Is School Over Yet?

*Warning* This journal entry may contain explicit female content which men and minors probably do not want to read about.

Busy weekend in Nanchang.

Headed down to Nanchang on Friday, finally making it in the late afternoon due to a one hour delayed train. Grrrrr. Nathan and I went to a cafe for drinks and a snack while waiting for 5pm to roll around so we could join Nik, Cici, and Stewart for dinner at a nice Chinese restaurant.
The food was pretty good and MSG free. Cici ordered 'drunk shrimp' which are live shrimp that they bring out in this bowl, then pour an alcoholic sauce on them which makes the shrimp drunk. You then eat them ALIVE. Needless to say, I didn't try one, but Nathan and Cici seemed to enjoy them quite a bit.

We headed to Stewarts bar after that for a fun evening there. Pearl joined us later and she, Graham, Nik, and James all played poker into the wee morning hours. I was exhausted after awhile so Nate, Nik, and I headed back out to their campus.

Nik and Nathan left early (6am-ish) for Shanghai for their 'boys weekend'. I got up about an hour later to catch the bus to meet Cici in town. She picked me up from the bus stop and we headed to the hospital. Why, Jessica, did you need to go to the hospital, you are asking. Well, dear readers, while doing my monthly womanly booby check I chanced upon two lumps which gave me a bit of a scare. I decided to head to the women's hospital to have them checked out so I could quell my fears. The hospital was actually quite nice and because I was a laowai I was sort of rushed through the lines of girls. The doctors asked me a few questions (translated by Cici), then I had an exam given by a female doctor, then was sent off for a blood test, a mamogram, and a sonogram. The mamogram hurt like a b*tch, but they let me keep the pictures, so now I can see what the inside of my boobs look like whenever I want. The sonogram went well, and the blood test wasn't no thing. The conclusion? I have hyperplasia and do not need surgery. I am on a number of medications to increase my estrogen levels or something along those lines for the next three months which should decrease the size of the lumps. I have to go back for a checkup in 6 months but they think that it should be just fine. Whew.
However, due to the medication I can no longer drink tea for the next three months. Drat.
How much did all these medical procedures set me back? Less than 600rmb. That's right, that which would cost thousands of dollars in the states only set me back about 95 dollars.

After that relieving hospital visit Cici and I headed downtown to get some lunch, sushi, at a really nice Japanese restaurant. It was sooo good. Slightly more pricey than my usual sushi place in Nanchang, but well worth it.

We went shopping afterward and even found a store that does copies of the outfits from Gossip Girl. Sweet. Didn't buy anything this time around but I definitely have my eye on the white dress that Blair wore to the white party.
We finished shopping and headed to Cici's house where I met her parents. They looked so young! She packed a bag, we picked up some students, and headed out to Nanchang Agricultural University so that the students could get ready for a speech competition. We finally got a hotel room after a bit of arguing and decided to veg out for awhile. Cici had a meeting so I watched a movie until she returned, then we headed to dinner.
The Agriculture university campus is gorgeous and amazing! They had all these restaurants with tables set up outdoors so we found one that looked good and sat down. Ordered a couple beers, some eggplant and greenbeans, fried squid, and chicken. Delicious dinner. We walked around the shops out there then checked in on this cool little snack street they had. I am smitten with that campus! They even have a forest!
We were pretty exhausted from the day so we crashed around 2am.



The next morning I had to leave relatively early to meet Pearl. I said bye to Cici and caught the bus into town, then a taxi to the campus. I dropped off my bags in Pearl's apartment and we headed to lunch at Le Bistro. Shrimp spaghetti, a raspberry vodka fizz, and cheesecake later, we were stuffed. We decided to walk off our meal under the hot sun of Nanchang and find a Tibetan store that Pearl knew about. We finally located it, and had a fun time perusing the goods. We caught a cab back to her apartment. We didn't get to a reiki session but I did get some tarot cards to practice with and some meditation stuff. I guess I need to practice a bit on my own first.
I headed home in the evening and arrived in Jiujiang after dark. Caught a cab home, made up my lesson plan, and passed out.

Happy belated Mother's Day!

School let's out June 20th. WOOO!

Cool

So, this was an interesting day full of Chinese language triumphs.

Nathan wasn't feeling well so I took the bus downtown by myself to catch the train. I got off after a few stops and hailed a cab, because I wasn't entirely sure which stop was near the bus station. The driver was an interesting fellow who definitely thought he was a race car driver.

I made it to the train station very quickly and headed in to buy my ticket. I've never bought one by myself in Nanchang, but I didn't have a problem at all. Ticket in hand I made my way to the waiting room, which was baking hot. I'm not a fan of Nanchang train station.
While heading to board the train a young man came up and tapped my shoulder stating that, "We have the same ticket." I just nodded as he waved his in my face, and we boarded the train together and found seats. We chatted for awhile but he left me in relative peace. I'm pretty sure he spent a majority of the train ride attempting to think up questions he could ask me. Bless.

I 'yo bailed' as quickly as possible after the train station and found myself a cab (the trick to avoiding the cabs who cheat you is to grab one just as they're dropping someone off near the entrance of the train station.) This cab driver was very talkative and even after I told him I didn't understand half the things he was saying we still managed to have a good conversation.

The best news of the day?! I got my acceptance letter to BLCU!!!! Now I just have to send them my monies by June 1st, so I guess I'll get a Chinese bank account all set up and rolling since I have the money now. May as well get it to them... although I may wait to see if Nathan and I can get an apartment together for the summer first.

Right, I'm wiped. Off to unpack and eat.

A fairly decent weekend.

I was in Nanchang this weekend, and it ended up being a good time. As soon as I arrived, Nathan and Pearl were there to greet me at the station. We headed to Metro for a little grocery shopping, before sending Pearl home with our goods while Nathan and I dashed off to a birthday dinner for our friend Leo.
The dinner was good, and while the entire thing was held in Chinese, I got the gist of most of it. I guess that means I'm getting better at this stuff. The meal was fantastic, but after many 'ganbei''s it was time to head home.

The weather was so nice on Saturday Nathan and I decided to go for a bike ride. We mis-judged the humidity though, and ended up pretty sweaty. We found a creepy abandoned building and graveyard on our ride which was interesting.
For dinner, Pearl was kind enough to cook us Tex Mex. It was delicious! We had a nice chat about a variety of subjects. We returned to Nathan's to get ready for an evening out. Soon Nik, Fei Fei, Nate, and I were on our way downtown to hang out with some friends at Le Nest. We met the Captain, and Leo, enjoyed a few drinks, then headed on to Soho bar.
Soho was quite fun, and the Captain was able to fanagle some free drinks for us. Luna, Simon, Leo's girlfriend, and a couple other girls joined us for the evening. After a few hours of dancing and drinking, we headed on to Stewart's bar to wind down.
Nathan wasn't feeling too good, so we headed home around 3am, the night complete.

Today we spent the day being sleepy and lazing about. I trained home around 5pm, and was happy I had a seat this time. I headed to Walmart after dropping off my bag to get some groceries and a few supplies for my classes tomorrow. It's game week, so hopefully it will go well. I'm off to pull some stuff together then sleep.

Hot and Spicy Macaroni

Right, so after a dinner of hot and spicy macaroni (found in the Walmart here) and some cheez-its, I'm ready to write you a short update.

Friday had mom and I scrambling to pack, clean, and make it to Nanchang before Simon's birthday party at 7pm. We (read I) had risen late, and were quite sure that David would be driving us to Nanchang which would give us plenty of time to get mom's train ticket and find a hotel. However, David canceled on us around 2pm. Oh... that's not good. It's the last weekend of Chinese spring festival and the weekend before schools start (however, we didn't realize this until later.) Mom and I decided we still had plenty of time to get to Nanchang and decided to finish watching Vicky, Christina, Barcelona (which I thought stunk). We walked down the street to the bank, then caught a cab to the train station. I had no problem buying train tickets for the train which was to leave in the next twenty minutes and we managed to get through security quickly. We slowly meandered up the stairs to the platform... then realized that the train was right about to leave and our car was at the other end of the platform. Crap, crap, crap. I was, of course, wearing heels which I should have known would be a bad idea. I quickly removed them as I realized that running would be necessary, and almost immediately cut my foot on something. Damn. We made it onto the train in the nick of time, but realized that there were a.) no seats and b.) we were going to be packed into the train like sardines. I was still barefoot, and now bleeding, but luckily mom had some handy wipes and I had just enough room to wipe off my now black feet.
After almost two hours of hot, stinky, claustrophobic train travel we arrived in Nanchang. Nathan had kindly already bought moms ticket and greeted us at the exit with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers (for Valentine's day.) We walked to the hotel and deposited the copious amounts of luggage (all moms) before heading to the restaurant for Simon's birthday dinner.
The feast was delicious and fairly vegetarian (although mostly meat) friendly. Good chatting and friendly vibes all around.
After food it was karaoke time. Mom decided to join us for a bit and got to meet some of the characters that live here in Nanchang. It was a good time, though she left early (we helped her get a cab back to the hotel). We left karaoke around 2am and headed back to Nathan's place.

Nathan and I headed to mom's hotel around 1pm. We had lunch reservations at Le Bistro for 2 o'clock, a sort of Happy Valentine's day celebration. Lunch was delicious and very filling, despite them not having the shrimp ravioli I have been craving lately. We went to the park after that and enjoyed watching the people and seeing all the fun rides. I will definitely be heading back there when the weather warms up again. After the park we went to a temple which was lovely. Very peaceful except for the angry drunk man who was yelling at the gate. We spent much of the day just walking Nanchang and searching for the ever ellusive cell phone I desire.
After a quick rest at the hotel we went to a bakery where we heard there were good sandwiches. However, it was Valentine's Day and the evening which meant no sandwiches available. After decided to see if Bro was open and finding that they only had a set meal menu and a long wait, we went back to the bakery and ordered a delicious pizza instead. Yum.
We headed back to the hotel after that where mom and I tried our face masks and watched tv with Nathan until he decided to bid us adieu.

