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You read that right. I did indeed munch on a poor defenseless little dog. Did it taste like chicken? No, not exactly. It was more of a mix between roast beef and turkey, but a little more tough. It wasn’t as nearly as bad as I thought it might be. When I took more than my one intended bite, Phil asked me what in the world I was doing. I ate the dog because I could not go back home and say I passed up on the opportunity. I mean, really, how often are you offered dog on a plate back home and know that is dog that is being offered to you? My point exactly. If I went home without trying that particular Chinese custom, I would have been very upset with myself. Also, after being a meter reader, part of my soul was craving it. If you are or know someone who is a meter reader, than you know what I mean. I’ve seen dog before, but I just couldn’t bare to eat it, let alone order it with a clear conscious, but last Thursday, Phil and I got invited by Lilly, one of his co-workers at school, to go to some festival out in the country. Phil had been wanting to go to the country side, and to me it just sounded fun.

We were picked up at 5:00 pm on the dot by 3 Chinese men that could not speak a lick of English. The car they were driving was black and all of the windows were tinted. We got in the car only because it was the exact time Lilly said she would pick us up, but she was not in the car. We silently prayed in the back seat that we hadn’t just been picked up by the Fuyang Mafia and were being driven to our doom. After several minutes, we stopped and picked up Lilly. Yes, that now meant that this small 4 door sedan like car now had 4 Chinese people and two Americans. We weren’t entirely sure how we were all going to fit in the car, so I jumped up on Phil’s lap. We were both in the back seat. Lilly told us we couldn’t do that and that we would ALL have to sit on the back seat together. Four butts don’t fit easily in a 4 door sedan like car unless you all happen to be between the ages of five and eleven. Some how I squeezed down between Lilly and Phil. Poor Phil’s leg was being crushed, and I am sure that my hips were killing Lilly. I asked how far away the festival was, and she said something like 50 minutes. Thank God it was more like 15 minutes or else Phil’s leg might have fallen asleep forever.

We got lost a few times, but the driver finally found his way. We were pretty much in the middle of no where, so if Lilly had brought us to be sacrificed or something, we were pretty much screwed. Lilly lead us to this one building that looked like a mix between a restaurant and an apartment. The two main front rooms both had a big round table in them. Big round tables are the norm for when a lot of Chinese people get together to eat and be merry. They usually have a glass top that turns so that you can have a taste of everything without leaning across the table, but these had no glass tops. The 5 of us and 5 others joined us in the far most left room. Almost as soon as we sat down, the beer, wine and hard liquor started to pour. Phil had eaten anything all day, but decided to partake anyway because they would have hassled him until he had anyway. Me, I don’t drink(at least not that often), so they focused all of their attention of Phil. He was pretty much gone in the first 20 minutes or so I’d say, even though it hadn’t hit him yet. That will happen to you though if you Gan Bei(bottoms up) about 4 shots of the hardest vodka in the entire universe, followed by another 4 or 5 Gan Bei’s of Cheerday beer.

Soon the food was brought out to us. For awhile there, it seemed to be never ending. It was just one plate of food after another. They ran out of room in some places and so they just started stacking. We didn’t know where to start or what anything was, so we just started to pick up pieces with our chopsticks. Every fourth bite or so someone would toast someone and we would have to put our chopsitcks and drink whatever was in our bowl/cup. I was lucky. I only had to drink sprite the entire evening. Phil on the other hand – well, you know what he had to deal with.

That was pretty much the entire evening. Not much English was thrown around the table due to the fact no one but Lilly could talk to us. We tried to speak what we could in Chinese, but we were mostly just smiles and thank yous for the next few hours. There came a point in the evening where the Chinese people started filling Phil’s bowl to the very tippy tippy top. At first we thought they were just trying to plaster Phil(and they did), but it turns out that they were filling his bowl for him and ME because I wasn’t drinking wine, beer, or any other hard alcohol. That was the main reason Phil got as drunk as he did. He was drinking for the both of us.

It was a fun evening, and I’m glad that we got invited. After about 30 different pictures with them, my cheeks hurt from smiling. Everyone wanted a picture with the Americans.

