English Corner, Trip in the Van, Cooking and Sports Day

I apologize if I have already posted some of this information. I can't see what I've written on my blog so I'm posting blindly. Let's see ... this week has flown by. Tuesday night I went over to Joni's house. Her host family cooked us spaghetti! It was very good. After dinner we went to the English Corner. It is basically a little meeting place in the park where Chinese students wanting to improve their English come to practice. It was a little overwhelming because for an hour6 people stood around me asking as many questions as they could. Earlier in the day on Tuesday we went on a sight-seeing trip in the middle of the school day with the Headmaster of the middle school. It's interesting in Chinese culture how you change things in an instant and nobody seems to care. 9 of us piled into a mini-van and set out looking a flower gardens and flower shops. We had lunch at a beautiful restaurant and finally got back to school around 3 p.m.
Last night, I got home before my host family. I let myself in and sat on the couch to read. Right as I started reading, my host mother came home. She motioned for me to join her in the kitchen. Together, we made dinner! It was so much fun and I learned a lot ... how to prepare some of their foods, wait until the oil smokes before adding the meat into the wok, ect... It was just the daughter, mother and I for dinner. I was given a choice between rice or dumplings ... I picked DUMPLINGS! So GOOD! After dinner, we went for a walk then came home and had fresh oranges for dessert.
Today (Thursday) was sports day for the elementary school students. The GSU students were asked to join in some of the activities. We ran a relay and played jump-rope. Those Chinese teachers were very good at jump-rope! Tonight I have been told I am going to have "Hot-Pot". I will be interested to see what it is. I have heard good and bad things about it. The bad things are that it is hot (spicy) and greasy ... but I'm up for trying anything. People in China are typically very thin but they can eat A TON!
More to come :)