After we finished our fabulous meal, we took a taxi to the Southern China University of Technology. My friend's classmates were attending a presenation/competitino on urban design in Guangdong province. We got horribly lost trying to find the right building and ended up seeing a decent amount of the campus. (It turns out we walked right by it when we arrived but didnt' see the sign on the other side of the building and kept going.) Since I've posted many photos of my school, I thought it might be fun to share some photos of another university's campus. I love the buildings and old architecture at Southern China University of Technology 华南理工大学 but prefer the landscaping at Peizheng. It was fun to walk among the older buildings and trees and try to imagine all the things ... read more

Street food is one of those things that's unique to a region and often overlooked when describing a culture. Yet, it's an essential part of life for many. It's cheap, fast, made to order, and tasty. Even in movies, how often do you see New Yorkers stopping at the hot dog cart, or people in some Asian country slurping a bowl of noodles with chopsticks? China is no different. Tonight my friends and I went out for a sampling of some of the street foods right by our school. First up is my favorite, jian bing. We usually call it a wrap, but it's more like a Chinese crepe. At 4 kaui (70 cents) each, it's a bargain and I have it for lunch a few times a week. It's also possible to have extra eggs ... read more

With all the time off we have (but are expected to be "around" in case there are any questions about our grades) a friend and I decided to take a trip into the city. We had a few places we wanted to stop, but at the top of my list was a tea wholesale market. In Guangzhou there are lots of little areas that specialize in selling one thing and lots of it. There's a market for leather goods, one for shoes, one for dried fish, and obviously one for tea. I'm sure there are others I haven't discovered yet. I was looking to buy a new tea set (yes, another one). I already have serveral, but each set is a different style made with different materials. I'm trying to purchase one of each kind while ... read more

This year there were four Xmas parties to attend and I opted to attend three of them. Of course, starting off the festive season with baking was a requirement! A few of us gathered at Jane's apartment for an afternoon of mixing, rolling, cutting, and decorating. Since the red food coloring tends to turn pink, we opted to make our cookies green and blue and white, instead. After we got lazy with our decorating (you can only make so many cookies look nice before it gets tedious) our cookies turned into modern art you could eat. Thursday was my last day of exams and I decided staying home watching a holiday favorite, "Love Actually" was a better, more relaxing choice than heading out to hear the foreign teacher band play at the western restaurant. I knew ... read more

I love receiving emails that begin, "Hi dear coach." That was the salutation in the email that contained these three photos. They were taken at the end of a very fun night at the end of a very fun term. Tonight was our last English Speech Team meeting. The team captains and I agreed to have it be half class and half party. I thought it might be nice to learn about a fun type of speech: the toast. I know that my students won't need to toast for any competitions next year, but it's still a valuable skill to learn. We talked about different types of toasts, when to give which kind, and what kinds of things are said in each situation. A common example was a party for one of the captains, ususally a ... read more