David's Big Adventure in China

I am going to Kunming today which is known as the spring city for it’s San Francisco like weather. It is in Yunnan province in South Central China. I have been in Nanning for almost a week and have enjoyed my time here. The weather is quite hot here so between the weather, my diet and lots of walking I’ve lost a few unnecessary pounds. My diet has included lots of noodles, chicken, fish, veggies (not always sure what kind) and some pork. Saturday evening a friend I met here at a breakfast gathering of foreigners, took me to a local seafood market where you can buy every kind of seafood imaginable (and it was all still alive). We purchased a fish and some other seafood and took it to the restaurant across the street where they prepared it for us. The fish was still breathing when they took it to the kitchen to cook it. It was a delicious meal and cost about $15 for the two of us.
A couple days ago I went to get a haircut which cost $2.50. It included a shampoo and scalp massage before the cut, the cut and another shampoo after the cut…….very nice. The parks here are very nice. I went to a park last night (Monday night) and at 10:00 there were hundreds of people dancing in a large outdoor area where they were playing music and everyone was dancing the same dance. I don’t think people here spend much time in their homes. They are always out and about. The parks are big gathering places and in the mornings their are many people there exercising and dancing, etc.
I have now had 3 job interviews and it seems I have offers from all 3. I’m still waiting on some of the details. I will not start work until sometime between early July and September. I will spend the month of June in Zhuhai (near Macau) getting my TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certificate. I think that I want to work at a university because of the hours and vacation schedule. There are some trade offs involved in the different opportunities.
There are not many foreigners here in Nanning so I get a lot of stares and the occasional “hello!” In Shenzhen and Guangzhou they are more accustomed to seeing foreigners.
All in all, so far it’s been fun with only a few moments of “what the hell have I gotten myself into?!”. It’s a challenge for this old dog to learn new tricks but so far so good. Well that’s all for now folks…..keep those cards and letters coming!

This entry was posted on Monday, May 21st, 2007 at 9:51 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.