Neither mom nor myself slept too well last night. We woke up at 6am to get ready for the day, packed up, and shipped out. I left my bag at the hotel so I could help mom with hers and I didn't have to lug it around with me. It was raining out so we caught a cab to the station then headed in to the waiting area for mom's train. I got to wait with her until it was time to go to the platform, then we said our goodbyes and I watched her make it up the escalator. I headed to McDonald's for breakfast and to do some lesson planning/kill time. After a few hours of that I went back to the hotel to collect my bag and flowers, walked back to McDonalds where I got in a fight with the cashier girl about wanting a bottle of water (which I not only said in Chinese but also pointed directly at the bottle of water), I lost though because she gave me a cup of coke instead. (I think a lot of Chinese assume that no foreigner can speak Chinese and therefore even when perfect Chinese is sometimes spoken, they still don't understand you because they think you're speaking another language).
I caught my train to Jiujiang around 1:15pm which then took over two hours to get to the station. (Normally the trip is 1.5 hours.) I found a reasonable cabbie and was finally home. Then I got my schedule...

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IT IS AWFUL!!!! Monday I have classes from 8am-4:10pm, Tuesday I have another 8am, Wednesday I have an 8am and 10am, Thursday I have an 8am, and Friday I have an 8am and 10am.
....
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And all of these classes are estimated to have between 60-80 students in them. And I can't split them. Which means that I have between 600 and 800 students this term.
Seriously.

I do have my own classroom though.

I'm still pissed.

I'm looking for a new job for next year.

Now I have to go lesson plan... and cry... and maybe curse a lot.

Things which have happened recently..

1. I went to Nanchang to see Nathan and Mike, lured there under the false pretense that we were going to be going hiking in the southern parts of the province. But it was lies! Actually, I think Katie put it most accurately, it was mostly laziness.

2. Instead of camping we went clubbing. Every night Mike was there. We also went to karaoke. This was okay as I decided not to drink for the most part. However, it did lead to many late nights, meaning that the following day we didn't get up until the afternoon, which further lead to us not having time to go hiking. Mike was very popular with the ladies, they really like his beard.

3. The food made me sick, as usual. Chinese food is not kind to me. This lowered my immune system, and now I believe I have tonsillitis. My symptoms are: swollen tonsils, lots of itching which then leads to coughing. I'm drinking ginger tea and sucking on watermelon frost (a type of Chinese throat lozenge).

4. Jennifer left for Nanjing today which sucks because I just missed her. I'll have to make sure I get a trip up there soon.

5. Nathan is in Changsha for a few days, then comes to Jiujiang. Just means a few boring days in Jiujiang for me. Perhaps I'll give David a call to see if he's around so we can hang out/eat pizza.

Edit:// Due to the recession (which means SALES in the shopping world) there are some super fabbo sales at places like Vera Bradley and New York & Company. You should check them out!

Christmas and the New Year

Christmas:

I finished up my grades and handed them in to Max on Wednesday before hopping on a train down to Nanchang. I managed to catch a cab just outside the train station and had them deliver me, for 60 yuan, to Nathan's front gate where I met him and his parents. We decided to grab some food, Chinese, from the area behind Nathan's apartments for dinner. It was fun, with Nik joining us. It was a loud dinner, and very crowded in the restaurant. In China, Christmas Eve is considered almost a Valentine's day, so many couples will spend the evening on a nice date.

On Thursday, Christmas Day, Nathan and I woke up fairly early. We got ready for the day before his parents joined us, then spent the next few hours opening presents.

We both recieved quite a few books which I shall spend my break sifting through. I'm pretty stocked now, which is fantastic. After opening presents we headed for downtown Nanchang where we would have dinner later that evening. We were on a mission to see the pagoda that sits on the river in Nanchang. On our way there we stopped by a beautiful Buddhist Temple and had a look around before heading on to the pagoda which was closed.

We walked to the restaurant, Detox, and arrived just in time for dinner; turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and for dessert pears in a creme sauce. After filling up, Katie and I went to a hair salon across the street to get our hair washed and styled while Nathan and Rick went to have a couple beers at the local expat bar. After the hair washing was finished, and only 22 kuai each at that, we went back to Nathan's apartment to watch The Office and relax.

Friday morning meant Nathan was back to work at 8am. When he finished and returned to the apartment we were picked up by a Ford van and driven to their local factory for a tour. It was all rather top secret, but a very interesting look at how cars are made in China. The factory was so clean! After our tour, they were kind enough to take us to dinner and a rather fancy restaurant. It was delicious. Post lunch they dropped us back off at Nathan's apartment. He had one more class to teach, so his parents and I joined him. They were just going to have a party, but many of the students did magic tricks, sang, and danced.
For dinner it was more Chinese food at another local restaurant.

