"Welcome to Thailand!!!" yelled the snorkeling guide for the 100th time

January 17th, 2011 - Day one of our three week adventure around Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Marie Sweetman, Andrew Wanko, Cliff Burke, Ben Engelbach and I showed up to the Hong Kong airport excited for the oncoming voyage. The start was a bit shaky - I had been sick right before we left with a head cold and due to the pressure changes I developed a migraine on the way into the air and on the way back down I thought my head was literally going to explode. It resulted in a three day headache, but I wasn't going to let that stop me! We arrived in Bangkok and headed for the Rainbow Hostel on Khao San Road. Cara Miller, a fellow CTLCer, had run into us at the airport and joined us at the hostel as well as the following day of site seeing. Khao San Road was a crazy new world full of food and trinket stalls, backpackers, dreadlocks, drugs and sex shows. It was a dirty dirty place, but a great location for people watching. Due to our hostel being close to the chaotic loud road, none of us really got much sleep that night despite our attempts. In the morning we still headed out bright and early to start seeing what Bangkok had to offer. The first stop was the Grand Palace. On our way there we met a number of the locals - not a good thing. The one we talked to for the longest had a tourist police badge on and was informing us that due to Buddhist Day the Palace and the Wats (temples) nearby were closed. He said that some of the Wats farther into the city were still open and he could provide us a tuk-tuk to take us (for a small fee of course). We thanked him for the information but didn't want to see the other Wats and figured we could find something else to do. Continuing in the same direction we crossed paths with some fellow foreigners and asked if they had gone to the Grand Palace. They had and were just leaving - they said we should never believe anyone who says that anything is closed especially for holidays. Damn Buddhist Day. So we got to the palace and Wat Pho before lunch after all. The palace was beautiful and very shine. Everything was covered in small mosaics. The place also housed the Emeral Buddha which has different robes depending on the season that the King changes himselff. What Pho, the largest Wat in Bangkok, was also very bright (a common theme in Bangkok) and housed the largest reclining Buddha in Thailand which is gold plated. We crossed the river by boat and had lunch on the West side of Bangkok before going to Wat Arun. This Wat wasn't as large but gave you the ability to climb up to the top of one of the steeples to have a bird's eye view of the city. The stairs were almost at a vertical angle so being careful was important.

