Today, we were able to go to a neighboring town, Pingba, for their festival, celebrating the history of one of their areas called a Tunpu. This is an area that was built during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) as an army fort. This area has remained the same since the 15th century, as the people continue to wear their Ming Dynasty clothing, hair, and culture. We went with two of our students, Season and Whist, and their boyfriends. Pingba is a relatively small town but it was filled full of many different visitors for this event. We arrived early and got special tickets and were given the royal treatment, we were allowed to talk down the red carpet where we watched many different performances, like dancers, drummers, singers and lots of other things. It was rather warm so we left that early and went out to eat. We went to a special Duck "kaoya" hotpot restaurant, where our table has a large burner on it where they put a pan of water and spices and a large duck and other things that you order into the boiling water and you eat it with rice. We ended up adding some fungus things, tofu, seaweek, and green vegetables and as a special treat they bought duck feet to eat. We are glad they chose this instead of the duck heart or tongue, but it tasted ok.

After eating way too much, we headed back to the excitement and looked for some souvenirs. We looked at many different handicrafts from different minority groups and other crafts (batiks, dolls, bags, etc.) along with specialty teas, wines, and mooncakes. We ended up getting a handmade doll from the Miao minority group (the Hmong). One of the weird parts of this event was that we were one of the attractions as many tourists wanted to take pictures of us and followed us around excitedly.

Next, we went to the actual Tunpu village. By this time, it was less crowded. We walked around and looked at many different people selling all kinds of crafts--it is amazing to see their talents. They had wood carving, batiks (made by wax resistent watercoloring of the material), pictures made from bamboo, and lots of traditional costumes. The houses were pretty amazing--they were made of stones (slate and limestone mainly), but without mortar to hold them together. We were able to see how they make flour, dry corn, make tea, and watch a traditional opera (where they wear masks and put on a play). We were very tired by the time we made it through looking at many of the areas. It was fascinating and there were lots of fun things to look at. I saw some shoes that were 200 years old and looked a lot like football cleets for girls!! It does not appear that life has changed much from the 1400's as much is done by hand. It was definitely a special event to see and we were excited to see it. We will be posting some pictures and maybe even some video later to show some of these events. We hope all is going well with each of you--school is going well. The freshman are doing their military training so we are kept awake all day by marching and the ever present "yi-er-san-si," one, two, three, four. Many blessings!!

The end of this week was a very busy time. The week of teaching saw more successes than the previous week. Students are getting over being so shy and we are building some relationships where we can learn from them and they can practice their English.

On Friday, we went hiking up one of the hills/mountains behind school, which was really fun. We were able to see for a long distance--see all of the farmland and hills in the distance. When we came down, we walked around campus to see some of the freshman registering and we had a chance to talk to many of our top students. I have set up some people to get together and play football (soccer), badminton and ping pong and some students who want to teach us how to cook. We ended up getting invited to an official dinner that night which was really fun. We have been eating a lot of food (which I love).

Saturday morning, we got up early to go to Guiyang (the biggest city in the area). It was a two hour bus ride, which cost about $4 per person on a nice bus. It was fun to see all of the mountains along the way and small towns. The city is very busy and we were able to eat pizza (the first thing we did) at Pizza Fun. They had some strange pizzas like a Japanese sushi pizza, tuna pizza, spicy chicken pizza, supreme, pepperoni, and my favorite peppered beef with strange squid pieces. It also had lots of other american favorites, so we loved it. We also made a visit to one of the two Wal-Marts in town--the one with Mao blessing it. It was crazy busy with tons of people running around aimlessly with carts full of things that you cannot get anywhere else. We got some American food and other things (ping-pong paddles).

In town, we were able to meet some of our other teachers from the same organization. It was fun to talk and hear how school is going for them. We enjoyed it greatly!! Their campuses are very nice, but it made us appreciate the quiet and organization of Anshun and the college. Our college provides textbooks and lots of help, which is not provided at many of the other colleges. I cannot imagine teaching without having a textbook. We tried to get some cheese, but we could only find a big 11 pound chunk of cheese for $40--that was quite a bit so we ended up not getting any.

