Japan!

Konichiwa!

Greetings from Tokyo! I had a bit of a rough time leaving China and getting here but I made it after a long day and have been having a wonderful time. I started the week off with a trip to the imperial gardens and lucky me, as I was leaving I saw the emperor and his motorcade drive by! Tokyo has great public transportation so mostly I've just been wandering around in all the districts. I have been to a few temples and shrines and even took a trip to a sento! A sento is a traditional Japanese bath: it's separated for men and women and everyone strips down, washes up and soaks in natural hot springs. I was of course the only foreigner and the youngest person by about 25 years but a few women were patient and helpful at explaining which pools I should sit in and for how long, it was very relaxing! On Thursday I completed my Disneyland resume by taking a trip to Tokyo Disneyland and it's neighboring park Disney Sea! Disney sea is pretty much my dream park with areas like the New England coast, Mediterannean shore, Ariel's underwater world and the Arabian Coast. I even got a picture with Prince Eric!!!

Earlier in the week I woke up early to see all the hussle at the world's largest fish market. I've never seen so many sea creatures (dead and alive) for sale. After marveling at tuna that were bigger than my bed I decided this is probably the best place to try some fresh sushi. So yes, I, Brianne K. Boardman ate raw seafood willingly. I choked and gagged trying to swallow it but I got one down. Yesterday I spent my evening at one of the world's largest intersections. I found a cool spot to people watch and waited for Tokyo's signature neon lights and signs to be turned on. The lights were pretty cool but because of the recent earthquake much of the city is under power restrictions so it wasn't lit up like it normally is. I had some teryaki pork for lunch and now I'm ready to head to the airport for my flight to Los Angeles. I've really had the most amazing experience living and traveling throughout Asia this past year but I'm so incredibly excited to head home and see family and friends. Time to start a new adventure!

Bi han

Zai jian zhongguo!

Cause my bags are packed I'm ready to go....! It's time! I'm flying to Tokyo in a few hours and I'm so excited to be heading to Japan and heading home. I feel like I won't really be able to grasp my year here until I'm back home and semi adjusted again. Made a quick stop in Xi'an and Beijing, link on the bottom for pictures! Goodbye China!

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1973537971009.2111319.1019820015&l=2478f4283b

Zebra Music Festival and Hong Kong

This last weekend was Labor Day weekend in China. As far as I could see it's celebrated in about the same way as the U.S. No school, no work, jut some time off. So I decided to labor my way to Chengdu for the Zebra music Festival. A few of us (foreign teachers) rented tents and slept at the festival campground. I shared a tent with a local Peace Corp volunteer, Natasha. We were cozy and snuggled in her hot pink tent, ready to slumber the night away. The skies had a different plan for us. Around 4 in the morning it began to rain. This would have been no big deal if 1. We weren't using crappy Chinese tents and 2. We had remembered to put the rain fly over the tent. So at first the sprinkles were merely annoying but then it started to downpour.....straight through the mesh canopy known to the Chinese as a tent. We were drenched in seconds and I said "ok, grab your bag, find a dry tent and I"ll see you in the morning. " 1, 2, 3 go! into the eye of the storm. I ran for my friends American made tent: a 2 person North Face. Were there already two people in there? Yes, but it was dry! So the three of us sandwiched ourselves in and watched the lightning show. I didn't really sleep but I was drying off, which at that time was more comfortable than catching zzz's. Things dried off the next morning and we managed to successfully evade the security/ticket checkers and hung around for most of the day. Until the rain started again....that'll be enough camping thanks, off to a hostel! All in all we had a blast enjoying the music, the food, the company and of course the Jagermeister booth.

A few weeks ago I took a plane down south to visit Hong Kong! Hong Kong is a very metropolitan city, half Chinese/half Western. It was soooooo nice to be back in a place that actually functions. The cars do what the road signs say. People dont' honk. No one is spitting or blowing their nose on you. They have Egyptian, Irish, Mexican, French, Australian, American, Italian food....everything and anything you could want exists in Hong Kong. It's fantastic.
Mostly we did a lot of shopping and eating (I got an awesome gift for you Wendy!) But I also made a trip to Hong Kong Disneyland! It's only 5 years old, but everything at all the Disney parks always looks fresh so you couldn't really tell. The castle is very small and there aren't many rides but I could still feel the magic. There's tons to do in Hong Kong and we only made a dent so I hope I can return someday soon!

