CONGRATULATIONS TO SUSAN!

She lives next door and found a nice little (500 sq ft or so) place that suits her perfectly right next to campus!  She has wanted to cook SO much and this will provide her the opportunity!  Fantastic!  1400 yuan per month - she did sign a year lease, but they will let her leave after 6 months if that is her desire.  Yes they are furnished apartments, and this one has new appliances, new paint, etc.  She is so happy!  It is a one bedroom, though she talks about it as a studio, that has a balcony and window to the north and one to the south.

Makes me think about trying to get one now, rather than wait until after I return in Feb!  Hmmmm ....

So we celebrated at Three travelers, a favorite Sichuan style eating place!  Yes, beer, a nice cold chicken dish with hot pepper onion mix (very tasty), NO BROCCOLI! So sad as we had seen it go by as we were waiting!, eggplant, 3 travelers' special tomato (potato) soup (YUM!) - Susan's choice!,  hong jiao beef - hot peppers with  beef (yum) and jiaozi done very nicely ... oh, and tasty dry cooked green beans - we were quite stuffed and pleasantly walked home chatting - oh! and stopped into the hairdresser too to say HI!

Turned out that when I went in and got my hair cut, Matthew (Li Shaolin) said do you know Susan!!  He nicely cut my hair, I had finally got over that it would be a BAD haircut and allowed him to do a wonderful cut.  (We see so many bad haircuts around that one can fret about these things quite easily!)  They want to do a vitamin thingy so that I won't lose any more hair ... laughing!  OH - cost of the haircut?  10 yuan (10/7.4 ... you do the math!).

There are more and more Merry Christmas decorations going up EVERY day!  Really looking like Christmas around here!