3 More Weeks!!!

Well, a lot has happened in the past couple of weeks. Greogory had his birthday, my classes have been finishing, Lindsey had her birthday (I bought flowers and Pringles on a severely limited budget), and then we went to Lijiang (the famous ancient city about 6 hours away by cab). Also, we just bought our plane tickets home!!! So, Lindsey and I will be landing in Syracuse on Monday, July 16th and we can't wait. Our daily ritual is sitting around dreaming up the different things we can't wait to eat. The end to all of this is within site and I think these last few weeks will go by pretty quickly. One Saturdau of this week, Lindsey and I have our Chinese wedding, which will be a great way to see everyone before we go.

Just last week I had 4 of my classes end. The majority of my classes are the non-major students whom you don't develop a real strong connection to because the majority of them don't really care about learning English. Yet, I had my last class with the sophomore group of English Business majors last week and it was actually a little hard to say thanks to them and say goodbye. I'll be seeing all of them around, but it was the last class. I just loved this class because all of them are such individual characters. They have also been really good students for the past two years, one of the only classes to get really excited and participate with some gusto. From loud-mouthed Pearl, to very flamboyant Boa, to shy and quiet Spring, I'll miss them all. I just hope that the majority of them can go on to find decent jobs somewhere in China. Leaving this school next year will be a real hard experience for the majority of them, I just pray it all works out.

Lindsey had her birthday last week and it was quite low key as all the birthdays have been this year, but we did have fun. We baked pizza, Amanda made angel food cake, which is Lindsey's favorite (mental note), and we sat around and drank wine. The next day, we took off for Lijiang for the last time, one of our favorite little places to relax in China. It's swarmed with Chinese tourists, but the weather is cool and crisp and the pizza is hot. So, we spent the weekend there and ate a lot of western food and did some shopping. The most entering part of the weekend occurred on our last night. When Chinese tourists see three foreigners together, they see the perfect backdrop to a photo. So, sitting and eating at a restaurant by an open window can be a little annoying as tour group after tour group flow by. At first, I took my umbrella and threw it open anytime someone was about to snap a picture, which was entertaining. Then, we made a little sign that said 'Photo, 5 Kuai' (the price was later dropped to 3). The sign was just a joke to discourage photos, and it did make a lot of people laugh. Yet, as the night wore on, groups of Chinese business men and a few Chinese couples started taking us up on the offer. At the peak of the business, Lindsey was walking through the crowd drawing in the most susceptible prey with her blond hair and I was barking out the deal in Chinese (three foreigners and you, only three kuai!). We ended up making about 90 kuai in half an hour...not too bad.

Awww...

Classic Chinese Man