When I stopped - Wed. June 16th

Sorry I have been unable to do it for awhile I realize! Things have been going good and I am learning more and more stuff everyday. Stuff about the culture, the work here, my life and how I work, people who live here and daily life. All of this is so awesome and I can't really write about most of it either. You pretty much missed only one week. This was our last week in Jingzhou you missed. We didn't have much planned during this week. Mainly it was saying goodbye to the people we had met and building even closer relationships. We did go to Yichang though and saw the Dam and Three Gorges. The university took us there and it was gorgeous. We went with the girl in the office. It was really good talking to her more and getting to know more about her. The three gorges held alot of the province's heritage and history. I even got to play an instrument with some of the Pros there. They tried to teach some of it to me but I'm slow and don't speak much Chinese. We got to see all the war stuff and hike down the mountain we went up through a gorgeous scenic route. Also that last week in Jingzhou we through a Tex Mexican style dinner for the friends we have met. This went off fairly well. Many of the students don't really like it because it was spicy. We made tacos from pork meat since that was all we could find. We brought our own tortillas and made a salsa from random peppers we found in the store and fresh tomatos. Getting to know the students even deeper was better. We got to talk to them about more than just school and such. It was really good and I will look back on it as one of the greatest times. We talked at the meeting sunday morning and that went fairly well. As i'm writing this I am really missing Jingzhou and the people there. In a later post, when I get back home, I will post some of what I feel as "accomplishments" (I don't really like this terminology) and things I would change if I did again. I will also put some about the work there and how we helped with that. I can't yet as I am in Beijing and Beijing is worse than Jingzhou in that. But one thing I can say as I look back on Jingzhou is one thing I would change or do differently is spend more time with the few than meeeting many people. I don't know how much of that is possible as we were constantly meeting new people. There were a few though that I wish I could have spent more time with and got to know even more. I feel that would have been even more effective. I will miss the people there quite a bit and expecially those who I really got to know. I have been blessed by their lives.
We are in Beijing though right now so I will post some current things. We flew out sunday night from the airport. This was one "adventure" getting to Beijing. First we tried to get train tickets. They didn't take american credit cards online so we went through someone elses because you couldn't get it from the agency without getting a bus ticket with it. So we got the train tickets and a few hours later we get a call saying the train is full and we can't get the tickets. So we quickly try to decide what to do. We decide the only other option is getting plane tickets so we get those. A few hours later I get a call again saying they need to confirm my address. They wouldn't take my address so it became even more complicated oh and the date was changed. We got it worked out though and got even the date changed back. We get to the airport Sunday and wait and find out there is a storm in Beijing (it only rains like 8 days here keep in mind) and so our plane is delayed 6 1/2 hours. We wait through that to arrive in Beijing at 6:30 the next morning. That day we were really tired. We went and saw one of madison's friends who we our house sitting for because they left yesterday. Well at night I get a fever of 102 but luckly it is going away. It didn't stop us. Yesterday we went to the biggest mall in Asia. It was pretty cool and BIG. It's amazing how western it is though. They had Starbucks, DQ, Harley Davidson, and many moe but those were the surprising ones. There we also fell into a tourist trap and got led to a hotel to buy paintings which we couldn't get out of. We looked it up when we got home and it was on the internet as a clear tourist trap to watch out for, LOL. That night though we went on snack street. Snack street is just a street full of food that is exotic and weird. I didn't have many things weird only like crab legs and a meatball that wasn't any meat we recognized. There were LIVE scorpions though on sticks, Sea horses, Starfish, squid...a nd you name it. OH also cockroaches and other bugs are included in that list. It was a great experience though. Today, even though I'm still kind of sick, we went to the Forbidden City and Tienmen Square. These were very interesting. The Inside city was really spectacular and the square was big (DONT mention anything about it!!!!!!!!!!). That has been the day. Oh we ate at a korean restraunt it was ok, but not my favorite I like Chinese food better. Good Night wo Ai Ni... Peace with you