Chelsea's Glorious Chinese Adventure

Something to make you smile!

2009-04-26T22:01:00.004+08:00

This is a dance that we performed for some of the kids and parents at the school on Saturday. A 6th grade girl named Candy choreographed and taught us the dance over the past few weeks. I figured this was far too funny to keep to myself so enjoy!

English Day!

2009-04-26T16:51:00.005+08:00

Pictures from our performance. The kids loved watching us and thought it was hilarious that we both sang and danced for them. I unfortunately was not able to capture our group performing the Boot Scootin 'n Boogie but as you can imagine, we put on quite the show.

I should have def worn more make-up

Our Chinese friends. Candy, the choreographer of our dance is second from the right.

We love Judy!

The audience

Gwen- luckily she is not in my class because she is nuts!!!! She chases me when I go running on the track and tries to stop me from running.

My students. Even the boys are wearing lipstick, hah! They sang the Hokey Pokey (sp?) and did a glorious job!

Tommy

Sadie appears to not be digging her lipstick. Sam is so cute!

I may be trying to put James into my suitcase come June, he's pretty little so it might actually work...

Singing Upside Down. Fortunately for me (and everyone else), I didn't have to participate, I am such a bad singer.

This is a play the kids put on and it was sooo weird and sooo funny! It started out with the child stealing and the mom allowing it. Somehow, it turned out that when the kid got older, he bit off his mom's ear (Mike Tyson style) and then the cops pulled machine guns on him. The moral of the story was, parents should punish their children while they are little so they don't turn into hardened criminals.

Our Meghan singing "My Heart Will Go On". They loved it!

These hats were SWEET!

The select group who were privileged enough to wear the white silk pants. We look good!

Arabian/Chinese princess???? I think so

Strike a pose

We thought we'd look good doing this... we thought wrong...

I am in the Woofer!

2009-04-22T21:10:00.010+08:00

Last weekend, we decided to paint the town red and ventured out to a dance club in Hefei. It was a lot of fun and I have to make a vast over-generalization about the Chinese- they really, really, really can't dance but they sure do try! To really ensure that we stood out as much as possible, me and five of my friends were on the dance floor by ourselves dancing to a mix of American and Chinese music for an entire hour. It was a blast! At about 10pm, all the Chinese decided to join us and it was so crowded, there wasn't much dancing going on but kind of just jumping around (did I mention that the floor was like mini-trampoline??? it was weird). It was fun for a little bit but then the creepers started surrounding us and trying to grab us to dance and at about that point, we decided to leave. All and all, a very memorable and fun-filled night at the Century dance club!

Me and Abby

Preparing to go on the dance floor

And you thought I was exaggerating about the fact that we were the only ones on the dance floor!

Hah, that's me in the green shorts!

A view from inside

ew, people smoking indoors. Lame

On the dance floor once everyone else decided to join us and that dude in black was crazy tall!

Meghan's excited!

The professional dancers, the only Chinese I saw that had some rhythm!

This was a dude that was dancing behind me, hilarious!

Me and Danielle on the dance floor. Ahhh, she only has one eye!

Twins in ridiculous shirts!!!!

They seriously could not dance

The guy in black was totally creeping on me. I ended up moving to a different spot so he would stop touching me....ew

Some more creepers...

Sweet arm Abby!

There was a sever shortage of ladies that night which made us even better targets...

The dj in what looks like a Mayan cave or something

I wish this picture had turned out better. This guy got up on stage and was dancing soooo freaking badly, it was so funny!

Chinese Haircut

2009-04-19T09:59:00.002+08:00

A few weeks ago, we went to a beauty salon on Women's street for Erin's birthday. They promised her they would curl her hair for free and since we were there I decided to get my haircut. It was a glorious experience and I highly recommend at some point in your life trying a game of charades with someone who is going to cut your hair. Who needs to speak English anyways?

The beauty salon

Erin getting her hair done. That man looks intense

We couldn't figure out what this thing did but it def looks like some sort of torture device

Megan getting her bangs cut. She told them she wanted bangs like them, hah!

This man is beautiful. I am jealous of his pretty hair

This is the guy who cut my hair. He did a pretty good job although it's a bit uneven. oops, at least it only cost me about 2 bucks.

