1000 and counting!

I've now hit over 1000 views of this blog! I will have to look into sprucing it up and selling some ad space on the side...

The word that comes to mind this past week is COLD. It's just cold - not wet or snowy or icy, but cold. In the morning it's in the upper teens or low twenties, and then gets up to the thirties or low forties in the afternoon. There is no frost or anything on the car windows - it's a dry cold. Some snow or something would be nice, but I guess that doesn't happen very often.  The temperature in my apartment is pretty comfortable now, but one has no control over the heat - you get what you get...

Yesterday a small group of students invited us foreign teachers to a hot pot dinner at a well-known restaurant near the Blue Goose Pagoda. It was one of the better hot pots I've had, but getting there was not easy. One thing we've found is that there is definitely a shortage of cabs in Xián - sometimes you can't find one for the life of you. So we ended up going on a bus... and then transferring to another bus... and they are almost always crowded. So it takes an hour... Part of Xián does have a subway system - which is very nice - and they are expanding it - but I imagine it will be quite a while before it gets down to the southern part of the city here.

So what are the Xmas holidays like here? Kind of like any other day. There are some ritzy stores that will have up a tree (fake) or a Merry Christmas banner but no strings of lights or anything. Haven't seen a Santa either (that would probably cause quite a stir). The students are putting on a Xmas presentation but it is on Saturday morning and goes on for about 4 hours according to those in the know. Hence not many of us plan on attending. Our staff is having a hot pot on Saturday night to celebrate but I imagine it will be fairly low-key. On Xmas weekend, some of the staff is going to a local mountain for a couple days to go skiing, but seeing as how I didn't really bring the winter gear for it, plus it isn't much of a mountain and the snow is all fake, I'm taking a pass. I've downloaded the movie A Christmas Story so maybe I'll watch that with the hangers-on. It is not a holiday here in China so all schools and businesses are open as usual.

Our main source of obtaining movies and shows here has been shut down. It was a website called The Pirate Bay. It's not what you'd call legal but it's the only way to get western entertainment here. I finished reading And the Mountains Echoed and am figuring out what to start next...

Sheng dan kuai le (Merry Christmas)