Walking Miles

Wow - it's Thursday evening already and the week has gone by very quickly. We have walked our legs off every day. The heat and humidity have drained us but we are still hanging in there. Yesterday we went to the Wu Shen gardens and looked at some more of the historical artifacts. (I'm not sure we would have fared very well on some of those beds). We took a ride down the canal on one of the covered boats and had some interesting food for lunch (including a whole fish covered in some kind of sauce). Then when we returned to Shanghai we were taken to an ethnic restaurant (Manchu) and had some very different cuisine (including duck, pig stomach, bird, and a variety of dumplings. Much of it was spicy but some was very good.


We were served a buffet lunch today, and I noticed Jim had put a fair sized portion of this particular food on his plate. When we sat down I asked if he knew what it was. He thought it was some kind of vegetables (it was octopus). I talked him into trying one bite. We both decided one bite was enough. Then we went to the US Consulate office for an orientation.
We braved the traffic this evening and went to a five-story computer and electronics building. I picked up some ink cartridges and an internet cable.

Below is a pic of a 5-star hotel in the Jin Mao tower. I am on the 88th floor looking down the inside of the building. All the rings going around are floors of the hotel.














Well, I better get this post finished and polish up my lesson plans (I have to teach a sample class in the morning). We will be leaving on Saturday morning for our school in Changzhou. There are six of us that will be teaching there this year.
Until next time - Zai Jian

First Impessions

Ni Hao!!

Well, it has been an adventure from the start. We left my parents' house at 2:30 am on Friday morning and arrived at the Tulsa Intern'l at 4:00 am. When we started to check in we were informed that our tickets had been cancelled. It took three agents in different locations scrambling for almost an hour to get us new tickets issued (thank goodness on the same flights-although we didn't get to sit together on the first two flights). Our travel agent is in California so we couldn't contact her until our layover in Detroit. At Minneapolis, we literally had to run and barely got on the flight (the last call had already been given!). Then when we were boarding at Detroit for the long haul to Tokyo, an Asian man slapped his wife as they were about to board and the crew all got involved and kept the plane there for some time trying to decide if they would let him board the plane.
The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful - although long. We were exhausted when we arrived. The next morning when we went to breakfast, we had to start learning how to use chopstix. :-)












We had our first Chinese lesson this morning and were overwhelmed.
We still have to practice and get some sleep or we won't be able to get up in the morning. :-(

Zai jian (goodbye)