Re-uniting with friends....

Yesterday afternoon (Aug. 10) Suz and I went shopping for a cell phone – I found one with an English-Chinese dictionairy…YAY – so convenient! People from here have already been calling and messaging me, it is nice to know some people around here. After buying the cell phone Suz, Jordan (works with Suzanne) and I went out for supper, I love the food here very much (I just have to ask for no hot peppers or numbing spice). I spent the evening with friends who I had met last year and who I had kept in contact with over the winter (Brianna, Sky, Ruth + her boyfriend Ted). It was great how there was no awkwardness for even a second (even though Ruth’s boyfriend and Ruth don’t really speak English). We went down to the river for slushies and ended up staying out for a while. It was great to meet with them again! We all decided to hang out again first thing in the morning.

So, this morning at 9:30am I went to the school gate again to meet with all of them. They had planned to take me to the market and we were going to cook a meal together. It was an awesome time! I wish I would have taken pictures at the market but I forgot my camera, I will have to take pictures of that another time…quite different from the ‘market’ in Canada! We went to Ted’s dad’s home first to prepare the meal…Ted did most of the preparing. It was probably the best meal I have had in China so far (even though I had been worried before because we bought fish again). After lunch we went over to Ted’s mom’s home where we relaxed, played cards, and talked for a few hours yet. It is awesome to know people around in here and to be treated as a normal person. It can be really awkward when the entire school yard is full of students watching a basketball game and as soon as I step out into the open the game may as well be over because all the eyes are on me. No matter where I go…people stare. I love being around people who treat me like a friend, not a celebrity!

NOTE: For those of you who have Facebook...I will post more pictures there...this is quite time-consuming (but I picked the best ones anyway)!