Today, Friday, was the last day of our beginning Chinese language class. I don't know how or when or in what form it will return in next semester--Grace tells us that it's supposed to, but we are not sure of the situation. This is another China frustration I experience: I don't understand why schedules, dates, and times can't be planned out a semester in advance. Anyway, it was a good day for the class: Wang Laoshi went over some vocabulary about buying things and sending things, and then in the second half of the class we worked on a review sheet, which was helpful, even though we didn't get all the way through it. After class, Kerry and Samira gave hot water bottles to some hiding kitties, to make sure that they were warm; I helped out by holding the bottles. Then Kerry went off to his game and the rest of us in the class, along with our teacher, went on the subway to this Turkish restaurant Hacer, the Turkish teacher, recommended. However, when we got there...it was closed (permanently). There was another branch of the restaurant; however, much to our dismay, neither a cab nor Didi would take us there. So we gave up and found a Shanghaiese restaurant in a mall. Since different folks had different dietary restrictions/needs/desires, we ended up not getting much protein: Guillermo got some pork (but very little), we got one small order of duck, and some tofu. The rest was veggies: lotus root, green beans, and mushrooms. Still, we had a nice conversation. It was fascinating to eat at a table where each person was from a different country: I'm from the USA; Guillermo's from Spain; Wang Laoshi is from China (obviously); Samira is from Morocco but lives in Canada; Hacer is from Turkey; and Shigeharu Nomura (yes, I finally got his name because he gave us his card) is from Japan. I enjoyed socializing and goofing off with them all. We all took the subway back together, and all of us (excepting Shigeharu, who wanted to go to bed at 9 pm, and our teacher, who got off at Baoshan Road) took the 745 bus together and walked home. Hugs were shared. A good experience! I will miss this group next semester if we can't all meet. Kerry came home around 11:30 pm as usual, and we went to bed soon after. No grading was accomplished. But tomorrow the fun begins....
Here are some pics from the day...
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| Last day of Chinese class! |
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| Kerry and Samira provide hot water bottles for kitties. |
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| Outside the mall where we had dinner. |
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| Some of what we had for dinner: the yellow stuff is tofu, plus there's pork to the right of that, and duck to the left. |
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| It's getting closer to the Chinese New Year, so we're seeing more red lanterns around. These were in the subway. |
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