On Saturday we continued our quest to find the pagoda and actually get in. We took a mien bao che into downtown Nanchang, then found a cab to take us to the front entrance of the pagoda. It was beautiful and I was excited to finally get in to see it. We walked around for quite some time exploring the many floors and enjoying the views.

After our pagoda experience we decided to walk to the restaurant where we would be enjoying dinner. On our way there, we stopped at a tea shop and enjoyed a few samples. Nathan and his mom enjoy 'dirt tea' which... tastes like dirt. Haha. I'm not a fan, but it was interesting to try it again.

Post-tea sampling we continued our walk to the restaurant. I stopped in one of the shops to buy a Juicy Couture bag that I had been eyeing and then we arrived at the french bistro. It was once of the best meals of my life! I ordered shrimp ravioli with a creamy tomato sauce and Nathan and I shared cheesecake for dessert. Too much delicious.
We headed to Stuart's bar for drinks and to socialize/digest afterward. It was nice to catch up with him and to see Simon who arrived soon after we did.

Sunday we packed and stayed in. Nathan and his parents were to head to Beijing that day and myself back to Jiujiang. My train left a few hours before theirs but they were kind enough to come to the station with me. It was a sad farewell.
I arrived in Jiujiang not too late and caught a cabbie home.

Nanjing/New Years:

Jennifer and I decided to head to Nanjing on Tuesday and stay for a couple days so she could get a better feel for the city and so I could do some shopping. We bought our bus tickets and a few hours later arrived in the city. We decided to stay at Jinn's Inn, but now that we look back on it, perhaps not the best choice. The hotel was under construction at the time of our arrival and the only room available was with one bed that was about the size of a closet. We took it anyways.

Immediately the hotel had issues with my passport, something with their scanning system. They told us to bring down our passports the next morning.
We were hungry when we got there so we dropped off our bags and headed out to find a restaurant. Immediately we found a Mexican place named Behind the Wall. We weren't sure if it was open at first, but a large group of expats walked past us and headed in, we followed.
The food was AMAZING. One of the best burritos I've had in a long, long time. Also, damn good Sangria.
We were exhausted after our trip and headed to bed pretty early.

Wednesday morning we decided to head to Fuzimiao to do some shopping. After taking care of the passport business we were off. It was a pretty chilly day, but bright and sunny. First we had to head to Skyway Bakery to get a sandwich though. It was, of course, amazing.
I did almost kill one of our fellow customers though. He was obviously still new to the China scene. He was on a date or something with a Chinese girl and... ugh, would not shut up about America. That was fine, it was when he started to stereotype about Texas when I nearly went over and strangled him. The poor girl obviously wasn't having a good time and eventually made up an excuse to leave. Serves him right.
We spent a majority of the day shopping and trying to find the underground market which we finally located. I bought myself some sneakers, purple Uggs, and a cute Louis Vuitton purse.


It was back to Behind the Wall for dinner. Nachos this time, which were also delicious.
Around 10pm we decided to head to a bar/club for the countdown. We met up with some friends there and also made some new friends too. Guess who I saw there... sandwich shop boy! He disappeared before I could smack him though. I had a nice time talking to a man from Spain named Antonio. His Chinese was worse than mine! I drank far too many long island iced teas before our group decided to go to a different bar.

This bar was much more quiet. The boys bought a bottle of whisky, I ordered a Tequila Sunset (yum) and we sat around a chatted for a couple hours. It was great. I forgot what it was like to be in company like this, where everyone is just relaxed and friendly.


Jennifer and I checked out of Jinn's and headed for the bus station. I actually bought our tickets by myself using all the Chinese I could remember. It was a pretty proud moment for me, and I answered all of the ticket ladies questions.
Jenn and I had to wait awhile for the bus so I started reading On the Road by Kerouac. I was finding it hard going at first, but I'm slowly getting into it. Some of the lingo still throws me a bit though.

Now I am home, although I don't want to be. I get paid on Monday and thusly will begin my travels yet again. I'm not sure where I shall go though, but I need to make sure that I stay semi-close to where I need to be, in case Spring Festival travel gets too crazy. At the moment I'm thinking of going to Guangzhou, Hangzhou, or doing this nice little trek. There are so many options!

I've also been thinking about looking into bigger cities for work next year. I was planning to stay in Jiujiang, but after experiencing/remembering how nice it is to have friends who speak English fluently/understand my culture, I'm thinking that I really want and need that in my life. I'm not sure where I'll end up, but I guess that's all part of the adventure.

Shenme?

So... this past weekend. It was pretty cool, I must say.

