Anyone who has been to China or any other country where English is the second language knows how humorous a translated sign can be. I come across them a lot, but I don’t always have my camera handy. My New Year’s resolution is to carry my camera wherever I go and to take as many pictures as my battery will let me. I don’t want to go home to find that I don’t have as many pictures as I should.

I know that whomever is translating these from Chinese to English tries very hard, but sometimes I think that they should hire a more fluent speaker of the foreign language if it is going to be in the public eye all the time. There are enough expats here in China who wouldn’t mind taking over the job for a small fee. But then again, if all the signs were proper, I wouldn’t have some much to laugh at as I walked around town.

Below are just a few of the many humorous signs I’ve seen. I have a pretty funny picture that I got from inside of a taxi in Shanghai, but that I don’t have it uploaded to Blogger yet. It said something to effect of not allowing psychos in the taxi. Heh. I’ll make a point to start taking more pictures as I see them, and I’m sure I’ll see plenty.

On the back door of our hotel in Shenzhen.

One of the stores in Hangzhou. Do they know what monopolized means?

Take a looky at this graph and tell me something doesn’t look a little abnormal to you.

Maybe it is March Madness for blogs and no one has informed me, but for some reason the number of visits to my blog has sky rocketed during the first part of March. I can’t figure it out. Nothing much has changed. I know that I have been posting more lately than I did in the past month or so, but geez . . . I nearly got 62 people visit yesterday. Now granted, a few of them were me and Phil as we attempted to make the blog cooler, but the majority were people who visited on their own accord, stayed for a minute and read a post or two. Even my keyword search has increased. In March so far, I’ve had 28 searches lead to my blog. In the entirety of February, 34 visits were through keyword searches. I’ve started putting labels on my posts, but I don’t think that would cause that much of an increase. Whatever has sparked the interest in my blog, I hope that it continues. Comments and traffic keep me going and makes me think that someone out there actually cares what I’m writing. I’m sure other bloggers would agree.

Oh, and before I go, I’d like to introduce you to Ray. He is Chinese and lives in Beijing, but has a English blog. I thought that was pretty cool. If you would like to enter into his daily life via his blog you can go here – http://snow.blogsome.com/. I found it to be a very interesting read.

As you can see, we’ve found a way to upload pictures again. At least for the time being. For those of you keeping track, Phil and I are still in Beijing. Our next attempt to get the heck out of this city will be on Saturday the 10th at 11:00 pm by overnight train. So far the weather looks clear so we shouldn’t have a problem in that regard, but at this point I won’t be holding my breath or getting my hopes up. After everything that has happened, nothing can shock me anymore. As long as I get there in one piece, I don’t care how or when I get there.

Because the Internet cafe we use on a daily basis doesn’t have any working ports, we’ve had to upload them via WECL’s computers to our emails and then run across the street and download them to the Internet cafe’s computer desktop where we can then upload them to Blogger. It’s all a crazy mess really, but hey, I get to post pretty pictures again. That makes me happy! : )

So without much further ado, let me introduce you to the lucky five contestants that were chosen for today’s post.

Some elderly people playing Majong at Longmen Village.

I’m not sure who’s driving: the boy or the crazy cat. Located on a wall at Longmen Village.

“Here Piggy, Piggy, Piggy, I’ve got a jiao for you.” One man is about to make all is dreams come true by chucking the equivalent of a penny in this pig’s mouth. It’s the year of the pig, by the way.

I wish this was my front door back home. Everyone would envy me. My memory fails me, but I think this picture was taken at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.

One of the 7 dragons on a wall in Hong Kong.

Apparently, the third time isn’t the charm. I wish that I could say that we were in Shenyang, but I’m sorry to say that somehow we are still here in Beijing.

Snow falling Sunday morning in Beijing.

