Mailing Address

I know this is being posted quite late, but if any of you EVER EVER want to send us mail, postcards, or packages below is our mailing address. Be sure to put the names below (they are our passport names). Recieving mail is like winning the lottery here. We love it!

Jessica Chapman and Charles Sheppard
ISSC
166 Nanguang Rd.
Nanshan District
Shenzhen, P.R. China
518052

Crazy week

Greg and I have been very busy since our last blog entry. I still haven't posted pictures from our last adventure. My digital camera isn't working well so it's taking me long than excepted to get them up. Next week we have to enter our marks for our first report cards, which means this week I have anywhere from 200-250 pieces of artwork to mark and record. It's going to be a really long week.

Eric Smith has been in town for the past couple of days giving some PD sessions at the college. He also gave our school a PD session on Word walls yesterday. I was able to receive some halloween snacks and cards from home and he brought me a couple of things that I needed from Canada. It was great!! It's so nice to have him around. He'll be leaving on Thursday for Beijing.

This past weekend Greg went out and bought a full set to Titleist golf clubs. He paid about 200$ Canadian from them and they are apparently worth a couple thousand. He was able to go to a gold range to try them out as well. It's about 200$ Canadain here to go for one round of golf, so the driving range will have to do for now. Land is so exspensive that golfing is only for the most elite members of China.

For now I have to go back to lesson planning and marking.

ps. I tried wearing pants last week and learned my lesson. I'm back in skirts everyday.

October

Sorry we have not written in a while. We've become lost in the everyday life of China. Since we last wrote Greg has purchased a new guitar that he has been playing on a regular basis. He has also started coaching the basketball team along with volley ball and basketball as an after school activity. At lunch he is even sharing his talents with a few students by giving them guitar lessons. I have finally joined a gym near by, but other than that find that I'm spending a lot of time preparing for my classes each day. I was able to see an orthodontist on Monday who spoke very clear English and was able to change my wire and elastics. I plan to see him every two months. It is most definitely cheap to have dental work done here than back home. If ever you in China go get some work done!
On the 11th we were fortunate enough to have a staff Thanksgiving potluck, which was very yummy. We had turkey, gravy, double baked potatoes, and pumpkin pie. Greg and I brought a punch (that we made last minute and at random) which was a big hit!
The following night, on the 12th, was Greg and my 8th year anniversary. Greg bought me a plant that I have fallen in love with. (I got him nothing cause I'm a bum) and we went out to a fancy restaurant for supper. It was called LSD party. Greg and I sat at table that could probably sit 8 people. We each had a large white sofa to ourselves. The ceiling was full of white branches, lights and many many plastic bubbles. It was very dark int he room, most likely so we could see the projection on the large wall to our left. To eat we started with a "large" bowl of caeser salad and a bottle of white wine. Greg ordered smoked duck breast with mashed potatoes and gravy. I had cod with asparagus and saute tomatoes. We both shared a side of pesto. They definitely side with quality over quantity... but the food was very tasty!! Greg gives his duck an A cup at best. Since we still had a bit of room in our bellies after our 519 RMB meal we decided to stop at Starbucks for a slice of new york cheese cake, coffee and a tea.
This past weekend we celebrated one of friends birthdays by going to the nearby skating rink for some amusement. The rink is hidden on the 4th floor of a mall complex that is about a 10 minute walk from us. Greg says it was a full size hockey rink, but it looked like it was being used for a lot more figure skating than hockey. We were able to rent skates there (Greg's were 3 sizes too small, but that was the biggest they had). The rink was quite warm, so I have no clue how the ice wasn't melting, but we were able to wear shorts and t-shirts. There were quite a few Chinese people on it. A lot of children were getting taught figure skating in the middle as the rest of us circled around.
We have also been going to a park nearby for a random stroll every so often. It is only 2 blocks away from us and it very well kept. A lot of people go there to fly kites, play card games on table, sit with their families in the shade, or just run some laps (one man even ran with an umbrella to keep himself cool). The temperature here has still been quite warm, but the nights are finally cooling down. I might try to wear pants one day soon. I have been living in summer dresses for way too long.
...pictures about some of these events will be posted soon!

