Relaxing

Today Matthew and I took it easy. As I am feeling fully recovered, I did some cleaning in our room. Mostly this means putting clean clothes in the closet/cupboard and dirty clothes in a pile to be washed. We still have our suitcases out and I'm not sure if they will stay on the floor or be put somewhere. Right now they are serving as a decoration. The room would be bare without them. Okay, so that's pushing it a bit far.

I went and read a book in the gardens at the apartment complex. It was really sunny and warm today. There was a breeze so it wasn't too hot. I liked sitting out by the pools of water and reading. I think the security guard thought it was a little strange to have a westerner sitting there but he didn't say anything to me, just kept walking by and looking. I think it was his job to watch the pools.

Matthew and I went out to The Brother's Jiang restaraunt again tonight. This time we shared a bowl of noodle soup as they are really large. Jinpeng tells us that because they are a chain they aren't as good as some of the other restaurants. The only thing is, Matthew and I can't order at the other restaurants. We sort of know how the menu works at The Brother's Jiang so we can pay the amount for what we want and we don't really have to talk. At a different place we would have to be able to read the menu. Jinpeng says he is going to start teaching us more Chinese. That would be a really big help for us. As we came during the celebration of the New Year we don't have that many opportunities to take classes in Mandarin or for that matter teach English. It looks like things will pick back up in March. So until then Matthew and I struggle with what we can say and try and get by.

We took another shopping trip to Wal Mart, so that we would have some food to cook. Some of the big differences between a Wal Mart in the US and the Wal Mart in China is that there are lots and lots of dried fish laying out. Also dried ducks and chickens. Also f\ish tanks where one can chose the fish they want for dinner. They also have many many workers. During the New Year rush there seemed to be a worker for about every row in the store. Now there are less but still many more than you would see in a store in the States. We ended up getting lots of bread. Not the sweet kind but the kind you would use for sandwiches. Now we can have tuna sandwiches. They will be good for if we go on a day trip out hiking. I'm thinking of planing a trip to hike in the Stone Forest or around Lake Dianchi.