August 31st

Brian has been working on his lesson plan. He starts teaching on Wednesday. We caught the 9:00 bus and went to the West campus to find his classrooms. Fortunately, the building where he will teach is across the road from the bus stop. After we got back we went to the RT Mart and bought some groceries and household supplies. We also went to the Bank of China branch nearby to get some money out of their ATM. We found out it was broken.

After we got back to our apartment Brian went to find an ATM so we could withdraw some money. He first tried the ATM in the hotel but found out it won’t take Visa cards. The hotel then sent him with the bellman to another hotel. They said their ATM wouldn’t take Visas either. They then went to another hotel where Brian tried their ATM. It said he was using the wrong pass code. He tried it on another card and got the same response. After going back to the apartment, he and Lugene decided to trek to another Bank of China branch about 1 mile away. Eureka, their ATM worked and we were able to get some money. We will get paid the end of the second week in September. We need to pay 200 yuan for our trip this weekend. We also need to buy a printer for our computers.

Today is our 42nd wedding anniversary. We went to dinner at Jenny’s Café with the Sorensons. This café is near the RT Mart and specializes in American food. They have hamburgers, Italian food, Mexican food, steaks, etc. It was really good. They also have a small market where they sale American food. It’s pricey, but will come in handy. For example, a box of Honey Bunches of Oats cereal was $6.00.