Yeah Yingwen, I'm still here too. Hangin' like a loose thread on a tattered, tweed overcoat. I keep thinking that teaching is getting pretty old, but then when I'm not teaching I'm thinking life can get pretty boring when you're just cruisin' along in a city that noone knows about. But then there it is, just when you're thinking that maybe a trip elsewhere would be a good idea, even though the funds are drying up, somethin' cool happens. Yep, ya just gotta be out there - eyes wide open, but casual. So there I am sitting in a tea house giving private lessons to Mr. Bother. You know the guy. He's the one that calls you just when you're feeling way kicked back. "Can you help me with this one English problem?" he asks politely. How can you say no? Only this time, it's an invitation to have dinner with him and his friends after a sojourn to a local tea house. "Ok, sure," I say. Two hours later, after a great meal and numerous Dali beers, I'm laughing my head off with a local chicken farmer. My limited Chinese and his even more limited English notwithstanding, we've become bosom buddies and I seem to understand him better with each clash of the glass. I know what he's thinking. He know's what I'm thinking. He's thinking, "wow, this laowei is alright." And I'm thinking what I'm always thinking; "friends are discovered at the strangest time in the strangest places - ok, maybe I'll hang out in this strange land as the stranger a little longer - so what if it's 6,450 ft. up in the mountains. And so what if it's filled with uneducated people starkly contrasted with the neo-rich who could give a damn about them? And so what if they're hacking and spitting and generally unconcerned about hygiene, the environment and the fact that there's a world out there full on concerned with issues and etc. So what? This is my life, and whadayaknow it just keeps on happenin'.