Back to school...

Hi Guys & Gals... Happy Monday from China!   It's been a BRUTAL one here today.  Brutal due to the heat and the fact that went back to Mandarin lessons at 8am this morning!  No AC was turned on in our classroom so it's a good thing we picked morning classes before the heat of the day gets to the rooms.

Bill looking very studious:

Note to self:  Do not go 6 weeks without so much as taking a peek at the book or thinking about uttering a word in Chinese ever again.
My brain hurts and all we did was review what we had learned in Survival 1.

We'll get it back in our brains sooner or later I'm sure, it was just a shocker this morning.  Our teacher Zoey gave me a nice flowered necklace and Bill got a notebook!  I'm not sure if it's Chinese tradition to give students presents... or if we should maybe be giving her gifts in return?   We're not very good at this Chinese gift giving stuff, or understanding it.

And speaking of Chinese gifts yesterday our neighbors (they're German) brought us a gift because they had a baby 7 weeks ago.  So again, not sure on the whole gift giving, they told us that the Chinese co-workers told them to give the gifts to their friends.  It was a nice gesture and we got to speak to them a little more than we have previously so maybe we'll have some new friends!  

The box has 3 items - a sweet pickled egg, a sour pickled egg and some other red bean pastry type treat.  Bill ate them, I took a pass.

Other than that I've been in the AC the rest of the day... cleaning the shower, toilets, floors and doing laundry!  Fun stuff.