Sweet and Sour Sh**

Highlights of the day:

1. Helping Spring pass out flyers for his new Karate studio.

2. Having an anxiety attack while weaving through crazy Chinese traffic when taking a turn driving Spring's scooter. We barely survived. Spring's words illustrate the scene perfectly, "Aa-nee! Be careful to cars!!!" It was a pretty fun anxiety attack. 

3. When Seantay asked Spring what we were just served at dinner, he replied, "Sour and sweet sh**!" (aka sweet and sour fish... at least that's what I'm hoping!)

Hungry?

This was what we were served for lunch on Friday.

And just so you know, I ate every bite.

Plus, I enjoyed it.

Today, Kate found a rather large caterpillar in her veggies.

She calmly picked it up, threw it outside, then pounded the rest of those veggies.

She also drank/ate half a bottle of ketchup in Yangshuo.

Well, she has been deprived of it for three months. 

I think our food standards are dropping dramatically. 

Why teaching at Bond Kindergarten ROCKS:

• I get to teach the cutest kids every day!

• We have awesome Chinese teachers and friends at our school. Every Thursday night is "Chinese Night", where we have dinner and hang out with the Chinese teachers! We've had a karaoke night, a sports night, a dance party, a game night... the list goes on. We practice our Chinese, they practice their English, and we all have a blast!

• These guys are pretty cool too, I guess:

• We get Chinese lessons four times a week.
• We get cooking lessons once a week. This consists every week of chopping up some sort of veggies and meat, throwing it into a large pan, then adding soy sauce, ginger, chicken powder, and at least a gallon of oil. It's no wonder all of our food tastes the same!
• We have Kung Fu 3 times a week! Now a little bit about Kung Fu...

This is Spring, our Kung Fu instructor. He's pretty much awesome.

He wants us to be very dedicated and asked us to come to Kung Fu every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We compromised and so we go every Friday, Saturday, and Monday. And if I may say so myself, we are pretty intense... 

Spring brought his camera on Friday to take pictures of us. He was excited because after two months of class, everyone finally started getting the splits!

Well that is, everyone except me...

So every class during "splits time" when Spring yells at me in his broken English to "KEEP DOING" the splits, when he pushes my legs down farther and farther until I am crying and laughing at the same time, even though I am not down like everyone else, I just want to say to him,"Spring! Do you know how freaking AWESOME I'm doing given the flexibility genes, or lack thereof, that I have inherited?! Do you realize that my father can't even correctly kneel to pray because it hurts him so bad?! Did you know that my mother pulled a hamstring doing a little cartwheel in front of her young women during mutual?!"

But don't worry about me, I'll totally have the splits in another couple of months. And I am going to greet everyone at home with a karate chop and a jump into the splits, so WATCH OUT! I won't look like a fool for long... I know Karate!!! 

A sleeper bus ride at it's best

I can't take credit for this post. This is written in the words of my witty China-mate, Kate:

Wheels on the Bus

5:31 PM - Passengers board the bus, having drank very little all day to prepare their bladders for the journey. I put my shoes in a plastic bag and try not to smell my blanket.

6:17 PM - Hoo, we're flying now! At LEAST 45 mph!

7:21 PM - Travel Scrabble ceases as it is now too dark to see.

7:59 PM - All of the food is gone. All of it.

9:33 PM - Annie really has to go and is considering the funnel option. Does anyone have an empty water bottle?

10:02 PM - Rest stop. I squat over a trench behind half a brick wall and realize I left my T.P. on the bus.

10:37 PM - Sleeping pill administered.

10:46 PM - The guy in front of me lights up.

11:15 PM - The bus isn't moving.

12:01 AM - Where the hey AM I?

2:47 AM - More importantly, where the hey are my shoes?

2:49 AM - I miss... rice...

5:30 AM - Estimated arrival time comes and goes.

6:29 AM - Rest stop. I find it ironic that I am paying someone actual money to pee in a hole in the ground. Oh well.

6:40 AM - Debbie starts singing the Alligator song.

6:40.02 AM - Debbie stops singing the Alligator song, but the damage is done. I'll be singing it the rest of the day, if not my life.

7:18 AM - iPod batteries are dead.

9:26 AM - That baby is inconsolable. Give it up.

10:17 AM - We seem to be going through a bus wash. Who knew that such a thing even existed?

10:56 AM - Katie finishes Northanger Abbey with her typical impeccable timing. I don't know how she does it.

11:29 AM - Actual blessed arrival time. I dig my shoes out of the bag (no mold that I can see, bonus!) and try not to smell myself. Guilin/Yangshou, we have arrived. 

Thank you, Kate, for illustrating that so perfectly. You are a genius.