Food, Food, Food in Xi'an

2009-04-19T05:48:00.003+08:00

spicy cucumbers at Mr. Lee's

I bought these from a woman off the street. I totally thought they were raspberries but they definitely had a large seed in the middle of them. They were pretty tasty.

tofu with weird stuff on top- kind of gross but kind of good

Ahhhh, schwarma, schwarma, schwarma is so GOOD!!!!

Peanut cookie

We saw these things everywhere and I felt it my duty to try it. In my travel book it's called the "eight treasure pudding" and describes it as a glutinous rice that is steamed and dusted with sesame and peanuts. The thing wasn't particularly good but globbing a bunch of jelly on it made it taste a little better.

so happy!

I totally tried the train food and I lived to tell about it

Xi'an Day 4

2009-04-14T22:10:00.010+08:00

We saved the best for last! We spent the whole morning at the terracotta warriors and it was absolute Amazing! Check that off the list of things to see. Again, my apologies for the mass amounts of photos I have posted but I thought they were soooo cool. Enjoy!

Big statue in the parking lot

Paparazzi again, how could I not take a picture of a dude in a hawaiin shirt????

I'm excited to go inside!

Group shot

These were used during the Olympics (or so I read). We totally forced these two nice guys into the picture with us

Pit 2

They are still in the process of excavating most of Pit 2

Close up

Outside Pit 3

Pit 3 is the smallest of the pits and is called the commanding center.

No heads and hollow bodies

Pit 1- the largest of the pits. So far 2,000 soldiers have been discovered and they think there about about 4,000 more that still need to be dug up

Freaking huge!

While I was in pit 1, I decided that i really wanted to get some random tourists in my pictures. This very nice english woman was more than happy to oblige me but her son was having none of it. She did laugh at me though, she told me it was usually the asian men that asked for pictures of her and her son, hah!

Me and Abby

I am stoked that we got to see the terracotta warriors! so good!

Xi'an train station

This little boy was sooo cute. I spent about 10 minutes trying to get him to smile which I succeeded in doing by playing peek-a-boo with him. His mom was super nice and gave us all some sunflower seeds, yay!

Our sleeper compartment which was an improvement over the sleepers I took while in India.

Xi'an Day 3

2009-04-14T21:55:00.003+08:00

Hooray for Xi'an!!!! This city was amazing and I am so glad we visited it. We had a rough train ride from Luoyang and didn't make it to the hostel until 5am. We slept in until about 11 and then ventured out into the city. We hung out mostly in the Muslim quarter which had a lot of shops and delicious food and overall it was a nice relaxing afternoon.

The Bell tower

I didn't actually get anything at this starbucks but I was highly amused by this gigantic cup.

I was also amused by all of these statues

Yes, yes, your eyes are not playing tricks on you, that is in fact a delicious doner/kebab/schwarma meat thing. One word- Heaven!

I totally pulled a paparazzi and took a picture of this man as we walked by, i was digging his glasses.

Outside a Mosque

So truth be told, the only reason I took this picture was because I thought this was a dog but we asked and it was a sheep. It's still gross but not as weird as I was hoping

The Xi'an city wall and gate

Models????

Shaolin Day 2

2009-04-14T19:40:00.010+08:00

For our second day of the vacation, we took a bus to the Shaolin temple which was about an hour and a half away from Luoyang. We totally got suckered into some lame tour bus group and ended up spending way too much money on the bus there and the tickets to get in but such is life. The temple area itself was nice and is the place that kung fu is said to have originated. Lesson learned: tour groups are no bueno.

I felt this picture sums up China well- cigarettes and chicken bones

A disgusting "bathroom" I used during a bus stop. I think i can easily say this was the worse squatter I have used in Asia thus far. I chose to spare you all from taking a picture of the actual toilet itself, you can thank me later.

These ladies were performers. As I was walking onto the bus, one of them grabbed my calf which was weird but I guess American bare legs are an unusual sight.

Creepy performance that we watched and wished we hadn't

A buddhist temple that we stopped at on our way to the actual Shaolin temple

Me, Danielle and Abby at the kung fu performance

The kung fu show. It was pretty entertaining although definitely not worth the money we spent to see it.

Kung fu groupies

We're dorks

Practicing our kung fu skills

The kung fu dudes playing basketball. This country is obsessed!

