I was informed today that I will now be teaching three more classes. There are 10 Senior 3s (Seniors by American standards) that are leaving in May for Singapore to go to college. So Fuat and I are splitting teaching them oral English five days a week. The goal is to get them as ready as possible for the English test they have to take once reaching Singapore. So now I have 17 classes a week and have to make 5 lesson plans. But I can't complain because the school is paying Fuat and I a bit extra for each Singapore class we teach.
Early that morning I got mom to the airport metro and said goodbye. I was really really glad she came, but I was exhausted and ready to get home and back to a normal schedule. That night we didn't have Chinese class so Cliff, Leah, Andrew, Greg and I went to dinner at Windows. This picture is showing off the Chinese custom of the tooth pick. On almost every dinner table at a restaurant there is a container of tooth picks and it is very common for every Chinese person to use one after their meal.
Mom had an early flight on Wednesday so Tuesday afternoon, after my classes, we took the ferry across to Hong Kong. It turned out the ferry doesn't run very often so we had to wait a few hours till it left.
This was the first day back to school. I had to teach four classes, three in the morning and one in the afternoon. So during lunch I went out and got Mom and she came to my afternoon class. The students loved it! During every activity, the two back rows just turned around and talked with her instead of paying attention, but that was fine. We stayed at school and I took her to the cafeteria for dinner. Strangely, that was her favorite Chinese meal of the trip. My cafeteria does serve good food, but I think she just had a biased view on the rest of Chinese food. That night I had book club with my students and Mom had brought us new books so I brought her along so the students could show their appreciation. They also really enjoyed having her there and getting to know her.
The hotel that Mom was staying at was really nice! It was right in the heart of Xili and just a bus ride away from my school so it was perfect. It was also super cheap by American standards. The staff was really sweet and a few of them spoke English so that was helpful. There was a nice banquet hall on the second floor so we decided to stay in and eat dinner there.
Today I took mom to the park in Nantou. That area also has one of the oldest sections of buildings left in Shenzhen. We wandered for a bit taking pictures. That night my contact teacher took us out to dinner. We got to meet his new wife, they just got married during the spring festival, and a few of his friends.
Mom still wasn't feeling great so we decided to take things slow. I took her to book city because she had finished the books she had brought with her. Other than that we walked around Xili a bit so I could show off my part of town. This picture is of my friend the guard. He was given every evening shift until school started. So the entire time my mother was visitng, every night that I got back home I ended up spending 30 minutes to an hour hanging out at the guard office. He doesn't know much English and I don't know much Chinese but we get by and have a good time. Plus we share food with each other.
Our first day in Shenzhen I had all sorts of site seeing planned out and had invited Andrew, Cliff, Marie, Jess and Ben to join. Mom and I started the day off with going to the top of the Emperor building. It was a pretty hazy day so unfortunately we couldn't see that far, but it was still neat seeing the city from up above. Then we met everyone in Dongmen. The night before, in Hong Kong, we had dinner at a random Chinese restaurant. Well the food did not settle right with Mom and at about this time she was really not feeling well. We decided to go back to the hotel to let her rest. I met up later with the group at the beer garden.
When we arrived in Guangzhou from our 23 day excursion around Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, we had to quickly find a bus back to Shenzhen. Upon reaching the city, I had to keep moving onto Hong Kong where I was picking up my Mom from the airport that evening. She was coming in for 8 days to see me and the life I live here. With her jet lag and my extreme exhaustion from the trip, we found out hotel, got some dinner and went to bed. On the 9th we went around Hong Kong seeing different parts of the city. She had been there before 19 years ago and had a couple of places she wanted to see again and some new sites to check out. We visited some markets, went to the top of Victoria's Peak and eventually traveled across the water to Shenzhen.
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