The next day we left Cara and took a two day trip to Khao Yai National Park. The Greenleaf Hostel at the park offered a day and a half tour of the area. We arrived a bit late and jumped into the hostel's pick up truck (our first of many rides in the back of an open vehicle) to head to the fist stop on the tour. Joining up with the group, we went swimming at a small waterfall outside the park. Afterward we got back in the truck and went to a Buddhist temple that had an underground cave portion for worshiping. The monks had different prayer areas where they would sit for hours to meditate. One included climbing into a very small hole in the wall that was just big enough to sit up in. Though, we were in the cave more to see bats and insects than to worship. The cave was a large area for collecting guano (bat droppings) that are worth quite a bit of money. During our trip our guide pointed out two tarantulas and caught a giant centipede and cave spider. The later two we got to hold/have put on us if wanted (which of course I did). We asked if any of the creatures were poisonous - the response we got was "a spider isn't poisonous until it bites you". Reassuring. Leaving the cave we headed for another one by a large crop field. Some of the crops included rubber and tapioca trees. This cave was famous for the amount of bats it housed. Every night around 5:30pm 2million wrinkle lipped bats left the cave to go hunting for food. The sight was incredible. It appeared to almost be a river of bats headed into the night. They weren't the only ones hunting either. Hawks waited every night for them to come out and would go grab a few for their own dinner. After a bit we headed back for the truck. Before we got in our leader walked up to us and had a small baggie of something. He looked at us and wispered "Drugs, drugs, I have drugs. Hold out your hand". Not quite sure what was going on we all did so. He gave us each a few little things from his baggie, told us to wait and headed around the group giving everyone some. After it was all passed out he said that these were an old Thailand drug that had been used for ages and that we should all put the seeds under our tongues. Without thinking we all did so. All of a sudden someone let out a little yelp. It started happening all over. It turned out that the seeds he gave to us weren't some form of old drug, they were popping seeds and would pop open when wet (sort of like pop rocks). So you got a little harsh burst under your tongue, and when you're not expecting it, it's pretty funny. He was of course cracking up and thoroughly enjoyed his joke. He said that when he was a kid at sleep overs he and his friends would put wet ones in the nose of whoever fell asleep first. Nice friend. The night ended back at the hostel. We headed to the local convient store and wound up at a small store where a group of Thai guys had created their own karaoke from a laptop. All of them were dancing in very strange ways and were very excited to have us join. Eventually they got us to sing and while we were belting out Bohemian Rhapsody, Andrew and Cliff saw that our new friends were snorting coke - explaining the strange dance moves. At one point on guy was lifting up his shirt and scratching himself. The group saw us noticing and yelled "Sexy Ticks!" and turned the scratching into a new dance move. The next day we saw all our friends again as tour guides around the park for the foreigners (luckily our guide was not one of them).
The day started off with a truck ride to the park. All of a sudden, after we had entered the perimeter, the truck stopped and our guide jumped out. He jetted off and just ran up a hill into the forest. We were all confused and were trying to look around for something that he might be running from. Just as quickly he jumped back out of the forest and was running full speed towards us. He arrived and threw something yellow at us. It took a second but we finally realized that the item was a snake! It was quickly slithering around the bed of the truck trying its best to get out. Ben was closest to the opening of the truck and was screaming and trying his best to get as far away from the snake as possible. Which of course led the guide to try and put the snake on him. Meanwhile Andrew and I were trying our best to get a good picture. The guide finally pulled the snake back out and let us exit the truck and get some good pictures of the yellow whip snake. He came up to Ben and said "You scream like ladies, yes?". The rest of the day mainly consisted of walking around the forest in search of animals. To do so we all had to don some very trendy tick pants. Animals we saw between both days - whip snake, scorpion, horn bill, black giant squirrel, regular red squirrel, macaque monkeys, samba deer, wrinkle lipped bat, centipede, tarantula, cave spider, monitor lizard, big turtle, barking deer. We ate lunch in the jungle out of leaves and tupperware that the guide had brought for us. It was a great meal, but the bees wouldn't leave us alone. Right before lunch we were searching for horn bills. On our journey we passed a nondescript hole in the ground. Our guide stopped, grabbed a long stick and started pushing it in and out of the hole. He didn't say anything, just kept dong it. All of a sudden he jumped up and whipped around. On the end of his stick was a giant scorpion. We were all freaking out and backing up as quickly as possible. After the scare subsided we inched closer and the guide picked up the creator and put it on my shoulder. Andrew was next. It was a very even tempered scorpion the guide said and wouldn't hurt us. Later we came upon a huge ficus tree. The guide told us it was possible to climb to the top, get on the inside of the tree and shimmy your way back down internally. Marie and I attempted, made it up quite a ways but couldn't go any hirer without being very afraid of falling. We then headed for a beautiful waterfall. The guide gave us an hour to explore so Marie and I hiked through the forest a little bit to see where the river went and then headed to the base of the waterfall. The last stop of the trip was to go pet some Samba deer. There is a hostel within the park and the foreigners feed the deer so they are basically tame. They are called Samba because when they walk it looks like they are dancing. It was a great day tromping through the forest but we were ready to get back on the bus and head for Bangkok.

Khao San Road was just how we had left it, except that during that night there was a police raid through the street. The police were riding their bikes down the road shooing vendors out of the area. We were buying food from a noodle stall at the time and the lady would make part of our food, move her cart a bit more down the street away from the cops, stop, make our food some more while watching out and then move a bit more. This process continued for quite awhile until finally our food was done and the police had left the vicinity. Once they had gone every vendor moved right back where they had been.

