I had another blog post prepared, but for the time being, I have *slightly* better internet thanks to my awesome neighbor. It's still not MY internet - it comes from a building nearby. But it is internet that is better than "holding my laptop out the window to catch a packet from the place across the street".

So, screw my old blog post! That was boring and had no pictures! Let's get some color all up in this bitch!

My amazing new coworker and friend Nicole has really gone above and beyond the call of duty to make me feel welcome. As I somberly mentioned last time, she arranged a day outing where we went to the mall, a park, and a really great night market. I got to know her and the fellow teachers beyond "those other people that have the same job as me."






And if that weren't enough, the next day we also happened to have off. Nicole said she and her friend were going to blahbidity blah blah, and if I wanted to come along. Why not? It turns out blahbidity blah is located out of the city in the mountains, which involved a couple of train switches. It was actually an old mining town back in the day, but has since been turned into a cat village.






Yes, you read that right. Cat village.

As part of their tourist appeal, this place is overrun with cats. There are cat shops selling cat things. There was even a PAWn shop - seriously, no kitten! So after we took some purrrfect photos of the mountains, I was told meow we're getting on the train.

Alright, no more cat puns. Beclaws I think that's enough.




The next stop was a sleepy town in the mountains, where you were supposed to write your wishes on a balloon, set the damn thing on fire, and let it float up into the air. For such an environmentally conscious country, I thought it was surprising they advocate "lets set some shit on fire and toss it to the wind." My two companions of course wrote in Chinese, and I asked if god understood English. They said yes, but I didn't think it was fair they could read mine and I couldn't read theirs. So I wrote in German. In retrospect I should have asked if god can speak German. If he/she can't, ah well. But my wish was to light something on fire, so the jokes on you, GOD!

Then I got to eat some chicken ass on a stick. Seriously. If that doesn't count as a good day, I don't know what does.