My time here in China has flown by and I'm almost at the one month countdown to head home. My classes are all going well, this week we're discussing/debating controversial statements and the right way to express your opinion. The weather is very hot and humid, but at least the sun is out. Hope all is well with you! Zai jian!

p.s. The internet has not been working well since the recent events in the Middle East so I apologize for the delay in posts!

Lights! Camera! Action!

This last Monday was our first day of filming for the English text book video supplement. We woke up nice and early, packed our bags to look like tourists and took a cab into the city. We met the boss for breakfast (baozi, steamed buns with pork in the middle, and a sweet bean porridge) and then it was off to the hotel. From what we can gather from our scripts it seems like the text focuses on tourism, which is why we needed to dress like tourists and why we're filming in hotels, airports and other touristy locations. So first up was hair and make up. The Chinese like their pinks and glitter so I ended up looking a bit like Jon Benet Ramsey, but it was fun. We shot a few scenes in the lobby talking to our "tour guide" and then it was off to lunch for more filming. And here Mrs. Black had her solo debut: the room was silent, the lights were bright, the camera was rolling. I sat up tall, looked straight across the table and said in my most eloquent voice
"The soup is getting cold. Could you  help us to have it warmed up?"
BAM! Hope you brought your binoculars because I just knocked that one outta the park! hahaha my other line of the day was quite dramatic
"Help! My husband has slipped and fallen in the toilet! He's unconscious!"
That'll probably be a tear jerker ;) We wrapped up the day with the best pizza in Chongqing and headed home.

This weekend we'll be heading to Chengdu (capital of Sichuan and land of the pandas) to film a few more scenes. This weekend is also the Qingming festival, or Tomb Sweeping Day; a time to remember and honor your ancestors. I"ll be honoring mine by enjoying some beer and watching the NCAA tournament at Hooters when we have time off from filming. Hoot hoot!

The lilting of Mrs. Black

The recent events in Japan have truly been a disaster and it's hard to not think about my now neighboring country frequently. The only crisis here in China has been a lack of salt. Chinese shoppers have been clearing out salt in the supermarkets so quickly that the government has limited how much salt a person can buy. Of course I run out of salt during this time and have to elbow my way through the salt mob at the grocery store. But this is one of those times when being a waigouren, foreigner, has its advantages. As soon as the salt attendant saw I was a tall blonde, I was gently handed my ration of salt. Nuclear scare from Japan is the cause of all this salt hoarding. The Chinese believe that the iodine added to the salt will prevent the thyroid glands from absorbing radioactive iodine. The government has issued statements of China's safety from any sort of nuclear side effects but there still isn't any salt on the shelves.

During my lessons this week I briefly discussed St. Patrick's day and some of the day's traditions. As a listening exercise I played a Chieftains song and had my students fill in missing lyrics. It was a fun exercise and I enjoyed explaining about traditional celtic instruments and the art of lilting!

I have been asked, along with some of the other foreign teachers, to be a part of an educational video. A school in Chongqing is making a video supplement to an English text book and they needed foreigners to act out dialogues. We don't know exactly what we'll be doing besides showing up at touristy areas of Chongqing and Chengdu and acting our part! So don't be surprised when you see me nominated for the Academy Awards next year for my role as Mrs. Black in the Instructional English Video!!! ;)

Bowling Bonanza

Ni hao!

I started teaching again this week, I teach two classes on Tuesday, one on Wednesday and two on Thursday, so yes you could say I have a pretty strenuous life. Having a four day weekend is stressful! hahaha My students this semester are pretty smart so I'm gonna have to up my lesson plans, which is fine because it'll just be more interesting for me :) Let's see yesterday we went into Chongqing and after many bus and taxi rides and confusing directions we finally found a bowling alley. Well it's more like 6 lanes in the middle of a mall, right next to an ice skating rink, pretty crazy! A note on Chinese bowling skills....even though there are illustrated instructions in the alley demonstrating the proper technique of bowling, the Chinese have found their own methods for hurling a ball into 10 pins. I can't quite describe it but if you can imagine a praying mantus having a seizure while periodically striking a pose for an invisible photographer and then suddenly tossing the ball down the lane as if it had caught fire, then you have the Chinese in our neighboring lane. But it was really fun, I even broke 100 for 2 of my games hahah. I'm sure we'll be headed back that direction sometime soon :D

The sun is out! It's probably in the 60's now and it feels fantastic. If the temperatures stay up I'll be able to go swimming in a week or two! Not much else is new here, hope all is well back home!

