards we walked over and rented a pedal boat to ride around on the lake for an hour - it reminded me of riding my recumbent bike back home. It was a bit cramped for my long legs, but my knees are thankful for the light pedal resistance. At times we'd cut the steering to the left or right and 'cut donuts' on the lake - very slow like. Who knows what the people on shore thought of the crazy Americans. Hey, there's only so much you can do in the middle of a small lake on a pedal boat. At one point we saw an empty bottle floating in the lake, so we pedaled over to pick it up.

View from the top



We took a taxi to the shopping part of time and split ways for a few hours to shop separately. I bought quite a bit of stuff today - a few DVDs including that new Frost/Nixon film I've been wanting to see.

I picked up some gear for camping and bike touring
Sleeping bag - 1.65 lbs, packs small - about 27 dollars
Cycling gloves - they have nice padding, far better than my current Wal-mart ones - about 5 bucks
750 ml Aluminum Bottle - about $3.21
Cookset with pot and lid, skillet, folding handles, two Chinese styled bowls and one Chinese style spoon, and a scrubby brush - not the lightest, but nice - a little more than $15



I also bought a new 8GB memory card for my digital camera, I current have a 1 GB. I guess this really wasn't all that necessary, but at least now I can hold 8 tons of pictures and I got it for a decent price of about 30 bucks.

I am now past the halfway point of my stay in China. It's all gone so fast, and I'm sure the last half of this trip will fly by even faster before we fly back. I'm not homesick and I don't feel too anxious to get back yet, though I think I probably will the last week or so.

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday and I plan to go to church. Yes, there is a Christian church in town not too far from our school, and Rebecca attended one time so far. I really want to go and experience the Chinese version of this ritual - should be pretty interesting.

Got kinda sick, no big deal

This Tuesday I got kind of sick with something for the first time over here. I got back from teaching three classes in a row Tuesday morning and was sitting at the computer and I felt tired and kind of cold, so I put on my hoodie, got in bed, covered up and took a nap for a couple of hours. I woke up and I still felt bad - damn, I'm sick.

I took a couple of Ibuprofen that I brought along with me from the States and started to feel better eventually. In the evening Rebecca wanted to get some food at a restaurant and then walk down to Texas Burger for an ice cream. I was feeling better at the time so I went for the walk. After eating a plate of noodles at the restaurant, I felt better and ended up eating 2 ice creams at the Texas Burger. The ice cream there is the best in town that we've found so far - it tastes like the real thing, but we're pretty sure it isn't since most people here are lactose intolerant.

By the end of the day, I felt pretty much fully recovered, so I didn't know what it was. Did I get some kind of food poisoning? I didn't have an upset stomach or want to vomit at all, just felt 'bad' and had a sorta headache. I woke up the next morning feeling sorta crappy again but nothing a couple of Ibuprofen couldn't cure. From there I haven't felt bad, and this morning I woke up feeling great. I'm not sure what it was that I came down with, but at least it wasn't too serious and I'm glad I recovered so quickly.

Wednesday I tried out my new suit for the first time, wearing it to all three of our classes that day. The students at the school really seemed to like it and thought it was pretty cool.

We've gotten some rain recently, not too much though. I'm still grateful to be in such a nice climate - it was nice to escape those frigid midwest temperatures back in February for the warm subtropics. We had one week of cold weather here early on, but other than that we've had nice warm temperatures with a few chilly rainy days every once in awhile. And I'm glad that when I do finally return to the States it will be June and warm weather will await me.

New suit and shoes

So I want to confirm that the stereotype of Chinese people eating dog is absolutely true - at least in this region. In my time here so far I've seen a few dogs being butchered or parts of some being sold on the street. Yeah all kinds of meat are butchered and sold at little stands on the streets. Rebecca and I had a sort of funny encounter with this fact on our morning walk to the bus station last Thursday to go to Da Tian. We were walking along and a man across the street gives us a big 'Hello!' and a wave with one hand and then lifts his other arm up holding a pole with a dead dog hanging on the end of it.

I know some of you are dog lovers and I myself really like dogs. But yeah, that's just how they do things over here. It might seem strange or even wrong, but you really only have a right to complain if you are a vegetarian. Us meat eaters have no room to judge eating dogs when we kill pigs and cattle everytime we enjoy a delicious burger or bacon.

