A couple things

• Fates have conspired to keep me from going to Suzhou this weekend :-( Soon, though. Soon. Meanwhile though my tutor showed me photos of her recent visit to Xitang. The place is like Venice, with canals and bridges everywhere. And it's also pretty close to Shanghai. I should go there also :-)
  
• You know how when we're taking someone's picture, we say "Cheese!" to get them to smile? Well they do the same thing in China, too -- although, they say qiezi. Phonetically, I can hear the similarity between the two words. They kind of sound alike. But what does qiezi mean, you ask? Certainly not cheese.
  
  Eggplant. It means eggplant.
  
  When I heard that, I immediately started laughing like crazy. When I get back to America I'll say that when I take pictures of people.
  
  "Okay, three, two, one ... EGGPLANT!!!"
  
  Perfect :-D
• I need a haircut. Just thought ya'll would like to know . . .
  

Jen's Blog

A month or so ago I got an email from a friend of mine. Her name's Jen and we've known each other since, well, since I think third grade. We all used to carpool together to Hebrew school and everything, and then she ended up going to my high school. Well it turns out that she's been living in NYC for a couple years, doing the actress thing, and is part of a production of The Sound of Music. Insanely enough they were invited to tour across Asia, so now Jen's in China getting ready to start the first performance. She's got a blog up here, and it's interesting now to see the things she writes about. Many of them are the same, but many are different, as she is here in an entirely different situation than me :-)

They will not be performing in Shanghai, which is a little surprising. But they will be spending five days in Beijing, so that's why I arranged my trip there for the end of April. I plan to catch at least one of their performances (Mei you kan guo The Sound of Music) and then spend the next couple days touring -- maybe if I'm lucky the theater company will let me on their bus, hehe.

Anyhoo go check out her blog if you're interested in a different, but still American, perspective
on this here country we're in.

Speaking of touring, this Saturday I am headed to Suzhou. I'm pretty excited for my first travel adventure within China ... and by myself no less! It will be weird to be in China but not in Shanghai ... Stay tuned for pictures, I hear it's beautiful ...