Hello everyone, decided to get an update in over my lunch break, I have class in an hour so I don't know if I'll finish in time. Regardless I'll get 'yall up to speed. But let me first make note of the weather in Liuzhou today, the weather today is awesome. It's 63 degrees and SUNNY. Sunny is a big deal because ever since I have arrived here it has been rainy, and when its not raining its cloudy. Yesterday was sunny for a few hours, but then around noon the clouds rolled in... Today on the otherhand, there is not a cloud in the sky and it's awesome. It's one of those days where you walk outside and you finally know that winter is over and spring and warmer weather has arrived. Hopefully it can stay this way for a while and not race to being too hot where I can't go running.
Back to the day-to-day updates, there hasn't been too much to report. I'm working, how exciting can work really get? I do have a few stories. So leaving off from last tuesday... Wednesday really is the only night of too much significance. Wednesday night Stephen calls me and tells me that Edison and William (teachers at another school) were coming over to hang out. So we're hanging out drinking some beer in his room and it gets to about 1am and I decide that I probably should head to bed since, unlike stephen and laura, I have lessons on thursdays. So I'm brushing my teeth and I was getting annoyed with our faucet because it was leaking and it didn't hang over the sink all the way so half of the water ended up on the counter, making a mess. I know this probably doesn't make sense but when I say faucet I mean more like a spigot. So I try seeing if I could twist the spigot over the sink (it screwed into the pipes). So I give it a little twist and then all of a sudden THE FAUCET BREAKS OFF. Water starts spraying everywhere and I rush back to stephens room and say "uhhhh Stephen, we have a problem" we rush out and start trying to figure out where the shut off valve is as well as trying to direct the water down the drain. Of course there is no shut off valve so we call our coordinator who lives two floors above us. She comes down in her pajamas and calls Mr Li, the maintenance guy he says there is an emergency shut off valve in the bathroom, but there wasn't. So he told us to go outside to the master water valve and to turn off the water to our entire complex and that he would come fix it in the morning. So after about 45 minutes of running around like a chicken with its head cut off the water finally stopped, to much relief. Mr Li, comes the next morning and installs a new faucet to my sink, everything is fine. I was going to take a picture of the spigot to show how thin the metal was where it was broken, about 1mm thick.
So after all the craziness, that weekend Laura and I went to go explore a different part of the city. Laura really wanted to go to this park where supposedly there is an indoor climbing wall. So we take the bus to the complete opposite side of the town and walked around the park for a couple of hours, and never found said wall. BUT we did find out that liuzhou has a "country club" whose golf facilities are a driving range (but it did sport a pretty posh clubhouse). Then in the park we climbed up one of the mountain, karst things and got a really interesting view of the city. We found out that this park will soon have a massive water park, filled with water slides and wave pool. But we could also see the surrounding city quite well. We were close to the industrial part of town and it was crazy seeing how massive some of these factories are. Lastly, we happened across and outdoor roller rink, that had several obstacles in it. Later that night Jimmy (music teacher at my school) calls me saying that he's meeting some friends. I had nothing going on so I decided to join him. We started off at this lounge type of place but then his friends wanted to go get food. So we walk down the street to a very typical chinese restaurant. Of course outside they had Gou Rou (dog) and Tu Rou (rabbit). And obviously they got the dog meat. So we sit down and his friends start telling me that they got the rabbit, when I clearly saw them take the dog meat and start cutting it up. So it was finally served and I just had to do a "when in Rome" kind of thing. Dog meat, isn't too bad. It's just a very tender red meat. I won't go out of my way to eat it again but if it's served I'll eat some. Now as I finish reporting on this weekend I remember why it was not very exciting, I had a pretty nasty cold, probably from all the rain we had.
So this past week was a pretty good week. On monday I found out that grades 1 and 2 have exams on thursday and friday so we wouldn't have to teach lessons then. LONG WEEKEND! I was thinking of going to Yangshuo and surprising everyone there but after talking to them, they wanted me to come the next weekend, so theres no sense in going to the same place two weekends in a row. So wednesday Edison said he could get some cheap tickets to the cinema in town and that he wanted us to come see a movie with him. Sounded good to me so wednesday night I saw Battle of LA. Movie was okay, if you're in the mood for a big loud action movie, with not too much plot you'd enjoy it. So after the movie Stephen and Xiao Liao went home, so Edison, William and I went to Time Bar for some beers, after hanging out there for a bit Edison wen't home and William and I went to Soho for a while, and then later to Music Box. I have to say William is on a whole different level than me.
So after a very late night, I crashed at Williams apartment because he lives about 10 minutes away walking from the city center, and I didn't feel like taking a cab back to my place. I woke up and walked along the river for a while, eventually catching the bus back to my apartment. For the most part I took this weekend pretty easy. Friday night, Laura and I went into town, meeting up with Edison, William and Edison's co-worker CC. We all hung out at Time Bar for a while and then made our way to Soho. For whatever reason, at around 1am I got this terrible headache and got really tired so that kinda put a damper on things, but regardless I still had a good time.
