August 17-21

In the picture: Me, Jessica, Becca, Andrew, Leah
These are some of my closest friends here. In Beijing Becca and Jessica were roommates, so Andrew and I would join up with them and we went on a bunch of adventures. Once we got our placements, unfortunately those two got placed in Long Gang which is almost as far away from my placement as you can get. But we're still making it work and finding ways to see each other. Andrew, Leah and I got placed in Xili together and have been spending pretty much every day together exploring the city. I was really happy to find such great people.


The hotel was up in the mountains of Luohu, one of the districts of Shenzhen. In Beijing, and then in Shenzhen, Jessica, a friend of mine, and I would take morning walks before our day started. We wanted to explore as much of the areas we were in as possible so as to take advantage of being in China. This was on one of our morning strolls to the lake beside the hotel.


The Chinese architecture and interior design is often very creative or futuristic. They are a lot more risky with their buildings and decorations. This was the roof of the dining area in the hotel.


On the 17th, we all boarded a train in Beijing and a little over 24 hours later arrived in Shenzhen, our new home. The train ride was actually a lot of fun. We had three cars that members from our group had been placed in. A couple of my friends and I ended up in one of the cars without many other Americans in it, it was one of the Chinese family cars. How Chinese trains work is that there are little sections and in each section there are two sets of three bunks that are one right on top of the other. The highest bunk is the cheapest so all of the us that got put in the family car were on the top bunks. We made friends with the Chinese people below us and ended up having a great time teaching them some English words and having them teach us some Mandarin words. We also had this little Chinese girl latch on to us, so we taught her how to play Go Fish and we played it for awhile using Mandarin words. Then we arrived in Shenzhen and got transported to a new hotel that included three free meals a day and what we would consider five star hotel rooms. There were a number of people that were given villas or large suites, one even had two stories and an elevator in it.


This is the Forbidden City in Beijing. It was previously an imperial palace but is now a Palace Museum with a range of exhibits about different parts of the lives of ancient dynasties. It sits in the heart of Beijing across from Tiananmen Square. We were able to see one exhibit about the celebration of one Emperor's birthday. Every year people from all over would send him exquisite gifts. His sons would provide him with new bowls and vases. Then there would be a meal that included forty courses. In the museum there was a display of the emperor's table setting. He had very specific items, like certain vases and center pieces, that had to accompany the forty dishes. At another part of the museum our teacher informed us of some of the specifications on architecture that ancient China had. All around the city, as well as in other historic sites we had visited, the frames of the door rose above the ground by almost a foot so that to pass through a door you had to step over the frame. This was to designate importance of the household. The higher your door frame was the more important in society you were. Also, only the imperial family could use dragons or phoenixes in their architecture. If anyone built a higher door step or added these creatures to their own homes when they were not supposed to they would have been killed.

August 13-16

On the last day of school all of the classes put together a talent show. Our class (how it worked was that six different teachers all taught the same class during different parts of the day) decided to rewrite the song "You Raise Me Up". As a class they created all new lyrics to let everyone know what their weeks in our class had been like.
Lyrics:
When I came here
And all my soul so worried
Will the teachers be nice or will they be mean
But time goes by, and there's no more pressure
We've learned a lot, this is what we want to say

From Josh and Ali, we learned about "Big Brother"
From Stephanie, we studied paparazzi
With shy Michael, we fall in love with doin' chores
We have to say, what a great husband he'd be

We played the Mafia with Carrie
And who knows that Mr. Palm likes dancing
We think Fuat and Elie are handsome
And we learned U.S. history from them

Everyone was very impressed that they put together their own song, and it turned out great!


This is the Beijing Silk Street (when I first heard of it I pictured an outdoor market with stalls, not quite what I had in mind). It is really famous for selling inexpensive silk and pearls. You walk in and there are six floors of just row upon row of different vendors. Each floor has a couple different themes and you could spend days just looking at all it has to offer. Bartering is also a must. The rule of thumb is to walk in knowing how much you want to pay. They'll give you a number (hopefully), you look a little interested then shake your head and start to walk away. They'll grab your arm or call after you with a number that is usually a couple hundred yuan less than they had started. You can walk away again or suggest about a third of that price, maybe a fourth. Then going back and forth you simply test each others wills until one of you caves and agrees on a price. I bought one item for 175 yuan, the first number they had said was 850.


This was most of my class in Beijing. I had Seniors (which is equivalent to our sophomore/junior and seniors in high school). Most of the students we taught came from affluent families and were extremely good at English. Almost all of those girls you could drop in the US and they would fit right in. During my teaching I found out that in China they play Mafia too (though they call it the Killing Game)! I was excited to find that out and included the game in a couple of my lessons.