For the second day in the row, the third actual attempt to leave Beijing, we got up at 9:45 and met in the lobby to wait on the ever trusty WECL bus to take us to the airport. It rolled up right on schedule, this time clear of any snow. The majority of it has melted since Sunday. Only a few large clumps here and there remain. It’s still cold, but it is slowly getting warmer or either I’m getting used to it. We threw our bags in the back again, and at 11:00 am we took off for the airport. Our plane was scheduled to leave at 1:30 pm, so we were leaving in plenty of time. Why we didn’t leave this early when we had the snow storm is beyond me – not that it would have mattered; our flight was canceled. We even took the interstate this time too. I guess they just wanted to make sure we got there in plenty of time. And oh, we did. We had more time to play with than we ever wanted or needed.

A car covered in the snow.

We arrived at the airport at approximately 11:30, and decided to have lunch since we had all the time in the world before our plane would take off. Richard paid for it so that was nice. I’ve said it before, but we are running low on cash, and a meal at the airport would have put another dent in our already empty wallet. We went through security and got down at the terminal at around 12:30 where we soon found out that the Shenyang airport would be closed until 2:00. 2:00 came and went, and so did 3:00. We sat and waited until 4:00 when we got the green light for boarding. I was so happy that I started singing the “I’m so excited” song and got funny stares from my fellow travelers. We got on the plane thinking that we would be taking off soon, but found out there would be another delay because there was too much traffic at the Shenyang airport. That was to be expected because the airport had been closed for 2 days and they had to reschedule all the flights that were supposed to have already come and gone.

Sunday afternoon, the snow begins to melt.

After sitting on the plane for about 30 to 45 minutes, they passed out that weird Chinese biscuit thing again. It sorta reminded me of a Arby’s roast beef sandwich if I closed my eyes, but of course, I have an over active imagination – so don’t believe a word I say. Then the real waiting game began. We sat twiddling our thumbs until about 8:30 pm – yes, you read that right – 8:30 pm when they said we would have to get off the plane. Everyone grumbled, I cried, but off we went. We got on the little shuttle bus that they had waiting for us and stood there for awhile. One of the workers came in holding two back packs trying to figure out who they belonged to, but know one knew. How in the world can you get off the airplane and forget your belongings?! The other thing is that they didn’t confiscate it like they would have in the States or call the bomb squad. They just chucked it in with us and closed the doors, but we didn’t leave. This part of the story is rather confusing. I don’t why they made us get on the shuttle bus just to open their doors 20 minutes later to have us get back on the airplane. We took it as good news, so we did without too much of a complaint.

The remains of a thousand fireworks and a single leaf in Hangzhou.

After we got back on the plane and got situated again, they came over the loud speaker and informed us that we would still be delayed. Everyone grumbled. The one thing that I found surprising is that everyone took this pretty well. People were laughing and trying to enjoy themselves. I mean, people were asking questions, but for as long as we were on that plane – the people were very well behaved. They rolled the cart back down the isle and gave us dinner and another drink after and then we waited some more. We waited until 10:30 when they finally said that air traffic control had given them the green light. Everyone clapped, but a guy from England sitting behind us sarcastically said, “We haven’t taken off yet.” We taxied to the runway and waited for a few planes to land. And then it was our turn. As we took for Shenyang, I waved goodbye to Beijing hoping not to see it for another four months. If only I had known what was to happen – I probably would have just shot myself and put myself out of my misery. I’m sure a good many others would have followed suit.

Pretty lit up trees in Hangzhou.

Somehow or another, I always end up with the window seat whether it is a plane, a bus or a car. It just happens that way, but it makes Phil angry. After we had gotten in the air and were given permission to move about the cabin, Phil made the comment that once again I had the window seat. I replied, “You had 6.5 hours to change seats with me and now you bring this up?” I stood up and let him squeeze in behind me. Like a little kid he stared out at the darkness below him wondering who the one little light belonged to and why in the world they lived out in the middle of absolute no where. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, so it was actually possible to see the snow covered ground below us. The full moon helped illuminate it too. Sometime during the flight Phil said he thought something was amiss because he had seen the moon, then not seen it, and then saw it again. Also, he had seen the same little city below him a few times. This would have been impossible if we were going straight as we all know. Maybe I was in denial. I wanted to get to Shenyang so bad that I didn’t want to even have the idea that we were turning back in my head. For the first time in a long time, I was the one being optimistic.

