So this week was quite the eventful one with Jared, one of the ILP directors here, to see how we're doing a little after mid-semester. They go around to all of the schools in China, Russia, and Ukraine for mid-semester visits each semester, which is a ton if you ask me! It was fun to have him here though. We got some advise on ways we can improve our teaching for the kids benefit and got to go out to dinner with our entire group, Megan's group, Jared, Steve, and a few of the Chinese teachers and the headmasters of our two schools. We had our own private room in the restaurant which is actually pretty common in the restaurants I've been in here in China but we filled that room, that is for sure.
I have to say though...wasn't my most favorite meal here. Everything was extremely spicy. It was almost unbearable to eat any of it. I'm not sure if the headmaster ordered specific things or how that restaurant works but they didn't give us a menu they just started bringing out dishes and it's family style so everyone just takes whatever they want. Well dish after dish it was all spicy! Spicy noodles, spicy green beans, spicy this, spicy that haha. And it wasn't just that I didn't prefer the taste...it was the fact that my lips and entire mouth were on fire! We ended up going to a supermarket after and getting a couple snacks to tide us over because we weren't full. We felt bad that we left so much food but there were a few spicy food lovers on our table that were able to make it look a little more picked over.
But, the best part of the day was the ending when Jared brought out his bag of GOODIES. We had a questionare we filled out over email a few weeks ago and one of the questions was which American candy do you miss most right now. Well, I haven't eaten candy the past few months ever since me and Skyler decided we didn't want to eat any of it so I said what I would really love were some of those Grandma cookies that come in a two pack in vending machines. You'll never guess it...he brought me home made cookies from America! Everyone that didn't put a candy bar got reese's, then there were snickers, butterfingers, starbursts, swedish fish, but no...I got cookies! It seriously made my week that he or his wife or whoever went out of their way to get me cookies instead of candy. I loved it!
After that the weekend was finally underway, I slept in Friday morning until my kindergarten ELE class that I have for 20 minutes three times a week. It is usually an insane class because I am only with them for such a short amount of time that it isn't really possible to reward them and discipline them with tokens and strikes like the normal kindergarten classes. But, this Friday went pretty good! I was able to keep them entertained by a book for an entire 15 minutes and then I pulled out a "shaker" from my bag which was a toilet paper roll, beads, and taped shut but I tell ya they loved it. And I got almost every single one of them to say, "I want to shake it". Haha it was pretty cute.
We ventured across town to Subway for some American food for once and enjoyed that for dinner. Afterwards we headed back to our school for Tae Kwon Do. Our instructor has a performance coming up that he wanted all of us to perform in. Megan's whole group is doing it and he wanted ours to too, well Shantel made sure with everyone that they didn't want to and had Gloria tell him that. Ashley volunteered to do it but he wasn't too happy that the rest of us didn't want to. Well...Emily and I offered to do it because he really wanted us to. So, instead of having the normal class with everyone else, the three of us learned this Tae Kwon Do dance sequence. Oh...and he wants me to do a round off with five back handsprings at the performance! Yep...don't worry, I'll just bust them out after years of not doing any haha. I did 4 at the practice but was scared of running into the wall so I haven't done 5 yet but he was pretty excited about that. The performance is supposed to be Thanksgiving weekend and we're going to be in Beijing next weekend so I don't really know when we're going to get to practice but supposedly this performance is going to be on national TV but who knows!
Other than that we had a pretty relaxing day after practice Friday and Saturday. We played some games, What If and a drawing game like What If and then watched the Prestige. It was a fun weekend but we just can't wait until the next!
Sunday, November 8
Tuesday, November 3
Halloowweeeennn China Style!
This weekend has been quite the eventful one! I was thinking that Halloween was going to be so boring and lame compared to being in the US for it but boy, was I wrong.
