Ryan & Julie in China: It's Saturday

Hello All,

Thank goodness I am feeling better today. Teaching 4 classes with a tummy ache is not fun.

Since the school does not provide food to us on the weekends, we must fend for ourselves. Last night we went to a local bakery to buy some bread for breakfast. We ended up buying croissant rolls, a loaf of cinnamon bread and some cookies. Most of the cookies didn't make it back home. The bread is delicious too; we had to taste it before bedtime.

This morning we had a pretty lazy morning. We watched some t.v. on hulu and did laundry. There are only washing machines, no dryers. We lay our dedicates around the house on various pieces of furniture and hang the rest of the items in a closest. Anything that would wrinkle, we take to the dry cleaner. It's about about 50 cents piece.

Next we were off to get a massage, do some errands and eat lunch. I wrote down the Chinese characters for massage before we went to the spa. After about 5 minutes of talking to the spa employees, everyone had figured out why we were there. First off, they don't massage men so poor Ryan missed out. My massage was terrific. I got to listen to Ryan talk to the other employees in broken English; it was pretty entertaining. I am going back tomorrow for a facial. Errands can be interesting because we can't read in Chinese. Yesterday, Ryan asked the other English teachers where he could get contact solution. They said he needs to buy it at an eye doctor's office. One of the other teacher's found out and said she had some new extra bottles Ryan can have. Next stop was the little mini mart type store across the street. We are looking for floor mats, q-tips, and hand soap. No floors mats. We found some soap but couldn't tell if it was hand soap. I did find q-tips. We also picked up some grape juice and diet soda. Next, we went to a slightly bigger market down the street. We were able to find the rest of the stuff on the list. Success.

After shopping, we went to lunch. Wanted something light as we are meeting a teacher's friends for dinner. We went to our "usual" place. We have been there about 5 times so I think that qualifies as our usual. We ordered the same thing we ordered the first time we went there: spinach with peanuts, and a dish with chicken, bean sprouts, noodles, some grass looking vegetable, eggs, and some soft taco shell type things.

Then we were off to meet one of the English teacher's friends. It was the parents of a students she tutors. Everyone spoke very little English and the English teacher helped translate some. We had a good time getting to know everyone. When they asked us about our day, I say I got a massage and showed them the attempt at writing massage in Chinese. The dad who is a Chinese teacher thought was writing was very funny. I think I need more practice! They took us on a tour around the area. They were having dumplings for dinner and let us try to make some. We need some practice on that too. They said after 30 years we might be a good as they are at making them. Dinner was wonderful. So many things. We had duck eggs for the first time. They were salty. Not sure if that's the way they come or if seasoning was added. We enjoyed the dumplings. We had pork dumplings and vegetable dumplings. We don't know what the vegetable was but it looks like grass but tastes pretty good.