the elephant count continued...

we've seen more elephants! on the bus from ooty we passed through a number of national parks, part of the western ghats biosphere reserve.

number 5: huge. walking through a village, with BIG tusks. most of the elephants around that we've seen have had their tusks trimmed really short. when we were driving through the parks, there were big signs along the road that said "elephant area: no stopping along road. do not honk horn. dangerous." don't startle the elephants!

number 6: behind a tree. you have to ask duff on this one, i didn't see it. but i believe that it was there, although how does an elephant hide behind a tree? duff now says it was more like a big bush.

number 7: being led down the road. with a chain around his foot. i am amazed that elephants can so calmly walk in indian traffic, which is just as nuts as chinese traffic. duff and i just finished reading 'the glass palace' by amitav gosh, and the author mentions how easy it is for elephants to get spooked and stampede. huh.

number 8: we rode it! duff and i went to the beautiful palace in mysore (much more on this later) and there were elephants and camels to ride. we did the tourist thing, and happily rode an elephant. it was so much fun! more on this later too. we have a bus to hospet in an hour, and like always, i am just trying to check in a bit before we move on. oh, and my goal in 2006 is to ride elephants, camels and horses, hopefully all in asia.

number 9: the buddy of the elephant we made friends with. also available for riding.

in the national parks we also saw a number of monkeys, a few different kinds, and 3 male peacocks (none with tailfeathers spread, though). oh, and lots of spotted deer. and i saw a wild boar and a big monkey in some kind of altercation. they fought, and then they backed away from each other. i have no idea what happened, but i prefer to think the monkey fell out of the tree and landed on the boar (i have seen a monkey fall out of a tree, in malaysia), or perhaps the boar had food, maybe an apple, and the monkey wanted to steal it.

and now it is time to go get the bus. katie and lindsey, the train? better? please teach us! the trains we have had are awful. with the busses, we are so close to everything, and the people are so nice! and i love to bounce along in the back. tonight we have a bus to hospet. in china, the slepper busses have beds, we'll see about this one.

The Venice of India

firstly, sorry it took so long to post. the mountains of ooty, while interesting and fun, do not provide many opportunities to use the internet.

on the 23rd, kate and i left kollom on a boat going north to alapuzha through the kerala backwaters. the kerala backwaters are a long series of canals and rivers that are separated from the arabian sea by as much as a few kilometers to as little as a few meters of land. it is an extremely productive area, producing lots of rice and coconuts, and having more fishing capacity than i've ever seen. the area is also extremely populated, having homes, schools, churches, stores, restaurants and many other businesses along the water. the waterway is used as more of a roadway, since it is calm and shallow enough for almost any boat to cross back and forth easily.

our boat left kollam at 1030 am. it was already really hot, but we decided to sit in the sun in the front of the boat anyway, figuring the view would be better. this was a good decision. as we started moving up the rivers, we immediately saw what we would see for the next 8 hours. there were dozens of small canoes with one man rowing and one man working the nets, larger, brightly-colored fishing boats that rose at both ends like viking warships, enormous house boats with grass-thatch walls and smaller flat boats that, like venetian gondolas, were powered by a man with a long pole and ferried people from one dock/sidewalk to the other. there was also one crossing that was a bridge floating on pontoons that could be moved out of the way for boats to pass.

the banks of the river seemed to form a never-ending hallway of palm trees. where the river was wider, there were rows of traditional chinese fishing nets that ran parallel to the bank as far as you could see. the traditional chinese fishing net is basically a long lever rising out of the water with 4 poles lashed into an x at the top, and a net tied to the ends of the x. at night, a light is put at the center of the x and the lever is lowered until the ends of the poles are under the water and the light is just above water. this attracts insects, which attract fish, and then the lever is raised, pulling the net and fish out of the water. there are miles and miles of these nets about 10 meters apart from each other. i have no idea if all or only some of these nets are used each night, but based only on the number of nets, the area looks like it has to be suffering from over fishing.

we stopped for lunch at a little restaurant that looked to be set up for tourists. there were already about 50 banana leaf plates set with 4 different indian sauces on them. as we came in, waiters came around with rice and fried shrimp or fish. kate and i were seated across the table from a young chinese man who amazed us. during our short stop for lunch, he somehow managed to eat three huge plates of rice, yelling to the waiter for more as soon as he finished each plate.

at about 530, the sun started going down and the landscape changed dramatically. instead of being surrounded by palm trees and businesses, there were rice paddies stretching as far as we could see in all directions. there were also more single homes with cows and chickens around them.

