Shell in China

This weekend my host family took us on a little vacation. Boy was it interesting!
Where do I start? I'll just give you the brief overview.

We left here at 7 AM on Saturday and got back about 4 PM Sunday. We went to the mountains and visited several waterfalls and rivers. Mom would have loved it- to get to everything we kept having to cross these rickity suspension bridge things. The one picture is of me sneering at the bridge that I already crossed, but know I have to go back on again. I look excited, right? Some of them had an awful lot of sway room!!

The waterfalls were cool--nowhere near Iguazu, but cool nonetheless.

Our hotel was interesting. Our room was about half the size of our room here and all it was was a bed. The bathroom was down the hall (I accidentally used the mens' room! Since we all use squatty-potties, it doesn't really make a difference- you can't tell which is which, but still! That was a little embarrasing to start the weekend off! We don't study the characters at all, but I guess there are some I'd better learn! In town everything is in Roman letters, but not in the country!) The bed was basically a board with a sheet on it! Seriously, the time I slept on the floor (Shannon will remember the lady golfer blanket!) at Jeremy's house was softer than this bed was. I had to use my blanket to cushion my hips! I think they are bruised now!

The food was interesting. The first day the lunch table had a whole rabbit that looked like it had been Shake N Baked! Ack!! We ate constanly this weekend, lots of snacks, but then we ate regular meals too! We had a BBQ on the porch Saturday night and everyone sat around and started at the Americans. I did have this really tasty snack that was kind of like a Rice-crispy treat, but it had nuts in it and some other weird thing that I didn't ask about, becasue I figured if I liked it, I should just go with it! Once I know what is in it, I may never eat it again!

Oh, and we tried to learn to play Mah-jong. Thad played and I watched and together we tried to figure it out, but we weren't too successful. ON the other hand, Americans learning "their game" was quite entertaining and we had a whole circle of people around us watching the fun!

The one picture is me with a little girl we met at the river. She was talking to our host mom for a long time and then she brought me flowers and talked to me in English for just a second. She was really cute and loved to talk. She was like the Kels of China!!

The other picture is our host family!

This is very interesting! Just now I was just discussing with a friend how China is making huge leaps by employing lots of foreign teachers to teach their students English, and how fast their English is improving!

If I ate the rabbit, I would not even eat it! Yuck!