Mount Taishan

We traveled about 2 hours by bus to Tian to climb the famous China Mountain named Mount Taishan. It was a shuttle bus up the side of the mountain, then a tram up the mountain and at last a long hike up to the top. We went with some of the other local BYU English teachers and the staff of the International office.
We enjoyed the day very much and took some photos there. We had a wonderful Chinese food lunch and headed back. This trip was supposed to be two days but was changed to a day trip only because the University International office who took us, was afraid of the spread of the Pig Flu virus and staying overnight there, so far from home and associating with large groups of people, could be perhaps medically inadvisable or even dangerous. We just passed that off as simply fear speaking. There have been three (3) confirmed cases of this bacon, ham or pork chop virus in China so far, no deaths, and in a population of 1 and 1/2 billion, the threat seems small to us.

Wish you all a happy day!

CHINA CHOCOLATE MOOSE

A HANDY, JIM DANDY, CHINESE DRILL.

Because we have no egg beater here in China and Chinese do not have any such contraption in any of their stores, because they do not know what they are in the first place, or what they are used for. So, today, at the tool market we happened upon in our city bus ride, I had an idea..."USE A DRILL". We had an old beater bar. So, Voila, Chocolate syrup and Real Whipped Thick Cream = Drilled Chocolate Moose. YUMMY!

These two English Class students took me to lunch in the College Canteen today, and this is what we had, REAL AUTHENTIC CHINESE FOOD. Yes, with chop sticks. They both attend my class and they are boy friend and girl friend, which means they will be getting married after two or three more years of college. In the meantime, they live together.

These are some of the artistic rocks painted in English Class where they had to choose their favorite letter of the alphabet and the phrase it stands for... (Click on photos to see closeups)

WOW, New haircuts again and a photo with our barber. She does a great job and we are happy with her work, even though sometimes she takes too much off... Be careful saying you do not want it very short, while showing them just a little space between your fingers while loudly emphasizing in English--

just take a little

off the top ... Sometimes that backfires.

Jay visiting the student pharmacy laboratory with one of his English Students who was doing his experiments here. Jay looks like a mad scientist eh?