Sunday Laura and I went to town to check out this gondola thing that we see every day when we take the bus to town. It goes up one of the largest Mountain/Karst thing in Liuzhou. So we went to the ticket booth to check it out and it was 40 Kuai to go up and 50 down, way more than I was willing to pay. So we just explored the park some more. It was really interesting seeing how parks in China really are the social centers for many people. There were dozens of people playing traditional instruments and dancing. I found another sign of the death of communism in China, there was this walkway in the park that had the logos of pretty much every major car manufacturer in the world made out of stones. So after walking around the park we crossed the river and happened upon one of the old city gates from the city wall. We paid our 2 kuai to go walk around on the wall. The wall was really old, built in the 1300's. I think Liuzhou is even older, its unfortunate that there aren't more artifacts like this around town... well, that I've seen thus far. Finally after making our way home I sat down at my computer for about 30 minutes and I get a call from Jimmy asking if I wanted to go to his friends house for dinner. I agree, because I hopefully could learn some more chinese, and have a pretty good meal. Dinner was pretty fun, It was in one of the nicest apartments that I've been in while in Liuzhou and the food was good, Pork. After dinner I came home to go for a night run in Longtian park because when I tried earlier in the day the place was packed.
So backing up to friday, I was searching around the internet and found a half marathon that I could do in Singapore on May 28th. It looked really cool because you got to run at night. I looked up flights to Singapore from Hong Kong (one night train away) and they're only 120 dollars. I couldn't believe it so I got really excited. The next day I went to go register and found out that the race was full. I sent the race director an e-mail trying to pull the "i'm kinda fast card" but this morning I got a reply, no dice. But I did find several other races in the general area. One race is in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia on May 1st. Looking up flights this one is do-able but on the expensive side (320 dollars). There also is a race in Kuala Lumpur, on June 26th. Flights are pretty cheap for that one. So I'll likely do that one. But I need your imput, should I try for the race in Kota Kinabalu? I would really like to run in it but 320 dollars is just over half of my monthly salary. Anyone want to contribute to the fund?????
Monday, March 28, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
First Days Teaching and Nanning
So picking up where I left off, Monday morning was a pretty big day because it was the first day that I'd be teaching all on my own. Before class I met with Stephen to go over some of the topics chosen from the textbook that we teach from. So I felt I was pretty prepared to start teaching. But when actual class rolled around, things didn't go so smoothly. I started going through the material with the kids but most were disinterested except for a select few and then I got to the end of the material with about 20 minutes of class left. So I felt kinda stuck, so I started going over some of the material again, trying to explain words that they didn't know (this has to be the single hardest thing to do when you don't know how to translate a word and having to explain a word in very simple language). I then saw the kids starting to drift off and I knew I was boring them to death so I was a little disheartened. So I decided to play hangman with the kids for the last five minutes of class, this woke them up a bit. They love guessing the worst letters for the game (W and X come to mind), another thing that makes it difficult is sometimes they say what the letter sounds like opposed to the name of the letter. Regardless things were pretty difficult my first day, but once I got through a couple of classes I started coming up with better things to do with the class time.
So the rest of the week was not too exciting, just filled with more teaching, going out to eat and playing pool at the pool hall. But the weekend was pretty exciting. The group from Yangshuo had been talking about going to Beihai for a beach weekend. Looking at the weather it wasnt going to be too nice for a beach weekend (speaking of weather the weather has been terrible here as well, 50's and raining most of the time). So they decided to go to Nanning, the largest city in Guang Xi province. I wasn't really sure if I was going to go until saturday morning, the day I left. So I wake up on saturday morning at around 9:30. I check the train schedule for trains to Nanning and there is one that leaves at about 11:30. So, I figured that would be the one to get because the Liuzhou people got there the night prior. So I tried calling them to see if they could meet them at the train station or where to go. Nobody answered. I tried calling several times and then it came too late to catch that train. So there was a train that left at 1:30, I could catch that one, but I didnt want to go without getting a hold of any of the people I would be meeting. Then I start chatting with Hannah (Chinese university student that worked at Greenway over chinese new year and summer) and she said that she was going to Nanning and knew the plan of meeting everyone. She was going to take a train from Beihai to Nanning that would arrive about half an hour before my train from Liuzhou, so this sounded like a good plan. With a plan in motion I needed to get moving as quickly as I could because I had about 90 minutes to pack, go to the train station, buy a ticket and board the train. So I threw some clothes in my backpack, ran to the grocery store to grab a roll of Oreos (my designated comfort food in china) and got on the bus to the train station.
