This is a Rolling Stop Post

Not much time to write this week, as I head out tomorrow morning for a week-long vacation to Hainan Island. You'll be hearing all about that next week, though.

This week was all the fun of a usual week, with one extra day off. Yesterday was Labor Day, but as Tuesday is our normal day off, we had Friday off instead. The kids, of course, had to go to school on Saturday to make up for their missed weekday, so our classes moved to Monday ... well anyway, it was the usual mess of a shifted schedule which all worked out in the end. Also at work, we've finally gotten two new teachers to replace ones who have finished their contracts and left. We haven't had anyone new since January and we've been rather desperately understaffed. One had to immediately turn around and go to Shanghai for processing, like my incoming group did back in July, but the other is being processed here and so has been observing classes and completing induction training at the center. My flatmate and I dragged her over to Taojin for some falafel last night. Yum, falafel. I'd say I'm going to miss my Mr. Shawarma, but didn't I read an article about a falafel maker in the Portland Press Herald last week? One can only hope.

Dim Sum. It's what's for breakfast.

On extra-day-off Friday, a group of us went out for dim sum for breakfast. You may not know this, but dim sum is apparently supposed to be breakfast food. I wholeheartedly approve of this, but what this probably just means is that I will eat dim sum at any time. I think it was actually an outing of the beginner-level EF Chinese class that I managed to get invited to/invited myself along to, so we practiced our basic Chinese, learned how to properly prepare and serve tea, Cantonese style, and discussed the history of dim sum (supposedly it dates from the Qing Dynasty) and learned what it means when a Chinese person taps twice on the table with two fingers (here's a hint: it does not mean 'hit me').

Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. (just kidding. It's not Earl Grey.)

After dim sum, I did a bit of shopping (sunscreen. some new sandals. the usual weekly necessity of food). Then, as I walked back toward the most convenient bus stop, I saw this:

It's 1:45pm.

I picked up my pace a bit, and you know what? I almost made it to the station. I was maybe 100 meters shy when the skies opened up. Of course, the morning weather had been fine and I hadn't planned to be out too long, and I left my little collapsing umbrella at work and I didn't want to carry my long one around all morning so ... I didn't have an umbrella.

Also, I need to clean my camera's lens.

Luckily, some nice women working in a shop of some sort (high end skin care/makeup, I think. A Japanese brand, maybe?) dragged me in as wet-cat me sidled passed their door. I was trying to get closer to my goal by hugging the shopfronts, underneath the slight overhang of their overhead signs, but the gaps between buildings were double strength rain+drip. They were very nice ladies, and gave me a stool and a cup of water and discovered I spoke Chinese. They insisted I couldn't go out in the rain, chided me for not carrying an umbrella in Guangzhou in the Spring, and interrogated me with the usual questions. Where are you from? When did you get to China? Where did you learn Chinese? Do you have a boyfriend? Are you looking for a Chinese boyfriend? What's your type? How tall are you? What do you weigh? How old are you? What do you do?  I answered them all, except my weight and my ideal boyfriend type. Then they tried to teach me to sing along to the Chinese pop music playing on the radio. I really can't sing in any language. Eventually the rain lightened up a bit, and I thanked them for their hospitality, then managed to hot-foot it to the bus stop and get home.

Seriously, 2:00 in the afternoon.

That's it for this week, except to say gosh, I hope it doesn't rain all week in Sanya.