The lights in the cabin came on. I thought maybe we were about to begin our descent, but there was no big cities lights down below us. I began to panic. Phil still insisted that we were turning around, but I still refused to believe him. A few minutes after the lights of the cabin had come back on, “they”(the infamous they) came on over the speaker to tell us that there was no room at the Shenyang airport for us and that they had to go back to Beijing. You should have heard the moans and the slight screams that emitted from the rest of the passengers. We were all in shock. This was unbelievable. How could we get this close to Shenyang just to be denied. As Richard later said, “Why does God make us suffer so much?”

A cool picture of a random important statue in Hangzhou.

We landed back in Beijing at about 12:20 am, and then were given the option to get off the plane if we wanted. After discussing it for a minute, we decided that it was probably the best thing to do. So we did. Surprisingly, most people stayed on. They sure were a determined bunch of people. I hope that eventually got there or that they didn’t have to sit there for another 8 hours before they were finally be able to leave – again. They shuttled us back to the airport terminal, we got out, and then started a new waiting game called – where is our luggage. When we left the airplane, they checked our tickets so that the could get our luggage off, but as we waited for the shuttle to take us back, we never saw them pull up a truck or one of those escalator like things. We sat on the carousel that they said our luggage would be, but for the longest time the carousel just circled. At least we were given the opportunity to read all of the advertisements printed on it. In time, our luggage did come. Well, that is not entirely true. Everyone’s but Richard’s got there. He had to go to the lost and found counter and have then look for it, but they couldn’t find it. They said that it wasn’t on the airplane. Richard didn’t look happy, but there was nothing he could do. He gave the people his information, and at 2:00 we finally left the airport.

One of the many fireworks for the New Year celebrations in Hangzhou.

For the second time in three days, we headed back to Richard’s car. Once again we somehow fit all of our luggage and our four bodies in it. The Beijing Airport is rather dead at 2:00 am in the morning. There’s no traffic on the interstate either, so that made getting back to school rather easy. We got back at around 2:30 and fell fast asleep. We were all so very exhausted. We don’t know when we are leaving or how we are leaving, but we think it may be by train and sometime during the coming weekend. The thing is – another snow storm may or may not be coming for Shenyang on Friday and Saturday. I don’t know if it will be as bad or if it will happen. If it does, I don’t think we will be leaving Beijing by plane, train or automobile for sometime. For now, we are stuck. This sucks. I think that this is the most insane trip I’ve ever had. I almost feel like I’ve entered the Twilight Zone or something just as strange. Like I said Shenyang doesn’t want us; Beijing doesn’t want us to leave.

Fireworks in the middle of the street and cars driving through them in Hangzhou.

And then we got bounced like one of those toy rubber balls all over China. You know, the ones that will bounce up and hit the ceiling if you throw it hard enough. Man, someone chucked us good and hard. The picture is of Phil’s money right before we departed Fuyang for good. It was approximately 12,000 RMB(maybe a little more) and I had the same amount. So, if you do the math, that would be 24,000 RMB between us. That should have been more than enough to keep us afloat for our 45 day vacation, but like I’ve mentioned before – things didn’t go quite the way we planned. After our crazy ass journey from North to South and back again, we currently have about 3,000 RMB remaining between the two of us. And some of that is money we recently had exchanged because we feared we wouldn’t make it until our next paycheck. We still don’t know exactly when that will be. If the rumors are correct, we might get paid on the 5th. We’ll need it for sure because I am almost certain we will need to buy things to make our new apartment feel like home. The aparment may come “furnished”, but that doesn’t mean we will have plates, utincles to eat with or pots and pans to cook with. Our bed may not even have sheets. I’d be very excited if any of the above pictures were in USD instead of RMB. Then I could say we really were rich, but in actuality, it is only about $1,538. It is a lot in Chinese standards, as long as you don’t try to live a western lifestyle. Well, this post is making me depressed looking at all the money we burned through in the last month and a half – so I better stop writing about it. I blame our poverty on the planes we had to take and our visit to Hong Kong. It was nice, it was fun, but damn, was it expensive!

