Venturing Forth

Tomorrow I'm going to catch the bus to a place whose name I don't remember, and hope I don't get lost. I'll have the whole day to get back if I do, and one of the foreign teachers lent me a phone card so I can call if I really get stuck. It's a famous place in Xi'an, a square or plaza of some kind with a tower in it. Hopefully I'll be able to find a park or two along the way, too. I was talking with Leo, another foreign teacher, and he said that there are no academies to learn Chinese martial arts around here, but people practise in the parks early in the mornings. Naturally, there are no parks near where I live. I'll take my camera, so you can expect photos tomorrow!

Leo is leaving. He needs to go out of China in order to renew his visa, and I'm not sure if he's coming back to this school when he returns - he is coming back in to China, but maybe to teach at a different school. At any rate, I'm taking over his classes, so as of tomorrow I have a real schedule, not just random classes every now and then.

Ariel continues to be awesome. She helped me go shopping after work, and introduced me to all sorts of interesting Chinese foods. There is sachima, which is a strange pastry thing, that I had already been eating and quite liked: until today I didn't know what they were called in English, though. The packet I bought just happened to have English writing on it, though, so now I know! Also, all the varieties of instant noodles, an important staple for budget living, and the pre-prepared cold vegetable dishes of different sorts. Then there are the stuffed pastries, which are deilicious (I'm eating one right now), but the best discovery of the night was fruit and walnuts on a skewer, covered in hard toffee - exactly like candy apples, except without the apple. What makes it so incredibly tasty is that the fruit, whatever it was, was sour, and combined with the walnut and sweet covering it was more delicious even than human brain-meats.