This was the first day that some of my friends and I caved and went in search for Western food. We chose that pizza was what we were craving and found ourselves at the local Pizza Hut. In China, Pizza Hut is a fancy establishment that makes you feel under dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. The pizza isn't exactly what it is like in the States, for instance many of the options have seafood and the sorts as toppings, but it definitely hit the spot.

Some more August

We were the luckiest people this night. In Beijing there is a famous dish - Peking Duck. A group of six of us decided to travel out to one of the few restaurants that serves the true Peking Duck and see what all the fuss was about. We had to split the group and take two cabs, and this was before we had cell phones so we ended up getting lost from each other in the huge square where the restaurant district was. My group split up to try and see if we could locate the other three. I finally found the other group and asked them to go get us a table while I went and grabbed the rest of my group. When we returned to the restaurant we couldn't find the other three anywhere. We walked through the place a few times with now luck, and as you can see this was a nice place and it was a bit awkward just roaming between tables. Finally a manager of the restaurant saw us and asked if we needed help. We described our friends and he got on a walkie talkie asking if any of the staff had seen them - no one had. So we started walking back out and ran into a member of the other group, Cliff. They had come to get a table, saw that there was at least an hour wait and decided to go back outside and look for another place to eat. The four of us there were now in the restaurant started trying to decided if we really wanted to wait for the meal of a lifetime. Well, my new friend, the manager, came up to me and excitedly asked if Cliff was who we had been looking for. I said yes and thanked him for his help. He motioned for our group to come into the eating area so I followed him. He then smiled and showed us an eight person table, asked us to sit and let us cut in front of the line and get the glorious Peking Duck. We found the others in our group and they joined. The meal was DEFINITELY worth it - probably one of the best things I have ever eaten. Also, right as we were sitting down the evening entertainment show started with balancing and magician acts. It was perfect.


The Great Wall. This was the hardest I worked to see a national monument. You have to climb a mountain of steps to then walk up more steps to get on the wall. And then there are more steps to walk along the wall. But again, it was completely worth it. And you get to take a luge down the mountain!


This was the room I and my roommate Catherine stayed in for the two and a half weeks


This is the Tower of Buddhist Fragrance within the Summer Palace in Beijing. The Summer Palace is an imperial garden that spans almost 3 square kilometers. It is amazingly beautiful, all of the buildings have unique paintings and figurines that create almost a magical world. There were five of us that went on the trip and I was really glad to have adventurous friends with me. We had gotten there too late to go into any of the buildings so we just picked random directions as we went and started walking. Parts of the palace throughout the ages have been destroyed and rebuilt but the Chinese rulers have always made sure to keep as much of the place intact as possible.

August Cont

This was the Olympic building that was our hotel for two and a half weeks

During our stay in Beijing we were teaching and taking Chinese courses at Peking University. It is the Harvard of China. The campus is extremely beautiful and has a couple of gardens. There is also a lot of classic Chinese architecture.

This is one of the other parks at Peking University. You can see a cat by the bench - they were all over the campus

August

This was my meal on the plane. I wasn't quite sure what to do with some of the items so the very nice Taiwanese man next to me helped. It was my first experience with real Asian food (because guess what, what we call Chinese food in the States doesn't compare much with real Chinese food) and it was great.




By the time we actually got into Beijing on August 2nd it was really late. We all stopped at a convenient store to pick up some supplies and I was excited to see some American brands in China. Plus I just liked all of the Chinese characters everywhere



The hotel that CTLC put us in had been used as a housing area for the Olympics. So on different floors there were different sports sections where the Chinese now go to train. During the day this room was completely full of people playing Ping Pong.



Depending on where the Chinese people grew up, they have not seen many Westerners. So children especially are very excited to see us and will want to take pictures and talk with us as much as possible. This little girl was the shop owner's daughter next door and got her mom to help her ask for a picture. Adults more just stare at us as we walk past.




Hot Pot is a common dinner in China, although it is more expensive. You order a few boiling pots of broth and have raw meat and noodles brought out for you to cook yourself. At this meal we had shrimp, ox tongue (next to the shrimp) and lamb (on the back right). You just throw a couple pieces in at a time into the pots and then wait a few minutes for them to cook. It's not one of my favorite meals but it is very popular among the other teachers.

Catching Up

Hey!

Well China exists and I've been living here for almost a month now! I have a long blog post that will be coming soon but first pictures. I have picked out a picture a day that sort of sums up the day or is my favorite. Some of them aren't great because I might have only taken one or two pictures that day, but hopefully overall you'll enjoy.