Thursday

People requesting more photos: I have exceeded my upload limit
for this month, which has only been about 8 pictures. Since I have a
free account, I am limited. BUT, if I pay $25 per year, $2/month, I
can have unlimited uploading. So if viewing pictures is important to
you....you could express interest in contributing to this sum. It
would also encourage me to lug my nice camera around instead of
taking cellphone camera pictures.

This morning I had a "placement test". It was just an interview
that lasted about 3 minutes with 2 chinese teachers and they
basically determined I have learned characters before, so I get to
skip out on all the pronunciation and pinyin stuff. I met a bunch of
new people also, since we waited around for about 2 hours while
everyone in our classroom went through this interview.

I met 2 guys from Wisconsin, who both go/went to University of
Wisconsin, and they knew similar people. Small world. I met a guy
from Mississippi, the first southerner I've met, and he has a good
southern accent. A young guy from Canada who is a computer engineer
who started some business and does some international business and is
deciding to learn the language. A mechanical engineer from Germany
who works for VW and since he is also from Hong Kong and is Asian and
was encouraged to learn Chinese. A guy from Brazil who has a business
degree.

We went to McDonalds after our interviews because we all wanted
a real breakfast. But it was too late so we ate "hanbaobao" aka
hamburgers. The Canadian and Brazilian talked a lot about
international business which was really interesting. Supposedly as of
5 years ago only about 5 tourist or some sort of businesses have
permission from the Chinese and Brazilian governments to operate
between the two nations. So those two guys agreed that knowledge of
Portuguese and Chinese could ensure one a job acting as a middle man
and taking a cut off of all business and making some good money.

Tomorrow morning I assume the real classes start. I guess, I
don' know, I am anxious to begin learning. The language barrier is
pretty annoying sometimes.

In regards too what the meals are like:
I think every meal I've eaten with a group we've gotten Kung pao
chicken. Its chicken and peanuts and I think either pepper or bean
skins in a sauce. Its pretty good. When you go to dinner with a group
you put the dishes on a circular rotating platform in the middle of
the table so that you can spin it and grab food from the dish you
want. I would say my favorite dish has been some sort of beans. They
are long and green and are sort of crunchy, it seems like you are
eating the skin. They have some sauce that they were fried in and
they are very good. I'll try to get a picture of them up. Dumplings
(bao zi) are also very good. When I went to lunch with Corrina
Carroll and her son Michael, they took me to a restaurant they said
was famous for its dumplings. So we just got about 4 servings of them
and ate them.
I've had some tea, some of which I like, some which I don't.
Another good dish is lemon chicken. The coating was very sweet and
you barely tasted the chicken, we said it was almost a dessert.