On Sunday, we were able to fellowship with a large amount of other foreigners teaching and working in the area. It was great to be able to hear how they were doing and how the Father is working in their lives. There were many children and they came from a variety of places such as England, Netherlands, and various places in the US. It is always nice to get together with people who share some of the same values and to share stories and hear about sports from around the world. I now can find soccer matches on TV from England, but still no NFL. I did watch a charity game between Chinese All-Star players and some NBA stars. That was fun!! We are adjusting and learning more, and it is becoming more like home. We are still trying to figure out plans for our week off for National Day Sept. 1-7. Maybe camping or visiting friends in Yunnan. We hope your lives are blessed. We will try to get some pictures out again soon.

We have completed our first week of classes, and have gotten a chance to meet almost all of our students. Our freshman students come to campus this weekend, but they have a couple of weeks of miltary training before their classes start. We have a week-long break at the beginning of October for National Day, so we are trying to figure out what we are going to do. We are thinking of possibly travelling to visit our friends in the Yunnan province, where we taught before. We found out from them that it is a 8 hour bus ride to Kunming and then a 24 hour bus ride into the mountains to get to their village. Patty is not sure it will be worth it, but I am excited for the adventure. Too bad we do not have a break in November for their Hani New Year--they have rows and rows of food that everyone can eat and lots of great entertainment. One of the other teachers is going camping during the break and that also sounds like great fun and a chance to spend more time with some students.

Monday was Teacher's Day in China, so we were invited out to a fancy hotel for a meal. When we arrived, most of the teachers were playing mah jong and we went bowling upstairs, which was a fun time. The lanes were a little shorter and it was the first time for some of the teachers--making it more memorable. The president of the University came along with all of the Foreign Language Department (English and one Japanese class). There was so much food and many toasts. Some of the more interesting dishes were snake skin (I actually liked it--though a bit rubbery) and a whole fish skin and all. We had our first Chinese lesson later that night, which was something fun to start. It was some review for me from college, but Patty learned a lot. Now, our goal is to remember and use it. We used some of it this morning during our trip shopping at the market. We bought lots of food and understood everything.

The weekend was very rainy here, so we stayed indoors and played cards for hours. We learned a new Chinese Card game, which is similar to an American game, but lots of fun to play. Patty and I also got out the cribbage board and played a few games. It should be getting to the end of the rainy season here soon (hopefully). We are excited to see the sports scores, but sad that we cannot actually watch the games. Go Vikings defense.

This weekend we are going to Guiyang, the capital city of the Guizhou province. We are getting together with other teachers there and they have a Wal-mart and Pizza Hut, so we are excited to have pizza again. We have enjoyed cooking and trying new foods, but it will be a comfort to have some of our home favorites. We hope that you are all well and enjoying starts of school or your days of work. We miss you and send our love!!

First day of school at Anshun Teacher's College. We each had one class today. The morning bell went off this morning at 6:30 getting everyone up. It goes off for thirty minutes and is quite loud. We went to get our visa made into a foreign expert residence card at the police station, which was an interesting experience (they thought we were brother and sister). We returned in time for our 10:00 class. Patty was teaching Oral English (28 students) and I had a English Listening class (37 students). It was really fun to be in front of students again, though there are a few differences between teaching in China and the States. In China, we have a monitor (student in our class) who takes care of the teacher by getting the door unlocked, preparing the classroom, taking attendance, making sure everything is right, and also keeping contact between students and the teacher (concerns or complaints). My students came from all throughout China, with some coming as far as 60 hours by train. Students in China also stay in the same classroom for all four years of college with the same classmates and the teachers are the ones who switch classrooms.

It was really fun getting to meet so many new students from different places. We look forward to getting to know them better. Just like in the states, most of the English education majors are female--I had 6 males out of 37. This will be a more difficult job of remembering names as many of them have less common English names. The freshman have not moved to campus yet. They will near the end of the month, so I have only four more classes this week and Patty has three. We have been doing some planning and are excited to start learning Chinese from our tutor Claire. We have been meeting lots of new people and trying lots of new things and trying to retain as much as we can for when we go to do things in town. We hope that all is going well for you--we definitely miss many of the things of home, but are adjusting to everything but the language pretty quickly.