Going to Yangshuo

the famous limestone mountains! We will do a boat ride on the river too!
Its in the Guangxi Province 
this weekend i am going to Yangshuo which is in southern China... i leave friday and come back tuesday night! I am going with Tiphaine, my friend from france,  and we are going by bus! 12 hours there and 12 hours back! yikes!!! But... the tickets roundtrip cost less than one tank of gas for me at home haha... i love china... it was by bus or by train and the train is supposed to be a little dangerous so we opted for the bus, which i think is faster too... anyways, Yangshuo is known for its limestone mountains and it is supposed to be very very beautiful! It has to be a quick trip cause i have finals in a month...ahhh!!! but I am happy i get to go! 

Teaching in China

my 3rd class... can you find me??? click on the picture to enlarge it
my 2nd class
at the first school after we planted a tree in their garden
So as you know I taught english in Zengcheng, China this weekend... It was the most amazing weekend ever! We did so much there in so little time that I don't think I can describe it all... Here is a quick try at a summary:  We left at 8am on Saturday morning on the MTR where we got off after about 6 stops and got on a bus... The bus took us to the border of China (1 hour) and then we got out and went through customs and got back on the bus to go to Zengcheng (2.5 hours). We then got off at the bus stop there and the principal and a government guy (who was our coordinator) came and picked us up in an elementary kid school bus... we then drove into the city where we would be teaching first (30-45 minutes)... We checked into a hotel to drop our stuff before going to the school... We taught at the first school for about 2 hours... 1 hour playing games all together (about 500 students) and then 1 hour teaching a class by ourselves (about 50 students)... After the hour of teaching, some of the students gave us a gifts... I got a windchime with chinese characters on it, an asian stuffed animal, a little jar with characters in it, and a beijing coin bank... It was so cute of them. After class they all wanted me to write my name on a piece of paper for them and i got trampled the minute i signed the first piece of paper haha  The principal gave us each a beautiful bouquet of flowers too.. then we went to the teachers lounge for fruits and tea while we waited for dinner which was cooked at the school... we sat out on the blacktop with the teachers and headmaster and principle to eat a chinese dinner... It was really nice but the teachers did not speak english well so they mostly talked in chinese unless they were asking me a question... they would ask me what my favorite dish was and then would insist on piling my plate with that food haha... I caught on to this trick quickly haha... we then went back to the hotel to put down our presents and the teachers took us around the town... they showed us the famous Lychee Tree that their province is known for... the tree has a story about it about how  a god brought it back to life by placing a green scarf on it so this particular lychee tree produces lychees with a green stripe and they sell a limited number of these lychees for like 40,000 Yuan each... how outrageous haha.. only the government can afford them... they then took us to a dessert shop where they ordered a bunch of famous chinese desserts for us to try... they then gave us each 2 kg of dried lychees to take home with it... it was so sweet of them and they were so excited to give them to us... we then went back to the hotel and the 6 of us who came to teach from CUHK hung out for a while being passing out from the long and exciting day.. 

we had to be ready at 8am the next day (Sunday) to leave for breakfast which was a Dim Sum chinese breakfast with more amazing food. (this was a common theme to the weekend)... the teachers from the first shcool we were teaching at that day were there to have breakfast with us... it was another meal with a lot of chinese so i had little to add to the conversation as you can imagine... the kids I came with all spoke Cantonese and some Mandarin so they could all communicate or at least understand the teachers.. our student escort Lu would sit by me at all the meals so she could translate and tell me what all the dishes were that we were eating... they then took us to the school where we had another little assembly where we were welcomed and then went to teach a class for a little over an hour... I played "simon says" with them and if they made a mistake they would have to tell me their favorite animal or food in english so that they could practice... they really liked this game.. then i taught them direction light left, right , straight, up, down , turn in a circle and we would blindfold one kid and then the other kids would have to give him/her direction to get to the chalkboard where i had drawn a featureless face and they would have to draw a part of the face , like the nose, blindfolded with the kids giving direction again about where to draw the nose... They thought this game was really funny because the figure they drew was "not beautiful" as they put it...They asked me a bunch of questions about what i thought about china, what my favorite things were, and about America... they were very shy to ask these questions an it was really cute... Then the teacher had me pronounce some words from the textbook because she didn't think she was pronouncing them correctly, which she was not haha... the words mostly had the "th" sound it in like thank you, that, this, and then some random words like dinosaur haha... Before i left, they asked me if i would be their friend and if i was coming back soon... it was really cute... once again i was asked to sign pieces of paper or books with my name for them to keep... 

