Pics from my hood

The building in the middle is mine (apartment). Just some random pics taken while walking to and from my house to my school. This place lights up like Vegas at night. I have befriended one of the street vendors who keeps post near the bottom of my building. And although he doesn't speak English and I know about 10 words in Chinese, we managed to hang out for a good 20 minutes the other night. He offered me a stool to sit on and gave me some of the watermelon that he sells. As I was coming home from school this evening we had a short chat and he stocked me up with free apples. Everyone is so nice and welcoming. Definitely feels like a place I could call home for the next year.

Pics above were taken walking back from work this evening. You can see the mountain I see from my apartment in the back.

Took this today on my way into work. My school is on the 4th floor on right side of building.

Haha! This one came out a bit blurry, but nonetheless is a picture of the security guard in the building I work in. This is very typical in China. Walk into any given bank here, and odds are that the security guard will be passed out with a burning cigarette in an ashtray next to him. Only in China.

This is one of our Chinese tutors, Emily. The tutors are life savers as their English is quite good. Don't know how to work your Chinese written air conditioner or remote control? Take a pic and show a tutor.

This is the view from our office window. Now...if only they could get our office a.c. to work. Yes, we have a.c. in our office. However, the English teachers and tutors office a.c. has been on the fritz since I've been here. Let me just say this. I am literally sweating my arse off everyday all day long. And I thought the humidity in Houston was bad. Trust me when I say that its nothing compared to the air here. My hair actually looks better here if I don't blow dry it. Makeup sweats off as soon as you put it on. And its funny because the Chinese do not sweat like we do. I was very curious about this 'they don't sweat like we do' thing, and so I decided to turn to Google for some answers. Turns out, they really don't sweat as much as we do. An American genetics study confirmed that we actually do have more sweat glands than them. Something going 30,000 years back and how this helped them adjust to surviving in the hot and humid climate they have here.