Da Jiu Hua Hotel Chizhou

... to get down ON the 4th, so we felt very fortunate.

We were able to eat at our favourite restaurants before we headed on out. We also got to meet up with Kensie and Scott for a little while. Both certainly made it worthwhile and we did get to say goodbye to the down we had called home for a year.

This year 28 May is Dragon Boat Festival for the Chinese. This is a very special festival for many reasons. Last year they changed around the holidays a little and Dragon Boat Festival is now a national holiday, so it has become more popular to celebrate it again. The story behind it is about Qu Yuan. He was a loyal political advisor to ...

... and split pants. This kid is probably wearing three or four layers of clothes or more. Traditionally this can be done between National Day (1 October) to Labour Day (1 May). Many of our students ask if we are cold when it is 25 degrees (75 degrees) in April and we are wearing a t-shirt. We were also able to go over to a new friends', Erna and Dagwin, home for dinner. They own two birds and one was very...um...vocal and loved heads.

... on Communism. Chen Du Xiu was born and raised in Anqing then he became a professor at Beijing University when Mao was there. His main ideas about Communism were based around looking to the future, democracy, and obedience. He also believed in looking towards the West to learn about and from their culture and it's people. This was especially shown ...

Christmas was sure different this year. Christmas is a western holiday, that has little to no presence in China other than consumerism. Sure if you are in one of the big cities or in one of the areas that has hundreds of Westerners, the Chinese people understand that it is something that westerners do. But they don't understand why. They just know that Westerners have Christmas. We went to dinner Christmas Eve with John ...

They are continuing to build onto campus here at school. The interesting part is that they tend to do things a little different over here when it comes to construction. They LOVE cement and safety isn't terribly important. There is also no such things as unions, so the same people start at 7:30am and sometimes go until 9:00pm or a little later. Here are a few pictures and we will continue to post updates here :)

... a make-up done. Around two the man come to the woman's parent's home and picks her up. In some places a dowry is given to the parents. They then travel to a hotel where they will have dinner with their friends later and make sure everything is set. Guests should start arriving around 5:30 or 6:00. The new couple wait at the door and greet and take pictures. About 7:00 they start serving food to the tables and the couple gives a ...

Anhui province is home to many beautiful sights and I finally visited a local treasure - Jiuhua Shan in Southern Anhui. It is one of two famous mountains (the other, more famous one is Huang Shan) in the province and is a sacred Buddhist mountain of which there are three more in China. It's name means nine (jiu) blossom ...

... tait seulement pour l'autoroute et nous ne sommes pas autorisé à prendre l'autoroute ! Nous sommes arrivés, et nous avons presque aussitôt commencé à travailler sur la moto en face de l'hôtel ! Nettoyage du carburateur, puis de nouveau ajustement de la roue avant et du frein avant ! Nous avons attiré beaucoup d'attention! Une petite fille chinoise, qui voulait pratiquer son anglais est restée avec nous jusque tard le soir ...

... We get out to buy ice cream at a village, they all come out of their little shops and look and get their friends to come and look. We are finally in lands where Rice is grown in small paddys and small plots of land. We start to see water buffalo. Most Chinese tours never stop anywhere, only from city to city, and hotel to hotel. But we yell and plead, and get the van stopped at some waterbuffalo wallowing in the stream. Need ...