Jin Yuan Shijiazhuang

... hui ren (black person) and took a picture because it was so rare. We thought this was pretty funny, and greed to pose in a few pics with people from the city.

One night i ran into some Spanish teachers from Spain, but they were unfriendly so are chat was very brief.

The city has better weather than beijing. The polution was thinner and some days you could see blue sky!

For two nights we ...

... three trucks to Taiyuan direction, there's enough room to fit both Liu Chang and I but we have to split up.

In China trucks are fitted with at least two drivers. One would drive while the other would sleep. The truck runs nonstop. I talk with Mr. Qiao as we climb the steep mountains that cuts between Hebei and Shanxi. He's from the countryside outside of Tianjing. They are going to a small place outside of Taiyuan to bring back iron rods ...

Update on a few things we've been up to lately..

We lay out in the park when we have time- try to tune out
all the "hellos" so we don't go crazy.

Went to a lunch with Jack (boss at Ai Hua)- he’s trying to
start up a new foreign language school so he had to meet with some official
people of the city- I was the only foreigner-they were extremely friendly-
asked me a lot of questions and said I could count on them for anything I ...

... m either traveling or working a lot on the weekends, I usually never can but this Sunday I made a point not to schedule any lessons so could go. We took two cars out to Dragon Lake- about an hour outside the city. It was beautiful. We went on a speed boat, then went on a paddle boat, then caught some worm-fish things, had a nice picnic and relaxed by the water. It was great. Hoping to be able to go out with them again sometime before I leave. I really like both of their families.

... with recent urban development. A jade-like moat embraces the city gently, bordered by 20 charming parks. This beautiful city is filled with culture and development, attracting visitors with new features daily. China Highlights Shanghai China Travel Xi'an China Travel Longsheng China Travel

... problems, but not nearly as many as before. The last two weeks I've done a geography lesson. I bought a big map of the world (everything was in Chinese) and wrote several countries on the board in English and had students come up to the map and say the country name in Chinese so the class would know both. I gave out my first homework assignment- they had to finish looking up the rest of the countries I had written on ...

... our trip. We're all just bringing backpacks since we're only gonna be gone 6 days. Traveling has definitely taught me how to pack lighter than what i used to. Crazy moments of the week unmentioned: *Water stopped in the middle of my shower and had to run across the hall all soapy. *Everything being so last minute in China- someone calls you and tells you about something, you ask when and they say "right now!" They figure, why else would I ...

... lush rolling hills filled with flowers and vines and beautiful designed buildings that showed the genius of Chinese architecture. We all walked up a hillside where large gourds were growing on structures and huge lily pads grew out of the water. Colorful spiders adorned the tree sides with iridescent webs and red rocks seemed to play peek-a-boo as they popped out of the countryside. We ...

... have more pictures to put up but since theyre on my computer it may be a little while. Friday night we met Josh at his apt/campus and played a few drinking games before meeting up with everyone else for a very long and crazy dinner. Lots of stories, lots of pijiu (beer), lots of dumpling throwing and shots of baijiu (grain alcohol that is stronger than everclear and has worst taste!) After dinner we walked around a bit and ended up in a ...

... while perfectly adequate, could probably use a refurb. (Given the tight budgets for universities, this is unlikely to happen any time soon.) Our room on the 16th floor overlooked a large plaza at the entrance to the University. The plaza, it turns out, was the site of tai chi, fan dance, Chen sword, and various other practices. In the afternoon, we did out first tourist-ing since our trip to Xibaipo out side of Shijiazhuang. One of Professor Liu's grad students ...