Fratting?

Is it considered fratting with the enemy if I hung out with the dog's owner?

I should give a quick update first about the chubby, gimp leg puppy though.  She is no longer tied up to the fence.  Apparently it was only for a day or two and lately she's been running around like before.  Hopefully they don't do it again, but they have put a makeshift collar on her made out of old plastic coated electrical wire.

After class today, I helped coach some of Joe's Tourism major students.  They are headed to Nanjing tomorrow to take part in a National Tour Guide Competition and have prepared these awesome speeches about various historical sties in China.  They were really sweet and I hope they win!

 Joe and I went to dinner at a restaurant across the street that I had never been to before.  We ordered so much food, including fish, eggplant, egg fried rice, and these strange cereal covered sweet potato balls.  I was feeling pretty guilty because I knew that Joe was treating me to dinner, but it turns out that the owner of the restaurant was his former student.  So we had a huge dinner for free and even got some leftovers to take home.  Sometimes I do love the whole Chinese 关系 ("relationship") concept.

My class fifteen is doing their "practical training" this week and are basically set up to say "Good morning/afternoon/evening" at the entrance of the Hotel Management building from morning to night.  They also have to bow at various doors and man a makeshift convenience store in the lobby.  We teachers have started to notice that each class is setting the bar higher and higher and I can only imagine what it's going to be like at the end of the semester.

This is my first class up to the challenge though and I am like a proud mama!  They have set up a cute little coffee lounge in the lobby (music was added a few weeks ago by another class).  I went to visit them this evening and bring them some snacks because I had way too much food from dinner.

On the way back, the dog ran towards me as always and I picked her up and brought her back to the shack she lives in.  After greeting the 阿姨 ("auntie") she invited me into her house and we sat down and chatted.  She showed me her collection of foreign bills and we ate oranges while talking about random subjects.  I was having a lot of issues understanding her husband (?) because of his accent so she ended up translating a lot for me.

And during this entire visit, her dog was sitting on my lap and not moving.  Then when I tried to leave, the dog tried to run after me and had to get chased back to her house.  Oh dear.  If she "mysteriously" disappears they will totally know it was me who stole her.

Oops.  Otherwise, I had a very busy, but normal day in China.  It is finally warming up and it was a solid 60 degrees today in the middle of the afternoon!