On Friday I released my Secretary's early (we had finished final exams) and rushed to the train station so that I could arrive in Nanchang at 5:30pm in order to see Jane Goodall speak. Nathan met me at the station and we took off for the hotel where she was giving her presentation.
The hotel was gorgeous and large. We found some of our friends sitting at one of the tables and decided to join them. In the middle of the room was a large vegetarian buffet which looked delicious. Due to traffic, the event was delayed and ended up starting about an hour later than planned.
After a majority of the crowd had arrived, we each got our turn at the buffet. Jane, of course, went first, then the rest of the tables. The food was smashing. The curry, garlic bread, cheesy cauliflower, and spaghetti were my favorites. I could definitely be happy eating like that everyday. After munching for awhile, Jane stood up to speak. It was a pretty good speech. She talked about her time with the chimps, her childhood, and how we need to work together to save our planet. I'll upload some videos later although I'm not sure how the sound quality will be, it was rather hard to hear her at times.
After her speech, Nathan and I bought some souvenirs for her to sign. I bought two of her books, translated into Chinese (they ran out of the English copies) and had her sign one for Hayley and one for me. I took a couple pictures with her, but the one where I'm looking at the camera is so awful I refuse to show it.

We were pretty wiped after the speech so we headed back to Nathan's place to get a good night's rest.

The next day I had to work at the wine tasting/promotion from 3-8pm. Nathan and I had some noodles for lunch before heading into town and finding the Rainbow Mall. I met Steven, the manager, there and he put me to work right away. Nathan stuck around for most of the event, sampling the wine. I had to pour wine for the customers who came in to sample it, clean glasses, and do a lot of standing. It reminded me of my days at the Marriott. I ended up drinking quite a bit of the wine myself. Pretty delicious.
After five rather long hours, I was free to go. I bid my new friends farewell and Nathan and I headed off to a French bistro to meet FeiFei, Nik, Pearl, and Simon for dinner. Everything at the bistro was half off and we feasted. I enjoyed a nice spaghetti and some amazing bruschetta. I should have had dessert as well, but alas, I was too full.
After dinner we went to a jazz bar with the group, but the jazz music was over and it was karaoke time instead. They sang some pretty depressing songs, and I wasn't feeling it, so we headed home.

On Sunday I had work again. Nathan and I headed into Nanchang early so that we could get some sushi at a restaurant near the Rainbow mall. It was tasty and I hope we go back there again.

Nathan dropped me at the Rainbow mall with my bags, bid me farewell, and went off to do his Christmas shopping. I did the same old, pouring drinks, drinking drinks, and chatting with the others at the wine tasting booth. Steven, the manager, took me to dinner at a Korean restaurant. We ordered a very spicy rice and some chicken which they cooked in front of us. I was worried I would get sick from it all, but I'm doing just fine surprisingly.
After my mandatory five hours I bid them adieu, was presented with some cash and a 400rmb bottle of wine, and went on my way. I grabbed a cab to the train station, was dropped off up the road from the station (the cabs are only allowed up to a certain point on the road going to the station) was given directions by the cabby, and headed off. It was incredibly cold outside, but my bags and red wine glow kept me warm.
I had about an hour to wait for the train, which was then further delayed another 25 minutes. This left me plenty of time to chat with the locals in our quasi-Chinese-English way that we do. I actually had pretty decent conversations with some of the people there, and we found ways around the words that I didn't know.
I arrived in Jiujiang to light snow at 11:45pm. David was my knight in shining car, and picked me up from the station, dropping me off at the door to my hotel.

Today was fairly dull. Jennifer and I went to Nana (a store) to see if I could find some sneakers in my size, but no luck. On our way to the store we saw a toddler get hit by a high school kid on a bike. It was frightening. Jennifer scooped up the little girl and we were surrounded by parents, although none who claimed the little girl. Poor thing was in tears and it took a few minutes before someone came to claim her. Luckily the kids here wear about 8 layers in the winter time, so she was well padded but will probably be a little bruised.

Today was my last secretary class. We watched High School Musical 2. Wow... longest two hours of my life. The freezing cold, can see your breath, classroom didn't help.

Tomorrow.... who knows? I've got to finish up grades, do a little shopping, but that's about it. I'll probably clean my apartment and start packing for Nanchang again.



I forgot how addicting these peanut m&ms are...
This is my Christmas tree. Isn't it beautiful?

Just got home....

It's been a fairly eventful weekend. However, it's midnight, so I'm off to bed rather than updating. You can look forward to learning about:

• Meeting Jane Goodall
• Working at a wine promotion
• Successful conversations in Chinese

in my next post.

Goodnight.

Crap... where'd that eyeball come from?

Nathan and I managed to have a pretty eventful weekend in Nanchang.

On Saturday morning we woke at the butt crack of dawn (aka 8am) so that we could be ready by 9:30am to head off to a friend of Nathan's, Will, hometown. We were supposed to be joined by Peter and Pearl from what I heard, but it was a no go for them as they had other things going on. We hopped into the mian bao che (a van that looks like a loaf of bread, sorta) that Will had rented and headed down the incredibly bumpy road. And when I say bumpy... well, we've all got sore tailbones now.


We picked up Will's friend, fresh from the army, who was waiting for us at the bus station then headed on to Will's house. When we arrived we met his father who had such a thick accent even Nathan couldn't understand him. Since I usually don't understand what's going on most of the time anyways, I just smiled and nodded as per usual.

