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.