And that was our trip to the country side. I hope we get invited again. Hopefully, they won’t serve us dog again though. Once was enough for me. 🙂

Phil and I were invited by one of Phil’s students to go to a festival in Hangzhou several weeks ago. Because we had nothing else better to do on a Saturday, we decided to tag along. Before we went, we had no idea what to expect. We didn’t know what kind of festival it was or what it was celebrating. It could have been a “Slaughter an American Foreign Teacher Festival” for all we knew. And it almost was that for a split second, but thankfully we were able to avoid death in China for at least one more day. As you can see, it was a food festival that we were invited to enjoy. And here you can see Phil doing what he does best – stuffing his face full of meat from an unknown animal. Whatever it was it was good, but I think that I would rather not know what it is that I swallowed. If you can imagine an animal, I saw a picture of it and its meat crammed onto a stick much like the one in the picture with Phil.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, those weird things in the picture to your left are starfish, scorpions, roaches, and my very favorite – tarantulas. I’ll get to that later.

We were picked up by Paul’s father and his supposed Uncle, who I think was actually his “driver”. He actually almost called him that, but caught himself. I’m pretty sure that his family has money and that they could afford one. The car was fancy and black with dark tinted windows and nice comfortable leather seats. It was the first car that wasn’t a taxi that we had been in since someone from Babel Language Center took us to Fuyang. Paul’s father, who spoke no English at all, had booked a hotel room for us for the night in Hangzhou. It was really nice gesture and we would have liked to have stayed, but we had to be back in Fuyang on Sunday morning in order to have lunch with another one of Phil’s students and his parents. Can’t you tell Phil is popular among his students? None of my students would ever invite me anywhere unless someone was threatening their lives or something. Maybe they are starting to like me a little though. I had two students ask for my autograph. Heh, I must be famous.

But anyway . . . They drove us the long way to Hangzhou. Not that I minded. We got to see some spectacular views of West Lake at sunset. I would have paid money to have stopped the car at one point to get a picture of It. We even saw some people in their wedding attire taking pictures. They will probably be the most beautiful pictures they’ll ever take together. If you could have seen it – you would have said the same. We finally, after about an hour and a half scenic tour of Hangzhou, arrived at the festival.

It was several degrees cooler than it was when we left Fuyang, but the hoards of people and all of the food stands letting steam roll over the crowd was about to become our personal heater. We didn’t really know where to start. Paul had money in hand(somehow we got away without spending a dime the entire time) and asked what we wanted. We pointed to a random stand with some kind of meat on a stick and said we would give that one a go.

And that is when I heard the bottle break. I looked up and there was this Chinese guy shaking the biggest shattered beer bottle I’ve ever seen at this Chinese cook. The freaky thing about the fight is that it was happening not ten feet from me. In disbelief, I got Phil’s attention and made him look. And that it when the bottle got thrown. How the guy who was throwing the bottle missed his intended target, I don’t know, but it whizzed over the top of the other guys head. The fight unfolded quiet quickly. Before long, pots and pans were being hurled at the poor Chinese cook. He looked so dumbfounded – like he didn’t know why they were so angry at him. Then there were more bottles thrown and one actually smashed into the cook’s temple. Blood started to pour down his face. More things were being thrown. Lights above the stand were being smashed. A group of interested people began to gather. All the while Phil, Paul, and I were just standing there wide eyed. We finally snapped out of our amazement and began to walk away from the fray. A random girl jumped into the big mess and tried to break up the fight, but that didn’t really work. There were some more bottles thrown, a lot more screams, the rest of the lights broken, and then the fight dismissed. The ones that started the fight ran off and in just a few minutes all was almost back to normal except for the poor cook whose head was streaming with blood. Needless to say, we didn’t eat at that stand.

The three of us walked around for about an hour. Paul kept asking what we wanted to try and kept buying more than we could eat even though it was all pretty tasty. There was so much food we didn’t try. It was like one big fair in America – except that the food section of it never seemed to end. I took the picture of the guy to above because apparently his job for the evening was to dance with the sign and advertise one of the stands. He was making some weird faces and dancing pretty wild, so I had to get a picture of it. You really had to be there to appreciate him fully.