Pagoda

An amusing statue at the temple

Buddha

an actual monk

I just liked the old guys' beard and socks

I couldn't resist taking this picture....

Pagoda Forest

Yay for pagodas!

Luoyang Day 1

2009-04-13T19:31:00.010+08:00

For our third vacation, we decided to go to both Luoyang and Xi'an because we didn't think either city would have enough to do for 4 days. The trip turned out to be a lot of fun although it was very tiring sleeping on trains 3 out of 5 nights we were gone. Sorry I got a little bit carried away with posting so many pictures but I figured someone would enjoy seeing them all.

Our hotel room. We were stoked, we actually had towels (but no toilet paper)!

The bridge at the Longman Caves

Stupid lighting

This is what was suppose to be in the background of the picture from above

Happy Buddha

Group shot in a cave

Little caves with little Buddhas

Beheaded Buddha. We heard 2 stories about why there were a bunch of buddhas without heads. The first was from a tour guide that was leading around a chinese tourist group. The lady said it was the Americans who had done it (which I am pretty sure is untrue). We heard from someone else that Mao was the one who did it (which I think is more likely).

Yay, we love group pictures with random Chinese people

More pictures of the caves

The most famous of the Buddhas. If memory serves me correctly, his ears are 2m long.

Caves from a distance, pretty sweet.

Tuck-ins

2009-04-02T10:16:00.006+08:00

A few times a week, we visit and hang out with the kids before they go to bed. It's been a lot of fun and the kids are so sweet! They show us their books, toys and their stash of food (which they even share with us sometimes). I have brought my ipod a couple of times and have let them listen to it which they love, they totally recognized the song Thriller.

Tara

David and Joshua

Charlie, Pace and Braxton

Pace is so cute!

Cole is one of my favorites even though he sometimes hides from me in the bathroom during class

James- another favorite of mine as well as fellow bathroom hider

Jesse

Charlie and Jesse

James and Braxton

Skinny Spenser

Nathan and some boy I don't know

Tate- he is brilliant!!! His favorite subject is math. During class one day in which we were discussing space, he told me in almost perfect English that the moon was smaller than the earth but bigger than China.

Dan- He is by far my favorite although he has now taken to sitting in class and doing absolutely nothing. oh well, at least he's cute.

Hefei Temple Market

2009-04-01T21:25:00.005+08:00

A couple of weeks ago, we journeyed to the Temple Market in Hefei. It was a fun excursion and nice to get off the school grounds although the weather did not cooperate and it rained the whole time we were there. The market consisted of an area that had a ton of little shops selling everything imaginable. I enjoyed the food area best because they were selling some crazy stuff.

The temple- hence the name

Pea ice cream, good but I prefer the corn

Veggies

Pig snouts....

I'm not even sure what this was but I am assuming the worse because these were right next to the pig snouts- intestines???

at least they're fresh....

All I will say, this wasn't a pet shop

yum!

Gigantic vegetable!

in the tune from The Simpson's-fish heads, fish heads...

Refrigeration is so last season

Dedicated to Lags

2009-04-01T16:24:00.009+08:00

These are some sweet translations I have seen and have given me a good laugh. Enjoy!

Lord Bao's Park

On the rubbish bin

Shanghai Metro tunnel

This is by far the best sign I have seen in China. We saw this at the entrance of the Shanghai Art Museum. The rest of the sentence states that if you only have minor symptoms, you can go in with the supervision of a guardian. Hilarious!

Yummy!

I would disagree with this...

Near the Entrance of the Purple Mountains in Nanjing

The picture is great

Another favorite

????

At an entrance to a park in Nanjing

again ??????

Nanjing Metro

Silly Food I ate in Nanjing

2009-03-23T22:28:00.003+08:00

In case you needed more evidence for my love of food, especially for weird food that you can only find in China.

Chinese tacos

WTF?

You guessed right, this is corn ice cream and it was delicious! the outside was made out of cone like material but kind of tasted like cardboard but the inside was super good. It had a hint of corn taste and after eating it, I had a corn taste in my mouth, interesting.

