I did a search for a Halloween cat in Yahoo and this is one of the pictures that turned up. I thought it was pretty cute. It’s great when people manipulate animals and make them do outrageous things like this.(Horray Photoshop) For some reason, it totally brightens my day.

Well, if you didn’t know, Halloween doesn’t exist here in China. Sad face. I am slowly trying to bring it over though. This week I am teaching my little devils about Halloween and the whole art of Trick or Treating. Like normal, some think that it is cool, and the rest of the 700 brats think it is boring, stupid and as uninteresting as me. I actually had a student tell me to my face that he didn’t think I was interesting. How wonderful is it to hear that?

For the good students, I bought some Milk Candy. It’s pretty cheap and good if I must say so myself. I find myself sticking my hand in the bag to nick a piece a bit to often. It’s all going to my hips. I can feel it.

The fun part about teaching Halloween is that I get to scare the living heebie jeebies out of my students and feel justified doing it. When I tell them about haunted houses, I tell them that they are scary and then pick a random bored student who looks like he or she is sleeping and then scream SCARY in the ear while slamming my hands on their desk. Even the boys look like they are about to faint sometimes. The girls look like they might cry. And that really, really, makes my day a good day. I’m evil. I know. But you’d be evil too if you had to put up with their crap.

I do have a few good students, but not enough. I actually had a few of them call me Miss Cook last week and today one called me by my Chinese name – Zi Wei. I rarely hear Gabe. Mostly it is just Teacher! Teacher! I should start screaming Student! Student! and see how they like it.

But anyway, Happy Halloween. Hope some of you got my share of candy because I will be waiting patiently to get it when I finally come home in about 8 or so months – if China will let me leave that is . . .

Oh, and will someone eat a piece of Pumpkin Pie for me. I have been thinking about it all week. Nangua is Chinese for pumpkin, by-the-way. Some of Phil students gave him one. He needs to carve it soon before it starts to rot and we have to throw it out. Anyone have a funny suggestion on what to carve into it?

Post you ideas in the comment section, and if Phil likes your suggestion – I will post a picture of it after he is done.

There is no need to adjust your screens, these peanuts really are purple and turquoise, the very color of my room(back home that is.) I ran into these little suckers when I was walking through an open market down the street and couldn’t let them go without getting a picture of them. A few Chinese people stared at me when I did, but I mean, how often do you see purple and turquoise peanuts? My point exactly. I have no idea what they taste like. I haven’t gotten around to popping one in my mouth. And I don’t know if I will. There is something wrong about eating purple and turquoise peanuts.

There are two things about China you should know. The first one is that China is not the safest place in the world. The people are fine, but you have to watch where you walk. If you don’t, you may plummet into a hole. The Chinese don’t cover up holes on the sidewalks here in Fuyang and if they do, they aren’t very effective. The second thing is that China is one of the least sanitary places I have ever seen. A lot of the places are just plain dirty. The bathrooms are probably the worst of the bunch, but pretty much every where you go – you have to wonder what disease is growing there and how it can possibly hurt you. But that is something I have just grown used to. For a visual example, I’ve posted this building.  It’s a trash can, at least that is what it is used for in Fuyang. People come down, throw their rubbish in and walk away. Then all of the rats and flies come in and feast. And the smell. Icky. That is what gets me the most. The smell. It is almost as bad as the rank ammonia smell of urine that comes from some of the bathrooms.

Here is a random picture off of one of Fuyang’s bridges. If this creek was like any one from back home I would run down to it and try to go Crawdad hunting, but I wouldn’t even put my toe in this particular one. And I don’t think that a little Crawdad could live in it. I think that is one of the things I miss from home besides western food. Wildlife. I haven’t even seen a squirrel here. There have only been a handful of pigeons around town. I saw a duck in a cage and few chickens getting their heads cut off, but no real wildlife. I don’t even know where to look to find them. 🙁 Guess I have to go to the Zoo.

Talk about airing your dirty laundry. All the Chinese do. Well, it isn’t dirty anymore. They are just hang it up to dry after a good washing. They hang their laundry every where. They hang them on wires in front of houses like this woman here, outside of windows, over banisters, and even on telephone wires. It reminds me a lot of when I went to Portugal. It all comes down to the fact that the Chinese people just don’t own dryers. I don’t know why they don’t. They aren’t that expensive and I have seen them in stores. Maybe they just don’t want to bother with them. They sure make life easier. And I am sure that they would think the same if they gave it a whirl.

FREEZE!! REMOVE YOUR HANDS FROM YOUR MOUSE!!

Alright, hopefully my big font caught your attention and you haven’t left my little blog quite yet.

If you are still here. Thanks. For those of you who left after the word stop, I have one word for you. Grr.

Now that you are here and settling in on the nice big blue couch I bought a couple of days ago, I have a question for you. A few questions actually. And if you could answer them for me, I would be very happy.

I always wonder who is coming to my blog and how they found it. I have trackers, but that only gives me an IP address(sometimes), a country, and some other random information that doesn’t really matter. What I want to know is who you really are, how you came across my blog, and what other information you want divulge to me and the rest of the blogging universe.

Drop the information in the comment box, please. I would appreciate it very much. It is nice to know who in the world actually reads the words I write.

We found this pretty little bench in the gift shop at the end of our tour. After seeing the prices on the books for sale, we had to sit down to catch our breaths. The prices were pretty steep, at least more than I was willing to pay. I was hoping that they would have some smaller items for my cheap blood, but that didn’t happen, and we left the gift shop without anything in tow.

I am not sure exactly what you would call this. I thought it was a fish at first, but then I changed my mind and thought it looked more like a dragon. After looking at it for several minutes, I decided on the phrase – Fish Dragon. It seemed fitting. We had a tour guide, but she didn’t speak a lick of English – go figure, so I never found out what it really was or what it symbolized if anything. The only good thing my guide was good at was pointing and motioning “this way” with her hand.

We climbed up some stairs into a building we shouldn’t have gone into, but our tour guide hadn’t found us yet. While I was up on the second story, I took this picture. The village is pretty even though it is a little run down. There are only a few more buildings than what you see in this picture. Like I said, the village is small. Hence the name – village. Heh.

This looks like a fabulous job. All day she sits and paints this rubber flower stamp with some green paint and then gently presses it on the paper square. This process repeats itself over and over again. I was hoping to come across these little pieces of paper in the gift shop, but I never saw them.