Wow, in just eight weeks Ross and I will be flying home to Canada to visit during the school Spring break. Then we'll come back to finish the school year and do some travelling around the country.  I've been here in China for nine months and the time has gone by quickly. I'm still very much behind-hand in the things I wanted to share.

Another day trip we took last summer was to the neighboring city center of Zhoucun (pronounced -- oh, never mind). Thanks to the complete flatness of the landscape, Ross and I can travel quite a distance on our old bikes. We went along the highway, past a number of factories and businesses (such as that one with the unexpected mansard roof on the lower right). Zhoucun was about 40 minutes' ride away. It is an older area of Zibo. Zibo is called a city but it's actually a collection of seven districts with seven different city centers.  Like Greater Vancouver, each district has its own personality. Zhoucun is kind of the Burnaby or New Westminster of Zibo, if you know Greater Vancouver.

So we got to explore downtown Zhoucun a little bit and came across a nice park. Unlike some of the newer parks we've visited in Zibo, this one was full of people enjoying various pastimes -- roller skating, playing Chinese checkers or cards, and fishing.

Here it is, almost the end of November and there has been no hard frost here. It is glove and muffler weather, but we didn't expect that we'd still be able to ride our bikes this time of year. How lucky we are that we can ride out of the campus and be in a country village in minutes. We can get local vegetables and eggs for dirt cheap, the villagers are always happy (amused?) to see us, and we can see the China that is disappearing quickly.

Summer is but a memory and I still haven't written a good explanation of Chinese BBQ and how it differs from Canadian BBQ. For one thing, because only the "1 percent" in China have backyards, people don't BBQ at home in the city. They might have a portable BBQ for picnics, but to eat BBQ they go to a restaurant.  

BBQ restaurants are al fresco affairs. The tables are low to the ground and the patrons sit on teeny-weeny folding stools set up every night and which for months I was afraid to even try sitting on. And I may be able to sit on them now, but that doesn't mean I'm going to show you a picture of me sitting on a little folding stool. Here instead is Ross with some students, last spring's English speech contest participants, that Ross and I treated to a reunion dinner. 

This is at our favorite BBQ place near the school. We're on a brick patio, under the trees, with ropes of lights strung between the trees (pic below right) Unfortunately we just can't get a photograph at night that does it justice. The tables are made of metal so that the restaurant owner can place a little portable BBQ filled with charcoal on it. We patrons order the meat and veg we want and it's brought to the table partially cooked.

In addition to being marched around for two weeks in uniform, the freshmen also got an orientation to campus life under an array of colorful tents in the rain. The middle picture is the view from my classroom window.