I know, I know

see, i'm having this problem with my uh... my blog updating chromosome, yeah, that's it!

Deepest apologies to the faithful few (or many, I really don't know who reads this, though I have now passed the 400 hits mark! woohoo! i wonder how many are mine...)
I can imagine it now, you trudge home through the snow, and as soon as your fingers unthaw you are entering the URL for my website, desperate for the next installment, to find out if i've fallen off my bike yet, to hear about the strange cultural taboos that i have broken in my attempts at communication, and most of all... ok never mind that, just needed to add a little melodrama to your lives to make up for a week of not updating...

Oh, speaking of falling off my bike, I had my first accident last week! Apparently it was nothing to write home about, since I didn't! Anyways, I was on my bike, coming up on an intersection, and there was a scooter in front of me, they were signalling to turn left, and beginning to execute the turn, there was no oncoming traffic, it seemed like this would be yet another successful driving exercise, but instead of turning, she decided to brake... causing me, the oncoming bycicle who tried to quickly break and go around to run right into her! She was stopped and I was almost (but not in time), so it wasn't an extremely spectacular collision. There were many apologies, and I came out of it with a squished basket and a spilled coffee (which I think i was the most cranky about).

This week has been, fine.... not incredibly exciting, not bad, just fine.
Monday after our hike we went to a hot springs, which I enjoyed, it was quite relaxing, though one with less sulfur scent would be better... fortunately we (Hope, her sister Amy who came to visit, and I) nearly had the whole thing to ourselves. I don't even want to think about the potential chaos of three white girls in bathing suits... we cause a bit of disruption in normal circumstances.

Anyhow, poor Hope has been sick so I have been kind of on my own and having to field all questions about her condition/treatment and medical advice/suggestions.... but apparently they go to the Doctor for every thing here. Dr. Jack tried to explain something about insurance or something... I don't know... Hope and I both agreed that we would normally never see a doctor about a mere cold...

Wednesday night I discovered that I am still somewhat of a novelty at church... it does kind of catch you off guard when the speaker suddenly welcomes you out of the blue (well maybe not so out of the blue if you happen to speak chinese) and everyone turns to look at you/come shake your hand... but I got the english version of the material they are studying which was nice, and I got to practice sharing testimonies/the gospel with Dr. Su. I discovered that the simplified english version of my testimony lasts about 1 minute, good to know! I suppose I could work on that.

Thursday night I got to go help with a class, it was so fun! Our good friend Amy Lin who we call Amy Jieh (Big sister Amy) teaches an hour long english class on thursday nights, so we joined her. She was teaching about animals, and, unbeknownst to us beforehand, decided to have the teachers act out animals to review the names (the kids had to guess which animal we were acting out) well that's one way to introduce yourself to a class! I had fun, it was nice to be in the classroom again, although a little odd to have not 1 but 3 teachers....

I have had some fun times with Jeff and Sherly this week too, they are so cute! I gave them some Castlegar paraphenalia (wow it's been a long time since i've tried to spell that word), including a brochure and some pins *thanks chamber of commerce*
which they were very excited about! Jeff wants to go there and climb all the mountains/go boating/fishing/biking
Today they invited me to go to a bbq up in the mountains... it was interesting! I agreed, and we went up this extremely steep one-lane road (half of which was too and through villages...) to the property of some people from their church. We really did have somewhat of a bbq, chinese style though... interesting... they had what looked like gas hot plates with a big grill set on top to cook meat/stir fry vegetables including onions, green peppers, bean sprouts, and bamboo shoots. There were many varieties of meat, including a whole chicken (possible minus the head).... i think i am starting to get used to the sight of someone gnawing on a chicken foot. Jeff ate his chicken intestines with great relish, after asking the english word for them...
Of course no chinese meal is complete without soup, which they cooked over an open flame for pretty much the whole time we were there, randomly (to me) throwing stuff in and adding water etc. And fruit, some of which was fresh off the tree... they have these things like giant grapefruit here, they're pretty yummy, but really hard to get into, guava, and this fruit that looks like a tomato, but is kind of like a peach, well not really... it's good though, and i saw a real banana tree! how cool, did you know they grow upside down? well from the way we eat them anyways... they grow up though, not hanging down, it looks rather neat.

One of the fun things about today was the kids! There were a bunch of kids who I have met before that were there, some were in the English class I helped with on Thurs, and they are so fun! I barely got to talk to anyone else until they left to go to another activity. These two girls Tina and April immediately lactched onto me, grabbing my hands when they were free, bringing me here and there, and speaking in chinese and then saying "ting bu dong" (which means you hear no understand), but they were really cute, and we were able to communicate a little. The boys were a little shyer, but there was this one that kept asking me "are you ok?" i'm not even sure if he knows what that means... anyways, it was fun!
I like kids.

lol what a random ending... anyhow... you may have noticed my odd temperament tonight...

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