Radio Interview June 26, 2008

Our school has a "radio station" run by some of the students. Every day at lunch and supper for a half hour, some students will be on the radio. They play some music and talk about a topic they choose. Thursdays at noon is the English radio slot. They talk about something in English, and play English songs. We heard lots of random songs, but we always enjoyed hearing Outkast "Hey Ya". That was a welcome sound of home!
Since June 26th was our last Thursday in China, some of our students requested that we come and do an interview with them. We didn't know that's what we were doing until 5 minutes before, but we had a really good time! They asked us about our travels in China, what we thought about the country, and what we thought about the school. The previous two weeks I had taught my students Leann Womack "I Hope You Dance", so they played that song. Afterwards we took pictures with the students that were there and they gave us gifts. It was a wonderful way to say goodbye to all of our students.

Li Zhi (Litchi)

About two weeks before we left China we were introduced to a new fruit: litchi. The first time I had one I didn't like it very much. It wasn't very sweet, and was too difficult to eat to be worthwhile. But the second time, Sara asked Cathy how to eat them. She informed us that the ones that are pink are more ripe, and the smaller/less round ones have smaller seeds. You dig your fingernail into the spiky bark-like shell near the stem, and peel the shell off the fruit. The flesh is similar to a grape, but it has a sweeter flavor. I was addicted after a few! Cathy got each of us a large bag of dried litchi's to bring home, so if you want to try one, let me know! They're delicious!

I'm HOME!

Everything went as planned. Except that our flight from Guangzhou to Shanghai was delayed. We boarded the plane on time, but sat there for three hours. Good thing we weren't in a hurry to connect flights that day! Monday went smoothly and we arrived in Madison at 10:30pm as expected. I was exhausted and slept until 3:30pm on Tuesday! Needless to say, that screwed up my plans of getting right back into the right time zone. But now I'm fine. It only took three nights to get it right!
As for my first reactions to America: the sky is so blue, the grass and trees are beautiful, people talk fast, and "I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free"!
Thank you everyone for keeping up with my blog and adventures. I hope to see all of you soon and share even more about what I did this past year.
Happy Fourth of July!