catching up-

Well, these didn't really post in order, but hopefully they will provide some insight into the last few weeks.

This is from Drew and my attempt to make tuna noodle casserole using macaroni and cheese, potato chiips, a t-shirt strainer and a lamp because we had no stove or microwave. Really, my life isn't that pathetic, we just really thought tuna-noodle casserole said Christmas moreso than the egg-fried pumpkin I had earlier in the evening. And really- it wasn't half bad.

The view of Lin'an on a hazy Christmas day from the tower.

On nights on the town we usually end up walking by this decibal counter downtown- and scream at it to make it go as high as possible. Don't worry- there are police in a little booth across the street, who we usually say hi to. Then we usually run into some Chinese people who try to out-decibal us. Its a good cultural bridge I say.

This is from a night out with a bunch of people at a fairly typical Chinese bar, although this one actually has a dance floor and a lack of scantily clad women (which I enjoyed but probably disappointed the boys). You usually get a little private table and they always light a candle and bring out elaborately cut fruit and nuts. Beer is cheaper by the 6 pack, wine usually comes with some kind of 7up like drink to mix it, or you can buy a bottle of your favorite liquor and mix it with ice tea. The latter two don't tend to be popular with whatever crowd I'm with.

These are from my recent trip to Guilin- here I am with Kali- a girl who graduated the UWEC geology program at the end of my freshman year. She has a sister who is teaching English closer to Beijing. Apparently we really impressed her and her mom with our ability to order an entire meal in Chinese. I didn't think I would see a familiar face while I was here, so this was a very pleasant surprise.

Views of those crazy mountains from the Li River.

Looking across to downtown Guilin from a little mountain on the east side of town.

Now, I'm about two set off on 45 days of paid vacation. I am extremely proud of myself for navigating a Chinese website well enough to purchase plane tickets to Beijing without the help of any Chinese people. Yes, I had been walked through the process back in December when I bought tickets to Guilin, but let me explain the process a bit to you.

One of the many incentives to buying tickets off a Chinese site was being able to use my Chinese debit card so I could directly use money from my account here without transferring funds back to my US account. But, in order to use my debit card to make online purchases I first needed to pay to have this function added to my card. So I go to the China Construction Bank with my student (and friend) Julia. Apparently, this branch of CCB had SOLD OUT of the function to make online purchases on my debit card. So we needed to hop 7 blocks or so down the street to a larger branch. 40 yuan later, I had a little flash drive in my hand and apparently the ability to buy things online..

When I went to buy the tickets, I selected which bank I had, which sent me to the CCB website. I then needed to put this little "USB key" into my laptop, enter my passport number, enter my pin number, and BOOM- tickets paid for. This method seems much more secure than just typing your card number on the internet- but definitely seemed excessive at the time.

Buying tickets on a Chinese website is easily half the price of buying them off an English one. kayak.com advertised fares to Beijing from Hangzhou for $160- my tickets were 440RMB or about $64. Ok, not quite half. But still pretty significant.

We have a hostel booked in Beijing- but the next thing we are going to do is check out the train station and try to get tickets to Harbin (crazy far north- they have a big ice festival and are right next to Russia). 4 hours, by train, from Harbin is Daqing where there is a delightful (I hope) little oil field (*cough* biggest in China) that is apparently quite interested in me working in their English development/geology proofreading... department? Well, there's a lady who will show us around and hopefully we'll make it up there. Then, I have a student in Qingdao (home of the Tsingdao brewery, thanks to the Germans who settled there a hundred years ago) I might visit. Hope to make it back to Zhejiang Province and maybe visit some more students (especially in Ningbo). My boss invited me to make jiaozi (dumplings) with his family on the Chinese New Year (Jan. 27) and then I am flying home the 29th for two weeks. If you are reading this, I really hope I will get a chance to see you between Jan. 30 and February 11th when I fly back. On the flight out I will get the joy of sitting in one of those inner seats..... but thankfully I have a shiny new mp4 player that should keep me occupied. And the flight is much nicer than the one here- direct Shanghai to Chicago! then just a little hop up to Madison. Whoops- I mean I'll actually be home the 29th- leaving at 6pm, arriving at 9:40. That sure is a nice way to hit the international date line.

I've been horribly homesick, especially with that ray of familiarity (from S. Carolina) leaving. So I think a little trip home is a good way to use some extra RMB's to recharge the batteries. By also trekking up north I'm also using this opportunity to see some more of China too- so I think this has been a good compremise. A vacation stateside- wow, it feels pretty cool to have enough money to pull this stuff off. I almost feel like some sort of ..... adult.

On a final note, now that I am 23 and the Chinese New Year is fast approaching, we will be entereing the year of the cow. Now, for all the other 23 year olds out there that means bad luck for the coming year... that is unless you wear as many red things as possible. I bought a red scarf today. But if you want to be REALLY lucky, you need to convince a member of the opposite sex to buy you red underwear. There are stores in town that sell nothing but red things... including walls of red underwear. I don't know if any 23 year old boys read my blog, but let me know if you're interested.