Cambodia, Vietnam & China: Xi'an, China

We've had a chance to do our sight-seeing here while waiting for the semester to start (March 2).

Here are some observations: It isn't sunny here. The 4 major reasons are coal mining & power production, dirt blown in from the Gobi Desert, construction dust (booming city) and cars. We can see the sun, but it & everything else is in a haze. We've had rain on & off the last few days & we were hoping it would clear things up, but I guess we need more rain.

Don has his teaching schedule (mostly what he expected) and will see his classrooms today. He is assigned a multimedia room for each class so students will be able to see as well as listen to him in hopes of maximizing their understanding. They're all English majors, but English skills vary. He has a lot of handouts, too. Meeting with each group for only 8 or 10 hours requires all possible strategies for maximizing good communications while covering Western history & its effects on US economics!

I will hopefully get my schedule today. It's my understanding that I will work with 1) 100 English teachers on methods & US education system and 2) students for conversational English. Neither will be graded.

The Terra Cotta Warriors were very interesting and just like the pictures we've seen. There is a LOT of work to do yet. On another day, we rented a bike & rode all around the Old City Wall. It's about 40' wide and just under 9 miles long. The south wall has interesting things to see, but the other 3 walls were more ho-hum. We've also seen the Drum Tower, Bell Tower, Great Mosque & Muslim Quarter, Great Wild Goose Pagoda Complex and the accompanying fountain park and the province's history museum (very nicely done). We've eaten at a very good Indian restaurant, had pizza at Baskin Robbins (!), tried the local Western restaurant here at the university & patronized some other restaurants whose names we recognized. We're trying our first Chinese meal tonight. We didn't eat any of the foods we saw on the street in the Muslim Quarter. Oh, my! There are a few outlying towns on our list to visit, but we need to meet some of the faculty now as they return and hear their recommendations first.

All's well; we're adjusting well & anxious to get busy. We hope you're doing well, too. Unless students know some tricks, it seems we won't be able to post any pictures or videos on this blog. Sorry.