Guilin/Yangshuo

As you have already read, we have been spoiled here with a week off of holidays already. We joined in with a group of 9 teachers from our school to travel to the beautiful cities of Guilin and Yangshuo. We left bright and early Thursday morning at 6:30am to catch our one hour flight from Shenzhen airport to Guilin airport. We decided to leave early because October 1st is one of the busiest travelling holidays of the year. Thankfully we beat the crowds, but we did have a long wait until our flight…but Starbucks was found and all was good.
The closer and closer the plan flew to Guilin the odder the landscape became. The best way I could describe it is looking at flat terrain with mountain side rocks sitting on it. It almost looked like God had stuck his fingers up through the earth to create these weird shaped mountains. You’ll have to look at picture to understand. Upon arriving we jumped a cab to our “International” hotel, which ended up being a really nice hotel (expect for the fact that they spoke very little English and had very little recognizable food at the restaurant). In the end we discovered that a short bus ride would take us where ever we need to go and we were able to find some good food. Some of us ran into the old Guilin University (which is now a tourist attraction) and explored its old buildings, learnt some history and even climbed a very steep rocklike mountain that gave a beautiful view of the city. Mom you would have had a heart attack on the way up, one again at the view at the top and probably would have died looking at the steps going down… it was quite steep. All in all our first night went well.
Early Friday morning we packed our bags again and took a taxi to our river cruise to Yangshuo. The port was filled with many tourist (Chinese as well as others) who were all gung-ho to take a relaxing cruise down the river. Most of the boats were about the same size. Each had an upper and lower deck and could probably hold about 60 people. The chairs were all leather couches and the boat had a small bar and kitchen on board. We had booked tickets to sit on the top deck, which was awesome! And spent four hours boating through rock-like mountains and beautiful rural scenery. Most mountains had historic meanings and were said to be shaped like certain animals. The best part was when we travelled through the mountains that are printed on the 20 yuan bill. Everyone really went nuts for their cameras then. We also took many pictures of water buffalo that could be found eating along the short lines, locals fishing on bamboo rafts and rock-mountains that were apparently shaped like animals and people (although most times we could find them). Interestingly there was a group of six adults who sat in the seats behind us who were from Calgary! They were all Chinese, but lived in Canada and were touring on their vacation. We compared travel plans and had a great ride with them. Our meal on the boat was provided with our tickets and thankfully was quite normal; however they did come around at one point to ask if we would like a shot of snake wine. This invite was given to us from a Chinese lady would was holding a large glad bottle of yellow tinted water which actually contained several snake skins and other random unidentifiable objects. Of course Greg and our friends Ross and Amy all decided to live a little and try one. As disgusting as the bottle look, the shot (apparently) wasn’t that bad. No thanks!
Several hours later we grabbed our luggage and got off the boat into the city of Yangshou. Here we were met with many tourist shops and hundreds of tourists. We blew past them to get a taxi to our hotel. We stayed at the Snow Lion Resort about 10 minutes outside of the very busy city. William, the owner of the hotel provided us with everything we needed; taxis to and from wherever we need to go, day adventures, and a lot of valuable travelling information. He was fluent in English and extremely helpful. Our hotel was small, but had everything we needed. We were able to book tours, rent bikes, eat Chinese or Western food and most importantly we were able to meet so many others travellers who were staying there. It had the relaxing atmosphere of a hotel with the luxury of a hotel. It was perfect! Our first evening was spent downtown Yangshuo, going through the many shops bartering for souvenirs and eating supper at a not so amazing restaurant.
Saturday morning at 9am Greg and I had the bright idea that we were going to tour the country side on bicycles and then climb a well known rock-mountain. With our backpack in hand and water bottles full we headed out to travel through some of China’s rural small towns. We meet many stray chickens, saw countless fields of crop, and shouted ‘Ni-hoa’ to almost every local we passed. The trails were at time quite bumpy, but the views were breathtaking. After three hours of biking, several stops in the shade and over 4 water bottles, 3 sprites and one beer we decided that we might have bitten off more than we could chew. Our butts were in full fledge pain from the stiff bicycle seats and the sun had taken its toll on our skin. We were still full of adventure and still wanting to soak in as much of China’s countryside as we possible could, but we didn’t know how much our bodies could handle it without a good meal and a long rest. We got lost a few times, played charades with some locals to figure out where we were