It started off Thursday in class because my kids don't have class with us on Fridays. So all of us teachers were wearing our costumes, I myself was a stylin' pirate. We had class, which actually ended up being a little more insane than it should have been...it was also Parents Day! So a bunch of parents were sitting in the back of the classroom evaluating our teaching even though most of them probably don't know much English themselves. Well, Gen and I had the kids sing some songs for them and then do their dance because their Chinese Teacher, Leah, told us to. We then split into our separate classrooms and did a Halloween word search. My kids did a great job with it and were talking up a storm just like they should. Hopefully their parents were impressed but I'm not sure because I don't speak Chinese so I didn't even talk to them! For the last 15 minutes we took them around to all the other classrooms for trick or treating and oh, were they excited for that. They LOVED getting a bunch of candy! We had fun even with the parents making me nervous in the back of the classroom.
The next day was spent in the kindergarten decorating from lunch until dinner. We hung up decorations our 2nd graders had made from our classrooms upstairs, painted haunted houses on the mirrors, hung our hilarious tombstones, made a huge spider, and made a haunted house for everyone to go through. It took forever and everyone was exhausted but it turned out awesome. When all the guests arrived we started off the party like the Chinese like to with of course...a performance! We did the "Hannah Montana Hoedown Throwdown" and the ILP kindergarten kids did their "Ghostbusters" and "Disturbia" dances. After everyone showed off their costumes on the red carpet they trick or treated to us through the front doors and trampled into the haunted house with the lights on and without us there to escort them through it! It was pretty hilarious because we had to make them all leave so we could turn off the lights, resituate everything, and get in our hiding places to scare them. The haunted house ended up being a success though and we scared adults and kids all around.
The next day we had to be at the Bond Kindergarten at 10:30, which is the school some ILP teachers that live up the street from us teach at. We had our Kung Fu lessons which were awesome besides the fact that it was Halloween and I was almost dying from heat exhaustion it was so hot outside. I mean come on, Halloween...it's usually impossible to not bundle up because it's so cold. Well that is not the case in southern China on Halloween! You can be sure about that. It was noon while we were having our practice outside and I was seriously dying of the heat. Mind you, I was in my awesome new Kung Fu outfit that added to the heat, but still!
After that we decorated the entire day making the dance room a haunted house which was much more elaborate than ours since they would be having a lot more people attending. The party began the same way as the night before with a performance in which we did the "Hoedown Throwdown" yet again. Lets just say we can't get enough of Hannah Montana! Then we had trick or treating around the building in various classrooms. Emily P., Christy, and I were supposed to be helping conduct the store to give out prizes but the Chinese teachers had it all taken care of and didn't speak any English so we got to go help out in the haunted house. It was a blast scaring everyone. By the end I was lying on the floor under the dance bar 15 ft. after the entrance with a cloak draped over my legs so I was really hidden. I popped out and scared so many people! It was awesome hahaha. We had fun. Their party even had cake and cookies at the end which was a treat after a long day of being at the school decorating.
It ended up being a weekend to remember. Since one was at Bond and the other was for the kindergarten kids of our school I only ended up seeing two of my 2nd graders. But, I wasn't expecting to see any of them so it was a treat to see them. They are so adorable. I love my kids and all the kindergarten kids I know and teach ELE classes for! One of my kids was there because her mom is the kindergarten principal and the other has a little sister in the class Em, Sierra, and Aimee teach so it was fun to find that out. I got the most adorable picture with Emmy trying to get her to smile for the camera. She didn't want to take a picture but then she made it up to me the next night at the Bond party by asking me to get a pic with her and her mom. Only problem was I didn't have a camera on me at the time! It's okay though, I still love that little girl!! :)
It started off Thursday in class because my kids don't have class with us on Fridays. So all of us teachers were wearing our costumes, I myself was a stylin' pirate. We had class, which actually ended up being a little more insane than it should have been...it was also Parents Day! So a bunch of parents were sitting in the back of the classroom evaluating our teaching even though most of them probably don't know much English themselves. Well, Gen and I had the kids sing some songs for them and then do their dance because their Chinese Teacher, Leah, told us to. We then split into our separate classrooms and did a Halloween word search. My kids did a great job with it and were talking up a storm just like they should. Hopefully their parents were impressed but I'm not sure because I don't speak Chinese so I didn't even talk to them! For the last 15 minutes we took them around to all the other classrooms for trick or treating and oh, were they excited for that. They LOVED getting a bunch of candy! We had fun even with the parents making me nervous in the back of the classroom.