Currently, I am sitting in the Viennea Airport Hotel in Shenzhen, China. Geographically, it’s like being in Florida. It’s a nice city, and I find it hard to believe that about two decades ago it was a mere fishing village. But, I am way ahead of myself.

Phil and I spent about two weeks in Beijing, walking around and doing normal touristy things. We bought a tourist map at a local bookshop for 8 yuan and tried our best to plan out our days ahead. Beijing may not be that pretty, it’s rather bleak and depressing actually, but the one thing it does have is things to do. There are about a dozen temples and parks littered throughout the city, as well as shopping centers, markets and whatever else you can think of. Transportation isn’t that bad, but from where we were staying – off of the 5th ring road – it took nearly an hour if not more to get to any one particular place. That had mostly to do with the fact that Beijing is a large sprawling city and we had a hard time finding things within a reasonable walking distance. Even though we stuck to the subway and took taxis when it was the obvious better choice, our poor feet hurt on a daily basis.

We went to Tiananmen Square which reminded me of a Super Walmart parking lot. It was impressive because of it’s size, but other than that it was just a huge slab of bricks and would have helped out the air pollution problem more so if it was a park. Of course we visited the Forbidden City as well. Parts of it were under construction because of the Olympics. Beijing wants the city to be as pretty as can be when the hordes of people come to visit in 2008.

The one thing that these picture don’t express is how cold it was the day we decided to go to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It wasn’t the actual temperature that was so bad. For the majority of our stay, the temperature stayed in the 30’s and 40’s during the day and dipped a little below that at night. The problem was the wind. As I stood in the middle of Tiananmen, 30 mph wind gusts slammed into me and Phil. If either one of us had been a little lighter, I think we would have experienced what it was like to be a kite and joined the others fluttering above our heads.

It was in Tiananmen that we learned of the first of many Art Exhibits of the day located in the area. As we were walking around, a young man and woman approached us and began talking to us in English. They wanted to know where we were from, what we were doing in China, what we thought of Beijing, so forth and so on. They explained that they were art students and that they had some of their art work in one of the fancy buildings we were standing by. Supposedly it was free and that they just wanted to show off their traditional Chinese paintings. They tried very hard to get us to follow them in, but Phil and I have grown wary of Chinese people wanting to show us something special and free. We have found that almost everyone has something to sell a foreigner, and more times than not – it’s a scam. We declined and went about our business. At that point in time though we thought that they had both been sincere and didn’t think too much of it, but within the next 30 minutes or so we were approached by another man wanting to show us the same thing. He seemed as friendly as the last guy, but decided then that it was probably something we wanted to avoid. The funny part is that by the time we got down walking around Tiananmen and the Forbidden City at least 10 other people from 10 other exhibits asked us to come look at their art work. Some where more persistent than others. Eventually we just had to start ignoring them or telling them we had already seen it which really confused them.

We’ll have to go back when our parents come in July. It may be windy then too, but at least it won’t be so blistering cold. The wind made it very hard to enjoy everything and I didn’t get as many pictures as I wanted because my fingers were too cold to snap them. I’m surprised my camera actually worked. There was one night that it absolutely refused to take a picture of a temple. It was that cold. We more or less ran through the Forbidden City trying our best to avoid the dirt that came with wind. I had heard about the dust storms before hand, but I didn’t think it would be that bad. There was a thin layer of dirt constantly sticking to the chap stick I kept putting on my lips to keep them from drying out. When I would breath, the little grains of dirt would fly into my mouth and for hours I could feel them gritting between my teeth. Yuck, yuck, yuck is all I have to say. Next time I am going to wear a surgical mask like some of the other visitors I saw that day.