So once I got to the train station I bought a train ticket without too much of a problem and got on the train. Everything going smoothly. Until I sat down. I realized that I had left my passport in my apartment. In china to check into any sort of hotel you need to provide your passport and visa information to the hotel or hostel that your staying at. So I started getting nervous, thinking I might not be able to spend the night in Nanning. So I finally got a hold of the Yangshuo crew, told them my situation. They told me all I really had to do was write my info on a sheet of paper. So I figured if worse came to worse and I couldn't stay at the hostel I could catch a 2am train back to liuzhou. But then I had Stephen get a key from Joanna for my apartment and then he called me and told me my numbers. I was in the clear.
The rest of the train ride was uneventful, tried talking to several Chinese guys to little success. Upon arrival hannah was there waiting for me outside the exit. So that was good seeing her. Our next mission was to find the others. They told us that they were in some big department store in the city center, so we headed that way. We spent a good hour and a half trying to find them. They had told us that they were right outside of a Pizza Hut, so we went there and waited. We called them again and they described the scene some more, KFC around the corner, hundreds of parked motor bikes, large video screen, all were there but they weren't. So we asked a pizza hut worker if there were any more pizza huts in Nanning, of course there were three of them and both were a few km away in opposite directions. So we called the group again and then they had figured out that we were near the Pizza Hut near the Walmart.... wait, am I describing America or China...? Anyways we start walking towards Walmart because we knew there would only be one in Nanning, and alas we were reunited.
After finding the group we decided to walk the streets a bit and explore the city. We went off to a street market to check out the strange food and trinkets that were sold. We happened upon a stand that was selling alligator which was quite a shock to the europeans. It wasn't to me because I've eaten gator when I was in the Florida Keys (It is also sold at the minnesota state fair). Of course we got some, we had both the meat and the skin. Both were good but not too remarkable. So the next thing I wanted to do was go to Walmart because it could quite possibly be the most american place in china. Side Note: I'm surprised Walmart is in china because as a company Walmart is quite possibly the antithesis of the principles that the chinese government was founded on. Wal Mart being very capitalist, not allowing workers to join unions etc. Side Note over, we went into the walmart and it looked, well... exactly like a walmart, full of samples and brightly colored signs and everything. The only difference was chinese things were sold there opposed to american. So after spending way too much time in the hot and very crowded walmart, we headed to the hostel.
The hostel was about a 5km walk away so it was a good hike. The hostel we stayed at was possibly the coolest hostel I've ever seen. It was on the 11th floor of a pretty ritzy high rise apartment complex. It also quite expensive, 75 RMB or $11.50. Yeah, thats expensive by chinese standards (i was expecting to pay around 40). So at the hostel we just gelled out for a bit after a day of running around. So around 10:30 everyone in the hostel, our group,the two other groups there and the hostel owner head out to the bar, first stopping at an ex-pat bar because the beers are cheaper there, and then to a really big chinese bar. Long story short, I went to bed at around 4:30, and I was early.
The next morning I get up at 10:30 after a pretty good sleep, then I start the process of getting everyone else going finally making it out of the hostel at 12:30. We get some lunch at a local place, try to get rid of the crazy girl that had been following us for about 12 hours (ask me about this story). catch cabs to the train station and take off. I get home around 6pm Xiao Liao cooked me and stephen dinner, and I prepped for my lessons. went to bed.
Monday, typical monday, Today, typical. Went out to eat with stephen and xiao liao, were going to eat gou rou (look it up) but then settled on yang rou.
Bedtime.
So the rest of the week was not too exciting, just filled with more teaching, going out to eat and playing pool at the pool hall. But the weekend was pretty exciting. The group from Yangshuo had been talking about going to Beihai for a beach weekend. Looking at the weather it wasnt going to be too nice for a beach weekend (speaking of weather the weather has been terrible here as well, 50's and raining most of the time). So they decided to go to Nanning, the largest city in Guang Xi province. I wasn't really sure if I was going to go until saturday morning, the day I left. So I wake up on saturday morning at around 9:30. I check the train schedule for trains to Nanning and there is one that leaves at about 11:30. So, I figured that would be the one to get because the Liuzhou people got there the night prior. So I tried calling them to see if they could meet them at the train station or where to go. Nobody answered. I tried calling several times and then it came too late to catch that train. So there was a train that left at 1:30, I could catch that one, but I didnt want to go without getting a hold of any of the people I would be meeting. Then I start chatting with Hannah (Chinese university student that worked at Greenway over chinese new year and summer) and she said that she was going to Nanning and knew the plan of meeting everyone. She was going to take a train from Beihai to Nanning that would arrive about half an hour before my train from Liuzhou, so this sounded like a good plan. With a plan in motion I needed to get moving as quickly as I could because I had about 90 minutes to pack, go to the train station, buy a ticket and board the train. So I threw some clothes in my backpack, ran to the grocery store to grab a roll of Oreos (my designated comfort food in china) and got on the bus to the train station.