Lunch wasn't quite ready yet so we decided to head on down to the park which Will's father had designed. It was amazing! Very beautiful indeed. We walked around the park for a bit before deciding to hop into one of the paddle boats that you could rent. Only... the paddle boat turned out to be a motorized boat instead, though it only went about 7km and hour. Our two Chinese pals hopped in the back, leaving Nathan to drive and me riding shotgun.


We drove around the lake for awhile, spying on kissing couples and naughty children who were lighting fires in the grass. As we were driving along, not minding our own business, we saw some chunks of wood floating in the water. Curiousity got the better of us and we decided to take a looksee. Nathan pulled over next to one of the chunks of wood and Will, who was sitting behind him, pulled it out of the water. Lo and behold we had found secret fishing nets and two very large fish stuck in them! According to Will, fishing in the lake is illegal so after debating on whether or not to free the fish, we decided to just let it be and placed them back in the water. As we started to drive off we heard a sucking noise and then a bit of clunking, then no more motor. Well, crap, that wasn't good, what was that? The horror! Our little fishy friends had indeed been sucked into our motor. Will and Nathan let out sighs as Will announced, "I think it's dead. There goes an eyeball."


After mourning for the very fish we had set out to rescue and had now murdered, we then had to deal with dilemma of how to get back to shore. No problem! The number of the boat rental men was right there in front of me, painted on the dashboard of the boat. Will called them men to explain the situation, and we watched as a few men clambered into a boat and headed towards us.


When they finally reached us, we expected them to tow us back to shore, especially since it was effing freezing out there in that boat. However, as soon as the men saw the rather large fish we had 'caught' they announced that they wanted to keep it. Apparently fish that big are worth quite a bit of money and these guys had greedy looks in their eyes. We told them there was another net out there still floating around the lake. They nodded and headed off towards it. Waiiiiittttt a minute! What about us?! Obviously they had other things on their minds and decided to leave us out there while they took care of business. Nathan tried the motor again, and to our surprise it worked. We decided to head back to shore, trailing our booty.

We were quickly ushered out of our boat once we had docked. We left the lake with no fish, but a great story at least. When we finally made it back to Will's house, the food was all prepared and waiting for us at the table. It was a delicious meal that his mother had spent the entire morning preparing. Quite the feast.


After finishing and spending some quality time in front of the television while we digested, we decided to walk to walking/shopping street. Nathan finally bought a pair of leather gloves that he had been wanting, and I bought... nothing! It's amazing!

After some time walking around, Nathan and I decided it was time to head back. We bid Will and his friend farewell and hopped in a mian bao che. The ride back was yet again bumpy, but farely uneventful.

We spent a few hours being lazy and just hanging out at the apartment. We knew we would be going out for the evening but we weren't sure who would be joining us. I had developed a bit of a tummy ache due to eating unfamiliar food, but luckily Nik was kind enough to provide me with pepto.

Nik, Nathan, and I headed to a noodle restaurant for dinner. My stomach was still bothering me, so I didn't eat much, but they were definitely some of the most delicious noodles I have ever eaten. I was so sad that I couldn't eat more than a few, but I have plans to return there when I am next in Nanchang. After eating, we hopped in a mian bao che and headed into town. We were dropped off near the Star Walk, a street with all of the night clubs. After bouncing from club to club to see where was the best to spend the evening, we settled on Grammy. Unhappy with the table they gave us, they brought us out an even bigger table from storage, which fit our needs perfectly.

After a few minutes sitting around waiting for people to show up, Stewart and Cici finally arrived. We ordered drinks and the fun began. Mostly it was your typical night club evening, drinking and dancing, a few awkward pictures, new Chinese friends. Good times.


We headed to Stewart's bar after Grammy to hang out and talk to people. One of the gentlemen there, Bruce, told me about an interesting position at wine company that's opened up and tomorrow I shall get more information about it. Could be interesting.

We headed out after a couple hours at Stewart's. We got back around 3:30am. Nathan and I spent most of today sleeping and watching movies, nothing eventful. We did almost manage to miss my train though I made it with barely enough time.

On the train I met two students who attend my school and the father of a student at my school. He was an incredibly interesting man who speaks English relatively fluently. He was an English teacher for 10 years and now works as a translator. He offered me Chinese lessons which I plan to take him up on, for sure.

Now I'm off to bed. Only two more weeks of school!


P.S. Just did a google search of my name and pulled up this, from a class I took at UNT.

The truth is...

It was a great weekend but went by too quickly.
Nathan and I took a couple of his friends to eat Thai food. They didn't seem to like it that much. Shame. We also went to Metro to do a little shopping. I bought a Christmas stocking and a new dvd player. It's working great so far, I'm enjoying the 4400.

We went out Saturday night, but it was pretty low key. Just a few drinks with Nikolai, Peter, and Nik's girlfriend.

