flora, fun shi ja, and a chinese variety show

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A few updates before a million more things happen and I forget about these..

On Wed. we went to the police station to register so they can give us our resident permits..overally it was fine and didn't take too long except that they didn't accept the form filled out in blue pen so Steve & Fabrice had to re-do their whole thing..and then both of their passport pics that we had to give them weren't acceptable for whatever reason so they had to pay to have them taken there..

Earlier in the week, a Chinese lady named Flora called Drew's room phone (she had it from the CIEE teachers last year) and invited us to go out to dinner with her on Thursday. So Thurs. night she met us at our apt. and went to a restaurant down the street which we hadn't been to before. She ordered a bunch of stuff and the food was soo good! definitely the best food we've had seen we got here. There was a big whole fish (scales, head,and but no eye, lol) with potatoes, tofu and other vegetables which we've finally learned how to pick apart and eat. There was also this corn pancake thing, basically just pieces of corn stuck together with sugar on it, these sesame seed covered munchkin type things with some kind of random sweet filling, broccoli in broth, and some other random stuff but nothing too weird. After dinner we went to Malone's with her and she told us that she works for an American company in Zhanjiagang, and also has her own language training center, we also met her boss, who's American and happened to be there. She said she we could teach extra classes there if we want, and take Chinese lessons which is cool.

Yesterday (Fri), I was on my way to eat lunch at the noodle place..and Candice told me that we were supposed to go meet our tutor in Carol's office in an hour. Not even knowing that we had or were getting a tutor, lol...we went and ate and then went to meet her. Her name is Fun Shi Ja and she seems about our age which is cool. She's from Zhanjiagang but isn't a teacher at our school, and she wants to meet with us 2 or 3 times a week to practice her English, and in exchange teach us some Chinese. It seems like her English is about the same level as my kids so we'll see how it goes. We're gonna meet her here on Monday at and then walk to some center or something.

Around 6:30 we were on our way to find this flea-market type place that Flora told us about and she called to let us know that her boss wanted to invite us to see a show at 8pm. We said definitely,but that we'd call cause we might be late since the show is down the street from our school, and the place we were going is farther away. After wandering around for awhile trying to find the market we called her back and she told us that they had closed at 5pm...not sure why she didn't tell us when we talked to her the first time..lol. But anyway, we ate dinner at this little place near there (an old man sat and watched us eat which is still funny but definitely something I'm getting used to), and then went back to our apt. and rode our bikes to the show just in time.

The building that the show is in is very traditional with the cool roof that goes up at the tips, I'm sure it has a name.. and it's always lit up at night, but we never knew what went on in there until last, lol..and we definitely wouldn't have guessed it. It was a Chinese variety show of singing, dancing, comedians, skits, and band..complete with crazy costumes, smoke, lasers, and clappers, lol. You know those plastic thngs with the 3 hands that you shake to clap? well, everyone in the place got one of those and used it the whole time, lol. Even though I couldn't understand a word they were saying..it was hilarious. At the beginning of the show the emcee noticed us in the audience and said hello, and then him and this other lady in the show sang the ABCs lol. who knows what they were saying about us when everyone was laughing but it was pretty funny.

Today me and Candice went to the walking street to shop..we didn't really buy much cause their aren't great clothes stores there..but i did buy some cute hair things, earrings, and a bunch of dvds. I also saw one of my kids walking around which was funny. I couldn't beleive I actually recognized him, lol. He's in 1st grade so I couldn't really talk to him but I said hi to him and his mom, lol. Also, in Da Ren Fa (the walmart place) a little girl came up to me and said hi, and asked me my name. I told her and asked her hers and everyone around us watched, lol. Last, with the help of some random lady who spoke some English..we got membership cards at Da Ren Fa. Now we just have to figure out how to use them to get prizes, and use the free lockers and stuff.

Well, I'm gonna go relax a bit and then go eat dinner..ttyl <3

ps. the pics and videos upload thing isn't working for some reason..so hopefully soon!

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