we arrived in alapuzha, a little sore and sun burnt, at 630 and headed to the train station to catch the train to kochi. the station was small and so when a train pulled up at the time ours was supposed to leave, we thought surely this must be our train and got on. as soon as the train left i felt like we were going south, not north like we should have been, but credited the suspicion to the fact that we were sitting in the seats that looked backwards and that was messing with my internal compass. after about 45 minutes, the train stopped. we weren't in kochi, we were in some other middle-of-nowhere town that wasn't even in the guidebook. we'd travled 45 minutes in the wrong direction. we decided that was enough for the day and we'd try our luck tomorrow, so we bought a ticket heading north to calicut, leaving at 7 am and headed out to find the nearest hotel.

wandering the nilgiri hills

i have spent the last 2 days in the beautiful hill town of ooty, in the nilgiri hills, part of the western ghats. by the bus stand, ooty looks to be a small, run-down little town. that is where our hotel is. after a long walk, though, we discovered the up-market parts of ooty, too. very different from the sleepy, out-of-the-way hill station we thought we had found. happily, the fancy part of town includes a nice coffee shop. we've gone twice.

we have spent most of the last two days walking in the hills around the town. it has been difficult to find internet, and we've done a lot since we were last able to post on the blog. we have a bus to mysore in an hour, so i'll just give the highlights and elaborate later.

we left the beach, and went to a town called kollam. from there we took a cruise on the beautiful keralan backwaters to a town called alappuza. this experience deserves a whole entry itself. we saw fishing, with traditional nets used by the chinese, and people washing clothes, kids getting ferried back and forth to school, and lots of birds. i must have seen eight brightly colored kingfishers. directly after getting off of the backwaters cruise, we went to the train station and bought a ticket to kochi. the plan was to use that ticket to get to kochi (further north), but we got on the wrong train, and ended up going south (the direction from which we had just come). fun. we found ourselves in an odd town, the name escapes me right now, in the middle of the night. the train station was in the middle of nowhere, so we got a tuk-tuk to the bus station, stayed for the night, and got on the right train at 8:00 the next morning. yes!

it took us all day to get to calicut on the train. the trains are nowhere near as comfortable as the chinese trains, but the food is much better. that morning, i think, we'd had coke and potato chips for breakfast (sorry, mom, it was all that we could find!), but on the train, we had briyani. it was wrapped in wax paper, and then in brown paper with little packets of spice and raihta. we shared one. it was unwrapped, between us, and we ate it with our hands, shoveling the food into our mouths. deliciously messy.

calicut was not fun, we had the hardest time finding a hotel. we went to a number of hotels, and they were all full. finally, we accepted the help of a man on the street who helped us find a room. he said, because the area wasn't used to a lot of foreign tourists, they were unwilling to give us rooms. the whole town was creepy (we felt the same as we did in indonesia, kellee. yes, that bad). we left on a 7:00 bus the next morning, headed to ooty.

i love the busses, i will always take the bus here, rather than the train, if i can. we have been sitting in the back of the bus, we get a lot more air, but also a lot more dust. when we arrive at our destination, we are covered in a light brown coat. it is fun to be covered in dust. the back of the bus is bouncy, we have caught several feet of air on some of the more bumpy roads. the trip to ooty took from 7:00 am to 1:30 pm, and in that time we covered a ridiculously small distance. it took a long time because the road into the mountains was so...challenging. steep, dirty, potholed, narrow, unpaved (in places)... it was a tense ride. the views from the road were amazing, but the cliffs and drop-offs were sobering. the road had cut-backs, potholes, and hair-pin turns like the mt. baker highway at the end of a long winter. i wished i were driving, the bus seemed so large and clumsy, but the driver was excellent. it was slow going, though. we went from sea level to 4000 feet, or so. i will have to check our elevation again. it was amazing to see the transition. we left the forests of cocnut palms behind, and passed into amazingly tall and thick bamboo. then, we saw tea plantations, and rubber trees with slashes in the trunks, and little semi-circular buckets attached to the tree to catch the drips. higher there were eucalyptus trees, and they smell wonderful. there are flowers everywhere, of the most brilliant pinks, purples, and oranges. the sky has been bright blue. we haven't seen much wildlife, but a group of monkeys sitting in the road had to scurry away from our careeing vehicle. in the mountains it is dry, and it is great to be away from the humidity. we have been getting a bucket of warm water with which to wash (thanks, katie) because the showers are all cold. it is cold at night, and i have been sleeping in all of my clothes.

