Buses, Buses, Buses

First of all, thank you for the ideas on teaching weather.  By the end of the week I had a pretty good lesson down that mostly involved pictures of the seasons and weather, a matching game, and letting students throw a ball at a target when they got a question right.  Throwing the ball was Jason's idea so he let me use his duct tape covered paper ball for my class.  The students LOVED it and I immediately got everyone's attention!  It was great up until a girl threw the ball at the chalkboard and almost hit the target.  We were all so impressed with the fact that someone actually got close that I lost track of where the ball went.  It completely disappeared.  The entire class joined in on the search for a few minutes before we realized it was not coming back.  I improvised and just used some wadded up paper the rest of the class time which wasn't nearly as exciting.  I felt silly telling Jason I had lost his ball in a room with very few hiding places so I tried to make up for it by making him a new one, but it ended up looking like a mound of tape someone stepped on.  We decided stuffing the toe of a sock would make a much better ball. 

It was the end of the ten day week for the school this week which meant four days off for us.  It sounds nice at first, but we are quickly running out of things to do in this deserted, small city. Thursday, we got on a random bus and rode it till we found something to see.  We got off at a street corner full of department stores and supermarkets which are about the only things to explore here.  After spending a while there we got some vanilla ice cream cones at KFC (I used to hate vanilla ice cream, but suddenly it's really good when it's the only flavor available) and noticed there were double deck buses going down the street next to us.  It's kind of been a life ambition for me to go on a double-decker so we decided this was going to be our next adventure.  It was really cool!  We didn't stay on it for very long because we noticed a big, open area on top of a large underground market that we've heard people talk about so we decided to check that one out too.   These markets are really kind of fun and have a very Chinese/foreign feel to them, but when they're one of the the only things to see we get a little tired of them so we eventually just went back home and relaxed. 

On the double deck bus.  It was a lot taller than it looks.

My plant's been barely holding on, but it finally died all the way this week. 

Friday, we acquired a very cheap badminton set and went out to the school court to play a bit.  Let's just say we're not very good at that one and the wind wasn't helping our situation.  We had fun while we were at it, though, and I'm sure the construction workers watching from the sidelines were pretty amused.  Later that night we met up with some of our English speaking friends for an outdoor dinner again. They ordered a big fish dish and if any of you remember, you'll know that I do not do fish.  It smells awful and it's always served still looking like a fish! Not okay. Anyways, everyone said it was really good and I was kind of curious so I tasted it and was pleasantly surprised.  The texture was funny, but it didn't taste fishy at all and I probably could have eaten more except my mind was playing some terrible games with me as I swallowed and looked into the face of the animal I just ate.  Gross! 

We decided to go on another bus adventure on Saturday.  This one didn't quite work out as well as the last one, though.  The bus ended up taking us down a pretty empty street lined with construction sites.  Eventually no one was left in the bus except Jason, me, and another lady who we found out later was the Bus driver in training (at least that's what we gathered).  The bus eventually just stopped in the middle of the road and we didn't know what to do.  We thought that maybe it was a stop, but then when the drivers started talking to us and motioning out till we realized this was the end of the line.  We got out and saw that we were in the middle of nowhere so we walked across the street to the next bus stop and got on another one...or so we thought.  Turns out it was the exact same bus and drivers!  The ladies said hello and then laughed a little bit as they traded spots.  We felt kind of embarrassed, but tried to not think much about it till one of them started talking on her phone and then handed it to Jason.  The other person on the line didn't really respond, but we realized the drivers probably thought we were a couple of helpless English speakers that had no idea where we were going and they wanted to help.  After driving for a while longer we recognized where we were and decided on a place to get off.  At this same time the driver handed us the phone again and the guy on the other side asked where we wanted to go.  Jason politely told him we knew what we were doing and knew where we needed to get off and then handed the phone back to the lady.  Good thing ours was the next stop.  We walked around the street a bit and then got some lunch at a place called, Mr. Lee.  Warning for anyone going to China:  Mr. Lee is everywhere in some parts of China, but don't be fooled because it is not worth it!  We ordered a few dishes that were pretty nasty and really only ate and semi-enjoyed a bowl of fried rice.  After this neither of us felt very good and we quickly got some food for dinner later that night then headed back home where we crashed for a couple hours.  I've been battling a stomachache, yet again, since then. 

Jason has also been battling some sick bug this week again. It started out with headaches and has moved to his whole body just hurting and having no energy.  We don't know what all of our strange sicknesses are, but I do know we haven't gone more than a couple weeks without  one or both of us feeling crummy and we are getting pretty tired of it. We're definitely looking forward to clean air and a normal diet consisting of all the food groups not dowsed in gallons of oil. 

Sorry this wasn't the most fun-filled, optimistic post.  Those are the happenings of the week and we hope this next one will be a bit better!  Oh wait, the good news of this week.  The water pipes out in front have burst for at least the fourth or fifth time this semester, but they've been working on it for a few days and haven't turned our water off for more than a couple hours!  Usually we're out of water for at least a day when they have troubles with the pipes.