The next day was spent in the kindergarten decorating from lunch until dinner. We hung up decorations our 2nd graders had made from our classrooms upstairs, painted haunted houses on the mirrors, hung our hilarious tombstones, made a huge spider, and made a haunted house for everyone to go through. It took forever and everyone was exhausted but it turned out awesome. When all the guests arrived we started off the party like the Chinese like to with of course...a performance! We did the "Hannah Montana Hoedown Throwdown" and the ILP kindergarten kids did their "Ghostbusters" and "Disturbia" dances. After everyone showed off their costumes on the red carpet they trick or treated to us through the front doors and trampled into the haunted house with the lights on and without us there to escort them through it! It was pretty hilarious because we had to make them all leave so we could turn off the lights, resituate everything, and get in our hiding places to scare them. The haunted house ended up being a success though and we scared adults and kids all around.
The next day we had to be at the Bond Kindergarten at 10:30, which is the school some ILP teachers that live up the street from us teach at. We had our Kung Fu lessons which were awesome besides the fact that it was Halloween and I was almost dying from heat exhaustion it was so hot outside. I mean come on, Halloween...it's usually impossible to not bundle up because it's so cold. Well that is not the case in southern China on Halloween! You can be sure about that. It was noon while we were having our practice outside and I was seriously dying of the heat. Mind you, I was in my awesome new Kung Fu outfit that added to the heat, but still!
After that we decorated the entire day making the dance room a haunted house which was much more elaborate than ours since they would be having a lot more people attending. The party began the same way as the night before with a performance in which we did the "Hoedown Throwdown" yet again. Lets just say we can't get enough of Hannah Montana! Then we had trick or treating around the building in various classrooms. Emily P., Christy, and I were supposed to be helping conduct the store to give out prizes but the Chinese teachers had it all taken care of and didn't speak any English so we got to go help out in the haunted house. It was a blast scaring everyone. By the end I was lying on the floor under the dance bar 15 ft. after the entrance with a cloak draped over my legs so I was really hidden. I popped out and scared so many people! It was awesome hahaha. We had fun. Their party even had cake and cookies at the end which was a treat after a long day of being at the school decorating.
It ended up being a weekend to remember. Since one was at Bond and the other was for the kindergarten kids of our school I only ended up seeing two of my 2nd graders. But, I wasn't expecting to see any of them so it was a treat to see them. They are so adorable. I love my kids and all the kindergarten kids I know and teach ELE classes for! One of my kids was there because her mom is the kindergarten principal and the other has a little sister in the class Em, Sierra, and Aimee teach so it was fun to find that out. I got the most adorable picture with Emmy trying to get her to smile for the camera. She didn't want to take a picture but then she made it up to me the next night at the Bond party by asking me to get a pic with her and her mom. Only problem was I didn't have a camera on me at the time! It's okay though, I still love that little girl!! :)
Tuesday, October 27
Kung Fu Fightin' and fake Holidays
We officially started our Kung Fu lessons this weekend and I have to say it was awesome! We are becoming more and more Chinese as these four months progress. We learned some sweet blocks, punches, kicks, and had some sore muscles the next couple of days. It was actually pretty hilarious because our second teacher was Korean. He brought a translator that translated what he said into Chinese which was then translated into English by our coordinator Gloria. We got a laugh out of that once we realized what was going to have to happen the entire class. They were great lessons though and I'm excited for them to happen again this weekend. We'll be Kung Fu masters by the time we come home!
Then there's also the topic of fake holidays. Yes, while living in another country away from the normal world you live in you tend to start doing different things to celebrate the day. So as of last Wednesday, Happy Valentines Day! Each of us had a secret admirer and got a card and treats for our special someone. We even had a card contest with prizes because that made it all the better! Now we didn't get to make a bunch of baked goodies because we don't have the luxury of American products but I do have to say we enjoyed ourselves anyways. We listened to love songs throughout our party and just had to watch a chick flick to call the night a success. We had a great time. Happy Fake V-Day!