So once I got to the train station I bought a train ticket without too much of a problem and got on the train. Everything going smoothly. Until I sat down. I realized that I had left my passport in my apartment. In china to check into any sort of hotel you need to provide your passport and visa information to the hotel or hostel that your staying at. So I started getting nervous, thinking I might not be able to spend the night in Nanning. So I finally got a hold of the Yangshuo crew, told them my situation. They told me all I really had to do was write my info on a sheet of paper. So I figured if worse came to worse and I couldn't stay at the hostel I could catch a 2am train back to liuzhou. But then I had Stephen get a key from Joanna for my apartment and then he called me and told me my numbers. I was in the clear.
The rest of the train ride was uneventful, tried talking to several Chinese guys to little success. Upon arrival hannah was there waiting for me outside the exit. So that was good seeing her. Our next mission was to find the others. They told us that they were in some big department store in the city center, so we headed that way. We spent a good hour and a half trying to find them. They had told us that they were right outside of a Pizza Hut, so we went there and waited. We called them again and they described the scene some more, KFC around the corner, hundreds of parked motor bikes, large video screen, all were there but they weren't. So we asked a pizza hut worker if there were any more pizza huts in Nanning, of course there were three of them and both were a few km away in opposite directions. So we called the group again and then they had figured out that we were near the Pizza Hut near the Walmart.... wait, am I describing America or China...? Anyways we start walking towards Walmart because we knew there would only be one in Nanning, and alas we were reunited.
After finding the group we decided to walk the streets a bit and explore the city. We went off to a street market to check out the strange food and trinkets that were sold. We happened upon a stand that was selling alligator which was quite a shock to the europeans. It wasn't to me because I've eaten gator when I was in the Florida Keys (It is also sold at the minnesota state fair). Of course we got some, we had both the meat and the skin. Both were good but not too remarkable. So the next thing I wanted to do was go to Walmart because it could quite possibly be the most american place in china. Side Note: I'm surprised Walmart is in china because as a company Walmart is quite possibly the antithesis of the principles that the chinese government was founded on. Wal Mart being very capitalist, not allowing workers to join unions etc. Side Note over, we went into the walmart and it looked, well... exactly like a walmart, full of samples and brightly colored signs and everything. The only difference was chinese things were sold there opposed to american. So after spending way too much time in the hot and very crowded walmart, we headed to the hostel.
The hostel was about a 5km walk away so it was a good hike. The hostel we stayed at was possibly the coolest hostel I've ever seen. It was on the 11th floor of a pretty ritzy high rise apartment complex. It also quite expensive, 75 RMB or $11.50. Yeah, thats expensive by chinese standards (i was expecting to pay around 40). So at the hostel we just gelled out for a bit after a day of running around. So around 10:30 everyone in the hostel, our group,the two other groups there and the hostel owner head out to the bar, first stopping at an ex-pat bar because the beers are cheaper there, and then to a really big chinese bar. Long story short, I went to bed at around 4:30, and I was early.
The next morning I get up at 10:30 after a pretty good sleep, then I start the process of getting everyone else going finally making it out of the hostel at 12:30. We get some lunch at a local place, try to get rid of the crazy girl that had been following us for about 12 hours (ask me about this story). catch cabs to the train station and take off. I get home around 6pm Xiao Liao cooked me and stephen dinner, and I prepped for my lessons. went to bed.
Monday, typical monday, Today, typical. Went out to eat with stephen and xiao liao, were going to eat gou rou (look it up) but then settled on yang rou.
Bedtime.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Liuzhou
So when I left off last time I wrote about my final few days in Yangshuo. I really enjoyed my time there. But now after my weekend in Nanning (which I will get to later) I really think the people is what made Yangshuo so great. I feel that they route I took was an ideal transition to life in china because Yangshuo is a very western city by chinese standards so it allowed me some time to transition from western culture to a full on chinese culture that I have here in Liuzhou. So yes, here a more of a rundown of the past two weeks to finally get up to speed on my blog.
On Monday morning, the 28th Mr Meng drove me to the Yangshuo bus station to take a bus directly from Yangshuo to Liuzhou, where someone from the school would pick me up. So everything went smoothly until I actually got to Liuzhou. When I got off the bus I was expecting either the headmasters of the school, who I met a few days prior, or someone with a sign with my name on it, like when Tina picked me up at the airport in Guilin. But of course neither were there and I was given almost no direction on where to go or do. So I just stood... and stood... and stood. For about an hour. While I was standing countless taxi and tuk tuk drivers were asking me where I wanted to go, and that they could take me. One even had the gall to ask for 100 kuai for a ride. I declined. So I figured I probably should call Isabella. I of course only had Isabella's phone number on my computer which I didn't want to pull out in the middle of a busy street in china. So I made a plan. I was going to go to a noodle shop, open my computer there (where fewer people would see) and then go back across the street to where there were several phones that you could pay several kuai to use. So I started proceeding with my plan. While I was in the middle of eating my noodles this guy comes up to me, starts talking really fast in chinese and so I didn't understand him. I figured he was trying to sell me something so I started repeating "wo bu yao" (i dont want it). Then he pulls out his cell phone and calls someone and puts the phone to my ear. On the other end is Joanna, the foreign teacher coordinator at my school. So this was my guy. Apparently he was walking around for half an hour trying to find me, which I don't know how that happened because I was standing outside the bus station for an hour, and the bus came right on time. Regardless I made it and everything is good.