ok, the bus will be here soon. duff and i will check back in soon and write more about the backwaters and our amazing time in ooty.

back from the beaches...

our first week in india has been a huge success. the only problem is that today is sunday, again, and just like last sunday, when we wanted to do stuff, everything is closed. it is frustrating because just today we arrived in kollam, which would be fascinating if anything was open. we have been wandering down narrow streets and back alleys looking for a spice warehouse. it is still fascinating, but i'd love to see into the shops rather than the closed aluminum garage doors.

the past week has been really relaxing. we have visited two beautiful beaches in kerala, kovallam and varkala. both were lovely, with crystal clear water and fine sand. we were first at kovallam. the guide book we have had nothing good to say about it, but i had a feeling we should go, and we did. there were two crescent beaches at kovallam, we stayed on the lighthouse beach, right next to the lighthouse! we stayed at the sagara beach resort, a splurge. it was formerly a hilton resort. it had a lovely balcony overlooking the beach, and hot water. the beaches were lined with shops filled with the most beautiful fabric and jewlery. the prices, however, were sky high. katie has advised me that we can get fabric much cheaper so i'll try and do that. at night, after susnet, there were plenty of restaurants with fresh seafood. all day we could see the women carrying the freshly-caught fish in huge metal pots on top of their heads. some of the fish were 4 feet long. the prices for the sea food were really high, often more than 30 usd, so we stuck to the excellent local indian food. the beach may have been the most beautiful i have ever seen. the water was warm and clear, and there were big, clear waves. duff told me that it was similar to the caribbean, but with great waves.

when we got to varkala, we were able to observe some traditional fishing close up. we stayed at varkala only two nights. our book promised a different, younger, and less expensive scene than kovalam, but it wasn't. the business area is along a pathway, below is the beach. there is a cliff that drops down to the beach, perhaps 60 feet or so. it was daunting, and dizzying. the view was dramatic, and the first night the whole horizion was speckeld with the lights of fishing boats.

i have been rising very early since we arrived in india. before dawn, every day. in the morning, we when we would get to the beach, we would see the locals start fishing. they cast a huge net, and then groups of ten or so men pull each end into shore. it takes at least an hour for the whole process, perhaps two. first, we would see them setting the net with a boat. it almost looked like a canoe, but it was larger, and made from dark, weathered wood. not a modern vessel at all. the men pull in the net, at first it is only a rope, and then they are pulling hand fulls of net. the last man arranges the net into coils on the beach. when the net is drawn in just beyond the breakers, a group of boys wade out and splash around in the water to scare the fish and keep them in the net. i got a video on my camera, i hope it turned out. the only time i stayed to see them bring in the catch it wasn't large. i am sure it was normally much larger. there were perhaps 50 or 60 small fish (no more than 10 inches long) and at least 40 local people were down on the beach involved in some way.

at varkala, there were fewer hawkers that at kovallam. it was pleasant not to be interrupted every 30 seconds while i lay, reading, on the beach. there was a really friendly woman from whom i bought a pineapple. she shaved it with a machete and sliced it so we could pull chunks off easily. it was fun to sit in the warm sand, dripping with sweet pineapple juice. i didn't like pineapple when i was little, and now i cannot get enough. pineapple juice in the morning, a pineapple lassi at lunch (yogurt and pineapple)... cold coffee with ice cream is my new favorite afternoon snack.

after a realxing sunday morning on the beach, we decided to move on. it took us about 1/2 hour to get to kollam by bus. we found a breezy hotel room for 1/5 of what we were spending on accomodation at the beach. this makes duff happy. tomorrow we will set out on a cruise of the keralan backwaters, which promises to be amazing. from there, we will head into karnataka towards mysore. there are many national parks and wildlife refuges there, as part of the western ghats biosphere reserve. i hope to up the elephant count. while i have kept my eyes peeled all day, i haven't seen any more elephants. tomorrow's cruise will take about 10 hours and drop us in a city called alapphuza. i can't wait. yay!

the elephant count

i am keeping a log of my elephant sightings. it's too much fun.

number 1: in sri lanka, outside of colombo, by the airport. in the back of a truck. yes, a truck drove down the street (a really big truck, you see) with an elephant standing in the back, and a lot of palm fronds.

number 2: at the southern-most tip of india, in kanyakumari. there was a trainer with the elephant, and the elephant was painted, standing by one of the temples. people could get pictures with him. everytime we say him he was surrounded by a crowd of black-clad pilgrims or foreign tourists.

