Friday 18 November 2011

7:00 AM – I have breakfast in the dining hall:

• congee with something in it
• steamed bun with green onion inside
• mystery pickles

8:30 AM – In class I practice seal cutting and seal script calligraphy.

12:30 PM – I have lunch in the dining hall with Miki, Katya, and Ansu:

• deep-fried pork?
• meat stewed (mostly bones) with seaweed (kombu) and small corn on the cob which I eat with chopsticks
• flat fish cake fritter
• flat breaded and stewed mystery meat (pork chop?)

1:30 PM – After lunch I walk to the stone market with Miki where I buy thirteen Qingtian stones for practice ($1.80 each). Then, after we return to campus she stops in at the small college store, which I had not found before. While there I buy some wheat/rice paste for use in rubbings and for some notepads with the school logo on them ($1.82) then spend the rest of the afternoon in the classroom trying out my new stone.

I have dinner in the dining hall:

• rice
• lotus root, green pepper, onion
• bamboo shoots and mystery vegetables
• celery, carrot, and potato slivers

In the evening I walk to Mingtown for some chrysanthemum tea ($3.17), use their wifi, and talk with a boy from Norway while he waits for his Chinese girlfriend.

It’s been a cloudy day with rain in the afternoon and evening. The temperature is 74 degrees F.