I haven't talked about teaching for awhile, so I'd like to mention that we basically recycled a lesson from a couple weeks back for this past week. Instead of using Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again," this week we used the The Avett Brother's "The Ballad of Love and Hate." It was a good song to use since it is very long (took up the whole class period going over it), the lyrics are clear and understandable, and it tells a story. It was pretty awesome seeing a classroom full of Chinese kids singing along to The Avett Brothers.

Saturday Rebecca and I had our first experience cooking - well mostly Rebecca but I helped a little. I woke up in the morning and a couple of English teachers were in our apartment with Rebecca - they went to buy some food off the street for making dumplings earlier - a large carrot, some pork, and some pasta sqaures from the dumpling restaurant to make our own dumplings. I helped make a few dumplings, grabbing a thin pasta square, using the chopsticks to grab a little carrot/pork mix, and then wrap/fold the dumpling. One of the teachers did the cooking, boiling water in our wok and boiling the dumplings for several minutes. It was a good meal - maybe I will attempt to make some when I return to America.

Making dumplings in our dining room





Today we got lunch on one of the many boat restaurants on the river. Sitting next to the water I could see lots of litter and garbage floating by, and some of the patrons and restaurant hosts didn't think twice about tossing tissue paper into the river. !!! Anyway, there was kind of a funny moment because our waitress handed us two glasses for our table. One had a small blemish on the lip, and the woman picked it up and looked at it for a second, and then just tossed it into the river. We had a good laugh after she walked away. It's too bad, I would have kept that glass. I just thought that moment was kind of funny.

Anyway, today was kind of a big shopping day for me as I picked up a few nice items. My first find of the day was a big "Adidas" (emphasis on the "") backpack. I bought it to replace the small backpack that I carried over with me, as this one can hold more stuff. I know it's probably not the best quality, as it's not really an Adidas bag, but hey I haggled it for 25 RMB, which is about 4 bucks American. Flying over here I only had one big backpacker-type backpack and one smaller school backpack for everything I brought with me - I like to pack light. This is a slight upgrade to my carry-on backpack and will be great for traveling in the future for all kinds of trips.

Last night I went shopping around for shoes - I figure it's best to go ahead and get a good pair or two over here where I can find a much better deal on some. I found a few last night but they didn't have my size, 46. I figured my waiguoren feet were just too big for the shops over here - no one carried size 46. However, I didn't think to look for size 44, which also fits - turns out about everyone has shoes in this size. I went to the store today that I went to last night to try on the cool shoes in a 44 and they fit fine. Sweet, time to go back and get the moolah to buy them.

After going back home to get the money, I walk back into town and decide to stop and look at some suits in a store. One of the women at the shop gives me a suit to try on so I do, but I don't really have an intention on buying it, since I didn't have the money - the price read something above 500 RMB. However, I like it and she thinks I want to buy it, so she goes to check it out and I try to explain I don't have the money for it. I show her that I have 250 RMB and she says that's ok. I confirm it by writing "250?" on a piece of paper and pointing to the whole suit - she says yes. Well, looks like I'm buying a suit today. I was kinda wanting to buy a suit over here at some point anyway, and today I found a deal I couldn't pass up - a nice new dark blue suit for about $37 American.

I now have no money to buy the shoes I originally walked into town to get, so I head back home yet again to get more money and walk back into town to the shoe store, try on the shoes, and buy them. The black leather shoes are really nice - sort of a mix of dress and casual, very clean and stylish. And only $30 American.

I love this country.

Here are the shoes and the suit I bought

I've been to the mountain top

Today Rebecca and I met up with two girls at the school to go climb a mountain just outside of town. They brought a bike along for Rebecca to use for the day and I got on mine and we all rode a few miles through town to the outskirts and came to the foot of the mountain. We parked our bikes and began walking up the nice concrete path all the way up the side of the mountain. It was a steep climb, but it was surprisingly short and fairly easy for the amount of distance we covered. At the top was a sort of park with a monument and some shops, and a great view of the whole city of Shuizhai. We walked down the other side and around on the road that leads to the peak. I will have to make more trips here, as it is very easy to access with a short bike ride. Too bad I don't have a bike with a granny gear to climb the hill - no way in hell am I pedaling my heavy single-speed up that mountain or coming down with its ancient rod brakes.

We found out friday that this weekend is a 3-day weekend for us and the grade 1 and 2 students - apparently its the Qingming /The Clear & Bright Festival that occurs on April 5th. We don't teach classes monday, so we are considering another visit to Meizhou that day.