I'm looking forward to next weekend. Seeing Nathan again and enjoying a Thanksgiving feast. It will be delightful.

Nathan and I have been debating about where we'll live next year. It's looking like either Jiujiang or Nanchang. We want to live together again, but we both like our schools and areas. Quite the dilemma. We still have plenty of time to decide though.


May I just say? Gorgeous! Beautiful! Umm Yes!
I've got some Christmas cards to work on.

Eat, sleep, repeat....

Nanchang was largely uneventful. Nathan and I ate a lot of Thai food, partied with friends, and watched a lot of tv. That really sums it all up.

Today I taught job interview information. It went over relatively well, although I'm not sure how much they absorbed. I was exhausted all day which was unfortunate, but I've napped now, so perhaps that won't be the case tomorrow. We did practice hand shakes and I made everyone shake my hand. Girls here have wimpy hand shakes, haha, so I had to toughen them up. It was funny and they all enjoyed it.

Tomorrow Jenn and I are going down to Davids to take pictures with his staff for some fliers he's having made. Hopefully he'll treat us to a free bbq chicken pizza in return. Yum, yum.

I believe that I've caught up on my e-mails now.

I also finished Pride and Prejudice, so I'm off to start the book mom bought me for my birthday. I'm rather in the mood for more books from that era now, I've finally grown to appreciate them. Plus, Pride and Prejudice must be one of the most romantic books ever written. *Swoon*



Much love.

I may as well use my free time to post here....

Let's start with Nathan's birthday which was last Tuesday, shall we?
I taught my class, meaning we watched a movie because I couldn't let them get ahead of the other class then headed off to the train station with Sophie to get my ticket. Sophie waited with me at the station for awhile, then headed back to the campus while I waited for the train. It finally came after an hour of sitting in an overly-crowded room with hundreds of people staring at me. It happened to not only be the long train, but also a non-air conditioned one to boot. I spent a majority of time playing peek-a-boo with the babies sitting near me and listening the buzz of Chinese going on. Nathan was a little bit late to pick me up, which was fine, I made 'friends' with a cab driver who was rather eager to drive me around town. Nathan soon arrived and we caught a cab to the Thai place he wanted to eat at for his birthday lunch. Only... they were closed! We decided to come back for dinner and bring everyone with us instead.
We grabbed a cab and headed back to campus to drop off my bags and round everyone up. Then we (Simon, Pearl, Peter, Nikolai, Nathan, Luna, and I) all headed off to Banana Leaf for some dinner. While we were waiting for a table Nathan happened to run into one of the dancers who worked there that he knew from Beijing. Crazy! I took a picture of them reuniting so Nathan could show all his Beijing friends.

Dinner was delicious and expensive. We sang, danced, laughed, and gorged our way through a wonderful meal. The dance troupe sang 'Happy Birthday' to Nathan and made the two of us get up to dance. That didn't last too long, but it was rather funny.
After dinner we decided to hit up karaoke. Pearl and Peter went back to the campus, leaving the rest of us to party. After scouring the various karaoke joints we finally found one that was in our price range and to our taste. Two hours, many beers, and inevitable sore throats later, we finished up singing and headed back to the campus.

The next few days were uneventful. Nathan had work so I mostly stayed around his apartment watching movies and cleaning.

On Friday we headed back to Jiujiang for the evening as we couldn't get directly to Lushan easily from Nanchang. We slept in a bit on Saturday before packing up and heading out. We had decided that the easiest way to get to the mountain would be to just rent a car to head out there. Luckily for us a taxi was sitting just outside the gate as we headed out, and the driver turned out to be great. He drove us to the mountain and took us directly to a decent, if over-priced, hotel where we could drop off our bags and stay for the night. He also arranged for another cab to take us to the various sites for the rest of the day, and then even took us to a nice restaurant where we could have lunch. We decided that the restaurant was too expensive though, so our new cab driver, a woman, took us to a different place where we could get a moderately priced meal. After eating, we headed off to the sites. The first place our driver took us was a rather short hike where we could see some nice scenery. At one point I was accosted by a group of Chinese girls and 'forced' to take pictures.

When we had finished with this place, we found that our driver had somehow found a highly irritating tour guide for us. They took us to another part of the mountain where we had to buy a ticket for something, but we didn't know what. We soon realized it was for the gondolas and a long suspension bridge Nathan had wanted to see. Luckily the tour guide was too scared to go over the bridge so we soon lost her. There was some confusion as to where we were supposed to go from this point on, so we continued on the path and millions of stairs which lay before us. I was having some unpleasant flashbacks to Huangshan, but there were far fewer stairs. We even ran into a place where they kept monkeys!

The path spit us out with no cab driver, or rather not our cab driver, to be seen. Nathan gave her a call and she told one of the other cabbies to drive us back to where we had originated. He pointed us down another path then scuttled off. Not eager to conquer more stairs, we looked at each other, bewildered, before heading on. There was a nice lake to our right and some fun waterfalls and rivers to climb around along the path. We soon found the area we were meant to meet the driver and she came along to pick us up.

