"Sunny With a High of 75"

Ok, so it's not really 75, but the weather is nice enough that I have that song stuck in my head when I walk outside. Now that it's nice out we'll probably do a lot more stuff on the weekends so I might have some pictures sometime, which might give me more of an incentive to update my blog.

Things are going well here. Dan just had a one week break before he started his last quarter and I had a nice relaxing 3 day weekend (after working 6 days in a row). 

My job is going well, I'm able to understand the teacher's personalities better (since our communication is slightly hindered) and we have fun together. I'm able to practice my Chinese a little bit, and I'm helping the teachers learn some English. The kids aren't as scared of me as they were before. Some of the youngest ones (2 year olds) wouldn't let me play with them at first, but now they like me.

I've had some interesting things happen to me the last couple days. Some random guy offered to give me a ride on the back of his bicycle. I kinda laughed at him and told him no...I'm not sure if I could actually stay on the back of a bicycle while it's moving and not fall off. It's always amazed me how Chinese people of all ages can do that.

A couple days later, I got off a subway train and was walking to the trash can to throw something away when I realized a boy's mother was helping him stand on the trashcan so he could pee into it...

I also (this isn't funny) heard a motor bike/bicycle accident today, it was almost right behind me on the street. I'm not sure if I've ever heard an accident before, but it looked like both of the people are alright. Sometimes I'm surprised there aren't more accidents.

There were other things that were a little more humorless that I thought were amusing like seeing a really old volkswagan police car, I think it looked like this. Or random Chinese people being completely amused by me and asking me if I like what I'm eating and if they have it in America and just kept smiling and laughing (there aren't that many foreigners around where I work if you can't tell).

I almost had to go to Hong Kong to get a new visa, but, thankfully, I was able to get out of it. I now have a new visa that will last me until I need to leave.

Here's some pictures of the outside view of our apartment:

That is a Christmas tree down there and it says Merry Christmas on it and still gets lit up every night.

We have a faster internet speed, so I can upload our Spring Festival firework videos: