And so we meet again...

See, it didn't take me so long to write again! Truth is, it's been a pretty busy week, so I have more to talk about this time.

I posted a blog last Monday, so I suppose I should start on Tuesday- my day off! My friend Mike planned a bit of a surprise outing for me, since there are plenty of important places I haven't seen yet in Suzhou. The plan was to walk from the area they call "Old City" to Tiger Hill, the biggest tourist destination in the city. The walk is about 3.5km. It was nice, because you walk through tiny streets along the canal to get to Tiger Hill. Once there, we decided to forgo the expensive admission fee and just keep walking straight. Which we did, for hours. We left the tourist areas, and went from tourist area to "real China" to farm land to abandoned highway to complete desolation and poverty. And then we turned around and walked back. The walk took us about 5 hours, but I saw some really amazing things. Living where I do, surrounded by Westerners, sometimes makes me forget what this country can really be like.

Wednesday and Thursday I taught, and spent time with friends. Thursday I was a bit disappointed, because I was supposed to teach my favorite class, Da Ru Primary. These kids are seriously so excited to see me and learn English for 40 minutes that it makes up for all the crap that some of the spoiled rich kids at Sunflower put me through. Since the Chinese don't celebrate Halloween, I bought some light-up devil horns and a bag of lollipops to teach the children about trick-or-treating. But as the Chinese TAs and I approached the school, we nearly walked past it because it was dead silent. The kids had all gone on a field trip, and no one bothered telling us! Major bummer.

Friday, another teacher at Sunflower, Shariff, took me to buy a bicycle. I've been thinking about getting one, as I mentioned before, so I just went ahead and did it. Mike and Shariff invited me to join them on a bike trip today out to Lake Tai, where I've been before. I was all excited to go until I found out its about 100km round trip. Having not been on a bike in many years, I politely declined. I'm looking forward to hearing about it tomorrow, though! I also got my first haircut in China on Friday, at a very fancy salon. Haircut with amazing head massage? $11.70.

And then came Saturday- Halloween! I taught all day, pretty much ignoring the holiday. Except for my last class, which is 14 year olds. Last week they had the word "imported", which is a difficult concept to display considering everything is actually made in China. So I found an empty packet of Trident gum in my purse and showed them. I felt bad because they thought it was so cool but I had none to give them. So this week I explained Halloween to them, and then made them say "Trick-or-treat", and gave them each a packet of Trident (the remains of my stash from home!). They were very excited, and it made me happy.

That evening I had dinner with a large group of people (mainly Irish), and then we ventured out to Bar Street. As I mentioned before, Halloween is not a Chinese holiday. One of the Australian bars was hosting a large party, complete with free beer, so it seemed like every foreigner in Suzhou was there, including us. I've never seen anything like it- Westerners partying on the inside and right on the sidewalk, and the Chinese standing in mass on the opposite side of the bike lane, staring and taking photos. The party itself was like a standard American college Halloween party, so nothing exciting to say about it, other than I didn't drink because I had to work on Sunday, so I called it an "early" night at 2am.

Sunday I taught 2 classes, and then was assigned to host an optional Halloween party for students and their parents. It was pretty lame, for the most part. Best activity was carving jack-o-lanterns, since most of them had never done it before. I was impressed by their skills! It was also funny watching them do the Limbo- they did not get the concept at all.

Monday was back to the normal routine, and I enjoyed a lazy night in. The weather has suddenly turned extremely cold, and on the bike it's even worse. So I bundled up on my couch and began the John Adams HBO mini-series, which I've been enjoying a lot.

And that bring us to today, my day off. I read, went to the supermarket and the gym. Then I met my friends Mary and Michelle for an after dinner Starbucks and massage. First time I've ventured into Starbucks in China, and it's basically the same as home. The massage was wonderful, although painful at times. Right now I'm incredibly relaxed and warm in my little apartment, and as soon as I post this, I'm heading up to bed.

And because I like lists, here are a list of minor things that have been annoying me recently:

• The Chinese don't use fitted sheets. I'm tired of waking up on my bare mattress every single morning!
• If I buy one more stupid DVD in French or Japanese, I'm going to go nuts.
• Hard to believe, but the Chinese are far more addicted to their cell phones than we are. They refuse to ignore calls, no matter what they're doing. At the gym, on their bikes, getting their haircut, anywhere.
• No one accepts credit cards.
• China doesn't do daylights savings, so I'm now 13 hours from home, which is not as easy to calculate. China doesn't do timezones, either. The whole giant country is on the same time.
• I'm annoyed at myself for not studying Chinese as much as I should.

OK, now that I got all of that off my chest, I feel much better :)

Miss and love you all!

XOXO,

RDG

Your Chinese for the Day:

不识庐山真面目 只缘身在此山中- You don't know the true face of Mt. Lu because you're in Mt. Lu (I know, I don't really get it either. Something about how being involved in something makes it difficult to see the big picture. But it's by a famous Chinese philosopher, Su Shi. This is what happens when you tell a Chinese person you want a Chinese proverb to put on your blog....)