ShangChengJunTian Hotel Changsha

... friends house for some dinner and LOTS of drinks as usual. I tried to say no but once again was forced to take at least two shots with everyone. The host was a writer and gave me and adam each a copy of his chinese book.. i dont think these will ever get read but we said thanks and took them anyway. After lunch we went home for a quick nap then woke up for dinner and more drinks at another friends house! Everyone ended up a little too drunk so we finally called it a night.

... ranch, and a nice glass of Jack Daniels whiskey have been forgotten! This is to say they have been replaced by new awesome things many of which I do not know the name of. We have been living very quaint, spending much time with our students and other English teachers at our school. Here's some update about our lives..

I know it was a while ago, but for Halloween Kori and I dressed up and invited our students to the local Shwombi Square ...

Nov, 20th was my 23rd birthday. I am aging well, but I am seven years from thirty!! It is crazy!!

Anyway, I (with some help from friend) booked a suite at the HuaTian (5-star) Hotel. It was incredible. About 15 people from all over Hunan came for the celebration and it was swell.

This month my buddies (Team Sharks) and I participated in No-Shave-November ...

Changshan jälkeen otimme junan Zhuzhou:hun tapaamaan uutta tuttavaamme Erikaa. Asemalla meitä oli vastassa Erikan lisäksi myös pilvenpiirtäjät ja kirkkaat neonvalot. Yllätyimme ensi näkemästä, koska luulimme saapuvamme pienempään kaupunkiin. Zhuzhou ei ole lonelyplanetissa, joten jostain syystä oletimme kaupungin olevan pieni idyllinen maaseutukaupunki. Tai no jos ei ihan maaseutua niin pieni kaupunki ...

... game tomorrow. She is an English major, a senior and very talented.

I was able to watch Zhong Bin and Le Tian, today. They are both non- English major juniors and they are very bright.

Le Tian got second prize with 8 other students and Zhong Bin got third prize with 10 other students. This was out of 60 non-English major ...

I have finally returned from a well needed break. The last nine days, I have been in Changsha and Shanghai. I went to Changsha for two nights and then Shanghai for seven. It has been a good adventure.

I went to Changsha to celebrate National Day with all of my fellow teachers. It was a huge day for the PRC and Changsha was wild.

Besides partying with everyone, not much was done.

Here are the few pictures from the nights in Changsha.

... off, they just forgot to tell us about it though. Today I created a video slideshow of some of my adventures and interesting things I've seen in China. When you watch the video, click the other side of the mouse over the video and you can make it fullscreen, just go the zoom option. Hope you guys enjoy.

... was truly great or that no one has had Italian food in over a month. After-wards everyone went out to the bars. Today I didn't get up until 12 and then for the rest of the day I watched the TV series West Wing on my computer. I haven't had a day like that in a while and it was amazing.

... in order to attract more tourists or they're obviously very new but being portrayed as authentic. However when we finally saw the Giant Buddha (via a rather expensive boat ride - the Chinese tourist industry is expert at hidden costs) it was HUGE and really worth the visit. The second day we went to visit a famous panda sanctuary. This was pretty good especially as we got to see a lot of baby pandas and it was interesting to see how crucial the panda had become to China and its ...

... of paper that says bank in Chinese on it, I think, but I wasn't thinking straight at all by this point, and that didn't cross my mind. I walked a little ways away from the train station, found a place where I thought some people might speak English, but it wasn't open yet, keep in mind that its still only 7:30 am, nothing was open yet, which didn't help much. I stood in front of this place for a little while, and then decided I didn't want to wait so I went back to the train ...