we were then picked up by the teacher of the last school we taught at and we went to another big chinese lunch with more great and fattening food with less english than before... we arrived at the last school a little early and they took us to the principal's room for fruits and tea... I have never drank sooo much tea in my life... your cup was refilled before it was even done and they would tear off a banana and give it to us an make us eat it haha... It is apparently a cultural thing to provide us with more food than we could possibly eat as a sincere gesture to take care of us... I had a piece of goose because they saw my face when i saw the goose head on the place and they told me to try it... i didn't want to be rude and tell them i don't eat meat when the animals head is on the plate, so i sucked it up and put a piece in my mouth... it wasn't good but i defiantly didn't want another piece... Lu, the escort would tell me when there was something i probably wouldn't want to try, like chicken liver.... at the school they told us we would each be teaching over 60 kids... so much pressure haha... and we had 2 hours to teach at this school... at the assembly they gave us each a gift and we played musical chairs... when i got to the classroom they were all in a big circle sitting on the floor since there were no desks and the teacher had me stand in the middle and answer their questions they had prepared for like 45 minutes... these questions were the oddest i had all weekend... they asked me about christmas, they asked me to sing them jingle bells (which i didn't because i dont think i know all the words and my voice would scare them), they asked me when i got here and when i was leaving, they asked me if i had a boyfriend, and if i liked Mao... haha we then played simon says but this time if they made a mistake they had to sing me a song... the ABC's and Happy birthday were the hot pick of songs to sing me haha... I answered the last questions at the end of class and one of the little girls asked me for a hug... it was sooo cute... They then asked me for my email so no 60 little chinese kids have my email and as soon as they get internet connections i'm sure my inbox will fill up with the same questions I answered in class since their english is very limited...  before we left, i was asked again for my name on a piece of paper and two little girls drew me pictures and gave them to me... those were the best gifts... they had little cartoon characters with random english and chinese words and you very beautiful on it... what a compliment :) haha the drawing are very cute... we said all our goodbyes and then they had a bus take us back to the main bus station to go back to hong kong... it was really an amazing weekend... 

Some Highlights:

They would ask the kids : Do you feel happy that we have foreigners?

A teacher sang "If you're happy and you know it Slap your feet" and they would stomp 

I used a squatter for the first time... it is an acquired skill 

The kids taught me a few chinese words and laughed when i tried to pronounce them

I got asked "are you beautiful" ... awkward... haha - I am the only white person they have seen

Derek got 3 statues from 3 different kids of lighthouses in the united states... i think a factory must have overproduced these

A little girl asked me to not forget her :)

an umbrella is a great investment...

too bad i didnt have one today... It was just a little foggy all day but not too bad... I had just finished lunch and I went into Park N Shop (our little grocery store) to buy a diet coke before class cause I had a final and wanted to get a little caffeine in me... When i came out of the shop it was sprinkling... I put my hood on and started my walk to class... literally 2 minutes later it was the hardest downpour i've pretty much ever seen... There was thunder and lighting right with the rain... Wind too! It was like all the suddenly i was in the middle of a hurricane... well obviously not that bad but it was scary none the less... instead of walking the 15 minutes and being drenched by the time i got to take my final, i waited for the bus... there was basically flooding already in the streets and the cars driving by were nice enough to drive in that water and splash it all on us waiting for the bus... rude. haha I was standing with some kids from Korea who study here and they were assuring me that i would be ok and i would get to my final on time if i waited for the bus... I waited under a local guys umbrella uninvited, but he didnt seem to care too much :) I was pretty wet though an the sweatshirt i was wearing jsut soaked up with water so i ran from the bus stop to class... I thought i was really wet when i got there but one of the boys in my class was dripping wet so he had it worse off... the test went ok i think... too late to worry about it now... i walked back to my dorms in the rain, napped a little, and now im trying to decide if im going to go out... The rain just picked up again so i may have to pass of going out tonight... there is still lots of thunder and lightning so it may be better if i stay in... Anyways, i hope you learned to invest in an umbrella if you ever come to hong kong! I know i need to buy one asap! much love

