Baseball, Motorcycles and Coffee house jams...

What do, coaching a baseball team of T.betans, singing/playing at a coffee shop and riding on the back of a motorcycle taxi all have in common?

Its just a few of the things we did this week...

Batter, batter, batter, batter...SWING batter!:

Justin is now one of the assistant coaches to the Qing Hai Min Zu Da Xue (our university we attend for language) baseball team.

He, along with two other foreigners, are coaching a team of about 15 T.betan guys how to play American baseball. Its quite a hoot. These guys don't really know the first thing about it, but are starting to get pretty good and will play in a local league this summer. Anyone have a baseball glove that fits a really big hand that they could ship out to us? Justin needs one and they aren't sold here.

Coffee shop singin':

Our good friends here in town own a coffee shop that A. sells really good coffee, B. sells freshly roasted coffee beans that they roast themselves, C. serves yummy foods and D. puts on an "open mic night" once a month.

A couple of months ago some of us musically inclined "foreign folks" decided to put together a little band. We call ourselves "Goodbye Dustin". (Our lead guitarist, Brian, was talking on the phone with our friend Dustin right when we were brainstorming about a name. Shelli said "Brian, will you please say "goodbye Dustin" so we can get crackin' on a name?" and then VOILA! We had a name.)

"Goodbye Dustin" has now played two shows at the open mic night, we have a little fan base, been asked to consider a full show at the coffee shop and even have a "hit song" that people request. Ha ha ha! Whats even more cool is singing and playing these songs with the Chinese customers all singing along at the top of their lungs in broken English. It is so awesome, and a great way to make new local friends. Our first time we played the open mic night, we met a local woman who has become a friend to Shelli. Fun times.

Heres a few pics from the open mic:





Motorcycle taxi:

Today, Shelli was running REALLY late for class and needed to get a taxi pronto. Well, it was after the lunch hour and not a taxi was to be found, except for the kind of "sketchy" motorcycle taxi's.

These are just your every day motorcycles that you hitch a ride on the back of. You just happen to pay your driver money...rather than hanging out with them in a cool pub after the ride. She had a blast, but her hair was quite messy when she arrived at school. Her teacher said she was "li hai" (lee high) for riding one of those.