The one thing that I never knew about the Forbidden City is how big it is. It’s massive. Just when you think it is about to end, there is yet another section to explore. I’m sure that there is a lot we didn’t see due to the fact we were trying our best to get back into the warmth of our dorm. It may have been more helpful to have had a tour guide since we didn’t know the history of the place. I think the next time we go I’ll fork up the money for it. Maybe by the time we get back they’ll be done with the construction and we’ll be able to see it without all the scaffolding. There was one particular building that they were working on and had built a wall up in front of it. They had painted the wall to look like it would have had it not been for the construction. I found it pretty funny.

During our two weeks we saw a few markets and some other touristy spots, but for the most part we stayed inside our dorm to save money. We found out not long after we got to Beijing that we would be taking a trip to Hong Kong because our last school had kept our important documents(ie visa and foreign expert card) too long and had let them expire. Because of the New Year approaching, we had to take a plane to Shenzhen and then cross the border into Hong Kong. It’s nice that we got to go see Hong Kong, but I had hoped that I if I went there, it would have been under different circumstances. So far, this little trip down south has been entirely on our bill causing us to burn through our savings and reimbursement of our plane ticket to China. As far as I know, our trip back up north is on our bill as well. Guess we’ve got to make the best out of bad situation. Seems I’ve been telling myself that a lot lately. I’ll get into that and our trip to Hong Kong in my next post. I’ll also post some more pictures for those of you curious as to what we have seen thus far. So, until next time. Laters.

This particular post was supposed to be put on here a long time ago, but for some reason it got saved as a draft and stayed like that for a few months. The picture above was taken from the top of the never ending staircase that we had to climb on a daily basis. Read on.

Compared to that of the normal middle class Chinese household, I live in the lap of luxury. It’s not my home back in the States that I am referring to(that’s quiet another lap of luxury all together), but instead, the apartment I live in now, here in China. Even though my apartment is fairly simple by American standards, it far surpasses what you can expect to find of the homes in and around Fuyang.

I only really come to realize this when I visit the homes of friends or students. It’s only then that I truly understand what I have and what others don’t because for the most part I’m in my own little comfort zone. I’m either in my nice warm apartment, relaxing and watching movies at school, or staying in nice hostels as Phil and I travel. It’s not that I wasn’t aware of how things were before I came over. Even then I had a grasp of how poor the poor really were, but being here and seeing it is different than one can really expect.

There are many well-to-do families in Fuyang and Hangzhou – I’ve seen their homes too – but a great many of the families have only a shell of what I live in. I’ve got hard wood floors. In some homes, a slab of pavement decorated with a rug may be the only thing in most homes. I’ve got a nice hot shower/sauna while many others just have a spout sticking out of the wall – if they’re lucky. Some just get a basin and wash cloth.

The basin in the above picture is exactly that and a little more. All of the people that live in the building across the way from us wash their clothes and dishes there. They even use it to bath. Yes, out in the open for everyone to see. They aren’t naked or anything. They wear as little as possible, wet their wash cloth and wash as best they can. And they do it with out complaint.

That’s enough preaching for one day though. I guess you just have to come here to understand.

We’ve made it to Hangzhou in one piece, but it wasn’t easy. Of course, nothing in China is easy. And I mean nothing.

Our trip began by carrying 6 pieces of rather heavy luggage down six flights of stairs. We each took a piece down one flight at a time. Even though it was cold enough to see my breath, by the time we were done I was hot enough to take off all of my winter clothes. After catching our breathes at the foot of the stairs and waving goodbye to our lovely abode, we began dragging all of our suitcases to the front gates of the school. We ran into some Chinese folk on the way. In Chinese, they asked us where we were going. I think they were a bit surprised by how much crap we had with us. We left our stuff at the gate so that we could go give our key and gym pass(which we never used – hence why I am a fatty now) to Mr. Zhou. He wasn’t there and the entire English office was asleep. We had to poke Peter, Mr. Zhou’s man servant, and give him our stuff. He looked completely out of it and I think that he may have forgotten how to speak English there for a moment.

