Never a day without something interesting...

Let's see... How to begin this post? First, I can say to you that not a single day passes here without some crazy surprise, whether revolting, hysterical, or just plain funky. Here are a few from our past week.

Nearly every day, Ben and I eat lunch together at a little fan-guar, or meal-place, outside the south gate of the university. The other day, we went with Adam and Eaaf (yes, Eaaf) to a place we had been to several times before. Well, I can say with confidence that I will never go there again. Right about the time everyone had finished eating, Eaaf put down her chopsticks and said, "That's it. I'm done." First, I thought she was just announcing to the table that she had had her fill, but no. In the midst of her white rice...was a worm. A worm. If we had been in the States, um, lawsuit! It was absolutely disgusting. I know I shouldn't have been as grossed out as I was (I am in B. F. China after all), but I wanted to go yell at someone about health code violations. Oh, wait, there are none.

Next story. Yesterday, the International Affairs Office took all of us wai-go-ren (white folk) to Zhengzhou to visit the Yellow River Park and the Henan Museum. At the park we climbed a mountain, took some pictures, yadda yadda (actually it was pretty cool but I'll just share pictures later). Then, we went down to the river and had lunch in a boat, where I experienced my first quad-language meal. At our table, we had four Americans, one Russian, and to Japanese people. The other two Americans communicated with the Japanese couple in Japanese and with the Russian in Chinese and with us in English. I learned how to say hello, or was it thank you?..., in Russian. It sounds like ztrasvoychen. And Tatyana learned to say "I like drink tea" and "I eat fish" in English. Success. Meanwhile, there was some eating going on. The first course (dun dun dunnnnn) was a plate of tiny little fried WHOLE fish! Funky. I ate a couple. They weren't as bad as I thought, but I still couldn't bring myself to eat the head. I miss salmon filets; no bones, no eyes, no funk.

Anecdote numero tres. This one is short. Today, I had lunch with three of my students. They are incredibly sweet girls, each of whom brought me a present. When we arrived at the restaurant, one of them asked me, "Do you like eat packets?" I'm thinking... "Not usually..." We had these yummy soup-filled baozi (which are a variation of dumplings. They translated the name to "Irrigation soup packets." Ha!!!!! Doesn't that sound delicious? Well it was. Got to go. Kisses from Mal!