It has been a wild last couple of days to say the least. We spent the weekend here after not sleeping well on Friday night. Saturday we watched movies and relaxed inside because it was very hot. In the evening, we met some new friends from the college, Richard and Ellen from the Phillipines and Kate and two English students took us to Nanhu park and we explored the park and watched a brief watershow.
From left to right: Kealy and I, Kate, a english student named Sunny and Ellen and Richard from the phillipines.
Tisting (one of Kealy's english students and Richard wanted to get a picture with the 'da gu se' (giant)!
-On Sunday, after listening to the Western Oregon Wolves gain a victory over the Bearcats, we went with our American friends into a new part of the downtown area. We experienced milk tea for the first tea, a cool, smoothie like drink with delicious flavor and they introduced to one of our favorite parts about China so far. For 10 Yuan, roughly $1.25, we each got a professional hairwash, scalp massage and arm and back massage. It was amazing. Besides being so cheap, it felt great. And, they will even style your hair for you afterwards for free. Angie, I think you should start offering this at your salon! After a morning of feeling a little homesick, a one hour massage for one buck was just the trick to relax us and enjoy the rest of our day.
They have you lie down on the table while they wash your hair and give you the massage. It felt great! We were all lined up during the massage so it was very fun talking and experiencing it together.
Here are Chris and Hua, are new American friends. They have been really kind in showing us around the city and what is good to eat.
-After the massage we went shopping for a little while and bought Kealy a purse to carry her things in. The mall was underground and was virtually all women's clothes, etc. I don't think they have anything in my size anywhere.
-After shopping we went and had some high class dining...at Pizza Hut! No joke, to the chinese, this is high class. They all use forks and knifes to eat their pizza and the restaurant was fancy and everyone was dressed up except us. Nonetheless, the pizza never tasted so good. We paid a pretty penny for it but it was well worth it.
-Today we started our second week of teaching. This week we are working on: Introducing others, How to answer interview questions, a favorite childhood memory and some tongue twisters. The classes are each very different but most are eager to learn English and enjoy Kealy and I.
-Tonight after class we decided to go swimming again. It feels so good to cool off in the pool and it is good exercise also. At the pool we had it to ourselves and while we were swimming, the heavens opened up outside and it was raining so hard that the outside pool was overflowing! THere was thunder and lighting every thirty seconds and it was fun to watch from inside the pool. The lightning here is only heat lightning, it doesn't touch the ground, so there is nothing to fear. It continued to rain constantly for the hour and a half that we swam and when we changed into our regular clothes, we realized we hadn't brought our umbrella. We contemplated putting our swimsuits back on and trying to walk the half mile to the bus stop, and a Chinese man even offered us his umbrella but we couldn't take it. Finally we asked the people at the pool to call a taxi for us. of course the line was busy! They could have given up and left us to the second flood, but they continued to call until they got through and a taxi finally arrived and took us to the front gate of the school. After wading, ankle deep, through the quarter mile new river that was our path to our apartment, we finally made it up the stairs and into dry shelter. Now we are sweating again! We are either drenched with sweat or rain, at least the rain is cool. It was a long day but a great one and very memorable.
-We have taken pictuers of some new food and I saw a new bird today, so tomorrow we will update those blogs. We think we have a three day weekend this week so we are contemplating going to Hong Kong or Guilin. We'll keep you posted.
Sincerely,
Ryan and Kealy Thorson
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