Then there's also the topic of fake holidays. Yes, while living in another country away from the normal world you live in you tend to start doing different things to celebrate the day. So as of last Wednesday, Happy Valentines Day! Each of us had a secret admirer and got a card and treats for our special someone. We even had a card contest with prizes because that made it all the better! Now we didn't get to make a bunch of baked goodies because we don't have the luxury of American products but I do have to say we enjoyed ourselves anyways. We listened to love songs throughout our party and just had to watch a chick flick to call the night a success. We had a great time. Happy Fake V-Day!
Sunday, October 18
Day 4, 5, and 6
Day 4 started with French Toast of course, that I could never pass up each morning while in Xi'an and then heading to see the Great Mosque in Muslim Street. It took us a little while to find the entrance but out of no where behind all these streets of markets there is a huge Mosque that has been there for years and years. The entire place was gorgeous with all the intricate details in architecture and design. I love seeing old architecture like that that has been preserved for all of us to enjoy for years to come. We had some fun spending some time there and taking pictures until we headed back to our hostel to check out, store our luggage in the luggage closet, and then go up to the city wall. Xi'an has a city wall that surrounds what used to be all of Xi'an but now Xi'an extends many miles outside the wall on all sides. The wall is probably around or more than 50 ft. tall and about 20 ft. wide and you can walk around on top of it. Eight of us rented bikes on top of the wall and biked around the entire thing. It was so fun! It was pretty funny because the wall is made of big bricks that aren't exactly put together perfectly so the surface we were riding on was pretty bumpy! We were getting jostled around as we rode but we had a blast. We then met up with the rest of our group, I went to Muslim Street with Aimee, Ashley, and Emily H. for some fruit, and then we headed back to the train station to go to Hangzhou. We were told a few days before that the train ride was going to be a 13 hour ride. We were scheduled to leave at 10 PM and get there a little before noon the next day. Well, come to find out...once we are already on the train mind you, it is a 24 hour train ride again. Luckily this time we got sleeper tickets so we had the option of lying down and sitting up if we wanted to which made all the difference! I slept through the entire night and then took another 3 hour nap later the next day. It was an easy ride compared to the first one but it was still pretty funny when we figured out how long that train ride was going to be. Five of our group members decided to stick with the cheaper price and ride in the hard seats and man, I felt bad for them! It really wasn't bad at all for us though, I could do a 24 hour train ride again easy as long as I have a sleeper!
Once we got to Hangzhou at 10 PM of Day 5 we went to buy our train tickets and found out the ONLY train back to our city would be in eight hours...yes, e-i-g-h-t. Our hostel we had booked was supposedly a half hour away but we didn't really even know since we hadn't been there yet so there was no way we could go all the way there, sleep for four hours, and then go back to the train station. You would think with a group of 11 girls (and three guys) that we would have all broken down at this moment, freaked out, or something...well, we did the exact opposite: we went to our newly found Burger King in the train station and were all super hyper/happy/care-free fanatics. We ordered a bunch of food and danced in the upstairs to the American music that was playing, and even ordered 2 ice cream cones at once! Haha, it was seriously the funniest experience ever. Normally, I would have been so upset to hear we traveled 24 hours just to be in a city for 8 hours (DURING THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT) and hop back on another train with only sitting tickets available for another 22 hours. But, no...we were seriously having the time of our lives in there! After an hour of messing around and getting free Chinese flags from the Burger King workers we left because they were closing and decided why not go to West Lake (what Hangzhou is known for) in the middle of the night?? We walked all the way there and sat by the lake for a couple hours and took tons of crazy pictures before we walked back and waited for our train. The next train ride you of course don't want to know about. I was honestly on the verge of tears getting on that bus because I knew how bad it was going to be and I just didn't want to even try to do it! This time we weren't even sitting together either since we got our tickets so late. But, what can you do. We survived!! Well barely...
