- Iced tea. I long for this, which concerns me since it's not even summer. Also ice in general, which is pretty much non-existent here since the water isn't safe to drink.
- Driving. I'm all about convenient public transportation, but I miss getting in my car, taking a back road and driving somewhere for a few hours.
- Hooters wings (obviously).
- Being able to walk everywhere (or at least a lot of places).
- Getting to explore.
- Finding good happy hour deals (although I like this in any country).
- Learning to eat with chopsticks. I'm getting fairly decent at this. I also like that chopsticks are easy to wash (my dishes are pictured above).
- Successfully giving a taxi driver instructions in Chinese. This was a big one, especially since I managed it after finding one of those good happy hour deals.
- My co-workers.
- Soup dumplings (from places with no English menu). The ones pictured were TO. DIE. FOR. One of the local teachers took me to a place near our school to get them. Since I work in a place where no foreigner/tourist would ever go voluntarily, the food is almost always excellent and very cheap.
- Getting my students to laugh. There's nothing like a bunch of five year olds cracking up at their crazy foreign teacher.
- Smog/air pollution. You can see it in most of my pictures. It was so bad on Chinese New Year's Eve that the midnight fireworks show on the Bund was canceled. SAD LIFE.