Ropers in Xi'an China

We've been in China for 11 days.  It's been an amazing 11 days.  We've learned lots of things.  The people in China don't speak English but they're willing to work with you and try to figure out what it is you need.  There are little restaurants all along the street the seat about 15-20 people, if that many.  Everyone sells something different.  Usually they have pictures so you can order by pictures but you don't always know what you're getting.  One night we bought something at a dumpling restaurant.  She kept asking us if we wanted this or this as she pointed to the menu, and we kept telling her we didn't know.  Finally she just got us something.  It was delicious.  We told the other teachers we are here with so they wanted us to take them there and order the same thing for them. When we did just that, the food they brought out was different.  Not sure how that happened.  😏  But they still enjoyed it. We've lear...

We decided the 2nd day we were here, to be brave and find our way around.  Kim had a map and had found that the Wild Goose Pagoda is in walking distance to where we live.  So we decided to see if we could find it.  It was about a 30-40 minute walk, but find it we did.  We walked the block all around it and then took the street straight south of it home that had a beautiful display of statues depicting the Tang Dynasty (as I recall).  Here are pictures from that adventure: These apartments are NOT like ours.  Actually they aren't being lived in. :) It's hard to tell but these grapes were huge!  Like the size of a bouncy ball. Haven't bought any yet but others have and have said they're delicious. A great fruit and vegetable market. Yes!  100 year old eggs.  I don't know if they're really that old but I do know, I'm not going there!!! Meat!? This little dog not only looked like Ginger but she acted like her too. ...

School officially starts on Monday, September 4.  I, Rhonda, will be teaching all Freshmen.  Freshmen are required to have military training their first week of school so I will not start teaching until September 11.  YAY!!!  Kim at this point still doesn't know what he will be teaching or what his schedule is going to be.  The only comfort he gets from that is he's not alone.  There is still one other teacher who doesn't have her schedule or assignment either. Friday, we took the city bus out to our university.  We live on the "old" campus but will be teaching on the "new" campus.  First we had to walk about 2 miles and then it took us 45 minutes on the bus to get there.  It is a beautiful campus.  Very modern looking.  We each found the buildings we'll be teaching in, where there is a faculty cafeteria.  One of the teachers had lunch there on Saturday and said it cost her about 80 cents.   WOW!  And she said it ta...