新年

...and I forgot my camera.

Unfortunately when I got up this morning and went to campus to catch the bus into the city I forgot to grab my camera, thus I have no pictures to go with the story I have.

This morning was cold, but not freezing, and there was a fair amount of direct sunlight, so that helped makes us all feel warm later on.
The run lasted a little over half an hour, we ran as an ordered column, about eight across, teachers and students totaling somewhere close to 50. As with a lot of things I was the only foreigner involved, but it was a nice way to start the new year, running early in the morning, spending some time with my colleagues, seeing more of the city I know so little about... I think this year is off to a good start.

All of the staff from Oujiang were wearing identical clothes: dark navy blue sweatshirts and sweatpants with some white along the arms.
After the run I went to 绣山公园 above the 市政府 and climbed the hill with Faye. We were accompanied by piano music coming out of these green-painted stones...

I made a comment about how anyone who heard that story in America would think I was trippin' at this moment... I wasn't.

At the top of the hill we came across a set of triplets, two of whom had the same blue long-sleeves and inner white-wool, outer denim vest. The third one, who had a face more gaunt than his brothers, wore an ivory colored coat.

We walked from the park to the 科技博物馆 (Science museum) I was kind of happy to learn that I do sort of know my own separate language – science.
The museum was quite large and was fairly empty, but there were some interesting things of note:
- an exhibit of ancient Chinese machines for measuring the heavens and earthquakes,
- another exhibit that showed the flow of electricity as it affected water in tubes surrounded by copper wires
- and a lot of placards about the recent space launch - one of the pictures depicted an astronaut with a glove that I SWEAR showed "six fingers on his right hand"...

...where's someone who knows Inigo Montoya when I have such a great setup?


All in all it was a good way to start the New Year.