Ryker ate a Chicken Foot

Ryker is in China. He is 19, although in China he is 20, since they start you out at one when you are born. He left about 10 days ago for WuHu in the An Hui province.  It is a city of about 2.5 million people, all but 30 of which are Chinese.  He is there as an intern teaching English for the next 4 months.  There are 7 interns, and he is the only American.  The others are from Europe, mostly the UK.  He lives in an apartment with 2 other guys, and has his own room and bathroom.  He teaches English to kids from 9-17 at a school, and receives Mandarin instructions from a private tutor.

It costs 2 bucks a minute to talk via his iphone, and a dollar a mega bit for data.  He used up his 50 texts/month while traveling, and Facebook is blocked in China, soooo .... Skype is how he communicates with those of us here at home.  There is a crazy time difference of 18 hours between Hawaii and China.  While I write this at 8pm Thursday, he is already experiencing Friday afternoon.

I am waiting for him to email me photos.  He only has internet access when he plugs his comp into a data cable in his apartment.  The technology disconnect would give me a panic attack.

Here are some of the highlights -

Food is super cheap.  He can eat out and have a huge plate of food and a drink for about .50. At one of these meals he ate a chicken foot.  I admire his adventurous nature, especially with food.  I don't think I could stick a chicken foot in my mouth, let alone chew and swallow it.   Shopping and cooking for yourself is even cheaper.  He went to WalMart the other day - yes, they have WalMart in China, weird I know - I wonder if all the stuff they sell in China, is made in China, like it is here?  Anyway, China in WuHu is in a 7 story high rise, no escalators, just moving ramps, which according to Ryker are skkkeeeeeetchy.  The meat department was a couple of guys with saws cutting up cows and pigs - ewww!  But, hey, at least you can see where your meat is coming from, and maybe that's better than a massive plant infected with ecoli.  If I keep thinking about gross meat I'll never eat meat again.  He bought some duck eggs, which he said were delicious. 

Crossing the street is dangerous, trucks and buses especially disregard pedestrians, and a taxi ride is cheap.  Tons of people are on bikes, rik shaws, and mopeds.  Traffic on Oahu can be bad, but is apparently nothing compared to WuHu.

It is late winter there, and has been in the 40's and rainy.  He's cold.  He took what warm clothes had, which wasn't much, and wishes he had more.  WalMart there doesn't carry his size - in anything, so, he'll just have to make due until Spring.

Being one of 30 foreigners in a city of 2.5 million, he gets stared at a lot, especially by children.  I wonder what they think when they see him?  Last week he went to a kindergarten and taught English a few times.  I wonder if when they went home and told their parents that a giant with big curly hair told him how to say "frog" and "duck" they thought they were making it up?

He says the people he works with are super nice, and that he is enjoying the work.  I think it's awesome that he has this opportunity to go see one of the far flung places of this world.  Ever since he was a small boy he has decorated his walls with maps of the world and made a study of them. Now those maps are going to start getting pins in them, to mark the places he has been.