We found a mexican restaurant in my travel book. I got a quesadilla for dinner (which was not picture worthy but all i can say is that I love cheese!) and we split this for dessert. It was pretty much huge tortilla chips drizzled with sugar and topped with peach ice cream

This looks gross but was not bad at all. The outside was made of white rice and the inside looks like caviar but my guess is that it was just a different kind of rice. One of the purple-ish variety

I knew this was going to be gross but I got it anyways

Pineapple is sooooo good! I probably ate a total of 3 whole pineapples while in Nanjing

Eggplant Parmesan, it wasn't that great but I haven't really eaten much cheese since coming to China so I'll take what I can get

HEAVEN! we found this sweet deli down the street from our hostel and it was divine. I also had a cookie as an appetizer. For dessert, I had coffee gelato and chocolate covered almonds... so good!

Nanjing- Day 3

2009-03-23T20:17:00.005+08:00

Outside the Chaotian Gong- the former Ming Palace. I would have liked to share with you pictures from the inside as well but we didn't want to pay the entrance fee so we just hung out.

Market area near the temple

I love chinese kids!

how i miss thee (not necessarily starbuckies but coffee in general)

For anyone wondering, that string across my chest is my passport holder. Yay, for wearing it everywhere and having a large bulge on my stomach or back!

Outside the presidential palace. I bet the inside would have been nice but yet again, we weren't digging the entrance fee. For the sake of everyone who looks at these pics, I will attempt to be less cheap in Beijing so the pictures will be better. If you would like to help in this effort, you can send your donations (cash, check, or travelers cheques) to the "Chinese Entrance Fees are depleting Chelsea's bank account" fund. Please email me if you would like more details.

The Nanjing Metro, there was only one line in the entire city that ran north to south but I enjoyed the ride to the train station

You may be asking yourself, how are all of these Chinese people reaching the handrails when they are so short? Well my friends, the bars are lowered to the point where even my midgit self can reach them. Yes, I love this country!

Because we were early for the train, I decided to wander around the lake that was right outside the station. It had just stopped raining and it turned out to be a lovely and relaxing stroll.

Everywhere I have gone, there is always some random christmas decorations up. I am sure there is a lot of cultural significance behind them....

Nanjing- Day 2

2009-03-23T19:59:00.007+08:00

No explanation needed

McDonalds for lunch

boredom...

Poor guy, but at least he has some sweet pajamas

Outside the Massacre Museum. This museum was well done and was similar to the Holocaust museum in DC and it was interesting to learn about the massacre that occurred in Nanjing in 1937-1938. In just six weeks, the Japanese tortured, raped and killed 300,000 people.

Outside the memorial

So after the museum we decided to go check out the yangzi river and a large bridge that was nearby. The cab driver dropped us off at what we thought must be close to the river but was in fact at least a mile away. We ended up walking on a freeway and not having any idea where we were suppose to go, I stopped and asked this nice security guard for directions. He didn't seem to mind that I asked for a photo and even stood back and posed for it. God I look like such an American, hah!

The stupid bridge. We didn't even see it up close nor did we in fact see the river for that matter. We didn't want to pay the entrance fee so we wandered around the street for a bit and then left. Fun!

The bell tower- again we couldn't go inside but it was pretty at least

A building outside the drum tower which as my tour book said, was just south of the McDonalds. Pretty but not all that exciting

Nanjing- Day 1

2009-03-23T19:22:00.006+08:00

Four of us headed to Nanjing for our second vacation which was short and sweet. Nanjing is only an hour train ride away from Hefei so the trip there was super easy. The city is pretty big and at one point used to be the capital of China up until Beijing snagged the title. We had a really great time and the weather was really nice for the first 2 days, I even was able to wear shorts (which made me look even more touristy.)

Our Hostel- The Jasmine

Our exciting cab ride to the purple mountains. The ride was surprisingly fun because the driver was young and played American hip-hop music that we knew

The Beamless Building

The Pagoda

Proof I was in fact at the pagoda and didn't just steal a picture off google image

Another one for good measure

Where's Waldo?

Yay, actual trees with leaves on them. I had almost forgotten that they existed because I hadn't seen them in so long

Group shot- we're sweaty....

Tourist, what?

I am pretty sure this was allowed...

Yes, this is in fact corn ice cream, sweet!

