I'm sorry about the lack of bulletins in the recent past. I've gotten very lazy. I could always use the excuse that I have 6 classes to prepare for, but I wouldn't do that. Would I?

So let me do a little catching up. During the second last weekend of October, there was a sports meeting. I've mentioned about that. What I haven't talked about is the rest of the weekend.

Because of the extra time afforded by the sports meeting, I decided to go to Hefei. Hefei is the capital of Anhui province. It is about 2.5 to 3 hours away from Wuhu by bus (I should say, bus plus ferry crossing). Hefei is home to about 4.3 million people and is a very industrial strength town. What I mean is that there are a lot of factories in and around the city.

For my bus ride there, I was in the very back seat and could not see out the window properly. That was a shame. Fortunately, on the way back, I had a nice seat and really enjoyed watching the Chinese countryside pass by. It really is as beautiful as they say it is.

My purpose in Hefei was basically just to visit the other teachers there. I had, of course, met them while I was in California training. So I hooked up with my CalPoly roommate, the 6-foot plus Ty Cramer. There was also Shannon "Desert Girl" Dong and her cohort, Lois Ingles. There were also the Sherk family (Canadian) and Tim Clark (He lived in Prince George as a kid).

Ty, Tim, and the Sherks teach at the University of Science and Technology China (USTC, or as I call it, KeDa). That's a big name university in China. Shannon and Lois are down the street at the Anhui Institute of Education (AIE).

It was wonderful to see and talk to Ty again. He was really delighted to see me again, especially since he had been waiting an hour for me. I got lost. The taxi driver dropped me off at the wrong campus for KeDa. He dropped me off at the West Campus. I was supposed to be at the East Campus. Aiya!

However, the mistake turned out to be a good mistake. I had asked a student for directions, in Mandarin of course, and he said that he didn't know of any Foreign Experts Guesthouse, but he pointed me in what he thought was the right direction. So I went that way, but I didn't find anything. I actually bumped into the same student later and he noticed I was lost. He offered to look around and ask people if they knew where the guesthouse would be. He rode around on his bike and asked people. That was really kind of him.

We soon discovered that I was on the wrong campus. I didn't know that at first. He offered to escort me to the other campus. It was about a 20 minute walk to the other campus and this guy had a class to attend, so I'm really grateful for his help.

Along the way, we tried to communicate. I, with my terrible Putonghua, and he, with his limited English, managed to learn a bit about each other. The most surprising thing was that we both had the same family name. That was very cool. I also understood that his hometown was near a city called ChaoHu. I passed by it on my way to Hefei. I remember it because we made a very important visit to the WC there. Can you spell relief?

The student was just a really swell guy. I wish I could have done more in return for him than just say thank you. He was a lot of help.

That night, I also did a dumb thing on the bus. I put a 2 Jiao bill (0.2 Yuan) in the slot instead of a 2 Yuan bill. I was paying for both Ty and myself. It costs 1 Yuan per person. We had gone to the back of the bus because the exit was there. Then some ladies started talking to me in Chinese, but I wasn't totally sure what they were saying. I thought they were asking about Ty. Somewhere along the line I realized they were talking about Chinese money. Then it really clicked when the bus driver stopped the bus started hollering. So Ty handed me a 2 Yuan bill and I walked up to the front, apologized, and paid the proper fare. Oh, you should have seen the stares I got as I walked to the back. They must have been thinking what a stupid Chinese boy. He can't tell the difference between a 2 Jiao and 2 Yuan bill. By the way, the two bills are the same colour and only differ in size and pictures. So if you don't look carefully, you can mix them up like I did. Silly me.

One of the major reasons I went to Hefei was to take in some major Western food. The big hotel in town is the Holiday Inn. It has 29 stories and on the top floor is the revolving restaurant. That's where a few of us headed for dinner. It was gorgeous up there, absolutely stunning. There was a huge Western buffet decked out and here were some hungry foreigners ready for some grub. It was a costly meal (72 Yuan), but it was really good.

Something else worth noting is that Ty, Shannon, and I stumbled across a Bubble Tea place in Hefei. I was really surprised to see it. I got the impression from my students that such a thing did not exist in China. Shannon was really eager to have some. I thought it was just cool to find the place. Shannon bought one drink. I think it cost her about 18 Yuan. I thought that was too expensive. I could have about 4 or 5 really cheap meals for 18 Yuan, so I abstained.

There's more that happened on my trip, but time has already eroded away my memory. (Actually, it's getting late and I've typed a lot and I wanna sleep.) Hopefully, I can recall more things later on. For now, this entry will have to suffice.