After we finished stuffing our faces Paul told us that we would be going across town to a restaurant to have dinner. I don’t know why we went to a food festival to eat just so we could go out to dinner, but that is the Chinese way, I guess. The place we went to was nice. We were lead to our own private room – as is normal for people who travel in large groups. I can’t even remember what kind of food they brought out. I just know that it never seemed to end. A lot of it was too Chinese for me to eat – ie the crab in this picture. They don’t eat the legs, but they do eat what ever is inside his body, and whatever that orange and yellow stuff was – I don’t know and don’t care to learn. The little I tasted didn’t taste very good. It tasted a lot like many dishes I have eaten and describe simply as the “Taste of China”. If you are living in or have been to China, I am sure that you can relate to that comment. They wanted to keep feeding us long after the fact that we were full. Paul’s father kept toasting Phil(ganbei) which involves downing your entire glass of beer or wine or whatever else it is you are drinking. I thought that Phil was going to get himself drunk, but the ganebeis finally stopped and he was able to get a hold of his head.

After dinner, Paul had his driver, I mean, Uncle drive us to his house. What a nice place he had. He gave us a tour of his two story penthouse like apartment that consisted of three bedrooms and three baths. His kitchen even had a oven. I would do anything to have an oven. And, you should have seen the walk in closet this boy had. I know some women who would be supremely jealous of him- ie – ME! After I nearly killed myself falling down his stairs, it was time to go home. His driver, I mean, Uncle . . . heh – drove us all the way back to Hangzhou so that we would be able to have lunch with Holy’s parents. It was of the most interesting Saturdays that we have had since we got to China. I hope that I have many more just like this – minus the brutal fight that is.

I don’t know how permanent it is, or if a Chinese official hit the wrong button on his computer, but after several weeks of my blog residing on what seemed to be a Forbidden Planet, the days of reading phrases like “The connection has been reset” and “The page cannot be displayed” are NO more. Please sing with me and do a little jig – China ain’t blocking me no more – do da do da!!!

I know this doesn’t really matter for me so much because I was able to access my blog despite China’s attempt to sensor me, but now anyone in China who might stumble upon my blog CAN. I guess the investigation of Blogger has come to an end(for the time being) and they don’t find me or my fellow Bloggers all that troublesome after all. Of course, tomorrow is a new day, and the Chinese might change their minds. And they probably will.

As for Thanksgiving, I haven’t seen a turkey anywhere. There are plenty of chickens and ducks to be had(with their heads and necks still attached) – and we might actually have to buy one if we want to have any sort of American Thanksgiving here in China. Without the simple existence of an oven though, it makes it a bit more difficult to make a variety of foods other than boiled or fried. The one thing I really want and know I won’t find is a Honey Baked Ham. My tongue wants to roll out of my mouth like a cartoon character just thinking about one. Hmm Mmm good. Eat some for me will you? Or better yet – send me one. I’d love you forever and ever! If any part of your soul wishes do such a thing and you really want to make my day – contact me and I will pass on my mailing address. Heh. Hey, it could happen.

So, Happy Thanksgiving to all. And thank you China for taking me off that awful planet. It was a dull and musty place. And if you could avoid sending me there in the future, I would be a very happy expat in your lovely country. And even happier if you could put some Honey Baked Ham in the Da Ran Fa by 5:00pm tonight. Thanks! 😉

These are a wee bit old, but I figured that I should post them anyway. I have a lot of pictures like these. Sometimes I bring my camera with me when I walk around Fuyang and take random pictures until my batteries die. Often I don’t find them blog worthy, but I thought since these were part of my daily life that they needed to be here. On occasion, we venture out to restaurants with the other foreign English teachers. They usually give you a snack food before your main meal. On this particular day it was peanuts. They had some kind of oil dribbled on them. They were pretty good.

From Left to right we have a cut off Tim(American), Mayia(Aussie), Jaya(lives in Australia, but is from South Africa I think), and then Vanessa(also Aussie). There are a nice bunch of people and we enjoy experiencing China with them. It is quiet a sight when we all get together and go out to eat. Ordering food is a mad house. The wait staff hardly understands us(we are getting better at that now) but in the beginning, 9 times out of ten we wouldn’t get what we thought we ordered. But that just meant new experiences. 🙂

Fried noodles. I know that it doesn’t look all that appetizing, but I swear it is quiet tasty. Sometimes I get some that is a little spicy, but other than that I rather enjoy it. In America, you may not be able to live on Beer or Bread alone, but in China you can and many do live on noodles. Noodle shops are every where. Many of the shops are little wholes in the walls, but the food still tastes the same. It can be difficult eating in some of the shops because of how shady they look, but sometimes they serve the cheapest and best food. Isn’t that how it always works?

