Preschool Pictures

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

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

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

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

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

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