So with our first and only day off in 10 days, we decided to check out some of the Ming Tombs as they were pretty much the last possible tourist attraction for us to go see in Beijing. They actually were pretty cool, maybe slightly underwhelming but all in all a pretty sweet thing to go see. We spent the day with one of the Chinese teachers and her husband. I think she was good intentioned, but she drove all of us nuts! We felt like babies when we were with her and she was genuinely shocked every time we did something on our own. Also we were supposed to learn Kung Fu that night but it fell threw, so our one day off was a little less cool.
Then the next day we began our first day with the second group of kids from Shunyi No. 1 Middle School's Grade 6 class. The kids were a year younger than the group of kids we had previously finished teaching and thus knew slightly less english and were slightly more shy and nervous the first few days. So needless to day my warm-up group activity went to shambles because everyone was too scared to participate and they were to shy to answer any of my questions, so I was struggling. Things did fortunately get a lot better over the next few days. As I started introducing American games and making the lessons more interesting the kids started participating a lot more and became less and less shy so that was nice.
Classes continue to get better, and after about the 4th day we had dinner at Hilary (our boss)'s house, it was really good! Home cooked Chinese food is the best. She showed us how to make caramelized potatoes and some other things.
Then 2 days later, had dinner at Rick's house again...his family is awesome! they invited us over and surprised us with a breakfast for dinner night! This couldn't have been more amazing considering we've been craving normal breakfasts the entire trip...Chinese breakfast just isn't the same... So ya, dinner was amazing, we even got to play some Xbox 360 at their house against one of the owners of the company, Caterpillar
China continues to be awesome...more to come soon!
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Saturday, August 11, 2007
McDonalds, Shopping, Hilarious Hilary, and the Performance of a Lifetime...
So have you ever wondered what McDonalds tastes like in China? if you are like me then the answer is yep. Even though I really cant stand eating fast food and would avoid McD's at all times in the states, I figured I had to have a go at it in another country...because surely it is a little different right? wrong. it tastes the exact same. more or less a let-down except for the fact the burger cost me an even $5yuan which converts to somewhere around $0.60 cents US. not bad...but not really worth it either, my stomach hurt for the rest of the night.
Im not sure if Ive mentioned it already or not, but Pat's family friend Rick who lives in Beijing with his family is awesome. (he took us to see the great wall) And once again he has come through as an amazing host. His family and the three of us guys hit one of the local shopping malls in Beijing that was packed wall-to-wall with knock-off designer brands and cheap clothing. So ya, we did a bit of shopping..beijing style...haggling down the price nearly 90% off what they start at...because thats just what you have to do here...very fun but very exhausting as they can be very aggressive to get you to buy one of the thirty thousand pairs of fake nike air jordans. Quite the shopping experience...
The next night after our 8th day of class in a row without many breaks at all, we were invited out to dinner with one of our bosses, who for her sake will be unnamed...haha just kidding, read the title nitwit. So ya, i must preface this story with describing our boss...she is a rather petite asian woman maybe a few years older than us. ok back to the story, so our boss thought it would be a good idea to take us out to western food because it was her friend's resturant and this night was the grand opening of the resturant, so it was a special night for them. if it weren't for that we likely wouldnt have dared to set foot in a western resturant in china, but it made for some entertainment. So ya, dinner was ok, they brought us red wine with dinner and it became clear this was their first experience with red wine...so diogo, pat and i had to show them how to serve it.
...Continuing their inexperience with red wine, to celebrate the night people kept coming over to our table and cheersing with us, however cheers in chinese means bottoms up and sure enough each of them would down nearly full glasses of red wine in one gulp. eww. We also thought it would be funny to get our boss a little tipsy for the night just to mess with her...and stereotypes shine true as a petite asian woman cannot in fact hold her liquor. 4 bottles of red wine down and a few beers for pat and all 4 of us were "smashed" as our boss repeated over and over to us.
It was hilarious! especially because us 3 dudes were in far better shape than our boss was and we had to carry her home while she yelled at pat that she was our boss and that she shouldn't let him drink, and pats cunning reply was simply "ya only for 1 more week..." haha we had an awesome time
Then our story brings us to day 10 of teaching the first group of kids and the final presentation for the kids. The presentation was for the parents to show them how much english they learned over the week. It was truly the performance of a lifetime. complete with backstreet boys sing a longs, 3 seperate plays about a resturant with jackie chan, a wedding, and a birthday. oh and of course there were the short skits on cinderella and sleeping beauty. the kids were awesome and most surprisingly talented. We ended things with gifts and cake, which turned into a giant cake fight on stage and i think i may still have frosting stuck in my ear...
