I'm In

Hey everyone,

Update number five here.  I'm thinking that it is probably going to become my habit to always update this blog on Mondays.  Unless something absolutely amazing happens during the rest of the week, I will probably just save everything I have done during the week and share it all at once.  And this week, I learned that saying, "I'm in" when someone asks if you want to do something is a great way to make memories.

I also, unfortunately, learned that one should always take their camera with them if they are going somewhere. This lesson came on Saturday, when I was invited to "a park" by a Chinese woman introduced to us earlier in the week.  Her invitation went something like this:  "I would like to invite you three to a park for eating dinner."  I've been to a couple of the parks here, and so I accepted and didn't bother to bring my camera to a place I could visit any day.

To my great surprise, we were driven almost all the way across town to a water park, where we not only were treated to dinner, but got to meet ten 12-year-old students who spoke better English than I do Chinese.  Heck, they were acting as translators for their parents, who were along for the day.  Not only that, but we got to visit a studio where two men write poems in classic Chinese calligraphy.  One man has written poetry for the current president of China.  The other man is locally famous in our city, and was kind enough to give us each a piece of work he had completed recently.  Free of charge.  We were shocked, as we were told while walking back to the car:  "If you are ever short on money, sell that here and you'll be set."  Needless to say, we all decided to hang on to something that valuable, as that isn't something you can plan to get again.

On Sunday, I was supposed to go on another visit with another Chinese person we were introduced to, but I woke up with a bad cough and feeling very tired.  I ended up staying in pretty much all day that day.  Thankfully, it was just bad allergies from the day before, and I am very well recovered today.  In fact, I was invited to try a calligraphy class by one of my teachers, and to join a Tai Chi class type thing tonight by a group of students here.  After the lesson I learned by saying "I'm in" on Saturday, I said it again twice today and look forward to both of these experiences.

I'll let you know next week how they go, and hopefully there will be some other "I'm in" moments between now and then as well.  Also, my trip to Beijing is coming up this Thursday the 19th.  We'll be gone until Saturday the 21st, exploring places like the Forbidden City and Great Wall of China.  I'll definitely have pictures to share from those places, as well as stories about what all happened during our trip.  Thanks again to anyone that is reading this.

Adam