karma

so karma caught me complaining about sweating so it rained on me today and I forgot a sweatshirt... i deserved it i think

Woo Hoo

hey guys, 

so i haven't written recently because i have been studying... you're jealous i know... i have a final tomorrow for my class that ends early! woo hoo, 1 down 4 to go! So my marketing class had P&G come and give us a case study to compete for and my group won!!!  And guess what my prize was.... drumroll please.... whitestrips! hahah well our group actually got a bag of P&G stuff and I got the whitestrips... its a US thing... braces would be more necessary here than whitestrips :)  culture differences everywhere haha... nothing else is too new with me here... i have 2 midterms and a presentation next week so hopefully i can study efficiently so I can have a fun weekend! I am going out tomorrow night which should be fun as always... i have a lot of fun weekends ahead of me! I teach in china next weekend, I am trying to plan a weekend to south east china the weekend after that, and I have a ticket to the Rugby Sevens (Eryka I wish you could come) the next weekend and my best friend Rob from SDSU is on semester at sea and he will be here in HK for 2 days!  Its looking like April 17th with be my last final so then i basically have til my parents come on may 11th to travel! I have one presentation on may 5th so i will have to plan my trips around that but i am hoping to go to vietnam then! If anyone has other suggestions let me know! Miss you all!!! 

P.S. 2 months and 12 days til I am 21!

Hong Kong Museum of History

So in order to get out of my hostel (dorm) and get my mind of stuff, I went to the Hong Kong museum of History... It is in Tsim Sha Tsui which is about 30 minutes away on the MTR.... The ticket woman was very surprised we wanted to go to the Hong Kong exhibition because there was one about the French Revolution... Anyways... it said you needed 3-4 hours to view the whole thing but we did it in about an hour an fifteen minutes... impressive i know... haha it wasn't marked too well with what path you were supposed to take to go through it all but we managed to figure it out... about half of it was boring but the other half i really enjoyed... I liked the parts about the different types of people that have settled in Hong Kong and all the info about how they lived and what they wore... I also liked the part about trading in Hong Kong an the Opium Wars... The part i though was most interesting was about the Japanese taking over in Hong Kong... Not knowing this happened (i am a little ignorant in history), i found it pretty fascinating... After the museum, we met up with another girl from the exchange program at Starbucks in East TST... yes starbucks is everywhere here too... The girl we met up with lived in asia for 2 years once she graduated high school. She travelled all around by herself. She helped in Thailand after the tsunami and just had some really cool life experiences... I have a final on thursday because this class ends in the middle of march instead of the end of april which will be really nice... I should get back to studying (or rather start studying) but i will have some pretty cool stuff coming up... In two weeks I am going into the southern part of china to teach english for a weekend with 6 other exchange students and i have heard from those who have done it that is made some of their best memories... I also have some planning for some traveling to do so i am really excited... Hope you all are happy and healthy and miss you guys!

I don't say it enough

Hi everyone. My mom and friends told me this morning that one of my friends from high school is no longer with us. I am absolutely devastated and  I don't want to believe it is true. I keep thinking I will wake up and not have to deal with this and be sad... I want you all reading this to know how much you all mean to me. I love all my friends so much and am so lucky to have you all as friends... To my parent's friends: I am so glad to have you all in my life and I love all the dinners I go to with my parents with you all there... 

We don't tell the people we love enough how important they are to us so I just wanted to make sure you all know. 

Miss you all and can't wait to see you all when i get home!