Zhejiang Hotel Shijiazhuang

... tv's, an audi, and a BMW. This is not in any way typical, but I wasnt complaining.

One night we made dumplings together and another night we went out for beijing duck. It's very very good.

It must have been pretty comical to watch a 6'5'' white kid get led around the city by a little chinese girl, but Becky was a grade guide. (She recently graduated highschool and will attend university in Beijing.)

... 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 ...

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 ...

Peanut Butter and Jelly Day :) *We decided to bring a little taste of the West to our Middle School by making over a thousand peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and distributing them during the students lunch time. It was crazy! We had Willie and our friend John controlling the crowd and Kara and I handed out sandwiches. It was a lot of fun until we got in trouble by the school because theres a rule against it.. even though we told them all about what we were going to do.. ehh ...

... in Shijiazhuang. No one could have predicted that this small, unknown village would have developed rapidly into the modern capital city of Hebei Province. Lhasa China Travel Beijing China Travel China Hotels China Highlights China Tours Though it is a relatively young city, it is located ...

... it somewhere. We walked into the room and there were several bed lined up in a row- they did not look very clean. On the counter was a dish of needles- we could not tell if they had been used or not, nothing was sterile. We went to lie down on the beds, on our belly and noticed that one bed had what looked to be a spot of dried blood. Don't really know what it was but I highly doubt that the sheets were changed after each patient. I did ...

... through a few days of being home sick, I guess. I really just want to take a second to tell you all that although I write on here about how much I am enjoying my life and experiences so far in China; I really do think about my family and my friends a lot and miss you all sooooo much. Drew, I miss you a ton too even though i just realized that I didn't include you in an example... maybe I have just never been sick around you! Maybe you would have gotten me a gas station fountain drink ...

... close to 1,150 students (can't complain though cuz we're getting paid more for the 4 extra classes- 50 RMB per class/per week- total is 4,500 RMB per month which is considered A LOT cuz teachers here only get paid 2,000 RMB per month- Helen said "you are rich now"). As I walk in the front gate of campus, I'm greeted with a million "hello's" and giggles galore. I can never remember if those saying hi to me are my students or not because ...

... Men eat with their shirts off - Ankle-high panty hose on women - Mickey Mouse and Hello Kitty everywhere - No one wears shorts - Bedazzled Jeans! - Everyone gives the peace sign - Bicycles that hold semi truck loads of stuff - Dead meat everywhere - People want to have English names - They take pictures of foreigners - Food is served family-style in restaurants - You go to the bathroom in a hole in the ground - Take your own toilet paper ;) (I will add so ...

Should have known I would have nowhere as much time to blog as I anticipated. Rather than try to recount all that has happened chronologically, I'll just touch on some categories of experience. Shijiazhuang: Where we are living. It's the capital of Hebei Province (that includes Beijing, 2 hrs by train to the northeast). As such, it's the regional commercial hub. With about 2+ million people, it's not nearly as crowded or frenetic as Beijing ...