Back in Beibei

Let's see where were we...

For the rest of my time in India I didn't do much sightseeing as most of my days were spent travelling in a car. But soon enough it was time to fly and off to Malaysia we went! After a groggy red-eye flight to Kuala Lumpur, we managed to find a bus to take us to Singapore right away. So as Jack is going through customs on the Singapore side, he realizes his visa expired yesterday. Woops. So we're sent back to Malaysia and have to wait for the Singapore consulate to open to renew his visa. This could have been a very quick process but because of the Chinese New Year everything is closed. So I decide to head to Singapore on my own and wait for Jack to try get his visa. Singapore is this incredibly clean, nice, new tropical island. It's story goes something like this:

Once upon a time the handsome, bold West traveled a great distance and met the beautiful exoic East. They quickly fell in love and soon had a child which they named Singapore. Singapore grew up learning many languages and was taught to never jay-walk, spit or even chew gum! Nowadays Singapore slings back with his pet merlion and welcomes friends from every corner of the globe. I love Singapore. While I was there I toured the neighbourhoods (little india, chinatown, arab street and the colonial area) and also made a visit to the zoo and national museum. On the morning of the 7th I woke up at 5:30 am and grabbed a spot at a cool microbrewery to watch the Packers beat the Steelers in the Superbowl!!! I was surrounded by Green Bay fans also enjoying lagers for breakfast. Twas glorious. Jack didn't end up getting a visa so I departed the lion city and made my way to Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysia is very laid back so it was the perfect place to go at the end of our trip. We met up with two other teachers from Beibei and toured the city, making sure to catch the awesome view from the skybridge of the Petronas towers! We had an exciting day at an amusment park and then it was time to go home. It was a little strange walking into my apartment here in Beibei and having it feel like home, but it does. So I'm all settled in here again eagerly awaiting the return of the other teachers from their travels. I'll start teaching at the beginning of next week and am looking forward to heading back to the chalkboard.

I sent a lot of you post cards from India but I'm afraid you'll never get them :( I think I used the wrong stamp and I doubt they'll ever leave the country, but know that I was thinking of you!
Here's a link to the pictures of my trip!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2094159&id=1019820015&l=8c853f3244

Eels, escalators, and elephants

Namaste!

Hello from India! I'm about halfway through all my travels and I'm having an amazing time. Thailand was a little taste of paradise. Actually getting to our destination island, koh phangan, took a little longer than expected due to delayed flights/trains/ferries but we made it a day later and ran straight into the turquoise sea. So after a few nights on this crazy island, including an all night 15,000+ person full moon beach party, we took a boat north to calm, laid back koh Tao. Here I got my open water and advanced scuba certifications! The waters in the gulf of Thailand are crystal clear and full of life, and luckily I can revisit them by watching the DVD that documented my final day of diving. One night in Bangkok and then off to the land of maharajas!

I honestly never thought I would find a place crazier than china, but India fills those shoes! Our first day we toured some sights around new and old Delhi including the red fort, lotus temple and humayun's tomb. The next day we woke up early for the 4 hour drive to Agra. Our afternoon in Agra was spent wandering around the gardens of the taj mahal. Photos just don't do this symbol of love justice. I could spend days there, it's absolutely incredible. And now I'm in Jaipur, staying at an absolutely beautiful hotel watching American tv! It's fantastic! Visiting a few more palaces tomorrow and then back to Delhi the following morning. India has honestly been a little overwhelming, especially after spending 10 days on the beach, so this has been a nice taste but I'm looking forward to checking out Malaysia and watching the packers in the superbowl in Singapore! I'll be eating cheese all day, and hopefully drinking some form of Wisconsin beer. Go green bay!!! Will probably update again once I'm back in china, happy Chinese new year!

It's Travel Time

I'm currently reading a collection of essays about China, 'Coming Home Crazy' by Bill Holm. This Minnesota native touches on just about every aspect of living in China as a foreigner, and I find myself laughing along as I read his stories that mirror a lot of the experiences I've had. He taught in Xi'an but did take a short trip to my area of residence, Chongqing, and described the city as "a humid, coal-burning industrial town at the bottom of a sinkhole surrounded by steep mountains. Photographs of it are always bathed in a fuzzy haze, giving it a romantic, ancient look. There is little romance, however, in chemical analysis of the haze." So as glamorous as that sounds, I'm looking forward to getting away for a few weeks.

