Ropers in Xi'an China

Today I walked down to the vegetable market to, obviously, get some vegetables.  It's funny how just buying a few veggies can be so fun.  I shall really miss the fresh markets that are along every street. The first woman who helped me was older, probably my age, and her hands showed her years of working in the fields; wrinkled, stained from dirt but strong and solid.  I bought some bean sprouts from another woman and it cost be 1.5 yuan which would be about 15 cents.  The fresh, homemade noodles I bought cost 4 yuan.  Everything is so cheep.  Sometimes I feel guilty only giving them such a little bit of money.  In fact, we buy most of our fruit from the same lady and we often tell her to keep the change.  She usually refuses and tries to give us our change, but we just walk away and smile.  She always waves and smiles back. While I was walking back from the market I saw a whole stream of children coming down the sidewalk with a nurse lead...

Coming to China has been an experience like no other.  I know I've posted mostly just places we've been able to visit....which has been astounding.  But we've had many personal experiences as well.  Teaching these college students is a lot of work but being in the classroom with them is invigorating.  They are so eager to learn and they have hearts as big as gold.  But today we had an experience that wasn't on campus but it was these kinds of experiences as well as our every day rubbing shoulders with these wonderful people that makes us glad that we came.  We were on our way to the store to buy a couple of things.  It was a beautiful warm spring day and many of the locals were out with their children and grandchildren.  As we walked through the square, a couple of young girls raced by us on their scooters.  When they passed us they stopped, turned around and said "HI!"  We were a little surprised since they were so young.  So of ...