Movember

For those of you that don't know, Movember is the new name for November due in large part to the fact that men all around the world grow a moustache in support of Prostate Cancer research. I will be undertaking this task as well, started yesterday with a clean shaven face. At the school we will have a staff team. If you check out movember.com and search for The Fu Manchu's, you'll see our team site, pictures of our progressing moustaches and even donate to the cause if you would like!! I will try and update this blog with a few pictures as the month progresses.

Things have been quite busy recently. Report Cards will come out in a week or two, Midterms are being written this week, and students are realizing that perhaps their personal effort in the first two months wasn't adequate and thus they need some make-up assignments to boost their grades. Yesterday Christina had a line-up of about 10 students all looking to improve on some of their grades in Drama.... They are quite the actors when they need to get out of something, like a test or homework, but when it comes to acting in class for marks, they seem to lose their enthusiasm. After this week, the 1 Term classes will end, meaning that Christina will no longer be teaching two Drama Blocks and a Visual Arts Media, but rather Three Home Economics Classes. She's quite excited about the opportunity to share her love of cooking with the Chinese kids, and we're excited to see how the course material provides a hands on way of acquiring more language skills. Lets just hope that the toaster oven and microwave arrive on time!!

Life on the 29th floor continues to be wonderful. The sky has been quite clear of late, and the sights from up there are really quite something. This morning the sun was rising, shining into our bedroom, and this evening, if we get home in time, we should be able to see it set, over top of the park and the green space our living room looks out onto.

Food is an essential part of daily living and we have found a new favorite restaurant and it is a gem. Having lived in Sichuan for two years, back in the early part of 2000, I have been spoiled when it comes to Chinese food. Sichuan is THE PLACE to eat in China. The flavors, the spices, the variety, it is all second to none. Upon arriving in TEDA, I was a bit disappointed with the fare, especially after a 5 day visit to Chengdu (in Sichuan) reminded me and showed Christina for the first time, just how delicious Sichuan Food is. However, this new restaurant is a Sichuan restaurant and is quite authentic or 地道 as they would say in Chinese. We've ordered a variety of dishes and have thus far found nothing that would stop us from coming. Best of all is that they've had everything we've ordered thus far. We've sampled the spicy tofu, the kung pao chicken, the twice fried beef, the fish-flavored meat, the sizzling rice dish, the green beans.... Unfortunately the English names don't really do these dishes justice, but take our word for it, the Food is EXCELLENT!!