Hot Springs

Well, first, before I talk about going to the hot springs, a former
teacher came back to visit on Sunday. Nathan, from Montana, has been
in the US for about 7 months now and is on vacation here. He's a
really fun and friendly guy, and it was sort of nice to see things
from his perspective- he really misses it here, the food and
everything. A big group of our Chinese staff, friends, and foreign
teachers all went out to hot pot together and had a lot of fun. I
teach a lot of Nathan's classes- my students all told me that Nathan
was a really good teacher. And he named some of the students from my
favorite class: Montana, Dale, Ramon. He's doing some trips around the
province and then hopefully can come back to visit some of my classes.

On Tuesday, one of my days off this week, I went with Julian and his
Peace Corps friend Jenine to the hot springs. Jenine did Peace Corps
in Bulgaria for 2 years and then transferred to Guiyang for a year, so
she is interesting. The hot springs aren't too far away- you can take
a city bus there. It's like a resort/spa- very nice but sort of
weirdly not Chinese or Guiyang-ish. It's by these sort of
Mediterranean looking buildings and apartment complexes in the hills.
There are both indoor and outdoor pools, with different themes and
temperatures. It's nice in the very cold weather. Some of the pools
have herbs- sort of like a giant teabag, to make the pool smell like
whatever. There's also one that has these little fish in it that eat
your dead skin. It' s a totally bizarre experience- you have to try to
hold still and it's very ticklish.

It was pretty relaxing and quite beautiful to sit outside in the hot
spring pools. If anyone comes to visit I'll bring you there, it's
nice!

Okay, back to lesson planning now. I have three 12-hour work days in a
row ahead of me....