Friday morning

What a wonderful day I had yesterday. Another non-teacher, Lorretta, and I walked for 5+ hours. We walked to the back of the campus and then off the campus through alley-like streets where the local residents live. It rained a good deal of the time which made walking very comfortable. There were small local shops along the way. I bought wonderful manicure scissors for $.25 and good tweezers for $.15. I regret not buying a dozen of each so Burt and I are going to try to find the area on Sunday and I will buy more.

We came out of the local area further away from the campus than the Ramada Hotel which we took a cab to on Wed. night. Again we stopped in local stores and I bought really cute, comfortable shoes for $3. At these prices I feel badly bartering so I'm pretty much paying what they ask. The shoe stores also had really good looking men's loafers for about $10 each so again Burt and I will go back on Sunday and see if Chinese shoes fit him.

Then loretta and I got brave and went in to a local restaurant for lunch. By accident we chose a really good place. The dishes and utensils were shrink-wrapped so we knew they were clean. Now the toilet was another story....

We found one man who spoke enough English to help us order. We had beef with what looked like aspargus ends, wonderful egg and tomato soup (one order would feed about 10 people), cabbage, rice and beer for a total for $4 each. I had the man write the Chinese for the food in my pocket diary so that if we're alone we can order it again by showing them the words.

The food in the hotel is tolerable but it's convenient and cheap so we eat there most nights.

After lunch we walked to where the jitneys take you back to campus for one yuan ($.066).

All in all a wonderful day.

Tonight we're going to the night market. Tomorrow during the day we're touring and then tomorrow night there is a cruise on the Yangtze River.

Cheers.....Shelley