Fried dumplings. We survived on these for the first couple of days. They are super cheap, hot, and filling if you order enough. 10 of them costs between 3.5 and 6.5 RMB. That is not even a whole dollar for 10 dumplings. They are filled with pork, veggies, and other random things. To me they all taste the same, but the others can tell the difference. This shop is right down the street from where we live and we go there when we have a strong hankerin for dumplings. They are open really late too, so that is a bonus as well.

Just a random picture of Phil and our wet clothes. This is where we hang them after we give them a nice washing. The process is a real pain in the butt, but at least we don’t have to wash our clothes by hand. That would just suck. It gives me a real appreciation of what I have back home and I am not just saying that. Even here I feel that we have a lot. I look out our window and see people washing themselves in the same water bin that they wash their clothes. We have hard wood floors. They just have cold, grey slab of concrete. It makes me sorta sad.

I’ll post more later. But for now – it’s off to Hangzhou. McDonald’s, Dairy Queen, Papa John’s, TCBY, and Pizza Hut – here I come!! Heh

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.

Without any further delay, let me take you back to the week we spent in Shanghai. Like all things you enjoy, it went by a little too fast. Phil and I will need to go back in order to see the rest of it. We were only able to see a portion of the city.

Once Phil started feeling a little better, we decided to venture out into the massive city. And that is no exaggeration. Shanghai is something like 8 times bigger than New York City and has an unofficial population of 20 million. Although, if you asked anyone important, you might hear a much lower number like 14 million. Apparently, there are a lot of illegal immigrants here and they all live as squatters in the apartment buildings that are constantly being constructed.

Our first stop – food. We had been taking advantage of the western food that Shanghai had to offer. There are no McDonalds or Pizza Huts in Fuyang – only KFCs, so we tried to stock pile as many Big Mac’s and pepperoni pizzas that we could fit into our tummies. It was good to eat the yummy fast food fatness, but we could only eat so much of it. A Big Mack or a piece a pizza for every meal can make you wish for Chicken Feet and Snails . . . . okay, maybe not, but you get my point.

Shanghai is a lot easier to get around, in that I mean it is easier to order food because a lot more people speak English here. A lot more people. Almost every restaurant we went into had a English menu or had a server that knew some English. It made life so much easier. In Fuyang, we have to do something I call “Point and Pray”. In Shanghai, we knew pretty much what we were getting right off the bat. The first picture I have included came from a restaurant called Laava restaurant. Weird name, I know. I don’t know if they meant Lava as is hot molten lava or some other strange word I can’t think of. But we were hungry, so we didn’t care what clever name that had picked for their restaurant.

When we walked in, all of the tables were empty. I took this as a bad sign at first, but since I hadn’t seen any other places to eat – we decided to stay. The wait staff didn’t notice we were there for a few seconds because they were all asleep. Yes. Asleep. They were all curled up in the booths or had their heads down on the table. It must have been a very slow day. There was one woman standing behind the counter mindlessly cleaning a glass with a rag. She seemed out of it as well until she looked up at us. She nearly dropped the glass in excitement that she had some one to wait on. She immediately put the glass down, nearly dropping it in her happiness, and brought us a menu. She only spoke Chinese, but it didn’t matter because the menu was in English – so I was happy. An English menu is like a small piece of Heaven. She didn’t seat us right away, which I found weird, so Phil and I decided to order standing up. I ended up getting some Fried Rice and Phil got some Japanese Curry. It was one of the first meals we had had at a restaurant that we liked and knew what we were eating. I wanted to take a picture, and I did, but Phil thought I was insane for taking a picture of my half eaten plate of food. Do note that they had forks for us to use. We’ve gotten pretty used to chopsticks, but it is nice to use what you are used to every once in a while.

