Photos of Lee with short hair are out!

Surf to Flickr to see what a hippy looks like without long hair...

Lee without long hair!!!

About an hour ago, the mystical Lee with long curly hair has become history... incredible what a pair of scissors and a razor can do to a human being...

Photos will be published ASAP. I (Johanna) am looking at Lee with "one laughing and one crying eye": that is a literal translation of a German saying "mit einem lachenden und einem weinenden Auge". On the one hand, it makes him look young and dynamic while at the same time his long, curly hair was lovely, too. Oh well, time for a change... and it will grow back albeit grey:)

Seasons in the sun

Hello again,

thanks for checking out our photos and "staying tuned". What's new? Well, not so much: we're getting the hang of teaching here and it is still lovely weather. Also, the Chinese are toughening us up: after having played "ping pong" outside and being laughed and stared at, we have become quite determined and are getting better.

Food-wise we still feel a bit lost, because whenever we ask our students or Chinese acquaintances about good food here, we get answers like: "You gotta try Chicken feet, it is not really meat" or "No, we don't eat steak either, that's meat! We prefer internal organs" and similar tips along these lines.

On a positive note, we still get big smiles from local shop- and restaurant owners when we try our limited Chinese on them. People are generally honest here, even if they feel that we don't have a clue how much their products really should be.

All in all, life is good here. Yet, it would be a lie to say that we do not miss the West.

PS: Thanks for your email, Isa, and we are impressed with your photos of Mongolia and New Zealand. I will get back to you personally soon!

Xi'an - what a place!

Hello again,
as promised, some details about our trip to Xi'an, one of the ancient capitals of China. Firstly, we stayed in a great, luxiourious hotel with sauna and whirlpool IN THE ROOM! We thought we'd push out the boat a bit after having stayed with spider roommated in Ping'an and around China before. It was well worth-it!

Secondly, and yet foremost, the weather was great and the city itself very impressive: apart from the Terracotta Soldiers and the emperors' tombs, there are numerous ancient pogodas (build 600 a.d. and yet huge), a city wall to cycle around on, yummy coffee and cake places, parks, and a very impressive tao mountain in the area, which is worth seeing.

Since it was a Chinese national holiday, we weren't the only people on the streets there... quite the contrary! We enjoyed watching people and life go by. It was nice to see that everybody seems to be out on the streets during their time off, just enjoying the moment.

As for usual, we took plenty of photos, which will be put online by tomorrow. For Ivano (and our other friends who don't find it worth bookmarking our photosite:)), here is the hyperlink

Enjoy and remember to leave some comments for us!

October blues

Dear friends,

Last week, we had our "baptism of fire" by going from teaching around 10 hours per week to 22 hours. It was a double blow, since we had had a week off right before that. But eh, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger! And yes, we believe we are stronger for it! However, yesterday we did feel the urge to go out and try the local beer... too cheap to resist:), but luckily quite weak.

In short, normality has caught up with us, and we are still struggling with it. The good news is though, that we will get almost three months of at the beginning of January until mid March, which will allow us to travel to New Zealand, too. We are very excited about that!!