I'm Still Alive!

Yes, it's true...I'm alive, despite the many brushes with death I may have had in the past month, most of them involving taxis or buses swerving towards me at full-speed. as I stand in the middle of the street waiting to cross another lane. I've figured out a way to both update my own blog and read other people's...finally.

I typed an email update 2 nights ago and was putting address into my address book so I could send it all at once, when I realized I was really sleepy so I left the computer on and went to bed. I woke up the next morning and the electricity had gone off during the night (imagine that) so I lost it and am about to re-type everything. But I plan to keep updating my blog if the way I'm doing it doesn't get blocked the way the whole blog world is.

Today I was walking outside with a couple of friends and one of them said he thinks it's going to snow today. The temperature in my apartment stays around 64 degrees, and if it snows my heat is going ON tonight.

I've posted a bunch of pictures on facebook so I don't feel like I need to put any on my blog. I don't like carrying my camera around because it makes me look like a tourist. I get enough attention as it is since I am very obviously a foreigner.

I will strive to write something a little deeper in the near future, but for now I'm going to give a list of 8 reasons I like living in Xining:

1) Casa Mia, an Italian restaurant that opened here in August. They serve the best marinated tuna sandwiches and chocolate cake I've EVER had. I can even get good lattes and pizza there, and it's owned by a chinese friend who is striving to make people comfortable in her restaurant in every way possible.

2)kao yang rou...aka lamb kabobs.  They're basically deliciousness on a stick.

3) Cheap public transportation. 

4) split pants. They're just funny

5) Cheap DVDs. I never bought movies in the U.S. Now I go to the DVD market about once a week and I've started stocking up. I've watched the Pursuit of Happyness, Sense and Sensibility, Miss Potter (great chick flick), Bridge to Terabithia, Surf's Up, and Ratatoulle since I've been here and today I found Elizabethtown and Monty Python & the Holy Grail.

6) mountains! Fayetteville had "mountains" but it was NOTHING compared to the ones here.

7) Not having to go to Wal-Mart to buy fruits or vegetables or eggs because they sell them on my road. (don't get me wrong...I miss wal-mart, as much as I hated going there).

8) The fact that I'll never get something stolen when I'm at KFC because there are security guards there all the time. no kidding.

So...in summary, this really is a great place to live. You should try it out sometime.