My Tongue!

I woke up this morning with a funny taste in my mouth and so I started brushing my teeth right away. When I was finished, I spit into the sink and the toothpaste was completely black. I was quite startled and looked in the mirror as I opened my mouth. My tongue was completely black all the way from the back of my throat to the tip of my tongue! I was incredibly freaked out and I started spitting and vigorously brushing my tongue. I got most of it washed out, but I took a picture of it about 5 hours later and my tongue is still stained black. I included the lovely picture for your amusement. This didn't happen to anyone else and I can't figure out what it was, I think it might have been the pollution.

This weekend we visited Yixing, a town famous for making teapots out of red clay. We visited a teapot factory, which employed about 5 to 8 women who hand-made the teapots and then sell them down below in a gift shop. They even let one person in our group help out making a teapot. We also visited a cave, which was decked out in colorful lights and other artificial additions, such as stairs and paintings on the walls of the cave. The highlight of the trip was riding cable cars up to the top of a mountain and riding a slide that was 1/4 mile long. They gave us pants to tie on to our legs so that our skin wouldn't slow us down and I've included a picture of Kira and I wearing these ridiculous pants. Our Chinese roommates (aka student helpers and Chinese tutors) came along and it was fun to talk with them, even though my Chinese can be an embarrassing train wreck. I move into my home stay tomorrow afternoon!