In front of Dr. Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum. The background totally looks fake

At the top of Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Mausolem. Abby counted, 299 stairs

Group shot- we're really sweaty....

One of the gates of city walls. We didn't want to pay the entrance fee so we walked around outside

Fuzi Miao area- there was lots of shopping in the area

The canal

Just in case you missed the previous picture- the canal

Outside of a park. You will notice that there is a fence at the bottom of the picture and it is there for good reason because we could not figure out how to get in. The security guards just kept telling us no and shooing us away, we even tried to pull the confused american tourist and just walk in but it didn't work :(

Preschool Pictures

2009-03-18T13:57:00.003+08:00

On Wednesday mornings, six of us travel to a preschool that is about 20 minutes from the school where we live. The kids are ridiculously cute and I thought it selfish of myself not to share the pictures. enjoy!

This is the "bus" we take when we travel to the preschools. I like to refer to this as the mystery machine

Group shot, please note the nose-picker

Adorable

more nose-picking!

This child is the reason I decided to make this blog posting. Me and my friend team taught this class and right as we walked in this kid burst out laughing at us (I am assuming it had something to do with our white skin or maybe our track suits). He unfortunately could not stop laughing at us and the teachers were forced to take him out into the hall so that he could collect himself. It was absolutely hilarious! I even managed to get a kiss on the cheek from him at the end of class, so freaking cute!

Happy Women's Day

2009-03-11T13:44:00.007+08:00

In honor of Women's Day (which I am told is similar to Mother's Day), our school took us to this park-garden type thing last Sunday. It was pretty fun although we spent way too much time there. The first hour, we walked around the 8 green house type things that were filled with different kind of plants but that ended up looking pretty much the same after a while. The second hour we walked around outside and met some very nice Chinese university students who we talked to for quite some time. The third hour we spent staring at our watching wondering how the Chinese had figured out how to stop time.

Inside the greenhouse things. Please note the festive gold wrapping of the pole

Random large vegetables, sweet!

I thought this would be a cool picture but it's not really all that exciting. These vines were hanging from the ceiling, WOW!

So I was totally stoked to see this Alice in Wonderland tree inside. Upon closer inspection, it was pretty much a tree stump that had containers of little pink flowers, not so cool.

Our favorite teacher at the school, Judy

One way to make vegetables appealing

Some local Hefeians (I still haven't figured out what they call themselves) that were way too excited to see us and wanted a picture with us

By far the creepiest thing I have seen since being in China. We at first thought that there was a little child in the snoopy costume pulling the kids around but it turned out to be a robot. WEIRD!

I'm so mean

I want this outfit

The young gentleman on the left was this guy who wanted to practice his english wish us. He was super nice and freaking loved the NBA (you don't even know how much they love Yao Ming here), the TV show Prison Break (he kept referring to one of the actors as that man who is very handsome) and he also mentioned that he liked the show Desperate Housewives (saying that those women are very beautiful but we were much more beautiful than them, I liked this guy)

The University students. I had an extensive conservation with a few of them that went pretty well except for the very long and awkward pauses where I had to think of something else to talk to them in their very limited English. I got so desperate, I started telling them that in America people are usually very fat, very different from the healthy, thin Chinese (but made sure to say that our group was an exception to the typical American). They agreed with me and said they had seen fat Americans in the movies, HA!

Sweet Uniforms

2009-03-11T13:31:00.002+08:00

The school has supplied us with a uniform they would like us to wear when we travel to teach (which is only once a week in my case). Let's just say, I will definitely be sporting this back in the states.

Shanghai- Day 3

2009-03-04T19:53:00.006+08:00

On our third and last full day in Shanghai. We ventured out to old city in the morning to see the Yu Yuan jade garden and we happily discovered a vast market in which you could find absolutely anything you'd ever want. In the afternoon, myself and a few of the girls decided to go out and buy some cheap knock-offs. In order to do this, we had to follow a person that came up to us on the street who offered to sell us watch, bags and shoes (what else could you need?) and go down somewhat shady alleys and into small rooms that were filled with every knock off designer brand imaginable. I can now say that I am definitely going to sharpen my bargaining skills while I am here. After our shopping excursion, we went to The Bund area (which our hostel was located in) and walked along the water front. A perfect end to a glorious vacation.