Day two in Bangkok we went to the National History Museum, the Snake Farm and the art museum. At the History Museum we learned a lot about the Kings of Thailand (they LOVE their kings). The current one is 83 years old and seems like an all around nice guy. In his spare time he travels to different villages giving free health care as well as paints/does photography/writes. There were all sorts of different rooms within the museum - including a game room. Sa-Ka is an ancient Thai game that looks like a lot of fun. After lunch we headed for the Snake Farm. It turned out we missed the milkings (which is what we had been excited to see) so we split up for a bit. Andrew and I still wanted to go see the snakes so we did and the rest sat around and chilled out for a bit. The farm was pretty cool. I learned a lot about snakes - including that female snakes can keep a male's sperm active inside them for awhile so that they can fertilize their eggs whenever they want instead of instantly. Then there was a snake showing. One of the handlers got bit because he was holding the snake in the wrong spot, but the guy didn't seem to mind too much. Then it was on to the art museum. This was a very cool, free, new age kind of place. Two of the country's princesses had exhibits. One was a collection of photos of places and things that the princess and seen/done. It was fun looking at the places she had been, but it seemed an awful lot like a facebook album. There were even dorky captions along with each photo. The other exhibit actually offended me. The princcess said she wanted to capture the beauty of women and had all sorts of inspiring quotes on the walls about inner strength and the such. When you went in and actually saw the photos though they all were basically Victoria Secrets shots. Each woman was scantily clad and very beautiful. So much for looking to show inner beauty. My favorite piece of art that I saw was a statement made out of boxes that said "I am a product of my up bringing". I completely agree with that message. We all have gone our own ways in life and have changed and developed, but deep down we still have all those things our families taught us from age zero. Andrew, Cliff and I finished early so we went to find out if any of the live exhibits were running. We stumbled in on these Thai drummers practicing their routine for their later performance. It was amazing! The group was just having fun and getting into the beat. It was much better than going to see their actual show I think.

That night a teacher from Andrew's school who was also traveling in Thailand met up with us. Her friend didn't speak much English but we tried our best. We had dinner and then took a night time cruise down the river. It was very beautiful. The boat passed some stilted houses, the Royal Barge Museum and a large Buddha that we hadn't gotten to see. After the boat we headed for the market to try and find a bug stand - you got to eat weird food when it's available. To now add to my list of things eaten is a large grasshopper and meal worms. The night ended with Marie and I dancing down the street singing "The Ants Go Marching".

A day trip to Ayutthaya was our next journey. The morning started with our very nice taxi driver - Mr. Chat. And chat he did. The drive to the bus station took almost twice as long because Mr. Chat drove slowly to point out all the monuments along the way. He also showed Ben (who was in the front seat) his passport multiple times to relay his life story. I asked him a question about Buddhism since he had one of the amulets in his window and he ended up giving me another amulet that he had in his glove box. He was very sweet and lived up to his name. A bus ride later we arrived in Ayutthaya and met Mr. Noi who took us around town for four hours for 250 Baht (a little more than $8). Ayutthaya was the previous capital of Thailand. In the 1700s the Burmese attacked the city, destroying many of the Wats and decapitating a vast majority of the Buddha statues. The sights in this part of the country contrasted vastly to Bangkok where everything is new and shimmering. We walked through many ruins and saw the famous Buddha head that has been enveloped by a tree. One of the places we stopped had ruins periodically through the fields. We wandered for awhile until we passed a lake. As we were watching the local birds pick for food, we saw what we thought was a large snake swimming in the middle of the water. Just the day before Andrew and I had learned there were over a hundred different types of snakes in Thailand, 32 of which were poisonous. A couple was walking by so we pointed it out to them and they corrected us and said that it was a large monitor lizard and that there was another one sunning itself by the Wat behind us. We headed that way but unfortunately scared the creature and it slithered back in it's hole before we could get a good picture. Not quite convinced our lake monster wasn't a snake we headed back to the water to find two more things making small waves. But then along the farther shore we saw a few more lizards so..maybe it wasn't a giant snake after all, but maybe it was! We returned to Bangkok and the Rainbow Hostel that now felt like home. At dinner I felt an itch on my upper arm, scratched, felt pain, lifted my sleeve and found a tick!! My first ever! Definitely freaked me out a bit. Who wants a parasite on them?? Well luckily my friends had an array of knowledge about ticks and suggested covering it with something so that it would let go and squirm out. Sun screen was all we had so that is what it was. But it didn't work. Next option was burning it off. Nope. Also not working. The last option was to just pull it off. I couldn't do it myself (sadly too scared) so Andrew took charge and offered to do the dirty work. Marie kindly offered me her hand and instead of holding it I accidentally clawed her as Andrew went to pull the thing off. After an apology to Marie and a thank you to Andrew, I was tick free again!

