Funny things about living here...

These happy little guys are just so damn cute I had to show you...they are the mascots for the company, Haier, that makes both our washing machine and our heater. Click to see more pics...

Just finished up our first week of teaching 1,000 high school kids and it was quite a week! We were on Chinese television for a Valentine's Day special to show how we do it in the states, and that put us in the VDay mood so we biked down to the train station (always a dangerous choice) and grabbed tickets for a fast train Friday night to the closest big city, Nanjing, for a nice Italian dinner at Ciao Italia.

Jenn is blogging our evening in Nanjing here...

At about 4.30am that morning I woke up in a sweat from a dream where I was swimming and sharks were eating my stomach! What the hell?? As I doubled over in pain it didn't take long to realize that I had my first case of food poisoning (and I wish I could say it's my last but I know that's not the case).

I've had this happen to me a few times in my life (once I accidentally drank water from a cooler that was full of raw chicken juice on a camping trip and we were too far away to medivac me out...three days of doubled-over sickness while my buddies laughed their asses off) and it is a pain you can't imagine until you get it. And it apparently happens a lot over here in China for obvious reasons...

So I spent all day yesterday watching dvd's and holding my stomach and intestines, wrenching in pain that felt like a dozen Mongoose trying to rip their way out. We don't know how or why, but it's a fact of life over here and it reminds me to not be so experimental with street food (although if you can't trust a restaurant meal we are in real trouble!) and to wash my hands at least 100 times a day, or more.

This is our stove...funny thing is, you can cook almost anything on this baby (except a turkey or a birthday cake perhaps) but this puppy ignites at the flick of a switch and launches a flame powerful enough to use for hot air balloons. Click to see more pics...

While I was an invalid and stuck grimacing through a haze of pain for 12 hours, I thought about all the funny things about living here and wanted to share a few with you. I'm about 65% as I write this, just got back from teaching my last class for the day, and I'm trying hard to remind myself that it's all part of the adventure...

Like Jenn said as we toasted each other for Valentine's Day - "We are going to be very different people after spending a year over here!"...I'm pretty sure she meant that in a good way. ;)