number 3: on the bus ride to kovallam from kanyakumari, which takes a little over 3 hours. the bus careened down narrow streets, horn blaring, dust flying, passing other busses, cars, motorcycles, and... an elephant that was being led down the road. he was a big guy. our bus was fully into the lane of oncoming traffic to pass the elephant. the bus was in the lane of oncoming traffic a lot. still, though, not as scary as driving in china can be sometimes.

number 4: on the bus ride from kanyakumari to kovallam. most of the area we travelled through was continuous village. right when we left kanayakumai we travlled through some rice paddys, and palm and banana groves, with views of the mountains of the western ghats. mostly, though, the road was lined with shops and homes. and people. we passed through a little forested area, and in the trees, there was a baby elephant, with his trunk wrapped around some plants. maybe he was eating, we were going far too fast for me to see.

we have seen a lot of animals here. dogs, cats, pigs, cows, birds, goats, a snake, fish.... the goats were guarding the bus station, and the pigs and cows are just hanging around. for the most part, all the animals look healthy. it is fun to have so much life surrounding us. it is time for me to go read on the beach. we just had a wonderful breakfast at a german bakery. great fruit and yogurt.

jungle rains and beaches in sri lanka

duff and i got to india a few hours ago. we flew in after spending a week in sri lanka, which was amazing. we went to the tsunami effected area along the south western coast and stayed with a family who is rebuilding their home and business. it wasn't really what we had planned on when we decided to go to sri lanka, but it was a fascinating experience.

we got into colombo after two expensive days in hong kong. the flight from hong kong to colombo stopped in bangkok, it was hard not to jump the plane. sadly, my fear of flying is still with me full force, but when i have a terrifying experience, i will choose sri lankan airlines, in the future. their service was wonderful. the neatest thing, which i have never seen before, was the forward-looking and downward-looking cameras. they fed right into little tvs on the seat in front of you. i thought seeing exactly what was happing during take-off and landing would be stressful, but it made everything easier. landing was the best part. seeing outside of the plane gave me a lot of confidence in the pilots.

we stayed one night by the airport because it was easy, and left for colombo the next morning. there was a gaint wedding at the hotel in the morning when we left. it would have been great to crawl up into a tree and perch to watch it, but as it was we didn't get that close. we took a tuk-tuk into the city, which took about an hour. it was the most amazing ride. there were cows standing along the roadside, even in the urban area, and the people were so beautiful. most women were wearing colorful saris, or other long dresses. not many had shoes, but the roads and paths were a soft red dirt. we passed briefly through the muslim quarter, but when we went south, we really didn't see many muslims. the streets were lines with shops and huge coconut trees, and banana trees. it was so beautiful, and very tropical.

in colombo, we quickly found our way to the train station, and with the help of the tourist agent decided on the town of ambalangoda. he hooked us up with a guy who's family ran a guest house there. he promised it was right on the beach, and showed us nice recommendations people had written. the train, by the way, was 80 cents, and lasted 2 and 1/2 hours. cheapest train ride of my life. the train ride was beautiful and hard. we started out going south from colombo, right along the ocean. the ocean was dark blue, and had powerful waves. about a half hour south of colombo, we began to see area that had been destructed by the tsunami. it was shocking to see. i don't think either duff or i was prepared for how bad it was. last year, we were in thailand right after the tsunami. koh lanta, the island where we stayed, had been hit, but not very badly. in sri lanka, it was so different. i think, in our minds, we just likened it to the same level of light destruction we saw in thailand. not so. before we got to the tsunami hit area, the coast was built up, right to the high-tide line. people lived right along the beach in little houses, mostly made of wood and cement. they were beautiful, and they had little yards with dogs and children. they were colorfully painted and there was laundry hanging in the sunshine. further down the coast, it was all just foundations. but for hundreds of feet back from the beach. everything was just gone.