So when I arrived at school I was quickly introduced to all of the other foreign teachers, Stephen from Ireland, Freda from Ghana, Elana from Latvia, and Laura from England. All are pretty nice people as usual. So after meeting them I was shown my apartment. I was pretty surprised because the place is pretty nice in comparison to the dorms in Yangshuo. Granted, I don't have the same view but the amenities are a bit nicer (I have a two bedroom to myself so if anyone wants to stop by YOU'RE MORE THAN WELCOME!!!). So, my first night the teachers take me out to eat, a nice gesture that I was very appreciative of. So the next few days were all pretty similar because I spent time observing classes, which to me seems pretty uneventful and very similar to my training classes because I just spent about 10 minutes each class introducing myself and answering the kids questions about America. Now this reminds me of something. The school I'm at here in Liuzhou, is like the Taj Mahal compared to the school in Yangshuo. In every way this school is nicer. I guess the school in Liuzhou has more basketball courts. So if thats how you want to measure a school then, I guess yangshuo is better. I haven't taken any pictures here of Liuzhou yet, but I'll make sure to take some of the school. It's really nice.
So events that have happened in Liuzhou... On the 3rd day I was here a chinese teacher comes up to me and tells me that stephen is going to his friends house tonight to eat dinner. I was slightly confused by this because I had never met this teacher before but if Stephen was going it probably was legit. So, that night stephen and I hop in a cab to his friends house. It was really fun just hanging out eating dinner in they way they do social dinners, Hotpot (i think i explained this already). So after eating dinner for like 2 hours, I'm told we're going to the city center for a few beers and that we're not going to be out that late. Well "not that late" turned into 3am. Luckily I didn't have class until 11. The next night stephen and I start doing the same routine but we make sure get back early because we both had early class. So on friday me and stephen decide to go to the city center with his girlfriend where there is this massive pool hall where they charge for tables by the hour. So we play for an hour or so and then we decide to go to a bar, but something more low key. So Stephen knew of a spot so we went there. But after about 15 minutes one of stephens chinese friends came and told us to come with him. So we follow him and he leads us to a KTV bar where he has a room rented. So KTV for those who don't know is karaoke, but where you rent private rooms so you only embarrass yourself to your friends rather than an entire bar. So we spent our evening there which was a pretty good time. After friday night, my weekend went very slow. I slept in really late on Saturday and didn't really get out until 3 in the afternoon. I basically went running and went to dinner with stephen and xiao liao.
So I'll talk about running some, because my blog is titled running through china. So. Running in Liuzhou actually has been suprisingly good. I live really close to a very large park called Longtian park. Its pretty big and has several miles of roads which makes it a decent running spot. The main problem is that the park can get really really busy, particularly around lunch time, when its most convenient for me to run. So I have to do a lot of weaving. One nice thing about the park is that I've notice the air is significantly better in the park than on the regular streets so thats better than breathing the polluted air of typical chinese cities. An intersting thing about the park is that the chinese love putting little carnival things everywhere, gokarts, bumpercars, boats etc. It was like this in yangshuo too. But longtian park touts itself about being undeveloped but it has all this stuff.... I don't really get it. Also, this is nothing new but chinese love trying and failing at being discrete at taking pictures of westerners, particularly when I'm running. They'll pretend to be taking a picture of something (most of the time is like a tree which gives it away) and then turning their camera to me at the last second. When I catch them doing this I usually try to make some sort of face to show that I know what they're doing. They also love yelling hello to me.
Okay, I'm tired. I didnt sleep much last night in Nanning, and I promise I'll get up to date tomorrow.
On Monday morning, the 28th Mr Meng drove me to the Yangshuo bus station to take a bus directly from Yangshuo to Liuzhou, where someone from the school would pick me up. So everything went smoothly until I actually got to Liuzhou. When I got off the bus I was expecting either the headmasters of the school, who I met a few days prior, or someone with a sign with my name on it, like when Tina picked me up at the airport in Guilin. But of course neither were there and I was given almost no direction on where to go or do. So I just stood... and stood... and stood. For about an hour. While I was standing countless taxi and tuk tuk drivers were asking me where I wanted to go, and that they could take me. One even had the gall to ask for 100 kuai for a ride. I declined. So I figured I probably should call Isabella. I of course only had Isabella's phone number on my computer which I didn't want to pull out in the middle of a busy street in china. So I made a plan. I was going to go to a noodle shop, open my computer there (where fewer people would see) and then go back across the street to where there were several phones that you could pay several kuai to use. So I started proceeding with my plan. While I was in the middle of eating my noodles this guy comes up to me, starts talking really fast in chinese and so I didn't understand him. I figured he was trying to sell me something so I started repeating "wo bu yao" (i dont want it). Then he pulls out his cell phone and calls someone and puts the phone to my ear. On the other end is Joanna, the foreign teacher coordinator at my school. So this was my guy. Apparently he was walking around for half an hour trying to find me, which I don't know how that happened because I was standing outside the bus station for an hour, and the bus came right on time. Regardless I made it and everything is good.