The next morning we said goodbye to Bangkok and headed out for Koh Chang Island. We bused out to Trat and made our possible first mistake. At one point the bus stopped and said anyone going to Koh Chang get off now, so we did. They dumped us at a single ticket sales counter that sold you a taxi ride to the ferry and the ferry pass for 150 B when all the guide books said that from Trat it would have been about 60B to get to the island. There wasn't much we could do, so we got the tickets and headed off on the taxi. We never did find out the price of the ferry...so maybe it wasn't actually a rip off, who knows. Our first night we stayed at the Jungle Way - a beautiful little place off the beaten path. We still had some of the afternoon left so Cliff and I went on a walk through the woods while the rest went running. The two of us met a dog on the way that we dubbed Rusty. Rusty became our guide through the paths. He eventually wandered off the main road, following a smaller path. We followed. The he got off the smaller path and moved onto and even smaller path. We followed. If he ever got too far ahead Rusty would turn around and make sure we were still there. Eventually it started getting late and we had to get back for dinner. I called out to him letting him know we were leaving and sure enough a little bit after we had turned around Rusty came gallivanting through the woods to show us the way out. There was an elephant camp near the hostel as well, but it was an extremely depressing place with a few elephants who were all chained up with very short reins. The rest of the evening was very peaceful. We walked through the dark to the nearest convenient store and only got really scared once when something started running at us in the bushes - we're still hoping it was a cat. The we sat on the hostel's porch for awhile playing with their dogs and lounging about, it was great.

Andrew and I are the early risers of the bunch so in the morning we went on a small hike and found an abandoned pool full of tadpoles. Along the way we also saw our first snake without a guide. It was probably a foot and a half long and was green and black. As always it was more scared of us than we were of it so it slithered away quickly.

Before we left China we had decided to try and see all aspects of the island and had found three different hostels to stay at for the three nights we were there. So after some breakfast we headed out for Cliff Cottage, our second stop. We had to grab a taxi which was really expensive. But when we tried to tell the driver that he laughed and said "What, are you going to walk?". Touche. Cliff Cottage was in a smaller town on the island, Bang Bao, a cute little fishing village. The place itself was set away from the town by about a ten minute walk. It was right on the cliffs and had a beautiful view of the sunset. We checked in, grabbed some lunch and went swimming. While we were out on the water, Andrew found some very cute crabs and we saw a jellyfish! Since we were there, we couldn't miss the sunset and all grabbed chairs to catch the view. Before it got too dark we left for dinner on the pier in Bang Bao. Getting back, Andrew, Cliff and I stayed up for awhile playing cards and then went out onto the cliff to lie down and watch the stars. The sight was even more gorgeous because the whole horizon was a row of lighted dots where the boats were. In the morning Andrew and I went hiking again through the woods on the adjacent cliff. Still having a bit of time when we got back, I gladly read in one of the hammocks on the hostel's deck. That day was one of the more exciting days on the island. We did a snorkeling tour of four islands - Koh Yak, Koh Rang Yai, Koh Loan and Koh Wai. The fish were wonderful. There were these large pastel colored ones that had intircate scribbles around their eyes. There were also a ton of sea urchins and cucumbers. The boat staff was hilarious and very lively. At one point a guy did a very bad magic show but had us all laughing through the process. One man got an urchin, brought it up and put it on his head for a bit. While snorkeling you would just be swimming through schools of fish. If you stayed still enough they would even come bite you! At one stop we got out onto the beach and they had a turtle sanctuary where we got to see some sea turtles that were going to be released soon. The day was a lot of fun, swimming around, reacquainting myself with snorkeling (thankfully I didn't swallow almost any sea water) and hanging out. But we all ended up with very bad sun burns the next day. In the evening we went in search of our final hostel - Ice Beach. This was by far the jankiest. When we arrived it looked like the place was shut down. There was no one around and you could tell all of the appliances had been shut off for awhile. We finally found a fellow guest who assured us that the place was active and if we waited long enough someone would come along. We waited and they did eventually come. The view from the place was beautiful, it was right on the beach, but the rest of the experience was not the greatest. We got dinner, booked our trip for Cambodia for the next morning and walked around for awhile. Sleeping was a bit difficult - the sun burn, plus a large amount of mosquitoes in my room, plus a large party going on dow the way, plus a cold I was trying to get over gave me trouble but I finally got some rest. In the morning we said goodbye to Thailand and hello to our next country.

