Updates

1. If you want to test your chopstick skills, try picking up peanuts individually. Thats what they do in China. I think Joe and I have become pretty good at it actually. They fry all the peanuts themselves in salt and oil, then you have them in a little dish on the dinner table. They are good, but hard to pick up for the chopstick novice.

2. Joe is now the proud owner of a new watch. Bought on the street outside our school at a store that sells everything a chinese school boy or girl could want, at first glance it looks very mascaline, maybe even designer or something fancy. Then every 2.5 seconds the face of Hello Kitty appears!! Ahhh ha ha Joe says arggghhh Hello Kitty is for little girls!!! Arghhhh!
I think its funny, although now it has stopped giving good time, but hey it was only about 3 US dollars.

3. Fishing: We told a friend of ours here that we liked fishing. Next thing you know it she planned a fishing trip for us, where we left at 8 in the morning one sunday. Ahhh We teach on saturdays so sundays are our day to sleep in!! But we thought Buck up , cause its fishing and we are Minnesota folk, so a lake is where we wanna be!
We drove to this country farm house and there was this lake, or maybe I should say pond. We thought oh man we will be here all day and never catch a thing.
Then we threw out our line, which is only a stick attached to a string pretty much and threw it out there with a worm. Within 5 mins we got a cat fish, no joke!!!
We kept going back and forth and between the two of us we caught 5 fish!! Joe and Emily, the people that never catch anything!! The man said after someone translated "wow, your good at fishing" We told him, ahh not usually!
The other men that were with us were fishing for giant carp. We thought, uhhh I hope we dont eat that, but the carp are good in china I guess. When they fish for carp here, they have the same giant strick thing as we did, but they also have a huge rock attached to the string. So everytime they throw it in theres this huge splash! Then they set it down and wait for a tug.
When they caught the carp, I got a little scared. All of a sudden the stick tugged really hard, almost going into the pond, then the man picked up the stick and started to back up and drag it in. I thought he caught swamp thing, he was tugging so hard! Then another man reached in a got the giant fish. It was huge!
We then were asked to stay for lunch, which of course was fish soup, fryed fish and another fish dish. We also had pork and chicken. All the men of the fishing party, our friend Erin and I were seated at this round table, that was in what looked more like a barn then a dining room, but hey its country life.
Then the men started handing out beers as usual and they even gave us a rice wine that the farm owner makes himself. (I have to also say that the volunteer that was here before us could drink 20 beers, so they think Joe can do this too, he is american right?) So they refused to give up giving Joe the rice wine. We toasted which must have been 1,000 times. Joe looks at me and all of a sudden notices that there is a chicken that has wondered in the room. He now decides to coin the phrase, " theres a "f" in chicken behind you" as he chuckles. I think to myself oh man , how we gonna get him home. But luckily all the men stopped drinking when Joe could not finish his beer and made me finish it for him. They knew to stop then. Ha ha
anyways It was a great time, we actually ended up finding out the men that were fishing with us were 1. the man in charge of our electricity, 2. our landlord. 3. another headmaster from the school, 4. the schools accountant, 5. the farm owner. 6,7, and 8 I have no idea who they were or what they were doing there, but in China when you are cooking a big meal, you always share with your family and friends. so they couldve been anybody. Its nice to know who is taking care of our place though.
4. When chinese people say its going to get cold, believe them! It has been soooo hot all summer. We sweat every drop of water from our bodies most days. Someone said oh, yeah in 3 days it will be cold. We thought yeah right no way is it going to get too cold.
It has now been 5 days since then and now we are wearing sweaters! Crazy!!!

5. CCTV: Joe and I had our classes taped today. We are going to be on a television commericial for the school. A school having a foreign teacher is a big deal, so I guess we will be on chinese tv.
I will try and get a tape of it and show all of you.
It was serious buisness, there was a camera crew and they even had an interview session with some of the students about us.
I had to laugh, I have been sick the last few days so of course they tape me when my nose is red and I can barely talk because of a sore throat. Oh well Im on Chinese TV!!!!!