So when I arrived at school I was quickly introduced to all of the other foreign teachers, Stephen from Ireland, Freda from Ghana, Elana from Latvia, and Laura from England. All are pretty nice people as usual. So after meeting them I was shown my apartment. I was pretty surprised because the place is pretty nice in comparison to the dorms in Yangshuo. Granted, I don't have the same view but the amenities are a bit nicer (I have a two bedroom to myself so if anyone wants to stop by YOU'RE MORE THAN WELCOME!!!). So, my first night the teachers take me out to eat, a nice gesture that I was very appreciative of. So the next few days were all pretty similar because I spent time observing classes, which to me seems pretty uneventful and very similar to my training classes because I just spent about 10 minutes each class introducing myself and answering the kids questions about America. Now this reminds me of something. The school I'm at here in Liuzhou, is like the Taj Mahal compared to the school in Yangshuo. In every way this school is nicer. I guess the school in Liuzhou has more basketball courts. So if thats how you want to measure a school then, I guess yangshuo is better. I haven't taken any pictures here of Liuzhou yet, but I'll make sure to take some of the school. It's really nice.
So events that have happened in Liuzhou... On the 3rd day I was here a chinese teacher comes up to me and tells me that stephen is going to his friends house tonight to eat dinner. I was slightly confused by this because I had never met this teacher before but if Stephen was going it probably was legit. So, that night stephen and I hop in a cab to his friends house. It was really fun just hanging out eating dinner in they way they do social dinners, Hotpot (i think i explained this already). So after eating dinner for like 2 hours, I'm told we're going to the city center for a few beers and that we're not going to be out that late. Well "not that late" turned into 3am. Luckily I didn't have class until 11. The next night stephen and I start doing the same routine but we make sure get back early because we both had early class. So on friday me and stephen decide to go to the city center with his girlfriend where there is this massive pool hall where they charge for tables by the hour. So we play for an hour or so and then we decide to go to a bar, but something more low key. So Stephen knew of a spot so we went there. But after about 15 minutes one of stephens chinese friends came and told us to come with him. So we follow him and he leads us to a KTV bar where he has a room rented. So KTV for those who don't know is karaoke, but where you rent private rooms so you only embarrass yourself to your friends rather than an entire bar. So we spent our evening there which was a pretty good time. After friday night, my weekend went very slow. I slept in really late on Saturday and didn't really get out until 3 in the afternoon. I basically went running and went to dinner with stephen and xiao liao.
So I'll talk about running some, because my blog is titled running through china. So. Running in Liuzhou actually has been suprisingly good. I live really close to a very large park called Longtian park. Its pretty big and has several miles of roads which makes it a decent running spot. The main problem is that the park can get really really busy, particularly around lunch time, when its most convenient for me to run. So I have to do a lot of weaving. One nice thing about the park is that I've notice the air is significantly better in the park than on the regular streets so thats better than breathing the polluted air of typical chinese cities. An intersting thing about the park is that the chinese love putting little carnival things everywhere, gokarts, bumpercars, boats etc. It was like this in yangshuo too. But longtian park touts itself about being undeveloped but it has all this stuff.... I don't really get it. Also, this is nothing new but chinese love trying and failing at being discrete at taking pictures of westerners, particularly when I'm running. They'll pretend to be taking a picture of something (most of the time is like a tree which gives it away) and then turning their camera to me at the last second. When I catch them doing this I usually try to make some sort of face to show that I know what they're doing. They also love yelling hello to me.
Okay, I'm tired. I didnt sleep much last night in Nanning, and I promise I'll get up to date tomorrow.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Yep, okay, fell way behind again. Anyways I'll dive right into it. 2 weeks ago February 18th, Isabella rounded up the crew to take us on an excursion to Xing Ping. A small town near where the imagery on the of the 20¥ bill. I took the requisite picture at the spot so I will post that soon once I figure out what to do with my photos (my HD is nearly full). But before we got to Xing Ping we stopped at a very small village where many of the traditional Chinese scroll paintings and fans that you see at the shops in Yangshuo are made. So we strolled through there for a bit, looking at various artists work. So, from there we continue on to Xing Ping and board one of the river rafts. Now, they advertise that the rafts are "bamboo rafts" but the bamboo they use is an odd white color that is really slippery when wet. I've never seen it in nature. So we embark on our tour and its a pretty chilly day and we're riding up stream on a boat thats powered by a motor cycle engine with an extended sort of driveshaft with a propeller on the end. It was a pretty fun ride, and cool to see the karst formations rise straight out of the water. I took quite a few pictures from here. It was funny for us because like usual we were as much of an attraction to the chinese tourists as the scenery. At the turn around point there was a formation where supposedly there are 9 horses hidden in the rocks. I think I found three or four. More of a mind game than anything. After the boat cruise we drove back to Yangshuo and that was pretty much the day.