A white person jumping around, acting crazy - that's what the Chinese want!

It has come! My three week vacation to Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia is tomorrow!! How do you pack for three weeks?? Well hopefully I have not forgotten anything too important and if I have, hopefully Thailand has it as well. It should be a great trip and I'll take notes so I remember everything to put in my blog when I return :)


Jess's friend Connie was in from Hong Kong visiting for the day. Connie went to Jess's undergrad for four years so she knows all about Western food. She has been missing Mexican food so went to the expat area of town and got some dinner. I ate four tacos! It was delicious.


Mangosteen! Today was a day of firsts. My friend, the guard, gave me one of his mangosteens - I had no idea what it was. It's a fruit with a really hard shell and you have to pressure a hole through to split the outside into two. Inside is something that looks like a bulb of garlic but it is mushy and sweet. It was tasty! After I hung out for a bit I went and met up with Jess and Marie. We went and finally got xitous! A xitou is a massage hair wash. A lot of the girls in our program get them all the time but every time Jess and I try to go something happens. So we finally did it. One of Jess's Chinese friend's from church took us to a place she knew and it was very upscale. It was a fun afternoon. I spent most of my time teaching my hair washer new words in English. The only problem is that China doesn't believe in conditioner the way we do, their hair is just naturally not tangled. Not so much with mine...especially since I haven't had a hair cut in 6 months and my hair is insanely long now. When I got put in the chair to get my hair brushed and blow dried, it was a mess and the guy didn't know what to do with it. It was even funnier that his pinky finger nail kept getting caught in my hair as he was blow drying it. (In China it is a sign of wealthy as a man if you have a really long pinky finger nail) But he got through and finally got my hair under control. Overall it was a fun new experience.


I was traveling home on my good ol' 74 when we tried to turn the corner and realized that a car had crashed into a cement truck in front of us. Don't worry, no one got hurt. They don't believe in bad car crashes here in China, I've only ever seen a few incidents and those have all been minor. Well our bus driver decided he was going to try and get around the accident and get through to keep moving on our way. He failed. He pulled up as far as he could go and then realized we were about to crash into a car parked on our right. So then we were stuck...He opened the door and rolled down his window and started shouting at the guys standing outside to help him try and maneuver our way out. My school was in viewing distance so I just hopped out of the open door and walked the rest of the way.


Four months ago, there was nothing here! Since then they built a huge construction site and created a new road, crazy.


The thing I love most about having a desk in the teacher's office is that many days I arrive to find something strange left for me. Usually it is food, but today it was this note. Sure enough, I opened my closet and there was a stack of dry noodles. I didn't actually destroy the note after reading, but I kept it secret :)


This notebook is my life in China and I always have it on me. It has all of my bus stops listed, directions to everywhere I want to go, it has Chinese symbols written in there, random Chinese words to remember, and anything else I deem as needed. Without it, I would be lost.


