Massages, Medical Check Ups, and Noodles

I have a lot to catch up on posting. Tuesday evening I had a massage. For about $15 you too can have a former surgeon come to your house and give you an hour long massage! He had to stop being a surgeon when his eyesight began to deteriorate. It was a very firm, very good massage. He doesn't speak much English, only stand, sit, bed, chair, and too hard?

On Wednesday, all the new teachers had to get medical check ups. We had blood drawn, height and weight taken, blood pressure checked, ECG done, and a chest x-ray. The general consensus is that it is doubtful that we actually got a chest x-ray. The teachers that have been here a few years and the newbies all think that we stood in the x-ray bus and just heard a noise but that we didn't actually get x-rayed. Just a hunch.

Wednesday evening we our first lesson on Chinese culture. We learned about tea ceremonies, had a quick language lesson, learned some tai chi, and got a calligraphy lesson. Afterwards, we had a Chinese dinner with several traditional dishes. My favorite part was watching the noodle maker. I have no idea how he was able to quickly and easily make such thin uniform noodles. And they tasted so good!


We also were able to finally get sharp knives! The school had one of their local hires go to a warehouse which is holding all the knives until the government says they can be put back on shelves (probably not until after all the Olympic hub-bub is over).

Still to come in the next posts: Catherine wants to see my bike, video of my apartment, and lots of Olympic news!

--Sarah--