the guest hourse where we stayed was a little more than an eighth of a mile back from the beach. even this far back from the beach, people have to rebuild their homes. they are still doing repairs with the help of some americans who come often and stay for a few weeks at a time. they used to have a beach-front resort, but now it is far from the beach. they only had two rooms (i think, out of twn before the tsunami) operational, a soft-spoken french man was staying in the other. they didn't do any work while we were there, we would have been glad to help, but i think they were taking a little break. there was a water mark 7 feet high on the walls. the family was very open when they talked about the tsunami. as far as we can tell, it was run by two brothers. both parents were killed in the tsunami, as well as aunts, and sisters and children. the list was so long, just of people in their family! one of the brothers was in colombo when it happened. it took him over 6 hours to make the journey back home. the road was washed out, and the train flipped over. i think he said 2000 people died just in the train. he talked about finding his way home, and finding his father's body, and looking for the bodies of his mother and other family members. the town used a temple as a meeting place, slighly up a hill. when they found bodies, the took them there for identification and to meet and exchange information. he talked about the government response (not good, apparently), and the international response. there were sign all over the village that said things like 'austria builds 25 houses here.' according to our host, the government fell behind when it came to aid distribution, but the people who came to the villages and made donations and helped rebuild made a big difference. he talked about the civil war, and a host of other things. he was a great host, and very interesting to talk with. the food was excellent, we had breakfast in dinner there every day.

it was interesting, walking along the beach to see what stood and what didn't. there are some structures along the beach front that are still standing, but the walls are gone, and only the floors and door frames remain. the beach, for the most part, had been cleaned up, but there were still piles of rubble. a new sea wall has been built, and there is a lot of construction. not only homes and businesses, but roads, and bridges.

okay, there is so much to say, but that is long enough for now. we are trying to decide what to do and where to go next. as much as we wanted a little beach time, it rained the whole time we were in sri lanka. i loved it. it was so pleasant to read and hear the rain falling on the huge leaves. it is sunny in trivandrum, so we'll see about a beach here. we'll keep you posted.

we are going to india!!!

we just found out that our tickets have gone through, and next tuesday, duff and i are going to india! yay! we will keep this as our travel log, so check often for updates and, hopefully, photos. we will be gone from the 10th of january to the 9th of february. we get to spend 5 days in sri lanka on our way in, an added bonus booked into our flight plan.

we get a month off, as does most of china, for spring festival. this is the holiday around the chinese new year. most everyone in china goes to their hometown for spring festival. last year we were very fortunate to travel with a chinese friend of ours, nicole, and she took us to see her village southeast of tianjin.

everyone around here is gearing up for spring festival. the most obvious sign is the dead animals, splayed open and hanging everywhere. there are lots of fish, strips of pork, chickens, ducks, and lamb ribs. hanging sausage. they are hanging from everything possible, outside of everyone's apartments, in stores, from trees... last year, the people who ran the house where we lived hang fish, pork, and sausages from the trees. it was so creepy, it felt like the place was haunted. there were white hand prints on the trees, too. it was one small step away from a horror movie. the animals looked to be dried and oiled, and they don't smell as bad as you would think. still, today one of our neighbors got some fish to hang on their balcony, and the aroma of our apartment has changed drastically. it smells really fishy in here. for a while i couldn't figure it out, and i was convinced it was duff. he's off the hook now, the neighbor's fish is hanging out with their laundry, and right above ours. i have some great pictures of the meat locker in which i live, but i probably won't get them posted until after spring festival.

we are going to meet up with katie and her crew when we are in india. i am super excited about that. she is envisioning a beach party, and lounging with books.... sounds most excellent to me. i can't wait.

tonight we are meeting friends for dinner at drunken river moon, one of the best restaurants we know. dinner will probably be followed by bowling. we have some friends who will be leaving in a few weeks, and this will be our last chance to see them. most missed will be my friend, and co-teacher from last year, jon roller. we have been through everything in china together. he was with me from the start at the airport in cincinnati. china will not be the same without him. sob.

we are leaving wuhan on sunday. we are going to fly to shenzhen, and then cross to hong kong. i haven't been to hong kong in over a year, and i am excited to see it again. this time, too, we will have a few days to take a good look around.

the 2006 yangtze new year's concert

last night our school invited duff and me to attend a special concert for foreigners. The provincial foreign affairs office sent a few tickets to some universities in wuhan with foreign teachers. some of our friends at other schools were there as well. getting there, i had no idea what to expect. we went to a huge concert hall by the yellow crane tower. it seems to have been recently built, and it is was so different from any concert hall i have seen before. it was cold, and sterile, white and modern. from the construction it is very obvious that the weather in wuhan in warm most of the time, most everything was open-air. when we walked into the main concert hall, i was so excited. i often feel so isolated from the arts here. i know that there must be concerts and shows, especially in a city the size of wuhan, but because we cannot speak the language we never know about them. the hall was a lot smaller than i expected, and it was really cramped. the programs showed 23 musical selections, almost all of them from operas and broadway shows.