After lunch, we decided to visit my second home, Wal-Mart. Going here was one of our top priorities. I know that we are weird, but Wal-Mart is supposed to have everything and we needed to stock up on some things that we couldn’t get back in Fuyang. In order to get to Wal-Mart, we had to take a 20 minute subway ride, and then take another 20 minute walk – stopping every few blocks to ask someone in Chinese were it was. People slowly pointed us in the right direction and soon we saw a familiar sign. I was so happy that I did a little dance in the street. A Wal-Mart Dance of Joy.

It wasn’t quiet like I thought it would be. Mostly, it was just the name that was familiar to us. Other than that, the inside looked a lot like the other grocery stores that we have been to. The RT Mart, that we visit a lot back in Fuyang, is actually bigger and better. It wasn’t until we got to the second floor that we felt like we were in a Wal-Mart. It smelled like a Wal-Mart if that makes any sense and it had more of a design like one, too, except the departments were a lot smaller. I had to take a picture of the sign for the escalator. I felt a little funny holding up my camera to get it. I’m sure some of the Chinese customers thought I was nuts, but I thought that it was funny. The travelator. Heh. I want to know who translates this stuff for them.

Going to grocery stores in China makes me cry. Why you ask? Why? I’ll tell you. Every time that I go to buy fruit or vegetables, I have to walk past the live turtle, eel and crab section. In every grocery store, they have them. Some times they have the turtles in bags, which really makes me sad, but to see them sitting there waiting to bought and eaten totally just ruins my day. I know that it is no different than our Lobsters back home, but I don’t like seeing that either. It is one thing picking out a ripe apple or good looking carrot, but I know I will never be okay with trying to find the best turtle to cook for dinner. And even though I really don’t care that much for Eels, I still feel really bad for them, too. Poor little guys. I know that I have been severed eel a few times. Hopefully, I haven’t been given turtle, but there is no real way to tell. I watched a Chinese family try to pick out a turtle one day. They picked up one and looked as though were sizing it up against the other ones available. Of course, they wanted to get the one that had the most meat on its body and would taste the best with a side of cow stomach. I wish I was lying when I said they ate cow stomach, but I’m not. Why do the Chinese have to have such weird food taste? Why can’t they be meat and potato kind of people?

I promise I have not forgotten about our Shanghai trip, but I wanted to post some pictures that I have been meaning to get on here for sometime now.

For instance, dinner one night at our lovely school. I am sorry that this picture isn’t any better than it is, but you’ll at least get the idea of how awkward it was to have this on my plate. I didn’t eat it. I couldn’t. My soul would have blinked out of existence if any of it had touched my lips.

Chicken Feet and Snails

The food in China is unlike anything I have ever had to eat. And this picture isn’t even the worst of it. The Chinese eat anything and everything that they can get their little hands on. They don’t waste a single inch of anything. I mean, look at this poor chicken here. They are eating his feet for crying out loud! When you order chicken back in the the good ole US of A, you usually get pieces of boneless chicken that don’t even look like it came from something that used to cluck and scratch it’s three toed foot in the ground looking for bits of food. That is not so in China. In fact, it is quiet the opposite. When you order chicken here, that is what you get – chicken . . . an entire chicken. Everything between the head and those three toed feet. The Chinese basically take a chicken, skin it, boil it, lay it down on a cutting board, hack it all to hell with a butcher’s knife, and then lay it on a plate for you to eat. Sometimes, you have an eye staring back at you. I think it’s pretty damn creepy. I don’t order chicken anymore. The whole brain thing really turned me off. Same goes for the duck dish you can order. It just isn’t right.

Something a little more on the normal side. I was walking home from school one day, when I saw this mother and these two kids sitting on her lap. I am going to assume that only one of them is hers because of the one child policy, but then again, she could be a freaking billionaire and be able to afford the heavy fine for having more than just the one child. Who knows really. She didn’t want me to take her picture at first, but I asked again and she relented. The kids as you can tell were not very happy. I’m not sure if they were fussy because I was a strange white woman snapping their picture or if they were just tired and wanted a nap. Either way, I wanted to snap a moment of the life of real Chinese people. So I did.