Caleb ended up having to go to the pharmacy the next day because of something horrible he caught on that train and 3 of our other teachers weren't able to teach our second day back either. Caleb was hyperventilating, had a high fever, and would even stop breathing every few seconds. We would have to hit him to get him to start breathing again. It was pretty scary. He was really out of it. But luckily after a few days in bed and lots of pills and HORRIBLE cough syrup he is back to his full health and strength. The other three girls that got sick had something else and got pretty sick too but nothing that you would go to the pharmacy or hospital for. Don't worry, none of us have the Swine Flu, if Caleb did have it there is no way they would have let him leave that pharmacy haha.
It really was a great vacation though and it was a blast to see so many new things in China. I love it here and can't get enough of everything around me!! China has been amazing!
Once we got to Hangzhou at 10 PM of Day 5 we went to buy our train tickets and found out the ONLY train back to our city would be in eight hours...yes, e-i-g-h-t. Our hostel we had booked was supposedly a half hour away but we didn't really even know since we hadn't been there yet so there was no way we could go all the way there, sleep for four hours, and then go back to the train station. You would think with a group of 11 girls (and three guys) that we would have all broken down at this moment, freaked out, or something...well, we did the exact opposite: we went to our newly found Burger King in the train station and were all super hyper/happy/care-free fanatics. We ordered a bunch of food and danced in the upstairs to the American music that was playing, and even ordered 2 ice cream cones at once! Haha, it was seriously the funniest experience ever. Normally, I would have been so upset to hear we traveled 24 hours just to be in a city for 8 hours (DURING THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT) and hop back on another train with only sitting tickets available for another 22 hours. But, no...we were seriously having the time of our lives in there! After an hour of messing around and getting free Chinese flags from the Burger King workers we left because they were closing and decided why not go to West Lake (what Hangzhou is known for) in the middle of the night?? We walked all the way there and sat by the lake for a couple hours and took tons of crazy pictures before we walked back and waited for our train. The next train ride you of course don't want to know about. I was honestly on the verge of tears getting on that bus because I knew how bad it was going to be and I just didn't want to even try to do it! This time we weren't even sitting together either since we got our tickets so late. But, what can you do. We survived!! Well barely...
Caleb ended up having to go to the pharmacy the next day because of something horrible he caught on that train and 3 of our other teachers weren't able to teach our second day back either. Caleb was hyperventilating, had a high fever, and would even stop breathing every few seconds. We would have to hit him to get him to start breathing again. It was pretty scary. He was really out of it. But luckily after a few days in bed and lots of pills and HORRIBLE cough syrup he is back to his full health and strength. The other three girls that got sick had something else and got pretty sick too but nothing that you would go to the pharmacy or hospital for. Don't worry, none of us have the Swine Flu, if Caleb did have it there is no way they would have let him leave that pharmacy haha.
It really was a great vacation though and it was a blast to see so many new things in China. I love it here and can't get enough of everything around me!! China has been amazing!
Thursday, October 15
Wednesday, October 14
Day 3
Our next venture in Xi’an was to find the LDS branch there because it was Sunday! It was kind of a weird experience for me because it was actually General Conference going on at home and I didn’t have access to watching it while everyone else was for once. The night before I was getting in bed and had my Ensign from April’s session of conference and was reading one of the talks when I realized that the first session of Saturday morning was going on right then because of the time difference…and I was in Xi’an in our hostel no where near the prophets and apostles speaking…but I also thought it was really cool that I was in fact reading talks from the apostles and that was good enough for me at that moment. Anyways, after we enjoyed French toast again for breakfast that morning we got with Megan’s group which made it so there were 19 of us and got in 5 separate taxis hoping we would all end up at the same place after we showed them the address. Luckily, each time we did so that day it did work because without cell phones there really isn’t anything you can do about it to figure out where the rest of your group is. We met one of the branch members outside the university where they hold church and headed to the classroom. It was a good thing we were there that Sunday because if not they would have only had 5 people there since everyone was out of town touring or visiting other cities just like we were. It was a really cool experience to get to have church with them. The two older women in the branch had such strong testimonies of the gospel and knew without a doubt that they were in China for a reason even though they can’t talk about the church with any of their citizens. We just had testimony meeting and