Jess and I spent the afternoon at Dongmen. The new thing to see was a orange juice stand that for 8 kuai you could watch them literally squeeze out orange juice, put it in a bottle and serve it to you fresh.


Today we went to DaPeng Fortress. It is out in the middle of nowhere LongGang and actually is right up against the sea. This is the location of the first battle of the Opium Wars. The place was built in the 1300s to protect the sea front. Now it is home to a whole community of people living inside the walls. You pay 15 kuai to get in and you get to walk around the streets of the fortress, passing families doing laundry, cooking dinner, playing with their dogs, etc. It was a little weird but I really enjoyed it. Then there is a little restaurant up at the top of one of the entrance gates where you can see over the tops of the roofs.


Game night! Cliff and I went out to Phill's and joined up with Matt, Marie, Ben, John, Lidia, Lisa and Marissa to have a fun filled time with games! One of Phill's Chinese friends, BeiBei, also joined. We played Settlers! It was great, I miss that game. And then we played a celebrity game and Mafia. BeiBei was very confused with Mafia. We ended with a round of King's Cup. Then Cliff and I were off again to join up with some people at the OCT for evening drinks.


Sorry...I had to take a picture of this eventually. At least once a week I walk past a display outside a restaurant with a dog hanging in the window :(


Ok, sorry, this is a ridiculous picture. But I got home and realized that I hadn't taken a picture yet that day. And this was a pretty momentous day so I felt I should log it somehow. Today was the first day that I uttered out loud that I was thinking of staying for another year. Luckily, I also found out today that two of my closest friends are also planning on staying. Yay!


So the last two weeks that I taught I gave Oral English tests to 500 students. This mostly consisted of me standing outside and having each student come out to me one at a time to answer a few questions. Main questions were - How are you? Why? What are you doing for Winter Holiday? Do you like this school? Why? My favorite answers/situations:
How are you? Good. Why are you good? Because I get to see you!
How are you? I am fine. Why are you fine? Because my English teacher told me that if anyone ever asks you how you are you should say 'I am fine'
-I gave almost everyone 10/10. So I had them all write their names (either English or Chinese spelled out) next to their Chinese characters and had their score next to it. One kid came out, wrote his name and automatically put a 9 next to his name. He realized what he had did and then looked all worried that I wasn't going to change the score until I started laughing.

Perfect Moments

Out in Longgang is an art district so we decided to go there for the day since we hadn't been before. We took the new Longgang subway to get there! The place was really cool and there were a number of stalls that the painters were actually working on their master pieces. There were a lot of replicas as well. And it was interesting because you could walk past other stalls and see people painting on big canvases that had paint by numbers on them to replicate a famous painting. I'm not sure if I would consider that art or not...


Cliff, Leah, Andrew and I headed out for Longgang to spend the night at Jess and Marie's. We went out for a Chinese dinner at a place the girls had been before. In typical "American at a Chinese restaurant" style, we got a picture menu and pointed at a few of the items, not quite sure what all we were getting. One of the dishes we were pretty sure was sweet and sour pork. When the waitress came and sat down the food she said the name of the dish. Andrew's eyes widened and he looked around at us and said "I'm pretty sure she just said this was dog". We called the waitress back over and asked her to repeat the name. She was saying "Go something something" and Andrew said Go was dog. We all decided it was a good thing because we all needed to try dog at least once before we leave and if this was it then we could get the experience out of the way. We each had at least one, but there were still a few pieces left over when we finished which would not be the case if it hadn't been dog, because it was actually pretty good. Just to make sure, I wrote down the characters of the dish so we could look it up at home. Everyone was sure it was and we all talked about the fact that we had finally knowingly ate dog. When we got back we got out the dictionary and found that the dish was called Guo Bao Rou. Yea...Gou is dog...not Guo....We ate a "batch of pot cooked meat", probably not dog. So now we have to go out again into the world and eat something we think is dog...


