2 Weeks Notice

So, here’s the part when I tell you all that we only have a month left of living in China! Now, don’t worry. For all you loyal readers we have an epic tour of Southeast Asia starting mid-July, and we plan on documenting our travels right here on the blog. K also has a series of video projects in the works, and we both want to do a retrospective about all the things we’ve learned during our time as expats.

But, for now, we’re still here and keeping busy.

So, normally the employee gives two weeks notice when they want to end a term of contract employment, right? Well, not us. Our school informed us that they didn’t want to pay us for extra time in July, and to have all our final exams finished up in the next 2 weeks. Naturally, we rejoiced. I mean, who doesn’t love finding out that their vacation starts two weeks earlier than expected? That excited high naturally faded when we realized that we would have 18 days of boredom before our journey.

Let’s be honest, those 18 days will probably be spent out in the mountains. Camping, hiking, and picking all the fruits and vegetables native to our countryside. Despite the humidity, we spent this past weekend doing just that. We visited some greenhouses. We saw tri-colored tomatoes, red bell peppers, long beans, watermelons, and some absolutely gigantic pumpkins (though we were assured they weren’t given grown hormones of any sort).

We then made our way to Davi’s village to pick the latest and most popular subtropical fruit the grows on the mountain trees. We call them waxberries, a direct mistranslation, since we have nothing like them in the States. K absolutely loves them because they are sweet and sour like a raspberry, but they are half dollar sized. Davi’s father and other farmers sell them in the city. Our own personal stash is more than we can eat. We intend on trying to turn them into jam this week.