It's all a bunch of simple tricks and nonsense.

Winter break has become a field day of new experiences for me and my American co-workers. With exams finished the campus has become a ghost town and our list of things to do has gone further negative than the temperature here(in degrees celsius that is, who still uses fahrenheit anyways?). The weather has reached a new level of coldness and my beach-trained body has repeatedly groaned in protest to its harsh new surroundings. One who is well-versed in my history might argue, "But Tim, didn't you go to college in Harrisonburg VA, right along the blue ridge mountains? Wasn't it cold there too?" An excellent point to with I have given some thought and to which I already have 2 counter points prepared.
1. It was indeed not as cold in Harrisonburg as in Baoding (which can be more aptly compared to a Massachusetts demographic)
2. In America, when cold weather struck my likely response included, staying indoors and turning up the heat and only experiencing the actual "outside" weather on the minute or less walk to and from my vehichle equipped with an easily heated interior. I find myself in quite a different situation in China. There is simply no getting around the weather here. If it is cold outside one day, I know that I will be doing a good amount of walking, biking, bussing, or taxiing (at best) in the middle of that cold weather. Luckily, I have been saved from a frozen demise by the ingenious invention of long underwear which I rarely leave my apartment without these days.

The cold isn't all bad though. Last week we discovered a frozen lake complete with ice skaters! Anxious to partake, a group of us walked over to admire the skaters. We soon discovered an even more exciting activity that is slightly less known than its skating counterpart. Ice chairing! It's a hybrid mix between skating and skiing while sitting comfortably in an iron chair. With a small set of oversized chopsticks you can propel yourself at mindnumbing speeds across the ice until the memory of feeling in your fingers has departed completely. We quickly took to activity and began to create all kinds of games such as relay races, congo lines, and propelling each other into various fences, innocent bystanders, etc. The evening was made complete with the rare treat of ordering some pizza and watching Roman Holiday.

Besides our outdoor excursions we have taken to playing all kinds of games to occupy our indoor times. While card games have been fun (specifically Dutch Blitz) our new favorite passtime has been the ancient Chinese game mahjong! Mahjong has been described as a strange combination of poker and rummy with a lot of strange Chinese rules (and dragons) thrown into the mix. It basically comes down to trying to maximize your points through the various tiles (like cards) that you hold through matching or making straights. While confusing at times, I have really begun to take to it and even am beginning to prefer it over poker due to the multitude of strategies that open up to holding a hand of 13 tiles.

Our mahjong playing will be discontinued for the next few weeks as tomorrow we leave for southern China. Our team will be meeting up with the rest of the IECS crew in Beijing and flying down to Shenzhen for a week long staff conference. It is going to be an awesome time of fellowship with the rest of the teachers and I cannot wait put my sandals back on and experience the warm weather of the south! After the first week, some of us will continue our travels and proceed to the most southern point of China in the Hainan province. Our destination is the city of Sanya which can be compared to basically the Hawaii of China. After another week there we will be spending a few delightful days in Hong Kong renewing our visas before returning back to Baoding before the new semester starts. With any luck I will be significantly tanner in any impending pictures you see of me!