merry christmas!

i hope everyone is having a merry christmas!!

i had a busy weekend with lots of festivities. oddly, it never felt like christmas. on christmas eve, i had dinner with many other foreign teachers at an italian restaurant. the food was excellent, and the company was lovely. the restaurant is run by a chinese woman who lived in new york for ten years. the food at this place in not only good for china, but it is good food for america. they had turkey (which is almost impossible to get here), pizza, pesto pasta, salad, garlic bread, and many other dishes. it was warm and fun.

sunday, i was with friends at a few parties. they teach at a beautiful school on the shore of wuhan's south lake. they get a lot of wind off the lake (which is huge. 'hubei' means northern lake province, roughly), but it must be fun to live right next to it. the other famous lake in wuchang in east lake. i haven't been there since my first weekend in wuhan over a year ago. i will go back in the spring. they built a road that winds through the lake. it is only one lane, or maybe two. there are wispy chinese trees on either side, and old men fishing. i plan to rent a bicycle and spend some time messing around in the area.

for christmas dinner we went to a huge chinese restaurant called 'drunken river moon.' it is one of my favorite places in the world. the food is great and exciting. all of the dishes always have beautifully carved vegetables. they have excellent presentation, and very good bbq ribs.

all weekend we had to fight with traffic. even though most chinese don't celebtrate christmas in the religious sense, they do celebrate it commercially. many of the big stores are open all night. the students have a midnight curfew in the dorms, but for christmas they stay out all night shopping at the giant sales. China’s streets and sidewalks look busy normally, but this christmas weekend it was almost impossible to walk. travel times doubled. the busses were packed and it was always difficult for me to find a cab.

i am getting ready for a really challenging week. since duff has gone back to america for christmas, i am covering his classes. normally i have 20 classroom hours a week, but this week i have 34. i will be sleep-walking through the new year. i am also giving exams this week. because of the student's wide acceptance of cheating, proctoring a test here can be a stressful affair.

leave your comments, i love reading them! happy holidays!