on our small map and after what seemed like 5 years we found the well known rock-mountain we were hoping to climb. Here we were able to eat a good full meal and rest for half an hour as we waited for our friend Maria and Ross to meet up with us. Then we climbed up Moon Hill, which took us a total of 30 minutes, but seemed like pure torture after our bike ride. The apparently 800 steps on the way up were very steep, and sometimes crooked, but there were many breaking areas and the end view was well worth it. We were able to look out on a nearby village as well as see the neighbouring mountain that contained a half moon like shaped whole right through it. The climb down was much easier. Our bike ride back to the hotel was supposed to be direct and much much shorter, but we ended up getting lost again (the map we had extremely inadequate). We did eventually get home (it was almost 6pm), but it took over an hour and made me never want to ride a bike ever again. Our evening was spent at the hotel celebrating the moon festival. The hotel had decided to put on a buffet/party for anyone in the hotel who wanted to participate. For 60yuan (10 Canadian) we had all we can eat. The BBQ was set up on the terrace outside of the hotel, lights were strung in the trees and table and chairs were set out so we could really enjoy the countryside. After supper William (the owner) brought out fireworks to set off. As you can image we were both completely pooped and headed to bed early.
Our next morning we decided to keep our adventure going and joined a small group of staff members to go visit this butterfly park. After the biking adventure we thought it would be best to just taxi around Yangshuo for the day. The butterfly, to make a long story short, was rather disappointing. It did have a waterfall and we went through a few small caves, but it took very little time to walk through and we saw a total of 2 butterflies. With much of the day left we decided to taxi into town for more shopping and lunch at a wood fire pizza restaurant. Our afternoon was spent relaxing at the hotel. We had wanted to go to this spectacular light show that night, but the tickets were all sold out, so we ate at the hotel and enjoyed each others company.
While at the market in Yangshuo Greg fell in love with these old coins that were at some of the antique shops. After bargaining with many different vendors for a good price he ended up purchasing 10 of these small coins. The coins are about the same size as our Canadian nickel. They have a small square hole in the middle of them and very different symbols on each side. We were later able to ask William what they were. He said they were used back in an ancient dynasty when their emperor was from Mongolia. One side of the coin has the currency written in Chinese and the other side is written in Mongolian symbols. Even though those symbols were used for a period of time only 10% of the Chinese population would be able to read them. The square in the middle is there for two reasons; 1. So that people could keep their money on a string instead of carry around wallets. They would just attach it all together and second because the square was the represent earth. At that time they thought the earth was square and the sky was round and that on the corners of the earth there were large poles to keep up the sky. That is why the coin is round, to represent the sky. I thought it was pretty neat.
On our last day of our adventure we got up early to take a 4 hour van ride to these beautiful rice terraced fields. Past the odd shaped rock mountains, in a different part of the countryside, many small villages can be found way up in several sets of rolling mountains. Before we started our drive up the mountains our driver thankfully let us grab a snack and a washroom break. Here is where I found one of the most disgusting bathroom I have ever seen in my entire life (comparable to rural Mexico, but in a different way). There were stalls, but no doors and in the stall there was only a trough to be found. This trough ran from one stall to the next. All you could do was squat, hold your breath and hope your aim was good. There was no place to put your toilet paper, so there was a pile of T.P. (and other ‘supplies’) stacked in the corner of every stall. It was horrible! But I did it. After our lovely bathroom experience we began our very long drive up the winding, thin, high roads of the mountains. If you are scared of heights you could only close your eyes and pray you made through the mountains. When we finally did arrive to the rice terraced fields we were not disappointed. They were amazing. To see endless man made fields all made on the mountain to help the villagers grow crops. It looks like giants steps up and down each side. To see how many they made is shocking. They appear never ending. We were able to climb up to the top of one of these fields and get a real view of the scenery. The hike was over an hour and a half to the top and less than half and hour on the way down. It was a great workout and candy for the eyes. I will never forget it.
Our last night was spent in Guilin. We just had a quite supper at an Italian restaurant, and then Greg wasn’t feeling bed so we went to bed early to be ready for our flight home the next morning. Now we are back home with a few days off until we start classes again. I’ve been working on my year plans while Greg is playing his new guitar.

