C.J.Patten wrote:
Pretty cool... I don't have the brass tacks to walk into a class of 30 and
pretend I know how to teach English. Good on ya'!

30? 30....?!? My first year and a half I was at a high school and I
had classes of 55-70.

At the kindergartens I had classes of up to 25.

Now, I'm at a college. My large classes 30+ but my small classes are
less than 10. As attendance is not mandatory it translates more to 25
and 5.

$28?! For a bike!? $12 for another? And that Giant for $88! That's nutty!
Ditto the other reply - I'd like to see pictures!

The $12 bike was a secondhand which was bought for the frame. Tubes,
some of the spokes, one of the tires, both brakes, the front gear
cluster, the derailleurs (front and rear) and the chain were all
replaced with new. I also changed the seat for another secondhand
seat.

When I was done it was more like $60. But it _looked_ like $12.

I knew someone who went to school in Asia. They tried to pay for lunch one
day at the university cafeteria - something like $1.50 for a big meal - and
tried to say "keep the change"... they thought he was *trying to haggle!* He
slunk away in shame when he figured out how they were interpreting his
gestures. ;p

$1.50? At the university cafeteria?

Yesterday night I went to a spiff Hunan Resteraunt on Haidian Island.
When I say spiff, I do mean spiff. Upmarket dinner crowd spiff. For
the five us eating mostly meat, drinking local beer, and sitting in an
air conditioned private dining room it cost $10.

If we'd been in one of the more fashionable districts it might have
cost as much as $20. Possibly if we tried really hard and went
someplace really nice (like the Japanese, Thai, or Indian) we could
have stretched it to costing $40.

Today's lunch (coca cola, duck, spinach, bean sprouts, squash, rice,
eaten on metal plates sitting outside) was $1.

Take this with a grain of salt as I have a huge bias toward them: had you
considered a folding bike? Very easy to travel with and based on the 50km or
so in the past week on my newest bike, a KHS folder, I'll never go back to a
non-folder.

I briefly considered one back when I was living in Shijiazhuang. I
would frequently go to Beijing for the weekend and if I wanted to take
my bike with me I had to sent it on the cargo train. Which meant
delivering it to the train station the night before.

Seeing as you like the Giant brand (nice bikes, I love the Prodigy SUB) take
a Giant "Halfway" for a ride. Maybe it's the answer to your travel luggage
size and weight restrictions. Dahon makes a comparable and less expensive
model - look for the 2004 Impulse D6 aluminum.

If you've ever tried to pack 60 kilo of stuff you'd be surprised how
much it is, especially when you get another 20 kilo in carryon. It's
hard to manage to take as much as I'm allowed.

On the upcoming trip home I'll be near empty. Which is why I'm
considering taking the bike back with me. Since the return trip to
Asia I'll have books and cheese and olives and books and books and
household goods and books and possibly clothing in my luggage I'll have
to leave the bike in the US but... it will mean 6 weeks of _not_ having
to use my boyfriend's bike.

-M