The past week has been a long one. I always struggle a little bit when returning from a long break, and with the week off we just had, I almost forgot that I am living in China to work, not just travel and have fun. I don’t think that is very fair, but oh well. We started our week with a typhoon warning. I was expecting our building to eventually collapse, but the weather was not quite as destructive as I had imagined. We did end up with an incredible amount of rain on Monday and Tuesday, however. Our apartment is on the fifth floor, and so flooding is not something we ever have to worry about. My classroom at school is on the very top floor, so I assumed that I would not have to worry about that flooding either. I was very mistaken.

On Tuesday mornings, I have jazz band from 7:00 AM to 8:00 AM. This past Tuesday, it happened to be raining buckets. I decided that I would be more dry if I walked in my rain coat instead of riding my bicycle. When I arrived at school, my pants were wetter than if I had been standing in them in the shower. My shoes and socks were also 100% soaked. Once I arrived at what I thought would be a dry band room, I heard water running from inside. I walked around and discovered the following horrifying images.

By Friday we had dried out, and I was ready for the weekend. One of our Australian coworkers had her birthday this weekend, and decided she was going to celebrate by going to see Chinese acrobats. I had heard that the acrobats were a must, so Angela and I decided to go. What an incredible show.  The name of the show is ERA – Intersection of Time. You can catch a sneak preview here. The amount of talent was really spectacular. One of the very first acts was a bunch of young women riding bicycles, and then jumping up and standing on the handlebars while still rolling around in a circle. Of course, that was too basic and soon there were two or more on a bicycle in different, unsafe locations. That was a highlight of the show, and I thought a number of my family members might enjoy that bit. The whole show was about two hours, and very enjoyable. The final act involved a person on a motorcycle riding circuits around a big, circular metal cage. I would guess that the diameter of the sphere was 15 feet at the most. After the first one impressed us, a second one came in and they rode together, which made me nervous. One would honk their horn, and that seemed to signify when the bikers were supposed to change circuits. Once that became too easy, we moved up to 7 riders all at once. At times, half would be riding along the side while the rest rode bottom to top. They would intersect on the sides, and how they did not collide is beyond me. I actually did not enjoy this part of the show because I was far too nervous. Check it out here. All in all, the show was spectacular. Those of you that are planning on visiting should probably plan on attending this show at some point. All for now.