Walking through the city tonight we decided to stop by the calligraphy artist's shop that I visited by myself the other day. We walked in and he served us tea and talked some. I don't know how we do it, we only speak a spoonful of Chinese and he spoke no English, but somehow we still had a conversation of sorts. Eventually he got out the calligraphy gear and let us take a shot at it. I know how to write some Chinese characters, so I did what I could and did a decent job at it. I went over to buy a brush but he refused to let me pay for it, giving it as a gift. Plus I guess it was sort of 'broken' since the brush was fluffy and not sharp - I guess it needs to be sharp to do caligraphy properly. Pretty awesome though, since I was planning on using it as a gift anyway.

Here are some pictures from the day

Overlooking Shuizhai


On the other side



Terraced rice paddies

My birthday and Da Tian village visit

So yesterday, April 1st, was my 22nd birthday - and what a place to celebrate it in! We taught our normal Wednesday classes that day and each class gave me a gift of some sort - all in all I ended up getting a nice ping pong paddle set, a ceramic Buddah in a cool gift box (I thought it was a chocolate Buddah at first, so I'm glad it will last!), and some handmade cards and some candy. Between classes I went down the street to a fireworks shop and bought a couple of items - a fountain and a thingy that shoots the exploding colorful flares into the air. We ended up walking down next to the river bank at night to shoot them off. It's not illegal here apparently, as we here fireworks go off all the time - something I might have to take advantage of while I can.

I ended up getting a couple pieces of mail Tuesday - one from my Mom which I think she sent before I left, and a birthday card from my brother Nathan and his family (good timing!).

Searching at the some the DVD shops around town, I found computer games and software and I ended up buying Half Life 2 and Age of Empires 3 for a couple bucks, and then I found Photoshop 9 for less than a dollar, which is literally a steal. But hey, we've all broken the speed limit...

Today Rebecca and I spent all day in and around Da Tian village. We got up really early and walked to the bus station at 6:15 to catch the 7:00 am bus to Da Tian. It was a really small bus, and at one point there must have been about 30 people on the bus made for 20 or so - so Rebecca and I got up from our seats at one point to offer them to some elderly women who thanked us for giving up our seats.

We taught 3 classes total at the Da Jian primary school at the village - the second class was very rambunctious so it was a bit hectic, especially with kids hitting each other. However, it balanced out with the last class we had, which was very well behaved and attentive, so we taught a few basic things and played a couple rounds of hangman. How much a difference a few years of age can make.

Usually Rebecca and I go alone every other week to visit Da Tian, but this week we were also set to visit a nearby middle school, so we both ended up going. After leaving Da Jian school we met with the headmaster of the Middle school and had a royal buffet of a lunch at a nice restaurant with a couple of young English teachers from the middle school. Afterwards they got us each a hotel room for a couple hours of rest and then we headed to the Middle school - there we just went outside to talk to a massive swarm of middle school kids asking us questions. After a while I got to play some ping pong with some students and teachers.

After that was over, we left with the headmaster of the middle school in his car back to Shuizhai. After a couple of random stops we stopped to eat dinner at a restaurant. We sat and drank tea with some other older fellows and communicated with what we knew of Mandarin Chinese and the little English they knew - surprisingly successful I guess. Tonight was my first experience of the Chinese hard drinking culture - as someone brought along a bottle of fairly strong stuff - 52%-alcohol-by-volume type strong stuff. We all had little chalice shot glasses that must have been 1/3 or 1/4 of a shot, but still it seemed like the men offered a toast every few minutes, and they'd refill the chalice after every toast. I'm not a big fan of hard alcohol - well, it's not a big fan of me - so I dreaded each shot fearing it would want back out, but luckily I didn't get sick and got a nice decent buzz from it along with a delicious meal. Also, I'm grateful the headmaster didn't drive us the rest of the way in, and that we had a sober driver take us back to school.

Also, I gave gifts to the headmasters at both of the schools. For both I included a small bottle of wine, a can of Budweiser, and a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon - all of which I picked up in Shuizhai. I figured they'd appreciate the wine and American beer.

Here are some pictures from the day

This photo does no justice to this amazing mountain




Doesn't this photo make you want to be an environmentalist?


More photos from the day can be seen in facebook albums 6 and 7 linked on the right side of the page.