This is part of the street that I used to walk on Monday through Friday. Now I drive it, or well ride it. I used to walk from the bus stop next to the Xinhua Bookstore(a pretty nice bookstore similar to Barnes and Noble) to Yong Xing Middle School(it’s a good 10-15 minute walk and it sucks) because the woman in charge of me insisted that their wasn’t a bus that could take me anywhere near my home. What a fibber. I found out today there is a bus that stops right in front of the school and that it will take me to the Xinhua Bookstore where I can get on another bus that will take me almost to my doorstep. Goodness, what a mouth full. Hey, at least now I don’t have walk as far anymore. I did enough walking when I worked at Bermex. This picture by the way is right beside the bus station that takes people to and from Hangzhou everyday. All of those cars on the right are various taxi drivers. When I walk past them, they all try to convince me to get in. I’m glad that I don’t have to deal with that anymore.

The Fuchun River. People actually go swimming in it. And that almost scares me more than the whole chicken feet and snails bit. From this picture, it looks peaceful and serene, but it is anything but that. I am surprised that fish live in it. I mean, I guess it could be worse, but I sure as heck wouldn’t go tubbing down it like I would the Congeree or Saluda River back home. Ah, talking about them brings back memories . . . if you are reading this and have any idea what I am talking about – I miss you. The river isn’t all that bad I guess. It is nice to sit by on the grass – some of the only grass here in Fuyang. And the view of it from our balcony is nice, too.

Like America, China flies their flags everywhere, too. I once saw some sort of village that had a China flag on each and every building there. A lot of the apartment complexes here have them flying on the roofs. This flag in this picture is Yong Xing’s flag. And the building in the back is yet another set of apartment buildings being built. The one thing that I have noticed is that China is constantly under construction no matter where you go. The sounds of hammering are never far off. You are lucky if you don’t have to wake up to it every morning. We don’t have any construction going on around here. Just the school bells and the sounds of kids shuffling up to our six floor windows.

Happy Moments . . .

I never thought eating a watermelon would make me so happy. This was taken in Hangzhou. I was starving, and since there was a fruit stand right beside where we were staying – we bought one. Finding a knife was fun. We ran around trying to mime cutting things. After going to a few stores we finally found one. It was one of the tastiest watermelons I have ever had – of course I was very thirsty and hungry. Can you see the joy on my face? I was also happy because I had enjoyed a very nice warm shower.

Walking around and finding crazy translations like this one make us laugh. I have seen worse though. I find myself asking how there can be so many English speaking people here, but then there are things like this. You would think someone some where would tell someone of their mistakes, but maybe the Chinese want to save face and don’t want to correct them. Who knows. All I know is that I find myself laughing a lot seeing all their crazy misspellings and weird use of words. Cafe Diary is only one of the funny ones. I will have to take more pictures like this one as I come across them.

Phil laughed when he found a Pabst Blue Ribbon in the store. He bought it to take a picture of it, and didn’t ever drink it. It is probably still sitting in the refrigerator where we stayed in Hangzhou. Who thought China would have Pabst?

And Pretty Pictures . . .

Here is a picture of West Lake in Hangzhou from atop a little mountain. Pretty isn’t it? We need to go back and spend more time there. We were so tired and hot when we were there last. It was hard to enjoy ourselves. We are going this weekend to get train tickets to Shanghai. Maybe we can see it then.

Bamboo! We went to a place called Yellow Dragon Cave. I don’t remember really seeing a cave – I just remember sweating like a pig and climbing endless stairs. Endless stairs that went on and on forever. I thought I might die. Not even my Bermex training was enough for those stairs. There was this one section completely covered in bamboo. It was very pretty and tranquil. We ran into a nice cop there and tried conversing in our broken Chinese. He ended up taking us back to this little building in the woods and giving us water – God only knows if it was boiled or not. I haven’t died yet – so I guess I am ok . . . I hope.

Well, like always, I have ZERO energy and must go. Sorry if these blogs seem lack luster. But teaching is kicking my booty. I will post more tomorrow. I have so many pictures.

Hello to all.

Right now I am sitting in the kitchen because this is the only place that we can pick up on a wireless internet connection. It took forever to find. We’ve been walking all over our apartment trying to pick up on a signal. As long as the connection holds, and we don’t move the computer, I should be able to call you soon and blog more frequently than I have been.

