Friday 14 September 2012

Dear family and friends,
My blog is not working quite right yet and so Annie has instructed me to post something this way. If if works, and please someone let me know, then I will try to add pictures. So far I cannot read comments or see what the blog really looks like, but enjoy our experience with us anyway.

Here are a list of things that I am getting used to.

- humid heat and being wet all of the time
- walking
- showering with no curtain or even shower stall
- disinfecting vegetables and fruit
- eating wonderful vegetables and fruit
- thinking about eating vegetable dumplings at the favourite dumpling place just off campus in what I call "dumpling alley" for 30 yuan ($5), which will feed 4 people easily
- the lush beauty of the campus compared to dumpling alley
- having a student helper on demand. The student volunteers and office staff have been more than helpful and they have been needed
- using a little washing machine on our balcony
- adjusting drying time with wet laundry as it takes a long time to dry hanging out on the balcony
- remembering the good scent of clothes air dried outside
- having frizzy hair
- listening to the noise in the trees at night…at first I thought they were birds, then a tree full of monkeys, but Don wonders if they are tree frogs. They make a racket . Does anyone know?


It has been a very busy week for us. The apartment took a bit of work. The technology is still taking time.
We have had meetings and welcome dinners and have enjoyed meeting the people that are supervising us. We are now ready to venture farther afield even though we haven't explored all of the campus yet. We went to the Metro and it is modern with signs in English also, which is pretty rare here.

I appreciate the emails from home and it helps prevent homesickness, which I probably won't feel until Christmas. We are just too busy and are having a great adventure so far. It is an interesting experience to be the obvious foreigner and yet feel so comfortable.

Jane, I have your purple duct tape pen on my bookcase.
Kathryn, there is a volunteer helper named Kokimo who looks like you. The students take an English first name when they take an English class and hers has been Kokimo for a long time. We think it is funny since that was the name of an old Beach Boys song.
Grandpa Wood, you might be interested in knowing that I have heard a number of people here and on the Hong Kong TV channel refer to our city as Canton, so it still must be known as that.

Assignment: Look up Sun Yat-sen. There is a statue of him at the gate of our campus and he is an important figure in Chinese history. Sometime we will take a bus to his memorial. You kids, that means you Ben, can report on what you have learned.

Dad/Don has been 100% enthralled with being here this week. Me too.
Next week classes start and we will be happy when that hurdle is over.

Photos coming.