The greatest vacation that never was

So I have the next week off from class (it's weird, in China Thanksgiving break is in the first week of October, except it's not Thanksgiving break, it's national Holiday. I'm not sure just what that is). Haley and I were planning to go to Xi'an for a couple of days and see four friends that leave in Yichang. Xi'an is one of four hundred ancient capitols of China, but I'm pretty sure it is one of the oldest. It takes about 24 hours on a bus to get to Xi'an, and it's also the home of the terracotta soldiers, but that's not really important now, because plans for Xi'an have fallen through.

Our waiban casually reminded us that we agreed to go to a "meeting of the foreigners" thrown by the city government on Sunday night, making a trip to Xi'an a lot less realistic. Now this "foreigner meeting" is enticing to me for a couple of reasons. I am 99% sure I know of every foreigner in this city. There are eight of us: five Americans, one Japanese, one Australian and his Brazilian wife. And we all teach at our respective universities. Now I wanted to go to this meeting on the off chance that there is some Canadian hiding in a sewer on the other side of town. Discovering another foreigner would make my month, especially if they were close to my age, but that's probably not going to happen. I can imagine the meeting being Haley and I and a couple of Chinese officials. Our American friends didn't agree to go and have already left town. The Australian and his wife have probably done the same. Kazusan might be there, but I'm not getting my hopes up. I'll keep you up to date on how it goes.

It looks like I'll be spending a lot longer in Enshi for this next week than I had hoped. Which means guarenteed daily blog posts! The inspection has ended, and I avoided the wrath of any state inspectors. Now, I get to relax for a week. Even if it is in my apartment. I'm sad. Wasn't expecting that. I was starting to look forward to travelling. What is happening to me?

"I'll see you in the morning if nothing happens"
(actually it's the afternoon in America, I hope everyone is having a good lunch)