September 3 -10

Teachers Day! On this day, the school provides a large meal for all of its teachers. We traveled to a five star hotel where all of the Chinese high governmental officials (including the President) stay when they are in Shenzhen. There was an award ceremony for teachers who did outstanding last year. Then the Principal gave a speech and toasted the day, starting off a 17 course meal. This is Fuat, Brian, who is our contact teacher, and me on the grounds of the hotel.


In China they celebrate Teachers Day once a year, this year it was on September 10th. The day before, all of the students and teachers gathered for an assembly. Different people gave speeches and students performed songs. Each teacher received a bouquet of flowers and a hand made present from a student.


Xili has so many different parts. Literally two blocks from this place is the four story mall. We've started exploring the back alleys of Xili and have found some great street food and interesting markets that will sell you just about any type of animal.


The returner (it is her third year in the program) to Xili took her "Xili babies" out to dinner. She took us to one of her favorite places in Xili, the Communist restaurant. The waiters and waitresses were dressed in Communist Party outfits and every hour they used to get up on stage and read from the little red Communist book and sing Communist songs (sadly they have stopped doing this). It was still a lot of fun, and good food.


On the way to the elevator on my floor, you can get onto the roof. This is the view from there. The building in the bottom right corner is our gymnasium. The tall lit building in the middle is central Nanshan.


This is the statue of Nuwa in Shekou, part of Nanshan.
Nuwa is an ancient Chinese mythical creature who is half serpent half woman. This statue is to honor her for the legend of when she mended the sky. After a fight between Gods, a pillar that held up part of the sky was knocked over, so it became unbalanced. Due to this there were many fires and floods. Nuwa created new pillars from the legs of a large tortoise and mended the rest of the sky with different colored stones that she combined.


It was my friend Andrew's birthday so we all went out to celebrate. Some people got him this cake from a local bakery. So...in China you have to be very careful with baked goods because they are usually not what they look like or at least you'll receive a little surprise during eating. This cake, had green slime all over it. And the cake actually tasted green! Andrew had a bite and then passed it around the table, and the only way we could explain the entire cake flavor was...green.


This was taken at a bar/club called Plush in the Western part of Shenzhen. We had started the evening with attending a Salsa lesson followed by a Salsa party. That was a blast. There were three guys from the program who knew how to Salsa and I was the only girl so they just took turns spinning me around the dance floor. We all went out to an Irish pub after and then headed to Plush. The group didn't really go to drink, we just wanted to dance!