Mike In China

I apologize for not writing for awhile and I actually have been not the least bit busy lately. But, in case you haven't heard there was a big earthquake in Taiwan and apparently it messed up some Internet cables that connect China to the Internet back in America. So basically, its been impossible to get to most websites and those that I could get to would take forever to load and I just decided to wait to update my blog until they fixed things. Things still aren't perfect but I'm able to get to most websites now, things are just a little slow (so I won't attempt uploading pictures for a little while still). The holidays here went well. I spent Christmas Eve having an all day Prison Break marathon. Its a pretty good show so I'm glad I watched it. My mom called and freaked out because I was spending Christmas Eve alone. I'm pretty sure she immediately called my dad because minutes after I got off the phone with her Dad, Lisa and Grandma called. It was actually kind of funny because they were concerned that I'm watching my money too carefully and that I should be doing something fun for the holidays. Can you believe that?! My dad telling me I'm not spending enough money! I will remember that day forever... Christmas day was also a lot of fun. One of my fellow teachers had a bunch of us over and they all cooked a traditional western Christmas dinner. The food was really good and it was great to eat western food. I was not on cooking patrol but was instead on "beverage duty" with a couple others and our job was making sure the beverages got drank. It was a very fun afternoon and evening even though things ended up getting a little crazy for the beverage patrol. The worst part was that after drinking all afternoon we had the great idea to start a century club at 10pm. I ended up being that wasted guy in a Santa hat. The security gaurd of my building litterally had to walk me up to my door and now everytime I see him he laughs at me, says something in Chinese and makes a drinking gesture with his hands. Just great. Work is winding down for break so it has been testing and grading season. I have a new found appreciation for teachers and grading. It has taken me forever to grade simple little circle the correct answer tests. I can't even imaging grading hundreds of 15 page papers like professors do?! New Years Eve was also a blast. The same group of us got together and paid for a table at one of the best hip hop clubs in Shanghai. The club had a big New Year's Eve party going on and there were a ton of people there. Having a table was nice because it was a good "home base" to have away from the craziness of the dance floor. At midnight they had Las Vegas style scantily clad go-go dancers on the speakers, did the whole countdown and then they had fake snow fall for awhile so that was really cool. In general it was just a really fun night with friends, great way to bring in the new year. I didn't get too wasted but after the club I did hop in a cab by myself and demanded that the cab driver find a 24 hour McDonalds. This consisted of me continually yelling MAIDONGLAO at him as he would yell things back at me in Chinese and point to his watch trying to say it was too late (it was only like 3:30am). After driving all over Shanghai we finally found one and it was GREAT. Then I went home and passed out. Well, I'm about to head to bed because tomorrow is my LAST day of work before my big two month break! Tomorrow night I will pick up a friend from high school at the airport and then the two of us will hop on the overnight train to Beijing to meet Nathan. We will spend a week there and then take the train back down to Shanghai were we will spend another week of me showing her around and just hanging out. She flies out on the 18th and my mom flies in on the 19th. I will then show my mom around Shanghai until the 24th and then the two of us will fly down to the Yunnan province of China (which is supposed to be the most beautiful). We will spend a week there and then she is going to fly home and I am going to fly to Vietnam! I am then spending 11 days backpacking Vietnam by myself. I fly into Hanoi and fly out of Saigon, somewhere in there taking the two day train between the two. I will then fly from Saigon to Bangkok and meet up with Nathan. Then the two of us are going to spend two weeks backpacking Thailand making sure to hit up the rainforests and the beaches. Basically I am BEYOND excited and its going to be the trip of a life time. As I've said before, one of the major reasons I did this whole coming to China thing was to travel and I'm sooo glad that everything worked out to allow me to travel (and have the means to do so, thanks again Mom, Dad, Lisa and Grandma)! I will be sure to take hundreds of pictures and hopefully will be able to stop by Internet cafes to update everyone while I'm traveling and to let everyone know I'm safe.