June 17, 2007

Cherries, originally uploaded by eiratansey.

Eee, it’s the first day of classes tomorrow! Today we went cherry picking, which was very cool, as I now have a big snack bag of them on my desk. We stopped by this weird “amusement park” close by to our hotel. It had these kind of weird looking, rusty rides, but we all rented (well, Jade rented for us) these bicycling-rickshaw things. Actually it was just like a bicycle for two (both pedal) with a big bench and a steering wheel on the left. Kellie and I shared one – I was the driver. It was way too much fun. We were all racing around, it was pretty amusing. We also went to a shopping center in nearby Lushun. It was like a mall on top, and a Trust-Mart (like a Wal-Mart) on the bottom. Our soon to be Chinese teachers accompanied us, and since their English is almost as shaky as our Chinese, we had to gesture a lot so they could help us find what we wanted. I got several cute character practice notebooks, stationery, snacks, a plastic bedside water cup, and this interesting bar of soap that’s used just for hand-washing clothes. All for 28 yuan. Goodness I love the exchange rate, and even more so when I only paid 50 yuan for a Japanese massage tonight – a few of us got it, and I can’t believe I got a 50 minute massage for $7. There were two male massage therapists, and the one I had really was working hard. It felt good – especially afterward – in an almost painful at times, ticklish kind of way. I guess the guy said my shoulders were hard to work, which isn’t surprising because I’m always hunched. Even people who don’t speak English notice this…

We get a lot of staring now. It gets kind of weird at times, but so it goes. Class tomorrow!