So much diversity in one city

Andrew and I got to the basketball beer garden first tonight. Just in time to see this guy kill a live chicken. Once I figured out what he was about to do, I quickly turned away but you could still hear the chicken. I left shortly after to go fetch some people and Andrew informed me upon my return that they guy had proceeded to kill 3 chickens and that there was a huge bucket of blood over by his stall. Not what I necessarily prefer when sitting down to eat.


I have fully discovered the store Oley. You can get a bog of Goldfish for 10 kuai, a very close to American sandwich for another 1o and have the perfect meal! I now treat myself on my tutoring days and quite enjoy it.


The Universiade is coming to Shenzhen! Don't know what that is? It's ok, we didn't either. It is a university olympics that is held every two years in different parts of the world. And Shenzhen is the lucky city that gets to host this year. Even better, my school is the location of one of the training areas. Therefore, our entire gymnasium is being redone for the event.


When Mom was here she kept reading through her books in record speed so we kept going to Book City to get her more. It ended with her leaving me most of the collection she had acquired. So the week started with me having to scrounge around for reading material and ended with me having way too many books to read before the end of the year. I would definitely recommend Blankets to anyone who wants to read a graphic novel. And if you want to borrow any of these let me know :)


I saw this guy one night when Mom was visiting but didn't get a chance to figure out who he was. It is very unusual to see another white person in Xili (my town) it is even more crazy to see a white person who is running a food stall. I went up and tried to talk to him but he didn't speak English and didn't really get any of my questions in Chinese. So I'm still not sure who he is, where he came from or how he ended up with a food stall.


CTLC hosts trivia nights every once in awhile and we had a great team to try and win the game! Unfortunately...we did not succeed, but we had fun losing. I was happy that Jess, Marie and I got to join up with Fuat, Courtney and Eli. I don't hang out with Fuat much outside of school so it was a nice opportunity.


Greg, Andrew, Jess and I took a trip up to the hot springs in Bao'An today. We hadn't been before and were unaware that it cost quite a bit to get in to some pools that didn't look very nice. So instead we bought the 10 kuai entry pass to the surrounding area and walked around for awhile. It was basically a run down resort. There were a bunch of activities there that were all shut down and all the buildings looked like they needed remodeling. I wonder if in the summer it will come alive again. There was a really beautiful temple there that we walked around for awhile, and a Buddha face in the side of the nearby mountain.


They built this crane today for the construction of the art building. After every class there was a new part of it assembled. I had never seen one being built before so it was sort of cool. Hopefully I'll get to see the finished art building before I leave at the end of next year.


I've said it before and I'll say it again, NYPD has the best pizza in Shenzhen. This is a perfect meal if you're getting sick of Chinese food or missing home.


Minnie, my new plant. For those of you who know Fredrick, don't worry I have not forgotten him and miss him greatly, but I needed a new China plant friend too.

wo yao shui jiao

Teaching! This is class 6, one of my favorites. The past Friday, Brian, my contact teacher, had asked if he could video tape one of my classes. He ended up taping one on Friday and this one. I was doing a Jeopardy quiz show lesson that turned a bit into mass chaos. The questions ranged from what they were learning in their books to grammar to random questions about America. Fuat and Ginny, one of Fuat's Chinese teachers, came and watched. Fuat wanted to see how well Jeopardy worked to see if he could do it in his classes. He kindly agreed to take some pictures while he was there.


It was a sunny day so I went to the park to read and work on lesson plans instead of sitting in my room. It was full of people. There were card players, kite fliers, roller skaters, and paddle boat rowers. I definitely got some stares sitting on the middle island with my computer but I liked feeling a part of the Sunday afternoon crowd.


Bringing new life onto the bus.


Game night! The g/jens hosted a fantastical evening that included Round 2 of Carrie's Queries (the game I created for Jen's birthday), Teledraw, King's Cup, AND the Great Dalmuti!!! Who can ask for anything else? That plus some great people made the perfect Saturday night.


A really pretty plant that I've never seen before. It seems to produce fruit like raspberries...and for all I know this is what our raspberry trees in America look like. But it was new to me so I took a picture.


We all had to go to Chinese class today to pick up a refund from our program but didn't actually have class. Since we were all together and had some time, we decided to head to the local park and play some frisbee. Using a round disk to pass around to each other is not an activity that is done in China. They have no idea what a frisbee is and therefore we had even more people sitting around staring than usual. Once in awhile we'd even have one guy curious enough to come play with us for a little bit. Afterward we played touch football and then went and got dinner.


A very depressing evening. I sat down and calculated about how much money I was going to be making before I leave China and about how much I need for when I get back to the States. The numbers don't quite match... The lack of money I will have overwhelmed me so much I just got in bed and watched a movie.


I've been wanting to see if it would be possible to make some American dishes using the woks. So Fuat and I took a Monday evening to give it a try. We successfully made some great spaghetti with full blown meat sauce. It could have used a little bit of spices, but for the most part it was very tasty. The next step is to invite some of our chinese teachers over and cook some authentic American cuisine for them.


The Shenzhen metro platforms are an area for some creative design. Each platform has it's own unique set of seats provided to help the weary travelers. This group is my favorite. There are about five seats and they are all shaped into different keys on a computer keyboard.


I was headed over to Leah's for a movie party and had some time to kill so I stopped by the mall. There was a wonderful art exhibit going on of sewed paintings. There were many framed finished products but also, all around the exhibit were women making new creations. I found out that they cheat a little bit - all of the canvases have pictures printed on them and the women sew the right colors in the right places. From what I could tell though, there weren't specific stitch lengths or color descriptions so I think/hope there was still a little bit of talent that went into these beautiful works.


I finally got my library card!! Jess and I went to the beautiful Shenzhen library, handed over our 200 kuai deposit, showed them our passports, and walked away with access to the many foreign books the building has to offer.