Old City Market

ditto

Inside the Yu Yuan garden

Yay, other tourists!

Sweet dragon on top of the fence

This crazy asian girl grabbed this poor Koi fish from the pond and was waving it around

View of Pudong from The Bund

Group shot

Shanghai side of the river

Best moment of the trip- this glorious Chinese man handed me the baby he was carrying so we could take a picture together. I freaking love asian babies!!!!!

Did I mention the baby was wearing split pants? YES!!!!

Yay for being a tourist! View of Pudong

The Bund area

Shanghai- Day 2

2009-03-04T19:32:00.006+08:00

Our next day in Shanghai was fun. We first went to the museum and then wandered all over the city including the French Concession area. That evening, we went to the acrobatic show which was amazing!

The Shanghai Museum. This building is suppose to look like a clay vessel, hmm....

In front of the Museum

Inside the museum

A delightful food stand where I bought the fruit kabobs and octopus balls

A street we stumbled upon, it was filled with food vendors

They were cooking everything here

Nanjing Street- the shopping district of Shanghai

The Moller Mansion near the former French Concession area

The Shanghai Centre where that acrobatic show was

Inside the theater, nicer than we all expected

Flexible much?

Insane!

Shanghai- Day 1

2009-03-04T19:08:00.006+08:00

We went to Shanghai for our first vacation. It was a really fun trip even though it was rainy and cold for most of the weekend. I hadn't known there was so much to do in this city but we were able to squeeze a lot of sight-seeing and tourist stuff into our 3 full days we had in the city.

Our hostel bunkbed. We were really lucky because our hostel was really nice and it was in a great location

The super nice Shanghai metro

Is that Jackie Chan?

So we went to the top of the Jin Mao tower, according to our travel book-the 6th tallest building in the world. We got to the top and looked out the window and realized that the building next door was actually taller, damn it

The view from the 88th floor of the JinMao tower. The buildings look so tiny

The tallest building in Shanghai/Pudong on the left and the JinMao tower on the right

I'm falling...or am I?

The central atrium of the JinMao tower

Random golden bull, perhaps it's there for good luck?

Yay for Chinese people who like to take pictures with Americans!

Obviously rubbing Buddha's belly for good luck at the Jade Buddhist temple (did I mention, tourist trap... there were gift stores in every room at this place)

Illegal photo taken of the Jade Buddha

Oriental Pearl Tower at sundown

This blue guy is everywhere in Shanghai, he has something to do with the Shanghai Expo 2010

View from the Pearl Tower

The worst museum EVER in the basement of the Pearl Tower, no joke. It is supposed to be a history museum but in reality, its just a maze of creepy wax statues. This picture depicts a chinese opium smokehouse, wtf?

All lit up

Weird food I ate in Shanghai

2009-03-04T18:48:00.004+08:00

Here are some pictures of the interesting and delicious food I tried while I moseyed about Shanghai. Most of these came from street vendors that didn't look too sketchy and I luckily did not get sick from any of them! I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of the fried squid ring I ate which was tasty although a bit rubbery for my liking.

Yes, yes this is in fact octopus

Fruit kabob covered in a hard sugary coating. Everything was good except for the unexpected cherry tomato.

Octopus balls with ketchup, mayo and seaweed on top. Better than you would expect

Sort sort of dessert pancake thing filled with mystery purple stuff

Shanghai dumpling filled with spinach-goodness

Purple corn, didn't taste much like corn but was still good

Monday Field Trip part deux

2009-02-25T18:15:00.005+08:00

Obviously as good Americans, we felt it our duty to visit the local Pizza Hut establishment to see if it lived up to its great name. Pizza Hut in China has a slightly different atmosphere than ones in the states. Not only is it a sit down restaurant with waiters and real menus, they even serve fried squid and pigs in a blanket! I ended up being a woman and getting garlic bread and a salad (I wasn't particularly hungry) but I did manage to snag myself a slice of stuffed crust cheese pizza from one of my friends and it did not disappoint. Afterwards, we journeyed around Walking street and did some shopping.

Walking Street

Ditto

We found it!

Sweet uniforms. I love tennis ball green

Inside Pizza Hut

This water mug was definitely not big enough for me

Yummy!

