And now on to the more fun stuff... we have only been in China for a little over a week but it could have been months as far as I'm concerned. Not that time really matters to me here anyway, most of the days go by packed to the brim but leave uncounted as they are in America.
We spent a full day at the famous waterfall, Hong Guo Shu (sp?), which is one of the largest waterfalls in the world (fact? I don't know... that's just what the guy on the mini megaphone said). It was one of those three hour tours that was ACTUALLY more like EIGHT hours. yeesh. On the way there, the tour bus stopped by a buddhist temple and we got a great picture of Justin spending some quality time with Buddha (see album below).
We also saw the most adorable blind lady who was selling incense at the Buddha place. We didn't buy her incense, but we did give her a few yuans just for being so stinkin' cute.
Today I spent a couple of hours with a Chinese tutor, and then went to observe/help an English classroom of a friend that I met on Sunday. It was a great group of students who are pretty outgoing and love love LOVE to have their picture taken with a friendly foreigner. I had a whole lineup of them afterwards... I felt like a movie star. :-) I have found that most Chinese people are very curious about foreigners and have no qualms about staring at us very obviously. It's a little hard to know if we should just ignore them, or try to smile or what. We don't know how to talk to them yet (but trying to learn)! Today I tried a new approach: the staring contest. I stared at this guy at the bus stop as though he were unusual... you know, the way they stare at us... but then I chickened out... hah. Don't know if I'll be trying it again.
I was walking through the street with two other foreign girls today and we were met with a chorus of HELLO!!! from the kids who had just gotten out of school. One by one, they started following us down the street and there we were, three white chicks leading a parade of school kids shouting their "HELLO"s. It was a pretty funny sight, I'm sure.
I think the biggest shock to life in China so far has not been the language, nor the food, nor even the squatty pottys. It has been the NOISE. The streets are filled with honking cars, the shops have blaring music, there are people shouting or singing on the streets at random (oh, and spitting! like the disgusting sucking air through your nose and spitting the grunt out your mouth stuff... YUCKKY LOUDLY). It makes a lot of sense to me why "inner peace" is a key belief in China, since there sure as heck ain't any outward peace.
Yesterday proved to be a difficult day for us. We went with some friends to a place for abandoned pups* and played with them for about an hour and a half. Since it's on my heart, I would really like to write more about this, but I will do so when I have more time and freedom, in about a week's time.
On the way there, one of our Chinese friends asked us about our other Friend who lives in a totally different province, which really surprised us that she knew about him. She had lots of questions and wanted to know everything. It was encouraging, but I think it made the puppy place* all the more difficult because we spoke to her of all the good things that our Friend can do and then we saw all of the little ones that our Friend loves so much hurting so badly. Like I said, it was a difficult day.
There is much more to write, but it is late and we have an early morning ahead of us. Tomorrow we are going out to the countryside with Ju and will be there until Tuesday, so have a good weekend everyone. Dreams are funny things... they are rarely what they seem. More later.
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