My itinerary includes 10 days in Thailand, a week in India, and 10 days in Malaysia and Singapore. So I can't promise too many posts the next month but I'm hoping to bring back lot's of stories, souveniers, and photos that look like these...

Thailand

India



Malaysia

Singapore



Christmas in China

Twas the night before Christmas, and all were covered in foam and beating each other with plastic inflatable hammers....? What?! Yes.....

So Christmas Eve we (foreign teachers) head to downtown Beibei for Christmas festivities. As we approach the town center I look up at some weird looking stars and realize they're not stars at all but hundreds of floating lanterns gently moving across the sky! No camera could capture this but it was one of the coolest things I've seen. So as tradition goes in Beibei, we purchase our giant inflatable sledghammers and beating sticks, arm our pockets with cans of spray snow and head into battle. And what a battle it was! Once we got into the main square it was pretty much a free for all; a good thousand or so people beating each other and attack spraying with fake snow foam soapy stuff. My downfall was not wearing a hood, my hair gave me away and whenever people saw a foreigner it was a full on ambush. I'm beating with my left and spraying with my right! The other teachers are trying to defend me. Ammo is low. RETREAT! RETREAT!!!!! We lay down another 10 kuai ($1.50) and get 4 more cans of snow and charge into the action once again! It was AWESOME! We stayed until about 11, or until all the foam started to weigh down my clothes :) Craziest Christmas Eve I've ever had.

Why do the Chinese even celebrate Christmas you might ask? Well it's really just a commercial holiday over here. Most shops decorate for Christmas with trees and lights and tinsel or a cartoon Santa face, and some of my students said that they  might exchange small gifts with their friends, but they don't really understand the meaning. It's just another time to decorate, participate in something Western, and beat each other with blow up hammers. I mean really, what says Merry Christmas better than foaming complete strangers under a canopy of floating lanterns right?! ;)

On Christmas day I watched some Christmas movies, ate an advent calendar and enjoyed a huge feast with the other teachers in the evening. It was a little hard being away from family and friends but the few of you I did get in touch with made the day very special :) I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and have a very happy New Year!

This is a link to an aritcle featured in the New York Times about Chongqing.
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/travel/26chongqing.html?pagewanted=1&hp

Did I forget my pants?

Have you ever had that dream where you're in front of a large group of people and you suddenly realize you're naked? Ya know, in the middle of accepting an award or giving a speech or something and you look down and realize you're wearing a freshly dry cleaned birthday suit? Well I haven't ;) ..... but I sure do know the feeling.

There are not too many foreigners in Beibei. And now that the 60 some study abroad students have gone back to their universities in the states, I believe there are a grand total of 3 blondes on this 50,000+ campus. So I stand out. This means stares.....from EVERYONE. When I first got here everything was so new and different, so I too was doing a lot of staring. Then when things got familiar it became a little unnerving. What? Did I miss a button? Did I forget to put on pants? Is there rice in my hair!? No....it's just blonde. And I'm white, and tall, and have hips, and everything else that's not Chinese. Naked in an auditorium.

So then I got used to the stares. It was just a part of everyday life, as usual as me not being able to read any street signs or menus. But now that Beibei really feels like my home for this year, I'd like to feel like I belong, or at least blend in a little. But I know physically that will never happen. So I'll stick to the things that can make me feel like a native. Like going to my favorite restaurant and knowing exactly where on the menu kung pao chicken is, or just ask me where anything is in the grocery store, I could tell you! I know which buses take me where and I know which rooms in the music building have the better pianos. I will never look Chinese. I may never speak it, or fully understand it. But everyday I learn something new, and that's all I can really ask for....so I'll take it!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving in China! All week I had been teaching about Thanksgiving and going over the traditions and food, so I was very excited to finally make the dinner. We had the option of going into Chongqing and enjoying a Thanksgiving dinner provided by many of the hotels for foreigners, but we decided to save $30 and make our own! I also wanted to embrace the fact that I'm living in China, and this is not a holiday that is celebrated over here, so it just wouldn't be the same....and that's ok! We actually managed to have a pretty complete dinner thanks to Sean's (another foreign teacher here) mom, who sent him supplies for cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie! I was in charge of mashed potatos and carrots, and yes that is a wok I'm using to boil the potatos :)

I also tried to make whipped cream for the pumpkin pie, but there's no cream in China. So I used milk, and it was a good effort, but the thickness just didn't stay!