The next day was a pretty low key day. The group just hung out at the school until about 1 or so when I decided to go running. The others were going to go to mimosas to use the internet because it was down at the school as usual. So I went for my longest run so far in China 70 minutes. When I returned nobody had left for mimosas because apparently tom broke the washing machine drain while it was draining and flooded his bathroom. Smooth. After that we went to mimosas and took it easy.
Sunday. At brunch Isabella asked if we would like to go on a bike ride to Moon Hill. Moon Hill, being one of the biggest attractions in Yangshou couldn't be one to miss out on. So Isabella pulls out several bikes that the school owns. The bikes were no race bikes by any means but it got the job done. I think I made Amelia have a heart attack by the amount of time I would ride no-handed (about 75 percent of the ride). Anyways on the ride Tom was being his usual self saying "Ni Hao" to every chinese person he saw and saying "Dui" to everything said to him. Then somebody made the grave mistake of telling him how to say "I love you" which he then proceeded to start saying to every girl he saw. Other than Tom making a bunch of friends the bike ride was nice. It was a really nice sunny day which seemed to happen every weekend in Yangshuo, good timing weather. So on our ride we made our first stop at "The Big Banyan Tree". The tree is exactly what it says. A 1400 year old Banyan tree. It was cool to see that parts of the branches had reached the ground and made new roots so it looked like a tree with multiple trunks. So we did the usual thing, walked around it three times for good luck. After looking at the tree we went over to the little market. There was a guy with three monkeys tethered to a little stand that you could pay to get your picture taken with. I didn't get my picture taken because I felt it was a cruel situation for the monkeys. So I just took a picture of them. After Banyan tree we continued on to Moon Hill. We all were pretty hungry when we got there so we stopped at the over priced café at the bottom and got fried rice. Once charged and ready to go we made our voyage up the 800 some steps to Moon Hill. The climb isnt all that scenic because you're hiking up through a forest but once you get to the top there is a pretty impressive view. On this day we ran into a group of climbers that we had seen around town, climbing up the under side of the formation. Then we saw this guy pulling himself up the middle of the arch by his ropes. They were trying to get as high as they can so they could backflips off of the hill. It was pretty impressive to see. The guys we talked to were a part of a group they made called "Organic Hobo" Basically a group of guys going around the world seeing how sustainable food practices were being used. Search for them online, I think they said they would post the backflip videos on their website. So after spending about an hour at the top we make our way down and head home. Pretty exhausting day.
The next couple of days were spent doing the regular training routine but we got more into actual teaching practices, then doing a demo teaching lesson amongst ourselves. We gave each other a pretty hard time so that was pretty funny. On thursday and friday we had to do a practice class with real live students, which increased the pressure. For those classes we had a partner and we split time talking about our home countries. Chinese kids know 6 things about america "Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga, NBA, Yao Ming, Kobe, and Obama". So hopefully I filled their brains with a little more knowledge.
Another significant even that happened on thursday is fellow Centurians, Justin Bussies and Kei Mamiya came to visit!! This was really fun to see some good friends from college on the other side of the world (Kei is Japanese and Justin is teaching english in Japan). Anyways, with my days occupied with teaching, Kei and Justin went around doing the tourist things, meeting up in the evenings. So for their first night we decided to go out for a nice Chinese dinner. We went to the same place Isabella always takes us so she called ahead for us to tell them we were coming and to give us a discount (which they actually gave to us, AWESOME!). So after dinner, I showed them around town and went to Caviler Bar to teach them the dice game (our usual spot The Stone Rose closed to remodel...). The next day (friday) was the same routine. This time we met at the much cheaper Wontons restaurant but still had a great dinner. On saturday Isabella informed me that a teacher at the school wanted to take the group on a bike ride on some new road. Everyone again decided to join. We started going out the direction non of us have ever been down which eventually lead to a very hilly road. The biggest hill was over half a mile long. So at the top of the hill everyone thought this route was too tough. I was slightly disappointed because I always like these types of challenges. So we all turned around and everyone but Justin, Kei, The teacher and Me went back to school. We then decided to go to Moon hill. The teacher said he could show us a different more scenic route. That sounded good so we went that way. On the way we stopped at an aquaduct along the river. Pretty cool spot. We continued to moon hill and got a much better view as we approached compared to the typical route. This route also had a lot fewer cars and busses so that was nice as well. We then hiked to the top, hung out for a bit, and them made our way down and back the same route. I then saw Justin and Kei off at the long range bus station on the outside of town. I then went back to Mimosas and found the crew there with Jarone and Weiss! They were back for a few days from the orphanage before they took off to the Netherlands. We then went out to tin tin bar and cavilers, it was a good time.
