因为在神没有一件事是不可能的

School Trip.
On Friday my classes were canceled so that I could help take a bunch of the kids out on a trip. 15 of us crammed in a little van with 9 seats and picked up two more guys who were to be our guides. One of them turned out to be a climber! The kids actually got to do some repelling with his help.

After a long drive we arrived at a little restaurant/rest stop type place. They told us that they didn't have any lunch for us. But that if we caught a couple chickens they would make those for us. So we started hiking up the mountain looking for chickens. Half and hour later we had two chickens. And several minutes later we had two dead chickens. They made our kids kill the chickens. Something about watching your students slit a chickens throat with a big smile makes you see them in a different light...

Then we were able to go hiking for real. It was beautiful. The air was clean...ish. You could even drink the water from the streams. I really do love the landscape here. I'll have pictures as soon as possible.

Friends.
I'm really lucky. I haven't mentioned it much, but I already have a couple good friends. They are some of the only people who don't see me as the token white guy. I think. But I'm blessed none the less.

In my apartment complex all the people are getting to know me. I'm like the pet American there. It's actually quite fun. It gives me a chance to practice my Chinese, which is coming along but I still meed to study a lot.

I also have a couple jogging buddies. You know, people who say hi to you every morning but nothing more. As you might know, I wake up at 5 to go jogging. There is only one other jogger that I see who does not stop jogging every 15 seconds. I don't know why everyone will jog and then stop, then jog, then stop. It doesn't make sense. But at least one guys jogs for real! Then there is this other girl who says hello to me every morning. She walkes the other way, I think she wants to practice english but unless she starts jogging I'm not going to stop! ^_^

Food.
The other day at lunch we were served, among other things, a plate of tomatos chopped up in big chunks with a lot of sugar on top. You must find some ripe tomatos and try this.

And yesterday I had some dish that was made out of the watermelon rinds. And it tasted so good! I want to learn how to make it.

I also started making my own pasta. It turned out very yummy yesterday.