Autumn Festival Surprise!

The next few days go by very fast since I am so busy day classes and night classes actually really no time for anything. My first Chinese friend Zhang Nan calls me and says hey let's go to lunch. I tell him I will meet him at the noodle shop across the street from where I live. We meet there and have a brilliant bowl of ramen and some great conversation. He asks me do you know Autumn Festival? I say no what about it? He tells me it is a very big festival in China and a major holiday. He asks me would you like to come to my family's house for the holiday? I tell him I certainly would love to do that. He says we will leave in a week.  He really wasn't kidding about the Autumn Festival being a big holiday. I went the primary school the following day and I get a call from my boss. He says hey come by the office. I go to the office and he gives me a case of apples. He says for Autumn Festival. This is great I love apples. ALERT if you have a chance to go to China in the beginning of October do it Autumn Festival is a wonderful experience. It is also maybe the most perfect time of the year in China. I take the apples home and I really do not know what I am going to do with so many apples. I decide I will give many of them away to all my new friends. 


I go to the training center that night and go to the office first to pick up stickers for the kids. I do that to help classroom participation and it really works. When I am at the office Jade the lead teacher tells me I have a ticket for you for one bottle of cooking oil and a 10 pound bag of rice. Damn! this Autumn Festival thing is so cool. Now I have a case of apples a large bottle of cooking oil and a big bag of rice. Man! that is a lot of stuff for some guy living on his own. So I have this ticket for cooking oil and rice but I do not know where the store is and how am I going to get there. I meet up with my friend Zhang Nan later that night and show him my ticket and he says I know where the store is. He then tells me I will get the cooking il and rice before I pick you up for our trip to my family's house. I tell him thank you so very much. This really is a big help because I had no time to pick this stuff up. Well the day is here and we are going to Zhang Nan's family's house and I am a little excited. Phone rings and it's Zhang Nan I am at your front gate HURRY! I run out to the front gate and there is Zhang Nan in a taxi with the rice and cooking oil in the back seat. Man! Zhang Nan is a very good friend he really does what he says he is going to do. We get to the downtown bus station and of course an adventure is right around the corner. We go to get tickets for the bus and the line is so long he says forget it let's catch a bus from the street. And I think to myself UH OH! this ought to be very interesting. Let me tell you it certainly was very interesting. All of a sudden Zhang Nan starts running he yells there's a bus going our direction. We start running down this very busy street while carrying our bags and a 10 lb bag of rice and two gallon jug of cooking oil. SERIOUSLY FUNNY and looking pretty manic.