After Hong Kong I had to go back by myself because my contact teacher invited Fuat and I over to see his new apartment and go out to dinner. His apartment was really nice and I was happy for him that he's settling in. He's getting married in a couple weeks so he's all excited about his new living situations. Fuat and I even got to help him hang up his lucky door signs. Every apartment in China has these pretty much. So now we all have luck. The evening was fun and Fuat and I got a good chance to hang out and chat for awhile so that was nice. Two of my students who live in the neighborhood also joined us which was fun.


Happy New Years!!! For the big night, Cliff, Andrew, Jessica, Marie, Ben, Greg and I (the family) headed out for the great city of Hong Kong. We had been told that it was an awesome place to be for New Years and we wanted to be a part of the action. After dealing with some Visa stuff for our upcoming January vacation and checking into our hotel we were ready for the excitement. One of Jessica's college friends, Connie, lives in Hong Kong so she joined us for the evening as well. First we went and grabbed dinner at an Irish pub. It was mouth watering. I had a turkey melt sandwich. One of the few sandwiches I have had in China (the American staple food hasn't quite reached the East yet). Afterward we headed to find the rest of the CTLC partiers. When we reached the meeting point (20 minutes late) no one was around. So we decided to go out to the piers and see if we could find anyone/get a good view of the fireworks. There wasn't anyone there, but we weren't going to let that disappoint us. The boys went on a beer run and the girls went to try and figure out the best vantage point for viewing the show. In the end the boys actually were the ones to find the best spot. We had told them to meet us at one of the piers when they got back which was holding a big party on the top level, but you had to pay 350 HKD to get in. They couldn't find us so two of them went up to the party and asked if they could go in to look for us. The guards let them in and eventually the boys realized we weren't there so came back out again and found us. Well, the top of the pier was by far the best spot for the fireworks so we decided to see if we could all just get past the guards at the party. Sure enough, they let us all in and we promised we wouldn't drink anything. What they didn't know is that we brought all of our own stuff and ended up getting free sodas from the bar. The party was fun, it was good music and mostly foreigners. Our group found a spot and just hunkered in for an hour an a half to wait for the countdown. The moment finally came and the whole bay lit up with fireworks. We were right under the final building of the show and the fireworks started shooting out from the sides of the building! It was a great sight and I had good friends around me, it was perfect. After midnight we tried to find our way back to the rest of CTLC but it was going to take over an hour just to get to the area so instead we hiked it back to the hotel. In the morning we all got up and went to get breakfast at the Flying Pan - a 'to die for' American breakfast place. Again, perfect. We all sat around the table together eating pancakes and bagels, you couldn't ask for more.

Only speak English! Only speak English!

Grania (one of the students I'm closer with) invited me to her class's talent show. It was a ton of fun. All the students got up and did different songs and dances, including "We're all in this together" from High School Musical. There was tons of food that the head teacher had fun chucking at us. Luckily they didn't ask the teachers to perform, we just had to get up at the end and say a couple sentences about the class. They are one of my favorite's so I was happy that I could be there.


See post from 28th/29th. It finally was Wednesday! The performance was here! I got seven of my American friends to agree and come out to my school to help with the dance. Our program included a made up dance to a Chinese song, the Cupid Shuffle, the Electric Slide, and the Cotton Eyed Joe. This was our practice for the music teacher who was freaking out since he was overseeing the entire event. We actually did pretty dang good! After practicing for a bit the show started. There were twelve performances in all. Some dancing, singing, acting, Tai Chi, etc. The art class that I teach even each designed their own outfit and had a fashion show. Our dance came and went. The kids loved it, especially seeing all the new foreigners. And it actually went really well I think. Everyone afterward said they really liked it and enjoyed seeing our dancing. So in the end I think it was worth all the drama and frustration. And I want to send a shout out to Cliff, Andrew, Christy, Tremayne, Roz, Cara, and Jenna, and my ten students. Thank you so much for all your help and you all made the program great!


