Title: The last Saturday of teaching

After our fun night of Kareoke, we slept in-but not too long because we had to go play with George and Eugene by 10:00am. They were so happy to see us today and we played and sang until it was time to go. We will only see them 3 more times and then we are out of their lives as quickly as we came in. Poor little fellas. I feel sad for them because they are too little to understand why their new lao shi's (teachers) won't come back. Well, give them 5 minutes, they will forget us.

We explored the other side of our hotel once we got back. By the way-I can't remember if I mentioned that we are now in a little efficiency hotel. As cozy as the apartment was, we are happy to be in a hotel "taking one for the team". We have a teammate who is only 17 and she needed to move into the hotel, Mom and I were asked if we wouldn't mind moving to keep her company. Oh, twist my arm.....I guess so! Don't get any grandiose ideas, it is also very cozy. But the biggest blessing is an actual shower with hot water.

Anyway-our view from our hotel room is an alleyway with an open garbage dump. We keep waiting for the trash man to come-I don't think it's going to happen. But we decided to walk around and it is so neat that on the other side down the alleyway is a whole new little village to explore! We found a little bao zi stand, they are the meat filled steamed buns that I love. We ate that for lunch and then we walked through some flower stands that smelled so nice. Mom found out the lilies were only fifty cents so she bought us each a lilly to put next to our bed and now our hotel room smells nice. It is a good thing too because I'm sorry to say this, but the shoes my mom bought (the keens) stink so bad! They are great shoes for comfort, but they hang onto the smell in a ferocious way! But now I only smell the Lillis.

Saturday afternoon is our time with Rolly and Judy. Fly is in a cha cha competition, so she has to miss English class to practice. When Rolly found out this would be our last Saturday she got very sad. She said she has made something for us and wanted to give it to us next Saturday. We will be gone by then but I offered to meet her up at the center some evening and we set it up for Thursday night. She was thrilled then. We talked about families with them as well and made more paper doll cut outs. They are real sweethearts. I will miss them!

That night, we met up with Caroline, the 17 year old and went out to dinner. We stumbled our way through them menu and were happy to see we got what we expected we were getting. We ate at our favorite place. They have very delicious honey coated and thinly sliced pork, tasty sauteed eggplant, and garlic broccoli. It is so yummy. We now have a usual waitress there. She came up to me and said she would have to leave for a few days. She asked me to write down in English the names of what we were eating and then she wrote them in Chinese. She said that it is now taped up in the kitchen so anytime we go in they will know what we want to eat. I thought that was so thoughtful! When we left I saw the young cooks having a little break. I asked to take their picture and they got all excited, before I knew it-about 4 more leaped out of the kitchen to jump into the picture. It was fun! They just chatting and laughing it up after we snapped the picture. Yelling after us "Hello! Hello! Nice to meet you!" It is so enduring to see people try to talk to us. I told mom that after this week-our fame is over, boo hoo! Caroline said "It will be a welcome change!"

Today's photos: Our morning with George and Eugene, Bao Zi lunch, Rolly and Judy, and our favorite cooks in Jiangmen