Jinghong

I hit Jinghong on my way to Laos and liked the place. Now, I'm here again on my way back to the rest of China, but I decided to stay here. I was soo sad to leave Lao for China again, but on my first night back in China Sunny, a local student, invited me to stay in her dorms. Her friend Jung said that he has work for me in half a month after Spring Festival, and amazingly one of the girls in Sunny's dorms is going home for Spring Festival and so her and Vicky said that I could live with them and sleep in the empty bed for free. Woot! I like it here because it's hot for one, the people laze around like it's a small place like Courtenay, not the 1 million that live here and not the 4 million in hazy Chengdu. The Mekong River runs through the East side of town and I was sitting in the shade on the sandy-red banks watching some locals on the other side washing their clothes. I feel a bit lonely being back in China without Anna, and it seems that Romain and I were just a thing of the moment, a NEw Years bliss which sucks. It's good though, the streets here are lined with palm trees and I am carving my way into the town. Tomorrow I'll make posters advertising for teaching english, and find some private schools in the phonebook. I tried to get work at the college that I'm staying at but told the administration that I was leaving in 3 months and am kicking myself, should have just lied and then gotten a job. Ohh well. The pay here is less than in Chengdu, Shanghai or Beijing, but I love the pace of this city, the sunny weather and the locals are so sweet. Plus, I can eat 3 meals a day for 1$ and have free accomodation for now. Today I bought some running shoes and went for a run in this lovely botanical garden accross from the college, I think I'll start going for a run every day:) it's so nice to have a way to be active. Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up early and see if the locals do Tai Chi here. The minority culture is DAi here and I don't know much about them. This region has an incredible amount of parks and one of them has wild elephants in it. There are also many small villages around so maybe I'll go visit some when I get things sorted out.