Sunday school and then we went out to lunch at…once again, a place that wasn’t Chinese food. Amanda, one of the ladies in the branch, told us she would take us to this restaurant because it had Mexican and lots of western entrees so we were really excited about it and it was for good reason. I got a chicken quesadilla with chips and salsa and a banana milkshake and it was delicious. We all enjoyed our lunches and then we caught some more taxis to head to the orphanage Amanda owns. The babies there are not adoptable yet because of physical impairments such as cleft pallets, heart problems, exposed bladders, malnutrition, or other things. Once Amanda finds the doctor that can do the surgery for free or for a small price they are able to get the operation taken care of and then eventually the babies are finally adoptable. She has about 40 or so babies there that she takes care of with some American volunteers that are living with her and then probably about 5 or so Chinese nannies that are hired to work there. The babies are so adorable and we just couldn’t get enough of them. The first one I held was Carmen and she was just the sweetest little thing. We had a lot of fun together and she was intrigued by every little thing I would do for her. One of the little baby girls name’s was Libby and a couple of my friends named her Monster Baby because she is soo big!! She is such a little chunker but that is how we’d rather them be than have them be malnourished! We played together for a while on the floor with a ball until she started getting fussy so I walked around with her for a little to calm her down and she fell asleep. I had to sit down to support her weight because she was so big. Haha, she was so adorable. I couldn’t talk while she slept because she would start to wake up every time I did but I didn’t mind just sitting there holding her. I could have gone and put her in her crib but I didn’t want to. I’m sure with the amount of nannies they have the kids get enough attention when they need it but I’m pretty sure they don’t ever get held while they sleep so I couldn’t resist. I think we were there close to three hours, no one wanted to leave but we eventually had to because some prospective parents were visiting and it was getting a little crowded since our group alone filled the room. It was so fun to see those kids though and spend some time with them that they don’t usually get. That night we went to Muslim Street again and bought a couple souvenirs. I didn’t buy much at Muslim Street because of the train ride and just having my backpack to store stuff I didn’t want to buy things that could get stolen. But I did find some cute, small things I had to get. One being a watch because the last one I got accidentally got tossed on the floor because it was on my bed. This happened a few weeks ago and the glass was starting to fall apart, the watch still worked, but I was nervous about the glass breaking somewhere I wouldn’t want it to like in my skin so I got a new one. I bargained the lady down to a pretty reasonable price and then went on my way. Shantel, Caleb, Emily P, Gen, and I went to McDonalds for some cheap ice cream cones and then I realized my watch wasn’t working. So we went back to Muslim Street which was right around the corner and the guy put a new battery in it. I figured that would work so we went on our way. Well, come to find out in the morning it was still only 3 A.M. according to my watch so we had to go back again and fight the lady for a new watch with a new battery and got some of my money back. They weren’t very happy about it but they were honestly just trying to rip me off with the first one. But after we got the battery fixed the night before we went to a couple more stores and then decided we were done for the night. We decided that if we went out the back instead of heading to the entrance of Muslim Street that we’d actually get to our hostel much quicker and it would lead us right there. So we went that way and after about ten minutes of walking down this road we realized we had no idea where we were and were actually in the ghetto of China. All the people were staring at us like we were very out of place. I mean, stares are a normal accurance here in China for us Americans but these people definitely didn’t see Americans going down that street very often. It wasn’t creepy whatsoever since we did have a boy with us but we didn’t know where we were that was for sure. I finally voiced my opinion in that we should probably just turn around and back track but someone else thought it’d be a good idea to go down a new road instead because it probably led out to the main road. Yes, it did lead out to a main road, we weren’t in the slums anymore, but still…nothing was lookin familiar. Haha, after about 2 hours we were totally on the opposite end of the city we were supposed to be on. We didn’t want to get in a taxi because there were 5 of us so that would split us up and who knows if they’d take us to two different locations and we didn’t know which buses went where so we didn’t want to get on any of them either. Luckily, as we were nearing midnight we finally got into two taxis, told one to follow the other, and told the first to head straight down the road to the opposite end of the city which is exactly where our hostel was at. After a long voyage of hysteric laughs and irritability at the same time we made it to our hostel in one piece. After staying up for about another hour at the two hostels we crashed and awaited the next day!
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