See post for Dec 27th. Ok, so now it's Tuesday. We still haven't been technically approved because a principal hasn't seen our dance yet. So we were told to get to the gym at 4:30 to dance on stage to show the heads of the school (and we had about 20 minutes of practice with the other girls so far). When we arrived in the gym the choir was on stage. They were still on stage at 5:30. We finally decided to go get dinner and come back later to see if we could get time on stage. We came back, the choir was gone, but another act had taken it's place. Finally after that one we got to get up on stage and get approval of our program. Thank goodness it worked well enough and the principal said he liked it. This picture is of one of the other performances. These two boys were my life savers. They are the two students who agreed early on to participate in my American line dance program. They are great dancers and were very excited to help out.


Ok, so look at my previous blog post on December 16th. As a refresher: I was asked to perform for our school's New Years Celebration, it was a mess figuring out our performance, and two days before the performance we still had not been approved by the principal to dance. So now it's Monday, the performance is on Wednesday. There was a big rehearsal with all the acts up on stage to figure out arrangements, microphones, etc. We were told to be there but then didn't actually get up and perform (thank god because we were not ready). So then the music teacher asked if he could meet with us at 730 that night to see and approve our performance. 730 rolled around and me, my two student dancers and Daniel, the singer, went to the music room to show off our stuff. After seeing our routine the music teacher informed us we needed to find 6-10 girls to add to our show. Great. So the students and I went on a mad search for girls that would be willing to come help out. They got some of their dance club members and I grabbed a couple of my students, got 10 and quickly taught them the dances. Then the music teacher said he wanted to make our dances more dynamic and therefore half of us should dance the American line dances in one direction while the others dance in the opposite direction. After about a half hour I finally got it through to him that we would all end up running into each other on stage because we did not have enough time to figure it all out. He finally dropped it and at 9pm we were done with rehearsal.


For Christmas I made each of my China family members a XiYangYang (a VERY popular cartoon in China) baggie. I found them at Book City and couldn't help but get them. Three weeks full of cross stitching got all six bags finished in time for me to hand them out at our family dinner.


Christmas :) For being away from home and family I had a really nice Christmas. My China family headed to Longgang for the day, watched some Christmas movies and had a wonderful meal. We had spaghetti with full fledged meat sauce, eggplant Parmesan, real salad (we rarely get that here), fruit salad, garlic bread and no-bake cookies for dessert! I even got to skype with my biological family back home as they opened presents. We even got to celebrate Greg's birthday and got him a cake which made his day. It was perfect as perfect can be.


Christmas Eve! All of CTLC went to a hotel in Dongmen for the evening. We had a big Chinese/American banquet. The food consisted of french fries and mystery meat. It was decent. After dinner was entertainment. This included some singing, instrument playing and a great rap from Conner and Ben about bingqilin (ice cream). Afterward it was off to the rooms for some wine and games. We had a nice evening chilling out in the hotel. At one point we went into Dongmen to look for food and alcohol and came upon the remnants of a silly string war. Dongmen looked like a natural disaster had just occurred. Overall it was a great Christmas Eve.


Outside my tutee's house is a bunch of street market stalls. This stall had a black chicken! I found out later that it is just a different breed of chicken.


Jessie asked a couple of us to come to her school today to help her out with a Christmas party her school wanted to her to run. Five of us spent the afternoon trying our best to control the large hoard of middle school students. Justin and I were put in charge of Christmas carol musical chairs. We got one group of students to sing Jingle Bells while the other twenty kids quickly walked around 19 plastic stools. Every time the music stop a large pushing match would break out over who got to sit down. Luckily, during the entire event, only one kid started bleeding from the activity. Afterward Jessie's contact teacher took us all out for a nice Chinese dinner. He had a lot of fun teaching us the Chinese words for different things and it was a great meal.