since I am in China and all...

I realized I haven't really shared much that is actually about China - so I'll try to catch you all up...

...uhh...this is harder than I thought it would be...

Ill start simply -

咖啡馆

Right now I am with the girls at our favorite coffee shop where we have spent most of the past week. The coffee shops (咖啡馆） themselves are abundant and usually full of ex-pats. There is one called 'brown sugar' where the owner(老板） lived in America back in the day, so they have decent music, but the rest are quite the opposite. They have 'coffee shop mixes' that generally repeat endlessly. The mix at this particular coffee shop's play list includes (sorry if I am calling them by their chorus line) 'once...twice...three times a lady,' 'I know this much is true,' 'love lifts us up where we belong, 'candle in the wind,' 'you're my inspiration' etc... The waitresses are usually really cute Chinese girls who know a few words of English, but generally chill all day. The menus have extremely decent American food, but we since we have only recently started frequenting these shops for finals, the 巧克力摩卡咖啡 （chocolate mocha) has been the flavor of choice. Sometimes someone springs for an espresso or some 奶酪 （yogurt cheese type stuff... it eludes explanation). Recently, however, we have sprung the 50 cents each for water-rice which is a Taiwanese specialty consisting of shredded ice, sweet juices and chewy things like taro balls...

I had only been to coffee shops a few times before last week, when finals started, but since then we have spent most of our days in this one that is on the rooftop outside of the university...

瑜伽

Zhaojie, a friend I met at English Corner whom I adore, took my roommate and myself to a Yoga 瑜伽 place for our first 'date' and we immediately bought memberships. I went every day for a month, and it is wonderful! True, I only understand so much of what they say, but it is amazing what you can understand when you just learn some appropriate vocabulary! Between learning how to say 挺直被子 （really straight back - meaning sit up straight), 蓝蓝色的海边, 蓝蓝色的空气（blue blue ocean, blue blue air)， or 放松议会 （relax for a little while) I can get through a class without a problem.
I wont lie, it is a little bit rough on the self-esteem being in the room with 25 Chinese girls who would be considered anorexic by American standards, but the 'feel good about yourself because you are doing yoga' part tends to counter-act it.
Usually Zhaojie and I would walk back to campus arm in arm, maybe grab some dinner on the way, exchanging vocabulary and giggling. The girlfriends (even guys sometimes) tend to walk around all holding hands, or just touching much more than friends normally do in America (an arm on the shoulder or holding fingers), and to have a friend who did so with me made me feel almost local! (besides the fact that everyone stares...) I think the times with her got me through the roughest times in China - through that 'adjustment' period where the graphs suggest making local friends... She is just plain sweet. I'll miss her.
For any of you Yoga enthusiasts - the yoga classes here are a lot different than they are at home, in some very basic ways. They do have names for the poses, but I don't know them... The classes are much more relaxed and meditation focused; we start with a few minutes of meditation and after every pose (which are also generally more gentle) you get some time to relax. To to top it all off, the relaxing time at the end (that we do have in American classes) comes with blankets, lights off, and narration by the 'yoga coach' usually including scenes of girls with umbrellas walking towards you or blue blue sky and blue blue sea. It is a very peaceful experience.



more to come (including pictures)