Vacation Soon

China is about to celebrate one of its National holidays. "The National Day of the People's Republic of China is celebrated every year on October 1. It is a public holiday in the People's Republic of China to celebrate its national day. The National Day is celebrated throughout mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau with a variety of government-organized festivities, including fireworks and concerts. Public places, such as Tiananmen Square in Beijing, are decorated in a festive theme." This year is the 60th anniversary, so I presume it will be big. At school we have a whole week off start Thursday. We only come back for a PD day on Friday so the students have a week and a half off school.

Greg and I have decided to join in on a staff trip to Guilin and Yangshu China. We take an hour flight there on Thursday morning and will be gone for 6 days. There are 11 of us travelling together so far and the trip looks to be very exciting. We have already booked a 6 hours book cruse down one of China's prettiest rivers so pretty that the mountains we are passing have been printed on their 20 dollar bill. We will also have the opportunity to go hiking, cave exploring, biking and of course shopping. It should be quite adventurous. I will try and bring my laptop so I can keep everyone updated on our excursion.

To see some pictures of Guilin check out this website…
http://www.chinatravel.com/photos/tags/guilin/related-links/index-2.htm

and here are some for Yangshuo…
http://www.chinatravel.com/album/showsearch.asp

Fairyland Botanical Gardens

This Sunday a group of staff members had decided to spend the morning at this place called The Fairyland Botanical Garden and we decided to tag along. After taking an hour long bus ride outside of our district we arrive not far from the park site. The entrance to the park had huge temple-like arch way where we were able to take a bus for 2 yuons up to the main Buddhist temple that was at the top of the park. Once we got to this temple we were each given 3 long sticks of incense. We eventually found out that in the temple square people go around and kneel to pray at each different Buddha statue. It’s almost like little stations that you go to. You light your incense at one large candle lighting shed. Then you are suppose to go to the first Buddha, wait for your turn to kneel at the foot of the statues and hold the 3 incense to your forehead as you pray. After going to all the statues you walk even futher up the temple to visit a Buddhist Monk. Here we had to wait in line to see him, but it was well worth it. This monk is the most respected of all Shenzhen and was 103 years old. When we entered his temple (a place that does not allow cameras) we gave him an offering in a small red envelope, most people knelt at his feet and we left. He looked like a sweet old man, and definitely did not look that old. On our way out the temple Jessica jokingly said “I would do anything for an ice cream right now” and the Buddhist Gods must have heard her because after it was said our group walked around a corner and found an ice cream stand. Here we sat for a short break and snack. After the temple we decided to explore the rest of the park. We took walking paths through a bamboo forest that had little waterfalls and streams running through it. We walked through an open field with statues and grand trees passed a small lake that you could boat across. By this time we were quite tired and getting hungry so we decided to find our way out of the park (which took long enough) and took the first bus home. There were many other gardens in the park that we could have visited, but we’ll safe that for another day. We took lots of nice pictures and were back at the school with still a half of a day left to spare. We’ll definitely go back.

