Oh look, a blog post

So for the last week we’ve been having our apartment remodeled, which meant living in the not so nice apartment for a while. While work was going on, our internet was turned off, and it took a few days after being finished for the service to be restored. But we’re back now, and just about everything is done. One of the small lights in the bedroom doesn’t work now, but the electrian is aware, so that should be fixed soon. The main air conditioner has a small leak, probably needs the draining hose unclogged. So while waiting on that we’re working on getting settled in. That means laundry.

Since there is no dryer, we have have to hang the clothes outside on the line. Also, there isn’t an option to use liquid detergent, its always powered. As such the clothes start off feeling a bit rough, but not to worry the soon feel normal after you put them on.

Classes are starting to go better. One of the other teachers for my flight attendant class explained to me just what the students need to learn in class. I’d been going through the book they gave me and trying to explain words and concepts, but it turns out they want the students to really learn how to say the dialogs in the book. So now I’m trying to merge the two. Parroting a phrase doesn’t help if you don’t understand what you are saying. But the assistance does give me a good direction to go in now.

I have one class that is nothing but teenage girls. 62 girls of ages 15 to 17, and they all go nuts over me. Amanda worries about this class because a few of the girls try to sneak blowing kisses at me, so she’ll drop in from time to time. Unfortunately, they go just as nuts over her as they do me which makes them hard to control. However, they are one of my better classes, eager to learn, excited to see me, and trying very hard to impress.

We’ve explored the town a bit. There is supposed to be an aquarium, but we haven’t found it. There are also supposed to be two theaters, but it looks like one of them has closed up. The one that is open has six screens, along with a large LAN center, and a video game arcade. Most of the games seem to be of a gambling nature, or your Dance Dance Revolution type. They have prizes you can get for tickets, but sadly no skeeball. Otherwise I’d be right up in there.

We tried one of the noodle shops, but its hard to order anything when nothing is is in english. I ended up pointing to a few things, which turned out to be the spiciest stuff on the menu. Amanda faired much better on the spicy side. Still, it was really tasty and plan to go back. Cheap too, the meal for both of us came out to about $3.60 in America money. One of our other favorite places to eat is Dicos. Its like KFC, they serve chicken, but its more pricey. However you’ll get air conditioning, cold drinks, and good food. We have a third place that we get “pizza” from. If pizza didn’t have any pizza sauce, lots of peppers, and a thick layer of cheese that hides all the ingredients.

That’s it for now. Next time I’ll list off all the things one should bring with them if they plan to stay in China for a good long while.