There are no turkeys in China so we got a roast duck instead, which tasted exactly like ham, but it was good! The rest of fixin's were all present! 

It was an awesome dinner, so good in fact that we've decided to have an "American" type meal once a month! Speaking of holidays, I managed to find some Christmas decorations at Wal-mart here, so my wall is colorfully lit up and I have a mini Christmas tree in my living room! Tis the season!

In other news, I've finally made all of my travel plans for the Chinese New Year! I'll be travelling for about a month, spending 10 days in Thailand, a week in India, and another 10 days in between Malaysia and Singapore. I can't wait! Let me know what souveniers you want....no promises on sneaking the Taj into my suitcase ;)

Freedom!

Ni hao!

First off I would like to wish everyone a happy Singles Day. Yes, 11/11 is singles day here in China. I asked my students how they will be celebrating and they simply said "party!" But a little more digging revealed that many bars have hong lu deng (traffic light) themed parties....wear red if you are in a relationship, yellow if it's complicated, and green if you're single. For all those who hate Valentine's Day, come to China and celebrate being single!

I would like to acknowledge an important U.S. holiday today as well and thank all the veterans and members of the armed forces who have, and still are serving their country! 

THE CAST IS OFF!!!!!! I've been cast free for about a week now and my arm feels great! When I went to the hospital, I had one final x-ray taken, the doctor said it looked ok and that I was free to go home and cut off my cast. Um what!? Go home and hack away at the plaster myself!? I don't think so! Pan pan, our boss' assistant and go to Chinese helper, convinced him to actually be a doctor and take care of a patient! So all is good there!

A few days ago a very large ceremonial tent with accompanying blow up entry way was set up in the park by our apartment building. I assumed it was a holiday celebration or some sort of wedding reception but a slow walk by the entrance revealed many flowers and a casket inside. The tent was just taken down today, so the whole celebration/remembrance lasted about 3 days and included lots of food, singing, and of course hundreds of firecrackers going off at all times of the day and night. Puts real meaning into the phrase "going out with a bang!"

I was finally able to upload photos of the Jingdao gorge, so here's the link!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2080508&id=1019820015&l=9424bc89f7

Jingdao Gorge

Ni hao!

Last weekend the office of foreign teacher's sponsored a trip to the Jingdao Gorge. The gorge is about 60 km away from Beibei, and on our way we stopped at an old historical town to look around and have lunch. The town, Pin Yian, is very picturesque with its narrow cobblestone roads and ancient architecture. After lunch we took the very steep and windy road up to the gorge. For the first part of the gorge walk you go down about 500 steps, then you go up about 500 steps and then over a rickety wooden boardwalk that is somehow attached to the cliffs of the gorge....it's quite adventurous! It was a truly beautiful walk along the stream that carved this magnificent gorge. The water is crystal clear and we were either surrounded by steep cliffs or bamboo forests for the whole journey (which took about 4 hours). Towards the end of our walk we spotted some monkeys! We were watching for a while when a man came walking by us with some fruit in a bag. He would have been safe if the bag hadn't been clear, but those monkeys spotted the bananas and ripped the bag off of him and devoured the bananas. It was pretty funny to watch. We continued our walk and finally took a boat out of the gorge to our bus. It was an awesome trip!

A few monumental things have happened recently in my life. 1. Blue sky has been discovered in Beibei. I was beginning to doubt its existence, but on Friday a breeze swept through Beibei revealing a clear blue sky. This wind also pushed the fog/smog out of the air to reveal the mountains that surround my city, it was amazing! Unfortunately this only lasted one day, I'm back to rainy/foggy/smoggy China :) 2. I have been reunited with two great loves in my life, cheese and vodka. All the foreign teachers took a trip into Chongqing to visit a store called Metro, which is like a Costco except for foreign goods. The prices are quite high, for Chinese standards anyways, but it's worth it. We're able to find just about everything we miss from back home. And 3. I think my apartment is finally de-moused. I've been having a bit of a mouse/rat problem recently. A word on Chinese construction: Buildings here are constructed very quickly not with the best materials. It's just sort of a get it done, and get it done quickly sort of philosophy. So our apartment building has many holes and open areas and such for bugs, dirt, mice, pretty much anything to get in. So a few had decided to make home in the panels above my bathroom. And they did so by collecting rice grain either as food surplus for the winter or as a nest. Either way the food/nest easily fell through my slotted ceiling panels, along with their droppings, turning my bathroom into a rat's nest. Plus they are quite talkative at night. At first this was just annoying, but then one of them scuttled across my feet in the kitchen as I was chopping food, and another took a sun nap in my laundry room. Well thanks to my landlady and her mother, most have been disposed of. And some workers collected all the rice nests from my ceiling so I haven't had a problem in my bathroom recently either. So here's to hoping I'm mouse free!

