这个周末 下雪啊!

It's started already.  The cold has crept into every nook of my not-so-well insulated apartment, causing me to groan and grumble with each draft.  I was so appreciative of the change in temperature for a solid week, and proud of my tolerant attitude to boot.  Now that the arctic weather has made itself at home I'd rather uninvite it.  From here on out it's going to take much more willpower to muster up a pleasant disposition when I have to brave the elements in order to go to class or find food.

This morning I noticed small white crystals gathering on my coat, before they had quite grown into full-fledged snowflakes, and someone above has been spitting them all day, but they seem to have prematurely fled their cloud homes, and are all melting before they reach the ground.  At least it's an attempt at snow, which has only increased my holiday mood.  I'm more than happy to be sitting in my cozy jia (home) with a steaming cup of tea and a burning candle that hints at jollier days to come.

Our benevolent university invited the foreign teachers on a weekend outing to some "scenic spots" this weekend, and never wanting to miss an opportunity for adventure I bravely signed up.  We did stop at some interesting places Yichang boasts of, and thanks to my handy dandy travel card, entrance was free.  I won't pretend to remember the names of all the places we stopped at, nor would you understand them if I did.  The first morning was so cold I was reprimanding myself continually for agreeing to go, although we did see some interesting things.  Once sight in particular that stands out in my memory was a cave that seemed to go on forever.

We descended countless stairs into the heart of the mountain, deeper into the cave than I thought possible, until I felt like I was in a scene from the Lord of the Rings.  At the very bottom, the cavern opened up to reveal an underground lake, and we got in boats that threatened to tip us with the slightest shifting of weight, and rowed to the other side of the mountain, where we came out a tiny hole opposite where we started.

Sunday morning we stopped at the most highly anticipated site of the trip, Chaibuxi, where we hiked around what was supposedly a beautiful gorge.  Since we were in a cloud, the visibility extended about 20 feet in any given direction and I cannot be counted upon to verify the authenticity of the photos advertising its beauty, although I suspect they have been photo-shopped generously.  This much I can say:  I can vouch that it is a foggy, cloudy place; and therefore mysterious in its attraction.

Our friend in the foreign affairs office had sent us a detailed, descriptive, and mendacious itinerary, telling us that we would be stopping at "Place 1" at 10am, "Place 2" at 2pm, etc., and falsely leading us to believe we would arrive home by afternoon.  I don't know why I'm regularly surprised when time schedules mean absolutely nothing in this country, but I was fooled yet again by their deceitful ways.

We stopped at a middle school in the countryside past Yidu to donate some gym equipment, and of course such generosity necessitates a long, drawn-out ceremony in which all parties involved say lots of complimentary things about each other, pose for pictures, and everybody gets to benefit from the frosty wind turning their limbs into icicles.  After such compliments were paid, we were invited as foreign experts to spend 40 minutes with a class of 12 year-olds, which we were completely unprepared for thanks to the predictable lack of warning.  So Jessica and I taught our class to sing "You Are My Sunshine" and I have to admit, it came close to making the whole trip a favorable affair.  They then taught us a Chinese song (两只老虎) and surrounded us like teenage girls at a Miley Cyrus concert, trying to get autographs.  I've never felt so much like a celebrity in all my life, nor had so many notebooks and pens shoved in my face at one time.

We finally got back on the bus and aimed it towards Yichang again, well past our originally stated arrival time.  As our bus trip stretched on for months...I mean hours, I passed the time by staring out the window and playing Name That Tune on my iPod.  As long as I live in China I'll never tire of looking at the patterns created by the terraced fields in the mountains.  Farmers here take advantage of every inch of ground available to them, inadvertently turning their fields into a work of art.  As rain-streaked as the windows were I'm afraid I can't provide proof, but believe me when I tell you they were exquisite.

"One can solve a math problem. One can contain a chemical reaction in an equation. But one never 'gets' beauty - one stands (or falls) in front of it astonished, amazed, open-mouthed, speechless, and humbled."

-Brian McLaren