Fuyang. . .lets see. We really haven’t seen that much of it. We went to KFC last night for dinner. The Chinese love their fried chicken. I sorta get tired of trying to figure out what Chinese characters on a menu will be good or not, sSo to make up for that I have been trying to eat some western food every once in awhile. Pizza Hut, KFC, and McDonald’s will be my savior these next 10 months. Fuyang does not have a Pizza Hut ora  McDonald’s  We have to go to Hangzhou for that.  It’s about 45 minutes away

Our apartment. It is on the sixth floor and there is no elevator. It sucks, but at least we will get in shape. Our apartment is more than I could have imagined. It is two floors. You first walk into a foyer or big hall way. And right as you enter there is a spiral staircase. On that first floor, on the right side, there are 3 doors. The first room is more or less empty – except for a piano. I wish I knew how to play it. There is also an ironing board and a washing machine. The next two rooms are bedrooms. I think that that is where the two Australians will be staying whenever they get here. On the other side of the hallway are two more doors. One goes to a bathroom and I can’t figure out what the other room is because it is locked. Upstairs is the living room and mine and Phil’s bedroom. Yes, it appears that we are sharing a room. Oh well. At least the bed is nice and soft. It is so much softer than the last bed we slept on. There is also an office, another bathroom, a kitchen, and another little space for our refrigerator. The apartment is more or less dirty, and we have to clean it. Icky.

When we first got here Mr. Zhou(Joe) and our “helpers” took us to lunch. Oh my goodness – there was so much food. It was just never ending. I don’t know what half of it was. But I liked the dumplings that I asked for. I had been craving them since we got here.It seems that I will be teaching middle school and Phil will be at the High School. Lucky for him, we live right by the high school. Me on the other hand, I have to walk, get a cab, ride the bus, or a bike 3-4 miles to the middle school. That should be oh so much fun. I’ve seen the high school and it seems small – smaller than I imagined, but they have track and a inside pool with workout stations.It is very beautiful here. We are surrounded by large mountains, and the river runs right beside the school. We can see it from our window. It is really hot here, though. Oh so hot. Hotter than anything I can remember. If you walk outside, you start sweating – everywhere.

I’ll post some pictures and write more about Fuyang. There is so much to talk about. Until then I guess . . . Zaijian – goodbye in Chinese.

This picture was actually taken long before my farewell dinner with my family, but I just got my hands on it. Thank you, Sarah! I have had my share of jobs in my short 24 years of life (almost 25), but until I got my job at Bermex Inc., I had never really had co-workers. Bermex is the place I keep referring to as the place you should only work if you enjoy pain – aka Hell. And that is still true. But there were some redeeming qualities of that job. Mainly the people. The people you see in the picture above are just a few who made working at Bermex fun and bearable even on the days when I thought I was going to die, kill myself or go insane . And I am not exaggerating that in the least. I will surely miss that bunch of people. They were all unique and made me smile. Here are a few pictures from when we all went to Inakaya’s to eat. They asked me why I had chosen a Japanese restaurant when I was going to China. I said it was simply because they had really good food and a table that we all could sit at. Inakaya’s is probably one of the cooler, reasonable priced places in town. You should check it out.

Sarah enjoying some sake. Maybe a bit too much. Heh.

Kurt. A name dogs will fear forever more.

Robbie. There are no words to describe you. : )

Watch as Van fades away. I don’t know how the camera made it happen, but I like it.

The one and only Peter. Hope Anderson treats you right!

And now the FOOD! It was so pretty, we almost couldn’t eat it. But, we did. And boy, was it good. I would also like to note that Peter is the contributor of many of the pictures in this post. And Van contributed some too. Thanks, you guys. I know that this does not look that appetizing, but I was surprised how sweet it was. I actually enjoyed it. It is sea weed salad by the way.

I love miso soup. If I was a little crazier, I would put it in a thermos during the winter and drink it.

The Boat of Yummy Goodness. It was huge!

Much too raw for me – but that is fish and some fish eggs. Not what I ordered.

Last but not least – Sushi. I just love this stuff. I don’t why it took me so many years to try it. Thank God for Publix, though. They offer pretty cheap and good sushi all the time!