The very satisfied group

Shoes/Heaven but where are the flats? You'll be glad to know that my small feet and hands feel at home here in China, everyone is my size!

I'm sorry, I couldn't resist...

Dedicated to Lindsay "balls' Yuen

2009-02-25T08:59:00.004+08:00

Here are some pictures of the kids I teach throughout the week. I teach Basic Reading to 8 & 9 year olds at Guanghua school (the school I live at) 4x a week (T,TH,F, Sat). On Wednesdays, I travel to 2 preschools in Hefei and teach to 3 & 4 year olds. Teaching has definitely been much tougher than I had anticipated and I am still struggling to figure out what I am suppose to be doing most days but I have had a lot of fun with the kids and they are slowly warming up to me.

So freaking cute!

They learn the peace sign so early, I assume it's part of the mandatory Chinese curriculum

The little ones

They love ninjas, you don't even know...

These 4 look cute but they are ohhhh so naughty

What I imagine Lindsay to look like as an 8 year old except she would have a fanny pack and a Mickey Mouse ears :)

Charlie or as some of the kids call him, Chocolate

Pencil peace signs

Joey and Spencer were stoked to get their picture taken

Benny and Jesse (and yes, we Americans have given them all ridiculous names)

Field trip to Lord Bao's Park

2009-02-22T10:48:00.004+08:00

Last Monday on our day off, the group all took cabs to Lord Bao's Park in Hefei. It was a pretty cold day but it was fun to get off the school grounds for the afternoon and walk around. The highlight of the day came after the museum when we found a dvd shop that sells pretty high quality dvds for a little over a buck. Some of them were pretty shady but I was able to pick up some of the movies that are still in theaters in the US that I didn't get a chance to see before I left. Let me know if anyone has any requests while i am here.

Proof that we were in fact there

Yay, tickets! These will have to go in the scrapbook

Me and Danielle in front of the entrance all bundled up

Pretty and I am slowly getting used to the gray skies

Megan, Tammi and I in front of Mr. Bao. And get used to this pose, you're going to see me doing it alot!

Abby acting like the cats?

Black hoods are so in

Creepy wax statues. We think that is Lord Bao in the middle

This may be my only opportunity to ride an elephant in China. And in case you were wondering, the answer is yes, the girls in my group think i am quirky but in a good way of course

Hefei

Laundry Day

2009-02-22T10:38:00.003+08:00

Just thought I'd share a few pictures of the washing machine we are fortunate enough to have at our disposal. There will be no handwashing for me/ giving my clothes to the village women to wash in what was probably the Ganga river (like we did in india)

The washing machines. Please note the faucet/hose at the top in which we fill the basin

Who needs a lid?

The spinner - we do not have a dryer but this thing takes the clothes from being dripping wet to merely damp. Amazing!

Chinese Class

2009-02-19T21:28:00.004+08:00

We are fortunate enough to be getting Chinese classes twice a week which are taught by one of the vice principals of the school. It is a hilarious 1 hour in which we spend most of trying to learn how to pronounce the alphabet and figure how to say the tones of the vowels. I am getting no better than I was on the first day I arrived in China with my very limited vocabulary of Ni Hao (hello) and Xie Xie (thank you). The class also has the benefit of not only being a language class but also a drawing class. I have included some of my lame attempts at character drawing.

Our ILP group in class

The letters we were learning for the day and it may look easy but we struggled

My Chinese notebook!

JoyMart!

2009-02-19T20:39:00.005+08:00

My friend Danielle and I went to JoyMart (which is a glorious grocery store about a block away from our school) a few days ago and decided that we didn't stand out enough as the only 2 Americans in the store so we decided to pull out our cameras and start taking pictures. It was great fun walking around the produce and meat department and no one seemed to mind us or our cameras. Enjoy!

Please note the lack of glass in front of them

The refrigerated section

Romantic?

Cooked meat

At least they're fresh....

What the???

They don't even know what's coming

There are no words

My guess, shrimp of some sort?

I want to try these! I think they're a type of fruit

Yay, cleanliness!

