Because February is the Chinese New Year (or Spring Festival as many people here call it), my college has a month long holiday. My last exam was Jan. 26 and I don't think class begins until the first week of March. I don't have anything official as to when I am supposed to return to school or my schedule, but I'm sure they will tell me sooner or later. Not that I really needed a month-long holiday from working only 9 hours a week, but I'm not going to complain.
Things have been really busy at The English Loft (our new training center). I'm teaching Intermediate English to adults and have also begun teaching English to a handful of children as well. On Tuesdays, the Loft has a Chinese for Foreigners class - the only one in the city. Not including myself & Max, there are 4 foreigners in the class. There are a few more running around the city that may join as well. But Chinese is a terrible language to learn (in my opinion). I can't hear the four tones (basically each word has 4 different tones), nevermind repeat it. I think my listening is improving, but I'm very impatient and frustrated with myself.
We've also been planning our trip to Hong Kong - we are taking the overnight bus on the 19th and staying at the Dragon Hostel (it looked good on the website and was highly recommended by other travellers on other sites). I think we will be in HK for 4 nights and then we may scoot over to Macau for a night. I guess it depends on how much $$ we spend in HK. But I'm excited to see more of China. Other than a few days in Xiamen, I haven't really done anything here - I don't even know what there is to see in ZZ - other than Walmart (hahaha).
Here's some exciting news - we bought a crock-pot last week! Right now the apartment smells like chicken noodle soup. It's really good for me that Max likes cooking the recipes I find online! I've been going to www.cooks.com and typing in crockpot recipes. It's a million times better than rice three times a day.
Earlier this week, we wanted to see the new Bond film, so we went to Xiamen for a night. Jodi & Steven told us about an import store, so we checked it out and came home with all kinds of goodies - dill pickles, a small jar of salsa, some hard taco shells, a brick of cheddar cheese, and a huge jar of REAL Kraft Mayo - just to name a few. Maybe you are not so impressed, but considering that these things are not available in my city, I was on cloud nine!
Check out my new flip-flops!
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