I've finally made it to Hengyang after a 13 hour train ride from Beijing to Changsha, followed by a 3 hour minivan ride to Hengyang.  Right now I'm in temporary housing, which consists of one room and one bathroom, until my actual apartment is done with renovations.  I am fine with the smallness, but the squatter will be the death of me, as I don't squat and it doesn't flush.  I will move into my actual apartment in a month, according to our liaison.  I developed a cold on the train ride and failed to sleep well, so I will only share my pictures of my dorm and sleeper train room as I am exhausted.  

I will say that our school's hospitality is most generous and Hengyang is quite different from Taiwan.  We were treated to a fancy meal, which included normal Chinese dishes, along with fried scorpion, goose liver, and some animal's stomach.  We were toasted many times and I hope it wasn't insulting to them for me to use water in place of wine.   The traffic is chaotic.  Traffic lights are completely ignored, drivers will drive on the wrong side of the road, and people honk instead of using signal lights and mirrors.  Tomorrow will bring cellphone accounts and orientation around town and the school.  We, I and two college freshmen girls, live right next to the school, so the commute will be nice and stress-free.  We have a cafeteria for teachers we can eat in, and I believe it will be free for us.  The food's all right, but it's very convenient and we don't have to hunt around for restaurants.

Photos can be found by clicking Menu above my profile picture, then under the Assets column click Photos.