Today I met up with some of my students at a grocery store called Yong Hui (young way). We took the goodies back to my apartment and they taught me how to cook! I now know how to make: Gong bao ji ding (kung pao chicken, one of my favorite dishes here), sweet and sour ribs, Beijing duck, Beijing pork, pork meatballs, egg and tomato soup, an eggplant and pork dish, and stuffed lotus root. It was all soooo delicious and I got to break in my new rice cooker as well. I'll be sharing recipes next time I'm back in the states!

I haven't been able to upload photos for some reason so I'll include them in my next post. Zai jian!

Yangshuo

Ni hao!

I have just returned from an awesome few days in the other-worldly landscape of Yangshuo. China celebrates its national holiday on October 1st, but instead of just a day off like the Fourth of July, China takes a week off! So taking advantage of our last holiday for a few months we packed our bags and headed south!

It's an easy hour flight to Guilin from Chongqing, and either a 5 hour cruise down the Li River or 1 hour bus ride south to Yangshuo. Kelli (a fellow Bennie and teacher, and also my neighbor) and I decided to cruise our way down to Yangshuo. For the first half hour of our trip I believe there were more pictures taken of us than the beautiful karst mountain formations, we even had a mini photo shoot with one young woman who posed our bodies around hers in many ways, mostly prom style with us as the male figure behind her....I hope she didn't mind that I forgot my boutonniere. Anyways, once everyone had filled up their cameras with blonde hair and blue eyes we were left to enjoy the serene Chinese scenery. The cruise had a full buffet lunch and we arrived in Yangshuo with plenty of time to explore the city.

The next day Kelli and I rose early to explore the area. We booked a tour that took us to one of the many water/mud caves in the morning and kayaking in the afternoon. No one else ended up touring with that company for the day so we lucked out with a private Australian tour guide ;). The cave was AWESOME! We took a boat to get inside and then maneuvered our way under and over and around spectacular stalagmite and stalactite formations until we reached the mud pits! The cave owners had made some makeshift mud slides and we went to town! I've never made a more delicious mud pie. We rinsed off in the caves natural hot springs and lounged for a while before taking a final dip in the cool freshwater spring at the entrance to the cave. It was glorious! Our next stop was to travel a little ways down river to a quiet area where we could put our kayaks in. We loaded our kayaks, greeted the water buffalos lounging in the water, and set off! The river is fairly slow moving but is fast enough that we didn't need to paddle much. After a few hours admiring more karst formations we unloaded at a Ming dynasty fortress where our driver met us for an even more scenic drive back to Yangshuo. The beauty was endless everywhere we went.

That night some of the other teachers had arrived and we met up for dinner and some drinks! Yangshuo is fairly touristy so that means lot's of Western food! We devoured pizzas and savored every bite of cheese! Afterwards we enjoyed some local brandy....which is where this story turns dark. Literally, it got dark outside. And I broke my arm. Ok ok there's a little more than that. The hotel Kelli and I were staying at was a few kilometers outside of town so we rented bikes to get around. Well darkness plus bicycles plus curbs don't always make the best cake, so long story short I've got a pretty x-ray and I'll be in a cast for the next few weeks. But I got to do all the fun activities before my little accident so I was able to wander around the city or shop or just sit and read and admire the view for my last two days, which let me tell you, I could do forever! We'll definitely be going back to Yangshuo, and I would recommend to everyone travelling to China to try and make it down there, but easy on the brandy and bikes.... ;)

Yangshuo photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2079040&id=1019820015&l=5a999fca53

Chengdu

Last week was the Mid-Autumn Festival of the Chinese lunar calendar. It's tradition to spend this holiday with your family, admiring the full moon and eating moon cakes. A word on moon cakes, they are comparable to fruitcakes in the U.S. in the sense that no one actually eats them and no one wants them, but they're given anyways as a gesture of kindness....or maybe just so you can ask for a favor later. Anyways moon cakes are round disc-like pastries filled with anything imaginable, but mostly fruits, beans, meat, or egg. I did try a few different kinds but didn't make it much past the first bite. I think they would find a better use as a hockey puck. So instead of gorging on moon cakes for the holiday a group of us foreign teachers went to Chengdu!

Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan, an easy 2 hour train ride away from Chongqing. Our hostel was located in the Tibetan part of town so we feasted on yak meat and sweet creamy Tibetan tea at least once a day, it was all delicious! Our first night there we decided to walk around and explore and find a bar to sit and have a few drinks. Well, we ended up in a private room in a bar making friends with some local Chinese people, loudly karaoke-ing the night away to Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On, and of course devouring skewers of rabbit, which we didn't know was rabbit til the end of the night as our host hopped around the room to demonstrate what we had been eating. A little different then what we planned, but an awesome night nonetheless! The next morning we took a trip to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding to see some pandas! This is the largest giant panda breeding facility in the world; the pandas are mostly going to zoos but the ultimate goal is introduce them into the wild in hopes of increasing the natural panda population. Until that point though the pandas are happy to sit and do nothing but eat and sleep.....easy photo ops.

The following day we explored the city a bit more by visiting a historic monastery and enjoying an afternoon in Chengdu's first tea house. Chengdu is well known for its tea houses, which suit the cities' relaxed culture. At a tea house you pay for your cup and loose leaves and then tea pourers will come by your table and fill up your cup with hot water for as long as your heart desires. And I mean as loooong as you want. We easily adopted this local activity, filling ourselves with tea for a good 2 hours. We all really enjoyed our trip to the capital city, and I'm sure we'll be back for more tea and pandas soon!

Here is a link to photos from Chengdu

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2078384&id=1019820015&l=3810841254

 

And this link is for photos from Beijing, Chongqing and Beibei

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2077076&id=1019820015&l=6b2c7e0998

Hallelujah Pizza

It's been a busy 10 days! Last week was my first full week of classes, minus my Friday course which will begin once the freshmen have completed their mandatory military training. Classes are going well! My text book is surprisingly helpful with video and audio examples. It also contains English/Chinese character vocab sections for easier translation of advanced words. My students just laugh and laugh as the beads of frustration roll down my face when it takes me 3 minutes to write one character, but they understand so I can only laugh too!

This past Monday I entered the terrible two's, 22 that is. A group of us foreign teachers went into Chongqing on Saturday night to celebrate. After catching a bus into not quite the right part of town we wandered around a bit until a sign from the heavens struck us all. BIG PIZZA! I've never heard the Hallelujah choir sing so brightly. So after our treat of pizza and other Western food we met up with some peace corp volunteers and other teachers and danced the night away! On Monday I received a cake from the foreign teachers office which was shared by many on our apartment rooftop. And although the cake was non dairy and had a similar texture to styrofoam it was decorated exquisitely - covered with fruit and chocolate and of course tomatoes! But hey, cake is cake!

I have also decided to enjoy the life a student once again and take up an elementary Mandarin course! It's very humbling actually because all of the things we teachers complain about (students putting their heads down when asked to participate, giggling when speaking or when others are speaking, etc) is exactly what's happening to us in class. Touché China.

First Day of Class!

Do you remember that gitty/slightly nervous/anxious/excited feeling for the first day of school? Well multiply that times 10, throw in a pinch of uneasiness and about a gallon and a half of sweat and you've got my first class. Ok ok, it wasn't that bad, and although the sweat wasn't really an exaggeration, I'm blaming most of that on the 20+ minute walk and humidity. Anyways the students are really great and I think it'll be a fun class.

I took one step into the classroom and immediately there were oohs and ahhs and then a full applause! I was shocked! I couldn't help but smile, and if my hair hadn't been trying to afro its way back to the 70's, I almost would have felt glamorous. I started the class with an introduction of myself and then gave them the basic outline of the course. I then had the students write down a little paragraph about themselves so that I could learn more about each of them as well as judge where their English skills were. We then played a get to know the teacher game which started out with me writing a few words about myself on the board: Yaqui, 21, Kylie, 9, sand, and banana. The students then had to ask yes/no questions to try and figure out how each word related to me. My street name (Yaqui) was thought to be my boyfriend's name, and they thought that either bananas were famous in Arizona or that I'd like to buy the class a round of bananas. Sorry, but the banana was simply my breakfast of choice this morning. We finished up the class rather early which got me another thunderous round of applause! I could get used to this.