Chicken

So, Monday at lunch I had duty out behind the side of school. I had just finished shoving a sandwich into my face and had to run out my res. door because I was late. As I approached the back field on campus I saw several student congregated around a small bush. One yelled out “Teacher, teacher!! There is a chicken”. I laughed and kept on walking saying ‘yes kids…” they’re usually playing some sort of game, so I thought nothing of it. Another students yelled “No teacher really really. Chicken is real!” At this moment I began to have a little panic. A Chinese chicken, which gods no what kind of diseases is running around campus and the students are hoping to pet it!! As I got closer to this small bush I realized they were not lying. In the bush sat a small hen. He was light brown and looked very calm. His feet were tied together with a small string, making me assume that he may have escaped from the cooks in the cafeteria. I immediately cleared the scene, notified the principal and waited for help to arrive. By now the excited students had rallied others to come and check out the chicken. After much ‘shooing’ of children and a couple of visit from staff members, the two female cleaning ladies from the school were sent to save the day. Neither of these ladies spoke a word of English…not even Hello. I directed them to the chicken bush and went back to handling the crowd, that had now gather (it wasn’t big, but rather very excited). Here’s where it gets interesting….the cleaning ladies then proceed to stick their hands into the bush in an attempt to grab the fowl. The chicken began to squawk. Feathers were spurting in ever direction! It was ridiculous. The cleaning ladies burst in hysterics as they followed the now running chicken to the next bush. One lady made a dive for it, but missed. The next tried to corner it into a certain direction to be caught, but was unsuccessful. Rather amusingly the chicken found its way into the school and proceeded to run down the hallways. Yes you read right, it was in the hallways of the school. As you can now image the crowd I was trying to control had gone wild and loved the free entertainment. Thankfully, one cleaning lady made a grab for the chicken when it was next to a locker and was able to catch it. We were all having a pretty good laugh at this point. The chicken, which was now in the arms of the Chinese cleaning lady, was calm once again, but began squawking as it was carried down the hallway…..o China how you amuse me.

So far this weekend

Just a little late night update. Today (Saturday) we got up and went to a place close by called 'Bookcity' which is basically a Chapters times 4 or 5. It's a five story book store that is also a music store, art supply store, and electronic store ....but mainly books. Every larger store in china has basically everything in it, no matter what it's specialty is. Every other store is what we like to call ' a hole in the wall' about the size of a small one car garage that sells only one or two main things. These tiny stores are EVERYWHERE...no seriously and they are sidebyside in every corner of the city. And they all pretty much sell the same things (bags or girls clothing or shoes or sunglasses). you know the basics in shopping. Anywho, Greg was on the lookout for a cheap guitar he could play while he was here and I was on the lookout for art supplies. I found LOADS of things to buy, Greg however was disapointed. He has found a store nearby that he thinks he can get a pretty good guitar at, so we'll probably look there again in the next few days. Myself, I was pretty overwhlemed with Bookcity. It had so many things I wanted to buy! I controlled myself though and only bought things for my classroom. It was a great morning and ended it off with a late lunch at a Thai restaurant (Which is probably now one of my favorite places to eat in the whole world). I will take anyone there if they come visit. Yum! Tomorrow our plans are to go visit a really neat park and temple that is an hour bus ride. We'll take lots of pictures.

H1N1

First off, I am so sorry that it had taken us so long to write again. For those of you who don't know China controls what websites you are allowed to go on. Facebook is obviously blocked as well as the site our blog is on. We have been given a 'patch' to get through to these sites, but they don't always work. The past few days it hasn't been working, however this morning it is a go!!

This post is all about China's obsession with H1N1. Most teachers are finding their precautionary measures to be a bit overwhleming, while others are glad they are going to extremes to make sure very few people catch the virus. Apparently their many rules and regulations on keeping H1N1 to a minimum have been created because of China's lack of action when SARS was around. Many people died in China from SARS and the world condemmed them for not doing enough, so now they have gone to another extreme.

