Two weeks ago was National Day, which is sort of a Chinese Fourth of July. And in China, like in the US, there are fireworks (as there are pretty much every week), and some people also ate barbacued meat. However, instead of just one day to have a picnic and wave flags, here many people had a whole week off school or work. Being some of those people, my sister and I decided to do a little in-country traveling, seeing some sights and going through some bigger cities. I felt a little like a small-town boy, amazed at how big the cities were, how many western commodities they had, the traffic, pollution, and the prices. For instance, a taxi in our town is usually about 7-8 yuan ( 1 USD), but we took some taxis in other cities that cost 3 and 4 times that much! I know that being shocked at the expense of a $4 taxi ride is laughable in the States, but on a Chinese salary that's a lot!

Although it was nice to see a little more of the country, I was glad to head back to the blue skies, low prices, and familiar faces of our small city. And also the jianzi. One night after playing I ran into a friend (we'll call him Jim) eating at little street barbacue place with some of his friends, and he invited me to join them. He then proceeded to order a good amount of some unidentifiable meat for me to eat, despite my protests that I was full. I couldn't make out exactly what the pieces were in the dark, but I was under the impression that they were some sort of squid pieces or maybe animal fat. I managed to get them (and keep them) down, aided largely by frequent swigs of banana soda.

This month a new English teacher from Canada, Lorraine, started working at our school. She's adjusted really quickly, has had a really good attitude, and has taken over some of our classes, which has been great for Michelle and me. Now instead of finishing at almost 8:00 six days a week, I have a night or two off, which has been great. I now have the time to prepare things for dinner other than ramen noodles, and also have gotten back into language study.

Here are some pictures we took on our trip in the city of Xi An, the ancient capital of China. We rode around the top of the city walls, visited historic sites, and saw the famous Terra-cotta Warriors- built to guard the tomb of the Qin Emperor over 2000 years ago.
They're pretty awes.

The sky was always this gray color. These pictures were taken around mid-day. Sometimes a small, sickly orange orb would be visible in the sky, which we realized was the sun.