The class consisted of 55 students of which only 10 were men. Most of the students are from the Sichuan province but there were a few from neighboring provinces and one young woman from Tibet. Their energy and eagerness is contagious and I'm very much looking forward to teaching them all they want to know about English and the United States.

Settling In

Ni hao!

Slowly but surely I'm getting settled in to my apartment and adjusting to the fact that I now live in China! This week we've been touring Beibei and the Southwest University campus as well as exploring sites of Chongqing.

Yesterday we spent the whole day in Chongqing seeing all the sights. We went to the three gorges museum which is pretty cool, visited their equivalent of a parliament hall or central government building, and saw the point where the Jialing and Yangtze rivers meet. Then we went to two different places with a whole bunch of shops, but the exteriors of the places were designed like the old towns and ancient villages, it was very cool. I bought a brush painting of chinese plum blossoms to decorate my apartment. We then went to a beautiful restaurant to have hot pot! Ok so hot pot is like fondue where you have a giant pot of boiling liquid and you cook meat and vegetables in it. Traditionally, hot pot is very spicy but they have half and half pots where one side is the red spices and the other more of a broth. The meat selections were beef, sheep, cow stomach, chicken stomach, chicken noodles, beef meatballs, and sausages. The veggies were mushrooms, lotus root, potatos, chinese root (they couldn't translate it), rice noodles, sweet potato noodles, black fungus, white fungus, and probably a few other things I don't know the name of. Anyways everyone would just sort of dump a bunch of stuff into both the hot and mild side and you let it cook for a few minutes and then dip it in either a sesame oil or spicy soy sauce and enjoy! And we did enjoy :) Now if the spices didn't numb your mouth and make you sweat enough as it is, our director bought a 220 RMB bottle of baijiu, which we had to COMPLETELY FINISH before we could get beer. Baijiu is a distilled liquor made from rice; most baijiu is around 80-120 proof. It's not very good, but the more expensive the bottle the more tolerable it gets. So, eight shots later, we're all feeling pretty nice. We'll probably go out again for hot pot for my birthday, and it'll be very nice for the winter months.

Today April, one of the assistants in the international exchange office, gave me my teaching schedule and showed me the buildings and classrooms I will be teaching in, which begins on Monday! Most of my classes will have over 60 students in them but their English skills should be fairly high. I will also be teaching at a technical college in Chongqing on Thursday mornings. I'm excited and nervous to start teaching but I've already met a few students and they are all very eager and excited to use and practice English, so that'll help.

I'm still figuring out a way to post pictures. I can't directly post them into the blog for reasons unknown but hopefully album links will be coming soon.

Zaijian!

Made it!

Ni hao!

Well I have safely arrived here in Beibei without a scratch! The flight from LA to Beijing was long but I managed to sleep for 8 of the 12 hour trip so that helped. Interesting thing about flying with Chinese, if you are in an aisle seat, you are not expected to get up to allow the inner seat passengers to get by. As an window/middle seat passenger you should not expect anyone to move or get up for you. So I woke up a few times during the flight to find a Chinese man almost sitting on top of me trying to get to the aisle. Hello to you too sir.
I planned my trip so that I would have a 10 hour layover in Beijing. Why do such a thing you might ask? FREE TRIP TO BEIJING! My checked bags got to lounge at the airport while I heaved my carryons throughout the Beijing subway system to pop up right in front of the Forbidden city. Quite the site for my first few minutes in China. I explored the area for a while, but jet lag, thirst, and hunger eventually pushed me back towards the airport.
I saw a lot of interesting things during this "free trip," ;) Here's a list of some of the good ones:
- baby in butt-less chaps (yes, full chinese moon)
- some sort of chicken or rodent in a bag on the subway (still alive), presumably dinner for the night. I question what kind of animal it was because I only heard it squealing when it's carrier was beating the bag.
- women's fashion. this could go on forever but they all wear heels, or wedges. And if that can't be done there's at least rhinestones or sparkles on the shoes. Also shirts that say things like Sunlight, Balmy, Why not? and Do you make love?
- murses. male purses.
- TEA! Everyone has a nalgene full of it.
- No understanding of lines. You gotta push your way to the front, space between you and the person in front of you means someone else can fit in there.
- And of course my blonde hair and round light eyes attracted a few photographs. All smiles here :)

And now I'm settling into my apartment here in Beibei, which I hope to post some pictures of shortly. More orientation and touring tomorrow and wednesday and hopefully classes will begin sometime next week. Until next time!