Below is what our school is doing to keep us safe (and drive us insane :) )
The term "spray" is used, but it is more of a fogging mechanism that disperses the disinfectant:

All classrooms are to be sprayed 1 time after school everyday. All student dormitories are to be sprayed 1 time in the morning everyday. All public areas are to be sprayed daily and wiped down dailyAll teacher's residences and offices are to be sprayed 2 times a week (Teacher Residences on Tuesday and Friday mornings at 8:30AM, Offices on Tuesdays and Friday at 5:30PM) UV Disinfecting Lights have been installed in all classrooms and will be on from 2AM-4AM everyday. Face masks are available at the clinic
If you are feeling sick, please notify your respective principals and do not attend classes.

Please take note to do the following: Cover or put away anything edibleCover or put away all eating utensils, cups, toothbrushes, etcPut away clothingPlease put away valuables Upon entering the classroom/office/residence (30 mins after spraying), please open windows and doors for airing out.

Teacher residences and staff/teacher offices are required to be disinfected on a regular basis due to the possibility of carrying the virus from surface to surface. There is possibility of carrying it from your hands, clothes, shoes, etc from one point to another as the virus can be active for a few hours in open space. So please wash/disinfect your hands regularly.

The disinfectant spray is Chlorine Dioxide (CIO2) and I have attached information regarding it with this email. This is a very safe type of disinfectant. These procedures are the requirement from the Health Authorities in Shenzhen for the time being.

Crazy eh? And if we have 3 or more students or staff on site who have the virus our school may be shut down. It doesn't say how long for. Right now we're fighting to get some things relaxed and just going along with the rest of it.

We hope to write soon again!!

Typhoon Day

We had a lot of rain and wind last night. It woke me up really early. We were told last night before we went to bed that school would be cancelled!! :) So we had a Typhoon Day! It's not as amazing as a Snow Day because we still had to go to work, however there were no kids to teach so most of the staff was able to work on our year plans. The amount of rain that fell last night and today would have definitely flooded many downshore basements.

1st full week of school done!

We have completed our first full week of school!! YAY! It flew by so fast. There are approx. 180 students at the school this year and the class sizes range from 7 students to 23. Most of them are angels and the marjority of them love art, which is much different compared to NB. Dicipline is definitely low but the skill levels in each grade have a wide range. Some students are keener and love to excel in class, others are only try hard because their parents make them. And then there is the last group of students who have very low English speaking skills. So I could blab on all I want, but they have no freakin' clue what I'm saying. Often I get another student to translate the important parts, but sometime the students won't even admit that they don't understand. It's those students I worry about because I can't tell if they know what I'm saying or not. My students are at higher levels than in NB, so I'm up for the challenge of coming up with great lessons for them!! I have been teaching kindergarten to grade 10 right now, so I have to plan for 10 different lessons. It seems like a lot, but right now I'm also getting anywheres from 2-4 preps A DAY! I have a lot of time to prepare. My art room, as you may have already seen, is loaded with art supplies of all different sorts.

Greg so far has been doing all sorts of different jobs at the school. He eventually will be helping out certain students in certain classes with their work (like a TA), but right now they need time to identify those students, so Greg has two main tasks: 1. He makes a lot of photocopies and 2. He's been helping out a boy in grade 3 who has ADHD. He helps in class to stay on task and control is temper (I think). He is also coaching the girls volleyball team twice a week and doing basketball.

We start school at 8am every day and end at 4pm. I have a key to my room so I can walk over and work there whenever I like. All in all we are really liking work so far.

