Back In The PRC

Hey Folks, welcome back. Well Year Two here in China is officially underway. I've been here in Jilin for one week now, moving into my new apartment, catching up with old friends, and making some new ones. In a lot of ways it feels like I never left.

I just wanted to take a moment to say thanks to all the people who hosted me during my travels this summer. It was great catching up with all of you. And if for some reason I didn't get a chance to make it out to your particular neck of the woods, I apologize for that. Seven weeks goes by faster than you would think.

This year Cletus and I have moved into new apartments, this time right next to the campus instead of ten minutes away. The new pad is a little smaller than our old one, but far nicer. We have hot running water (no more waiting a half-hour for the water to heat up), new washing machines (no more washing everything by hand), faster internet (and greater access to websites, including my own blog), microwaves (now I can bring home leftovers), toaster ovens/coffee machines (neither of us drink coffee, but if we did....), and dish sanitizers (which I will NEVER use). I guess you could call us the Kings of Convenience....

The building we live in is called "The Friendship Hotel." Aside form Cletus, Father Jim, and myself (the foreign teachers), it also houses all of the foreign students at Beihua. The latter group is made up of Koreans, Russians, a few Japanese, even fewer Somalians, and a whole lot of Pakistanis. The Pakistanis have been a lot of fun getting to know. The other night I was out with a group of them playing some lat night cricket.

We don't start teaching until the 11th, so we've definitely got some time to kill. There's been some talk about an outing of some sort to pass the time, but we'll see. We don't have our schedules yet, but that's to be expected. I'm sure they'll call us in on the 10th and hand them out. This week was spent mostly just trying to move in, unpack all my things from last year, hang posters, do some laundry, do some shopping, get caught up on my emails, sign up for fantasy football, etc. You know, important stuff. The week has gone fast though. This morning I was talking to a friend online, and he kindly informed me that today was Saturday, not Friday. I guess I need to hang my calendar.

Tonight we're going out to dinner with a friend who lives near our old apartments. Zhang opened a dumpling restaurant right after we moved in last year, and we got to know him because of that. But he had to close down, only to reopen as a vegetable store, only to be shut down again, reopen as a welding shop, got shut down again, and now I think he's letting his sister use it to sell handicrafts and trinkets to the middleschool crowd. Anyway, he's one of the friendliest guys in Jilin, doesn't speak a lick of English, and loves to take us out to dinner.

So that's about it on this side of the Earth. I've promised people back home to do a better job of keeping up with this thing, so we'll see how that goes. If you all keep me up to date with things back home, I'm sure I can find a way to do the same.

Peace,
Aaron