The Chinese Taco-Twinkie

Our trips to Guogou Plaza

2009-02-16T08:34:00.005+08:00

We have now journeyed to the mall twice since being here (and if you must ask, there is only one male in our group). The first time, we just went there for the cultural experience which consisted of walking around aimlessly. The second time, we went to get ice cream in order celebrate Valentine's day properly. I was surprised to find out the Chinese do indeed celebrate what I thought was an American holiday although as you may expect, it is a bit less commercial here. I only noticed the flower shops around here seemed to be a bit more busy than usual.

Our walk from the bus stop to the mall. Apparently the Chinese love neon lights

Our group arriving at the mall and yes we definitely stick out like sore thumbs

Inside the mall

A store display

You can't read this sign but this is a microbrewery at the mall which made me laugh. The name of it is "Golden Hans", they served meat Brazilian style and instead of normal pint glasses, they served beer in what looked to be child sized glasses.

Our bus trip back. We barely got on, it was that crowded. Intense!

Us, getting up close and personal with the native Hefei-ers/ans (?). Aside from our group, I have yet to see a single non-asian person since arriving in Hefei.

Guanghua School

2009-02-16T08:01:00.004+08:00

Here are some pictures I took of the school grounds.

The students singing the Chinese national anthem

My new best friend

The entrance to the school on the right and our residence hall on the left

The entrance to our building on the second floor

The hallway of our dorm

My room is the first two windows on the right

One of the student dorm buildings on campus

A random sidewalk on the school grounds

The playground and basketball courts

The Chinese love their ping pong!

The building we teach our English classes in

The First Week-

2009-02-15T19:01:00.009+08:00

I have been here for a week now and I am enjoying myself immensely and I feel that I am almost over adjusting to the 13 hour time difference although it may take me a while to get used to the fact that everyone is a day behind me. As I am going to bed, you folks are all still a few hours away from waking up. The only positive aspect of being jetlagged is that I have been waking up around 5:30am every morning and going for a run on the track that is just outside our building (which means I am usually in bed by 9:30 or 10pm). Our group of 11 people are living in a small building on the grounds of the Guanghua boarding school. Our rooms consist of a bedroom, a living room and a bathroom. Due to my delayed arrival to the school, everyone had paired up with a roommate and I was the odd one out so I am lucky enough to have a room to myself. The rooms are pretty nice and the thing I am most excited about is that the shower and hot water work really well so I will not have to endure any bucket showers this time around in Asia!

My bedroom

My very own water cooler

The view from my bedroom window

The living room which includes a delightful internet hook-up

I felt it was necessary to include a picture of the bathroom

The Amazing water heater which allows for a solid 10 minute hot shower

We also get 3 meals a day provided by the school which have been delicious so far. We usually get eggs, warm soy milk and fried bread. Lunch and dinner usually consist of rice with 3 or 4 entrees to choose from and either a banana or an orange. I am pretty sure I may never want to see white rice again when I return to the states but I think I can survive for 4 months.

Breakfast

Wontons!

Eggplant, rice and duck (or that's what we wanted to believe it was)

Here is the usual setup for our meals and my new friend Danielle

Arrival in China

2009-02-15T14:18:00.009+08:00

I arrived at the Shanghai airport on February 6th around 2:30 by surviving a rather grueling 15 hour flight from Chicago. I was not on the flight with the other 10 people from my ILP group due to the fact I left out of Dulles. I was told earlier in the week that I was to hang out, outside of customs until about 6:30pm when the rest of the group would be arriving. I waited and waited and at about 7:30pm, I was worried that something had not gone according to plan. I was fortunately able to find an info desk that allowed me to make international calls as well as use the internet. With help from my dad and Alex, they were able to contact the directors of the program and figure out what had happened. Apparently, a few weeks ago, when the city I was suppose to teach in got switched, they didn't make the switch on my head teacher's list so I wasn't on her list at all. To make matters worse, the group arrived in a different terminal than the one I was waiting in. The group had already left the airport on a bus and were on their way to the city of Hefei (a 7 hour drive). After 9 painful hours at the airport, I luckily was set up to stay at an amazing Ramada hotel close to the airport by ILP and was relieved that I would not have to sleep at the airport with all of my luggage. I slept rather well that night in my deluxe suite and around noon the next day, my head teacher and a very nice man that works at the Hefei school, came and met me at the hotel. We then took a train from Shanghai to Hefei and I arrived safely at the school that evening. Let the adventures begin!

The room at the Ramada hotel in Shanghai