the concert started with four pieces from 'phantom of the opera.' there were four chinese vocalists, and two canadian guys. the chinese vocalists had great pronunciation, and were trained as opera singers. still, the performance had some distinctly chinese characteristics. the orchestra was crammed so tightly on the stage i thought at first that they weren't using sheet music. there was a giant screen hung behind them, and when the came up on camera, i could see the music was practically pasted to the back of the musician in front of them. they were packed in so tightly. as the vocalists sang the pieces from 'the phantom of the opera' scenes from the movie played on the screen above their heads. it was supposed to be the footage from the movie of the same song that was being performed. it didn't take long, though, until the live singing was no longer timed correctly with the movie images. the effect was really off and disconnected. during one duet, the younger male vocalist appeared on stage to sing with the phantom mask on his face. i took my eyes off of him for one second and when i turned my attention back to him he was lurching towards the orchestra, arms outstretched in a zombie walk. he was so into this bit, he almost forgot to run back to center stage to the microphone for his duet. hilarious.

the screen alternated with slides and images from 'cats,' 'phantom of the opera,' 'west side story,' and the live performance. there were camera men, in jeans and sweatshirts, crawling all over the place to get their shots for the feed. there was one camera man who tromped through the orchestra regularly. they had a camera mounted on a huge arm, which they swung around the stage for some sweeping shots, at times coming dangerously close to the performer's heads.

my favorite sequence was 'tonight' from 'west side story.' it is a pretty, slow song, accompanied, on the screen, by the fastest dance sequence from the 'west side story' movie. the best, though, was when half way through the song, the stage was flooded by sequined, feathered, hot-pink clad, las vegas-style show dancers. it was odd to watch.

there was a piece from strauss’ ‘bat,’ and another from ‘cat,’ by andrew lloyd webber. i had a great time at this odd show. oh, and they had the vegas dancers back for ‘scarborough fair’ which was billed in the program as a ‘riddle song.’

we are still working on our india plane tickets, but it looks as if things are going to work out.

the weather is wonderful today, it is cold, and rainy, and really windy. sometimes the rain turns to sleet. it is just like bellingham, or ireland. i am so pleased.

新年快乐

happy new year!!

i can say "happy new year" in chinese, and it has been my party trick for days.

the week between christmas and new year's was wildly busy for me. i gave 10 final exams, and i am so happy they are all done. because the students cheat so much, giving finals is really stressful. more on that later, though, i'd rather not think about it.

new year's eve was really lovely. a group of people and i went to our friend brad's beautiful apartment. he has the most beautiful apartment of any foreign teacher i know in wuhan. duff and i have the worst one. i love brad's apartment, i want it. my apartment has a lot of character, and it is really fun, but it is old, and run down, and filthy. even if i mop once a day, i always pick up more dirt and dust. it just settles out of the air.

for dinner on new year's eve, we had salmon in sorrel sauce, and it was excellent. the best meal i have had in china. there is a huge german supermarket down by the river and they have lots of foreign food, and fresh norwegian salmon. they claim it was caught 5 days ago and flown in. it tasted so good! we also had a lovely salad, pasta and vegetables. an excellent meal on which to end 2005.

we had planned on making it to the bar for the new year, but didn't. we went afterwards, though, to vox. a few of our friends own and operate it. when it opened last year, it was supposed to be a punk bar, but every time i go there is a dj from africa and lots of hip-hop and dance music. different from what they originally set out to do, i think, but the bar seems to be doing really well. it was great to see friends there who i haven't seen in a long time. i had a little mini-reunion with two teachers i worked with last year. they are doing well.

there are little kids setting off fireworks right outside my apartment window. we have a tiny little part across the street. i thought a screaming eagle was flying into my window. i didn't see many fireworks on new year's eve, but they went off all day and night on the 1st. i stood on my balcony and watched them in between the other apartment buildings. fireworks are illegal in the city, but we are on the edges of town, and there are a lot of fireworks. i love them.

duff got back last night, rather than this morning, as i expected. his parents got him a plane ticket from beijing to wuhan rather than having him wait and then take the 11 hour over-night train. i was so confused when he got home, i had been asleep, but it was the greatest surprise. we are going to head to hot pot tonight (my favorite meal), but now, we are relaxing with the internet and warm cups of hot chocolate he brought from home. tomorrow our first order of business is to book our tickets to india. we have been having trouble figuring out how to pay the travel agent in hong kong, but since we want to leave in a week...... wish us luck!