Youngsun Hotel Shijiazhuang

After meeting up with the other english teachers arriving at the beijing International Airport. We took a 6 hour busride to Shijiazhuang. This city is the sister city to Des Moines, IA and although it is nearly unheard of in the US it has a population greater than US cities like Chicago.
We arrived around 11:00 at night and checked into the university. Luke and I went outside looking around as opposed to ...

... no I goes out the the parking lot and intercepts each driver as they go to the covenient store and the bathrooms. Two hours goes by and we had asked about 30 set of drivers with no success.

It's 10:30pm. Finally just as I am about to give up I see two guys standing close to Liu Chang. They must be truck drivers. I go up to them, offers them some cigarettes from Germany I brought with me, sweet talks them into giving us a ride. Fortuantely they are ...

... needed- Jack translated everything of course.
These guys could DRINK! By noon they had finished off 10 bottles of
baijiu. They kept insisting that I drink with them but since I had to teach in
the afternoon, I got away with only having to do a few- thank god, I hate
baijiu.

Some of you know about Mickey- used to work for him downtown
on a regular basis. His company went bankrupt and he said he needed more time
to pay me. Although ...

... house. The live in a storage unit where they sell children's books. We made dumplings and Willie got drunk with the grandpa. Kara and I bought some fun books- I want to give em to the kids I tutor as going away gifts because a lot of em are in Chinese and English. I think Young Young would really like one for her son too. Day of Fun in the Sun with Sunny and Jassi's families *I teach these two little girls and their moms always ask me do things with them but because ...

... is often referred to as being lucky in recent Chinese history. Once a small village, it developed under modern railway construction. A century ago, when the Lu-Han Railway stretched to the former Shijiazhuang Village, it brought with it new opportunities, opening an industrial ...

... interviewing a girl named Kate who was friends with Maria (another girl I mock-interviewed) every day a week before her college entrance exam. I just found out this weekend she got in :) So happy for her. I knew she was really nervous. I've continued to meet with Tina (9 yrs old) once a week. She's a really fast learner. Also started meeting with a 9 yr old boy, Peter once a week. His parents are a little much for me to ...

... countries. They're also here for a year so I'm looking forward to hanging out with them again. We walked to a restaurant called "The Golden Mountain" which is known for having great dumplings. Jake ordered several different dishes including pork dumplings, leek and egg dumplings, tomato dumplings, and shrimp dumplings. Everything was really good except for this one dish that had something in it that numbed our tongues. We've tried a few dishes ...

... to perform and look at this apartment- it was also put on by a newspaper) We kind of skipped out on the apartment and walked for a while to the party. (Before I continue with the day I need to tell about the little boy with a mosquito bite on his butt and explain that the small kids in China walk around with their butts hanging out! All of the clothes that are made for the children have open ...

... time- yes, students have class all day/night saturday and sunday until noon) a man came up to me and asked if i taught at the school and pointed it- i thought he was gonna tell me his son/daugher went there but instead he showed me this little nbotebook and in it it said "Miss, I am interested in learning English. I will pay you 200 RMB per hour to teach me English." It said some other stuff that I can't remember but yeah- he looked ...

... husband who was a professor of modern Chinese history (sorry my lack of Chinese forestalled conversation with him). All three of her daughters have immigrated to the U.S. so she seems to spend as much time there as in China. There was nothing for it except to visit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City the next day. I had no idea that last time I visited how luck I was it was a bitterly cold, gray day in December. Very few people and virtually no foreign tourists ...