Hanging out in Hangzhou

Day something over a month

I've begun to have private lessons for 2 hours at a time in the afternoons.
I must say that these are much better than 4 hours of group lessons. My
teacher, Mike, is extremely good at getting me to understand the listening.
We discussed what kind of problems I was having and he is extremely
accommodating. The only problem is that it requires tremendous
concentration. 2 straight hours of concentration is evil on the mind.

I've also started to become more confident in speaking to non-school related
people. I even argued with the bank teller because she would not accept one
of my $100 bills to exchange - because it had writing on it (stupid American
banks). That's 800 Y!!!! So, I took the stack of RMB and went through,
grabbed all of the ones that had writing and told her that I could not
accept them because I didn't know if they were real. BTW - this was all in
Chinese. =) She gave in and exchanged the RMB for ones that weren't
written on. I feel satisfied.

This past weekend I went to Tong Xiang, about an hour away from Hangzhou by
van.bus. This is the aforementioned teacher mike's hometown. We headed up
on Saturday afternoon and stayed until Sunday morning. It was a much
smaller town than Hangzhou - probably 100K people or so. It is difficult to
tell. We had tea and dinner with his father. The food was pretty good.
Very filling. I especially liked the mushroom soup. Afterwards, we headed
out to a disco with one of his friends. This was interesting and a fun
time. Had a few drinks and then headed out to this restaurant for late
night snacks. Mike ordered this huge bowl of spicy soupish stuff with ....
Stuff in it. After digging through the mess, there were chicken feet, fish,
shrimp, frog pieces, tofu, east melon, and potato. Very good, nice and
spicy. I loved the frog the best. =)

In other news, I have 2 new roommates. Martina is a German woman that has
been speaking and studying Chinese since 1986. Helga is a Dutch woman who
has never learned any Chinese before. They are very nice. =) We have
some other new students as well. Tonight, we are headed to the Mexican bar
to have food and drink. Probably a bit too much drink, but whatever - it is
fun.

Some other things I have recently learned
- Wells Fargo Visa debit cards work here. Thank goodness
- the only bikers that wear helmets are the Pizza Hut delivery guys
- Bank of China doesn't accept USD with writing on it
- Expat magazines are the best thing ever
- Finding shirts your size takes patience, ingenuity, and money
- the decision to again become bald is a difficult one. I haven't decided
yet
- Chinese don't sweat - they just get sick.
- Bats are neat animals
- Humans are even neater
- They don't sell vinyl records in Hangzhou

Until next time

posted by Mike @ 7:39 AM