She then took us to Mao's villa, the building where the Lushan Conference was held, and a place where Kai Shek's soldiers had trained. We were soon wiped out and asked her to return us to our hotel.
We had dinner at a restaurant down the street before returning to our room and passing out in front of the tv.

The next morning we had thought there would be a lot to see in Guling, the small town we were staying in, but we were wrong. After walking the streets a few times and having an early lunch, we grabbed our bags and headed back to Jiujiang.
When we arrived in Jiujiang we decided to go Dvd shopping and get some McDonalds. We grabbed Jennifer and Cary and headed downtown. We perused the dvd racks for awhile, then Cary had to get back to campus. We said hasta to him and headed on to McDonalds for a feast of epic proportions. Just kidding, it was some chicken nuggets and fries, I'm not getting fat over here, ya'll.
Hrmm... somewhere in this sequence I left out that Nathan and I played badminton. Well... we did. It was fun. They were doing driving lessons where we were playing, but we didn't let that bother us.
Nathan left in the evening to catch a train back to Nanchang. Jennifer and I went grocery shopping at our local supermarket, then decided they didn't have what we wanted and headed downtown. We had the coolest cab driver in Jiujiang and had fun speaking our mangled Chinese with him. I'm pretty sure he would be the most awesome Chinese teacher ever, and I'm sad I didn't get his number to practice with. Hopefully I'll run into him again sometime.

This week I'm teaching my kids about the wedding industry. Since western style weddings are becoming more common here, I think it's something they would find interesting and beneficial. Plus, you all know how I love to talk about weddings.

Right. I'm out of here. Get well soon Dad and Tess!

We're movin' and groovin'

Well... I went to Nanchang this past weekend.
One of my friends Sophie traveled with me since she's from Nanchang. It was a fun train ride. We decided to rough it in the non-air conditioned no assigned seat cars. We got there a bit late, which meant no open seats! Insane! However, we made friends with some jolly Chinese men who let us sit with them. I think it's good to have a foreigner with you sometimes.

Nathan met us at the train station. We really didn't do much the entire weekend. Ate Chinese food which made me sick. I'm avoiding meat now. We went to Metro which is like Sam's Club. Found foreign food and Nathan bought a nice leather jacket.

Today I made my Secretary's do work, which they didn't really like. Eh. They needed to learn something.
Tomorrow we're watching Man of the House in BE3 so I can teach them about Texas. Good times.

Back to Nanchang for Nathan's birthday tomorrow. We're going to Lushan on Friday. Exciting!
May not have internet access for a few days. Will update upon my return.

Weekend in Nanchang

Hello! I am home safe and sound after my trip to see Nathan in Nanchang.
I took my first train trip by myself and Nathan picked me up from the train station. The next day we ate Sichuan food with one of Nathan's fellow teachers then we went into town to have a look around. It was boiling hot there, so I bought a skirt to wear instead of my jeans. We walked around for awhile but it was truly too hot to enjoy it, so we headed back to the campus to get ready for the evening.
Nikoli, Nathan, Simon, and I went downtown for some dinner. It was pretty good but the service was terrible, most likely because they were understaffed and incredibly busy. Post dinner we walked around and tried to decide which club to spend our evening in. We ended up in Babyface where we danced, sang, drank, socialized, and spoke Chinese. A good time was had by all. Nathan and I ended up crashing on Nikoli's couches because Nathan's electricity was out and it was too unbearably hot to sleep in his apartment.
This morning I was still feeling awful from the Chinese food we had eaten the day before and the boys were incredibly hungover. We had brunch at a baozi and noodle place before heading back to Nathan's apartment so I could pack up. We bused into town then I took a train back to Jiujiang.

Next week we have a holiday (seven days off!) so I've decided to go to Huangshan. Nathan is going with a friend of his, Liz, to Shennongjia, but they are leaving on Friday so I can not go (I have to work on Saturday and Sunday). Huangshan is a few hours away by bus or train in Anhui province. It's a world heritage site and there are monkeys as well as hot springs.
You can find the official website here.
I'm going to stay in a hostel that's next to the train station and bus into the park which should only cost about 13rmb. I plan on spending at least one whole day, most likely Monday, hiking up one of the many paths. I would really like to see sunrise there, so I'm going to have to rent a private bus one day, since the regular bus doesn't leave quite that early.
I'm staying in this hostel for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday night. It's pretty cheap and I get a private room. Since it's the busy season, I'm betting there are going to be a ton of foreigners there, so it will be pretty neat to meet up with some other westerners, plus, this is a great opportunity to practice my Chinese.
I know some of you are going into blind panic right now about me traveling by myself. You all know, of course, that I'm an adult and can take care of myself. If I have any issues with language I have more than one friend who speaks English and Chinese. This is too great of an opportunity to pass up. I promise I'll be safe and take every precaution necessary.
I'm so excited!

P.S. Check out the wikitravel for Huangshan here.