January 29th

Jim went to the dentist yesterday and had to go again today because of pain. He was in the chair 2h yesterday and 2 1/2 today. Really nice dentist who graduated from our school. Nice, clean office, too. All the dentists wear white pants and those doctor shirts and off white shoes. The assistants have on little dresses and nylons and tan shoes, too. kinda cute. Jim got 3 drugs prescriped to him after today: saridon, tinidazole, and cefradine. The last is a cephalosporin the other 2 used out of the country more, I think, because they can cause cancer per the google search. We ate at a Chinese restuarant after that that had no English on the menu - pretty brave, huh? There WERE pictures, though. It is hard to find vegetarian food by looking at pictures. One of them was bak choy with some fat hominy on it, not bad. The other I ordered were deep fried triangles stuffed with spinach, I think and some meat. I scraped the meat out and ate some of them. They were really good. We may go back there because it is close to the dentist office. Jim got a really good chicken dish. My word for vegetarian food was not understood, and they did not understand that we wanted water but did bring tea.
The dentist knows some english but wants to learn more so told Jim he won't charge him as much. All the meds were about $7. He came out and actually walked us to the door. I was standing there and he looked at me and held his hand over his head as he said "You are really high!" Pretty funny! Jim goes back Monday for more work. He had a root canal both days in a row. There were 5 roots in the tooth. They did 2 yesterday and 2 today. Couldn't get into the 5th one so if he has more problems with that, the tooth will have to be pulled. Jim is doing ok considering. All is well.
We had our physical today.............. First they drew our blood, not bad. Oh, that was after we had to pee in a 1 ounce cup. For Jim, not bad, for me bad. Trying to fill a cup over a hole in the floor wasn't as bad as trying to get my pants back up without falling in while holding the door shut because it wouldn't stay latched and trying to keep my purse out of the way. We had an ekg and chest xray of sorts and an ultrasound that was cold and tickled and a bp and pulse check and heart listened to and eye chart exam. These were all in different rooms by different people and took about 30 minutes. It was not an unpleasant experience except the BR thing. It was an upper abdominal EKG.

We met a teacher that moved here from Russia about 4 months ago and one from India also at Wes and Pat's. We spend lots of time with them but that will change since they are going to Israel for a 10 day trip starting tomorrow. We made it to the dentist and back in a cab today without getting killed hailing them down so are doing ok.
We don't have our webcam yet, need a Chinese speaking young man to help us find that. Will be soon.
Love to you. Thanks for all the notes to us. We love hearing from you.
Linda and James.
ps: prayer requests for Jim's teeth. Thanks