Taxis and IKEA

Sitting in the back of a taxi cab in china is like playing a really scary video game that you have little control of. Seatbelts are hard to come by. The communication barrier is at an all time high. Pronouncing one syllable wrong can take you on a adventure pretty quick. Some will understand where you want to go, but take you the long way around to get there because you're white. The are however dirt cheap. 3-4$ can take you most places you want to go near by. Their driving is what make them scary. Two lanes of traffic can turn into four cars wide. Our taxi driver passed two cars by driving in between them on the line. No matter what lane you're in you can turn, and pass. No blinker is needed most times, a warning honk will do. They are very comfortable driving on 8 lanes weaving in and out of traffic passing others with only 3 or 4 inches between them. There is a lot of holding your breath when you're in one, but we have rarely seen any accidents and most of the time they are only driving 60 km/h. We are beginning to trust them.

Today we took our adventure to IKEA which is really close by the school and was yet another overwhelming experience. IKEA to China is more entertaining than it is a place to shop. People will come to sleep on the beds and chairs. They come to take pictures of the show rooms. Parents bring their children there for the day to play on the game table or run around the store. The place was packed!! We purchased several organizational things for ourselves, as well as some thing to pretty up our place. We will be taking pictures of our room soon and posting them for all to see.

Food/Our first Shopping Spree

We have so much to tell you! First off, our food has so far been amazing. We've eaten a lot of rice, noodles and sushi...but those have mostly been our side dishes. We adjusted to using chop-sticks very quickly and have purchased some to eat at our residence. We've slowly been purchasing our own food and even plan to go to an international grocery store tomorrow morning to fill our fridge with things we recognize. The local grocery store are quite interesting....quite!! I can not begin to discribe how wierd it is. One weird thing is in the seafood department you can buy live fish, ok so thats not that interesting, but you have to catch it with your BARE HANDS! The first time we walked in there was a fish flopping on the floor because a customer had dropped it. Instead of having a huge one storey grocery store it is spilt into 3 levels. We can't read any of the packaging or price tags, but luckily there is some, very few, but some english. We have seen vaccuum sealed chicken feet in the aisles. Alot of the juice, meat and even milk is sold at room temperature....sketchy. Beer and liquor is sold everywhere, Walmart, IKEA, every street vendor and you can drink it anywheres. There is apparently no enforced age limit either. Greg is currently buying his beer for 66 cents Canadain, and that's for a quart(600ml). We've been eating Skippy peanut butter, toast, bananas and Jessica even found decent ICECREAM!!! As for restaurants, we went to this really cool place nicknamed 'The Sushi Train'. Here you sit at a counter and there is a conveyer belt that takes small sushi plates around a tiny kitchen where they make all the sushi. If you see a plate that you like you just take it off the track and they charge you later. Greg has been brave enough to eat raw fish eggs wrapped in seaweed. One that we both liked was rice wrapped in raw salmon. Yum! But there were others that were too daring for us, such as raw octopus tenticles in seaweed...mmmm tempting. Most of the food we have eaten is really good and filling. We've never finished a meal and we've never come close to paying over 10$ Canadian for a meal. Greg went to a Korean BBQ pub, ate lamb, mutton, chicken, deep fried potatoes, oysters, green beans, and 4 beer for 42 yuan, which about 7$ Canadian!!
Friday night we had a mustache party and went out for a night on the town, but we'll skip that part and go right to all the fun we had today. We got up early and went to a market, but really it was a HUUUUUUGE mall (5 floors) with a gazillion tiny stores in it. Here we had our first shopping spree. It hurts me to tell you how little we are paying for things, but lets just say we got 3 dresses, 2 sunglasses, a wallet, a purse, 2 oil paintings (real ones) and one necklace for... 1000 yuan, it sounds like a lot, but if you do the conversion it's about 160$. We posted a picture of our first round of purchases on photobucket. Our bargaining skills are beginning to develop already. For example, when buying a dress they offer 500 yuan initially and we eventually paid 120 with a belt. (They chased us down the hall when we declined their "best" offer). We also ate at Jessica's new favorite restaurant 'The lucky town' which had great steamed veggies, an amazing view and was dirt cheap. We are already looking forward to our next visit.