More food, City life and exploring

I'm almost caught up updating to the present time. Here are some updates from last week.

Chinese Breakfast Burrito

The owners of the Breakfast burrito place

We are still eating some strange food. This is from a little place that we found on our walk to school that has "breakfast burritos". They are good, but the best Breakfast Burritos are still Santiagos in Denver! 

We went to dinner again with our Boss, Bruce and his wife Lilly and some of their friends and we had so much food and there was a lot of food.
It just kept coming and coming and coming. Below is a picture of the dinner party. At some of the restaurants that we have been to the room that they put you in looks like almost an old hotel room with a big round table. The eating style is Family, so the big lazy susan goes around and you get what you want onto your plate, or try it 1st digging in with your chopsticks.

The white soup just to the right is the yummy fish soup, the black thing you see in it is a fish.

Also a huge to do is the "Cheers". We have to make sure to keep our cups full of either Sprite, Coke or water so that we have some in our cups when all of the sudden a "Cheers" is called. It's very common for everyone to drink so fitting in has been a little tough but they are understanding (they think we are strange though) of our not partaking in any alcoholic drinks.

We got to eat some pigs feet and more octopus at the dinner and again....the food kept coming and coming. The fish soup was really good.

Octopus

Pork head

We also got to go to the Zoo with about 30 or so of the kids from school and we split up into groups. Elijah took a group, Ethan and Everest took a group, Jami took a group and I took a group. Our goal was to learn the english names of animals and some of their features. It was really fun and their Zoo is more lax on the rules of "No Feeding the Animals"....meaning if you can get it over or through the fence you can feed the animals. I was shocked! it was funny, the animals were surely more active.

This was my (Jared) group, the 2 girls in front are new to the school and I got the chance to name them or give them their English names, Lilly on the left and Rose on the Right. Talk about pressure to give someone an English name!

The boys playing with the school kids at the Zoo.

Since we only teach a couple of hours a day we have time to wander and explore the city around us. We found a Museum that was free to get into and we wondered around just looking (everything was in Chinese) but it was about the Chinese Opera and locals that were in it.

Entrance to Opera Museum

Part of the Grand Canal of China in Huai'an

Also, it was by the longest man built canal in the world, The Grand Canal of China, it goes from Beijing to Shanghai.

While wandering we came across a couple of malls that are within walking distance of our apartment. They are huge. One has 8 floors! Pizza Hut and KFC and McDonalds are all close, but they are pricy. We have only eaten at KFC once. This is a round-a-bout that is really close to us.

Another real popular thing here, and I would dare say the preferred method of travel around town, is the e-bike. It's basically a battery powered scooter. They drive everywhere...on the street, sidewalk, the bike lane, going the wrong way, the path going around the lake at the park. They are silent so as a pedestrian you really need to be on your toes.

A wave of bikes outside the mall.

Next update there will be a video of us crossing the street. It really is like a game of frogger and like eating with chopsticks EVERY meal we are getting better at it.