Once that was done, we pulled our suitcases up the only hill in Fuyang and down the other side. We didn’t have to wait long for a taxi. It was a bit of a chore getting all of our stuff in the taxi, but we somehow managed. Two in the trunk. Two in the back seat. And our backpacks on our lap. We’ve both gotten pretty good at saying how to get to the bus station that takes us to Hangzhou, so that wasn’t a problem. There is almost always a bus there. It is a popular route, so we more or less jumped right on. At first Phil thought that he had left all of his money at home, and that gave me a heart attack, but he found it. Thankfully.

The hard part began when we actually got to Hangzhou.

It didn’t take us too long to find a taxi. We flagged one down and he asked where we were going. I showed him the address, but he didn’t seem to know where it was. He called a few people, but still didn’t seem to know. I tried telling him that I knew where it was and that I could direct him. He understood a little of what I said, but it didn’t look like we were getting anywhere. Phil tried putting two of our suitcases in the trunk, but only one would fit. The taxi driver already had something back there. So, we then tried putting it in the back seat. That didn’t make him happy. Phil threw one of mine back there anyway and shut the door. For some reason, the guy didn’t want to take us both even though we could have fit everything in like we did in our last taxi. I let the taxi driver look at the card one last time and gave it to Phil. It seemed that we were going to have to separate to get to where we needed to be. I got in the front seat, closed the door, and off we were. A part of me thought that the taxi driver was trying to kidnap me and had been playing dumb the entire time just to get me alone. Thankfully, that was not the case. He did manage to get me to the PSB. When I got all of my stuff out of the taxi, I made sure to look at my watch. If Phil wasn’t there in the next 15 mintues – I was going to flip out. It wasn’t too long before another taxi showed up and Phil appeared. Whew.

I grabbed the receipts that we had gotten a week before and ran up to the second floor of the PSB while Phil watched the luggage. I got in line at one place, but was soon directed to another line. I went to that line, and was told something in Chinese I didn’t understand. The girl in line next to me said that she told me to wait for a minute. So I did. A few minutes passed, but nothing happened. I waved my receipts again to get someones attention, and was told to take a seat – that someone would call my name. My first thought was, ” These people don’t even know my name!!” I sat down anyway. A few minutes passed, and then a few more, and finally I couldn’t take the fact that 50 other Chinese people had gotten in line and received their documents. I marched back up to the counter and demanded that I get our passports. The lady didn’t say a whole bunch, but when she got done stapling some weird papers together – she ripped the papers out of my hand and stalked off. Not even 5 seconds later she had both passports in hand, told me how much they cost, I paid and out the door I went. It was so frustrating that it took that long to get something that simple.

We had to get another taxi to get to our hostel for the night. I flagged down maybe 5 or 6 taxis and they each told me “no” they wouldn’t take me. There was no way we could roll our stuff there. By this point, I just wanted to scream. It was cold, drizzling, and I was hungry. More taxis went by, and none would agree to take us. Phil flagged one down, and even though the guy was confused on where we wanted to go – he let us put all of our stuff in his taxi. We made it to the hostel, as you can tell since you are reading this. We were so happy that we tipped the taxi driver and said thank you about 100 times.

If only that was the end of the story, but it isn’t. We got a room on the 3rd floor and there was no elevator. We were lucky, though. There was this little Chinese girl that insisted on helping us take it up stairs. We told her we could do it, but she still insisted. With all of our powers combined, we got everything to our room. I gave the gril10 RMB even though she probably deserved more. I just didn’t have any other small bills on me. She said thank you, and off she went.

For dinner we went to Pizza Hut and had dessert at TCBY. It was yummy. Ever so yummy. After that we came home(hostel) and crashed.

The real humdinger will be later today when we go to the train station. As long as they let us take all of our stuff on board, it shouldn’t be a problem. But like I said before. Nothing in China is easy. Nothing. At least if all goes semi-well, I will have 13 hours to calm down before we hit the next leg of our journey . . . Beijing.

