David & Zina Cox: Day 6 China - Beware Red Things in Chinese Food

Day 6

David met with his supervisor for the Graduate Students this morning. One of his co-teachers had arrived late last night, so Ren Shafong showed them both their classrooms and where they would be teaching. David will be teaching Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday mornings from 8 to noon. Then she invited us and the new teacher to lunch at a nice restaurant. There was a cabbage dish that we were all served and I innocently took a bit, not knowing there were EXTREMELY HOT PEPPERS IN IT!!! I was trying not to gasp for air and cough, so I quickly grabbed some water and drank to quell the heat. Zowie!! It was hot!!! After that, I just quietly pushed the peppers to the side and finished the dish. Lesson here… beware of red things in authentic Chinese dishes!

Eating lunch with our chopsticks. Hey, we are getting pretty good!!!

The co-teacher that arrived is a young man, named Daniel, from San Diego, CA. We had planned to go shopping at the RT-Mart (compare to Costco or Sam’s Club), so we invited him along because of all the things that he found he needed in his apartment once he got here. We figured out the bus to ride to get there and decided that after we got done, we would just get a taxi to help take all the stuff home. We had quite a load and after several taxis passed us by, one pulled over close to us and told us, through gestures, no taxi would take us because of all our stuff. We were deciding what to do, whether to have David take the big drying rack and walk home while all the rest of the stuff would go with Daniel and I in the taxi or maybe try and take it all back on the bus anyway, but just then, a little old man driving a motorcycle truck (not sure what else to call it), stopped and said he would help us, but could only take two people and our stuff. We were okay with that because David knew the way to walk and we were not going to put Daniel out on his own, so we loaded up all the stuff and climbed on the back on the board that the man set across the back. I showed him the card that we had made up with the address of the University campus on it and he said he would take us. After a while, he stopped and rearranged things in the back and had me climb in to be closer to him to tell him where to go once we got on the campus. He was a sweet old guy and we paid him more than a taxi driver would have been paid because it was worth it to us to not have to haul all that stuff back.

Daniel and I riding in the back of the motorcycle truck. I know I am wearing socks with sandels. I got a blister on my foot and do not want dirt getting in it. I would rather not be wearing the socks either, but I don't want infection.