Okay I'll keep catching up. Week behind still but I'll get it! Its 1:30 now and I have class at 9:35 I need to got to sleep!
The next day was a pretty low key day. The group just hung out at the school until about 1 or so when I decided to go running. The others were going to go to mimosas to use the internet because it was down at the school as usual. So I went for my longest run so far in China 70 minutes. When I returned nobody had left for mimosas because apparently tom broke the washing machine drain while it was draining and flooded his bathroom. Smooth. After that we went to mimosas and took it easy.
Sunday. At brunch Isabella asked if we would like to go on a bike ride to Moon Hill. Moon Hill, being one of the biggest attractions in Yangshou couldn't be one to miss out on. So Isabella pulls out several bikes that the school owns. The bikes were no race bikes by any means but it got the job done. I think I made Amelia have a heart attack by the amount of time I would ride no-handed (about 75 percent of the ride). Anyways on the ride Tom was being his usual self saying "Ni Hao" to every chinese person he saw and saying "Dui" to everything said to him. Then somebody made the grave mistake of telling him how to say "I love you" which he then proceeded to start saying to every girl he saw. Other than Tom making a bunch of friends the bike ride was nice. It was a really nice sunny day which seemed to happen every weekend in Yangshuo, good timing weather. So on our ride we made our first stop at "The Big Banyan Tree". The tree is exactly what it says. A 1400 year old Banyan tree. It was cool to see that parts of the branches had reached the ground and made new roots so it looked like a tree with multiple trunks. So we did the usual thing, walked around it three times for good luck. After looking at the tree we went over to the little market. There was a guy with three monkeys tethered to a little stand that you could pay to get your picture taken with. I didn't get my picture taken because I felt it was a cruel situation for the monkeys. So I just took a picture of them. After Banyan tree we continued on to Moon Hill. We all were pretty hungry when we got there so we stopped at the over priced café at the bottom and got fried rice. Once charged and ready to go we made our voyage up the 800 some steps to Moon Hill. The climb isnt all that scenic because you're hiking up through a forest but once you get to the top there is a pretty impressive view. On this day we ran into a group of climbers that we had seen around town, climbing up the under side of the formation. Then we saw this guy pulling himself up the middle of the arch by his ropes. They were trying to get as high as they can so they could backflips off of the hill. It was pretty impressive to see. The guys we talked to were a part of a group they made called "Organic Hobo" Basically a group of guys going around the world seeing how sustainable food practices were being used. Search for them online, I think they said they would post the backflip videos on their website. So after spending about an hour at the top we make our way down and head home. Pretty exhausting day.
The next couple of days were spent doing the regular training routine but we got more into actual teaching practices, then doing a demo teaching lesson amongst ourselves. We gave each other a pretty hard time so that was pretty funny. On thursday and friday we had to do a practice class with real live students, which increased the pressure. For those classes we had a partner and we split time talking about our home countries. Chinese kids know 6 things about america "Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga, NBA, Yao Ming, Kobe, and Obama". So hopefully I filled their brains with a little more knowledge.
Another significant even that happened on thursday is fellow Centurians, Justin Bussies and Kei Mamiya came to visit!! This was really fun to see some good friends from college on the other side of the world (Kei is Japanese and Justin is teaching english in Japan). Anyways, with my days occupied with teaching, Kei and Justin went around doing the tourist things, meeting up in the evenings. So for their first night we decided to go out for a nice Chinese dinner. We went to the same place Isabella always takes us so she called ahead for us to tell them we were coming and to give us a discount (which they actually gave to us, AWESOME!). So after dinner, I showed them around town and went to Caviler Bar to teach them the dice game (our usual spot The Stone Rose closed to remodel...). The next day (friday) was the same routine. This time we met at the much cheaper Wontons restaurant but still had a great dinner. On saturday Isabella informed me that a teacher at the school wanted to take the group on a bike ride on some new road. Everyone again decided to join. We started going out the direction non of us have ever been down which eventually lead to a very hilly road. The biggest hill was over half a mile long. So at the top of the hill everyone thought this route was too tough. I was slightly disappointed because I always like these types of challenges. So we all turned around and everyone but Justin, Kei, The teacher and Me went back to school. We then decided to go to Moon hill. The teacher said he could show us a different more scenic route. That sounded good so we went that way. On the way we stopped at an aquaduct along the river. Pretty cool spot. We continued to moon hill and got a much better view as we approached compared to the typical route. This route also had a lot fewer cars and busses so that was nice as well. We then hiked to the top, hung out for a bit, and them made our way down and back the same route. I then saw Justin and Kei off at the long range bus station on the outside of town. I then went back to Mimosas and found the crew there with Jarone and Weiss! They were back for a few days from the orphanage before they took off to the Netherlands. We then went out to tin tin bar and cavilers, it was a good time.
Okay I'll keep catching up. Week behind still but I'll get it! Its 1:30 now and I have class at 9:35 I need to got to sleep!
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