Don: On Sunday we went downtown to first visit the Little Wild Goose Pagoda, which is open until 5:30. But we got there at 4:20 and they don't let anyone in after 4:00 - so a bummer.

Then we walked to the Old City and went to a market just inside the wall. This is the artists' alley. It was very touristy, nice and not too crowded for some reason. We bought some essential souvenirs and that was that.

Next we walked to the Star Ferry Restaurant (modeled after the famous Hong Kong ferry). It was a nice, low key middle range price restaurant. We both had shrimp dumplings and sweet and sour pork (with the bones still in them). None of our fellow foreign teachers chose to join us, so we ate by our lonesomes. The staff there had quite a time keeping orders straight and we had 5 meals and courses offered to us that we didn't order. A young Chinese man next to us laughed with us, and helped move the food to the right table.

After dinner it was dark and we enjoyed the Old City all lit up. The two Towers looked very nice as did many other buildings (see pictures). The Wall is lit up as well along with the New Year's decorations, which are still up. A taxi took us to the Big Wild Goose pagoda park (with the famous fountains) and that was also lit up. (see pictures). Neon lights and other string, flashing lights are common (ala Vegas ??).

Bell Tower @ Night

Today was Monday and back to work. I have two morning classes of about 30 students each. They went fine, though depending on the AV and tech equipment to work (wires not connected to anything are common) is always a concern. They assured me that everything would be working by Wednesday, when I start my 2nd full week.

Today was truly nice - 60 degrees, no wind, very little haze and for the most part, blue skies. We both sat out on our balcony of our villa (what the local teachers called our apartments) and did some reading and school work catching some rays.

Bobbi: My afternoon class was supposed to be delayed 10 minutes because tomorrow is Women's Day. I knew there was a connection there but had to do a little thinking. It seems that the faculty start the celebration a bit early with a rope-pulling contest. Don walked over with me to see it, but nothing was going on so we went inside. Don planned to use MORE paper & make some copies, but the copy machine wasn't working. I went to my classroom thinking that perhaps there was a miscommunication and it would be my Tuesday class that was late. Well, I waited 35 minutes & decided I really didn't know what was going on. I was able to get things ready for Tuesday's class as I waited so the time wasn't lost. I packed up to leave and when I got close to the outside door, I could hear lots of noise & sure enough, the rope-pulling was going on. When I walked outside to watch, one of the teachers I worked with last week came up to chat. She asked if I'm Russian because she thought my face looked Russian. Eventually she had to leave and another teacher chatted with me. Finally, it seemed the contest was done, but there were only 20 minutes left of my 1 hour, 45 minute class. Someone asked me if we were going to have class and I said "yes" and went back to the classroom. By the time everyone got situated, we had about 15 minutes but I did get through one exercise. They were all apologetic but delighted with their rope-pulling prizes and glad to have the first class done. The teachers are very talkative and "participative" to use our educational jargon.

Don had some noodles & shrimp cooked for supper. I thought I bought a mango for dessert but it was some other fruit that Don didn't like. Snickers bars to the rescue. Our lunch today was the best meal yet. We threw all caution to the wind and bought some sliced breakfast ham in a pkg on Saturday. We also found Land o' Lakes Monterrey Jack & Pepper Jack cheeses and Kewpie mayo. I conjured up all my culinary skills and toasted ham & cheese sandwiches for lunch. I thought mine was great. Don thought they were so-so, but I hope to find the packaged ham again. I blanched some cauliflower over the weekend & we had it with some ranch dressing. My first guess on yogurt was a good one so I've stuck with that brand and had that, too. I was full but walked 3 miles on the nice, rubberized track out our door. My next culinary experiment will be mac & cheese. Don doesn't really like it, but he'll come around. We even found ketchup for it! We couldn't find shrimp sauce but found some hot sauce so we're going to pretend it's horseradish & mix it with the ketchup some day soon. Stay tuned.

Betty Crocker