– G

All was not wasted at Yongxing. Most of my students didn’t give a lick about English and could have cared even less that I traveled 7000 some odd miles to come teach them, but there were at least 2 students that made my teaching worth all the pain and agony I had to endure these last 4 months. Let me give you a prime example. Below you will find an email that one my students sent me a few days ago. Grey is a very bright and wonderful girl and will be going on to High School next year. She was one of the few students that would stay after class to talk to me, and would ask me to help her with her English. The email just about made it cry. The one thing it made me remember though, is that teaching is about the one or two people that reach and care and all the rest don’t matter. Read on and see what I mean. I won’t be posting in the next few days because we will be traveling, but I will try to post about our travels soon as well as some pictures.

Miss Cook,
When you told me that you may leave Fuyang,I really feel frustrated.This term I have joined many competitions and English speech.But do you know,when I was in primary school,my English was very poor,my English teachers didn’t like me, it made me sad.When I was in junior six, I attended
a foreign language school entrance examination,because of my poor English, I was failed in that exam.From then on ,I made up my mind to learn English well.
Time flies,now I am in junior three,sometimes I thought maybe I wouldn’t practise English more ,because of the arduous task of learning,but I didn’t.
Since you came to our school,you regards me as your friends,you tell me a lot about English and English culture,I think you are not only are good teacher,but also a good friends.Thank you ,Miss Cook.
Perhaps we will not meet in the future,but I will still remember the wonderful time we spent together,I wish you to have nice days,wonderful weeks,purple years and a successful life.
Best wishes from Grey

Makes you smile doesn’t it? Emails like this make teaching worth while. I’ll have to print it out and frame it and read it when things get tough up north. It will make me remember what teaching is all about when I start to forget again.

I complain a lot on this blog, and for that I apologize, but I sometimes think that if I keep it all bottled up inside, I may just go berserk, and find myself sitting in the dark depths of a Chinese prison for whatever it is I did in the heat of uncontrolled insanity.

But I do have some fluffy news that may warm your hearts.

On most days, I take the bus to and from school. It’s convenient when I am not in a hurry(or freezing my little tushy off) and even better than that, it’s cheap. I only have to shell out a mere one yuan for each bus I get on, and I only have to get on two of them(that’s just 24 cents if you’re curious) to get to me to the school. I wish there was a direct bus, but hey, you can’t have it all.

Just recently though, Fuyang got new buses. They’re much better than the ones that they used to have. They’re bigger actually, and have two doors so that everyone is not trying to get on at the same time that everyone else is trying to get off. They’re even so modern now that they have invested in a coin box that sits by the door. If you only have big bills on you, there is still the ever trusty person(I can’t think of a name for it) that sits closest to the door and will break them for you. I’ve seen one hundred dollar bills broken before. It’s funny watching the person(again the name for this occupation escapes me) digging through his/her change purse for 99 yuan in change. The most I’ve ever broken is a 10.

On the number 8 bus, the one that everyone swore wouldn’t take me anywhere near my school, there is one of the nicest Chinese people I’ve ever met. She speaks maybe 4 words of English, so we’ve never really had an in-depth conversation, but I’ve always felt that if we could understand each other we would be the best of friends. I have no idea what her name is.

She is always smiling. Always. Every time she sees me getting on the bus she says hello, smiles at me, and waves. For the few minutes that I am in her presence, she looks at me and smiles some more. When it is time for me to get off the bus, she waves, smiles, and usually says bye-bye, but just recently I heard her say see you tomorrow.

Yesterday, I decided I would try to talk to her in Chinese and try to let her know that I would be leaving Fuyang. It didn’t work very well. She didn’t understand my awful Chinese, but it didn’t matter. She kept on smiling at me. After drawing some pictures and repeating myself a few times, I think I finally got her to understand that I was moving to Shenyang.

She will be one of the few people that I will miss when I go. I don’t even know if I will see her again because there are many number 8 buses and I never know which one she is on. I always come across her by chance and only realize that she’s there when I hear her familiar voice as I put my one yuan in the box by the door.