Im not sure if Ive mentioned it already or not, but Pat's family friend Rick who lives in Beijing with his family is awesome. (he took us to see the great wall) And once again he has come through as an amazing host. His family and the three of us guys hit one of the local shopping malls in Beijing that was packed wall-to-wall with knock-off designer brands and cheap clothing. So ya, we did a bit of shopping..beijing style...haggling down the price nearly 90% off what they start at...because thats just what you have to do here...very fun but very exhausting as they can be very aggressive to get you to buy one of the thirty thousand pairs of fake nike air jordans. Quite the shopping experience...
The next night after our 8th day of class in a row without many breaks at all, we were invited out to dinner with one of our bosses, who for her sake will be unnamed...haha just kidding, read the title nitwit. So ya, i must preface this story with describing our boss...she is a rather petite asian woman maybe a few years older than us. ok back to the story, so our boss thought it would be a good idea to take us out to western food because it was her friend's resturant and this night was the grand opening of the resturant, so it was a special night for them. if it weren't for that we likely wouldnt have dared to set foot in a western resturant in china, but it made for some entertainment. So ya, dinner was ok, they brought us red wine with dinner and it became clear this was their first experience with red wine...so diogo, pat and i had to show them how to serve it.
...Continuing their inexperience with red wine, to celebrate the night people kept coming over to our table and cheersing with us, however cheers in chinese means bottoms up and sure enough each of them would down nearly full glasses of red wine in one gulp. eww. We also thought it would be funny to get our boss a little tipsy for the night just to mess with her...and stereotypes shine true as a petite asian woman cannot in fact hold her liquor. 4 bottles of red wine down and a few beers for pat and all 4 of us were "smashed" as our boss repeated over and over to us.
It was hilarious! especially because us 3 dudes were in far better shape than our boss was and we had to carry her home while she yelled at pat that she was our boss and that she shouldn't let him drink, and pats cunning reply was simply "ya only for 1 more week..." haha we had an awesome time
Then our story brings us to day 10 of teaching the first group of kids and the final presentation for the kids. The presentation was for the parents to show them how much english they learned over the week. It was truly the performance of a lifetime. complete with backstreet boys sing a longs, 3 seperate plays about a resturant with jackie chan, a wedding, and a birthday. oh and of course there were the short skits on cinderella and sleeping beauty. the kids were awesome and most surprisingly talented. We ended things with gifts and cake, which turned into a giant cake fight on stage and i think i may still have frosting stuck in my ear...
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Number 1 Middle School
So we have arrived at our 2nd school which happens to be known as the number 1 middle school in Beijing. Pretty cool. The school is very nice, we are living in two seperate rooms on the 8th and 10th floor of a sweet dorm/classroom combo building. There is airconditioning, a fridge and a water cooler! not bad...considering the toilet is a bit dodgey and the shower has almost no pressure, still not too bad. We all got settled in nicely and went to the book store to pick out our teaching materials...which was interesting considering we still really have no idea how to teach, but it all works out in the end right?
Once we found a good book to teach from we got ready for our first day of class, which went great! The kids are incredibly smart, most of them are almost fluent with english so we get to focus more on teaching them american culture and difficult vocab words and slang words and songs and games and stuff like that. Its great, we teach for about three 1hr sessions each day and inbetween classes we have sports/activities, so we can choose to play basketball, badmitten, or table tennis. Im getting so good at badmitten and it is only the 4th day of class at this school.
Then tonight we are going over to the headmaster's house and his family is going to teach us to make dumplings (dim sum). so cool. The teachers putting on the summer camp at this school are awesome, they are extremely nice and we are getting a kick out of teaching them american slang too, so they now know how to say, lets bounce house. haha ohh english...
Once we found a good book to teach from we got ready for our first day of class, which went great! The kids are incredibly smart, most of them are almost fluent with english so we get to focus more on teaching them american culture and difficult vocab words and slang words and songs and games and stuff like that. Its great, we teach for about three 1hr sessions each day and inbetween classes we have sports/activities, so we can choose to play basketball, badmitten, or table tennis. Im getting so good at badmitten and it is only the 4th day of class at this school.
Then tonight we are going over to the headmaster's house and his family is going to teach us to make dumplings (dim sum). so cool. The teachers putting on the summer camp at this school are awesome, they are extremely nice and we are getting a kick out of teaching them american slang too, so they now know how to say, lets bounce house. haha ohh english...
Saturday, July 28, 2007
The End of a First Session and Chinatown
After our awesome trip to Tianjin we wandered the streets of Beijing around the Forbidden City to see the sights! First we went and saw the famous gardens next to Forbidden City and climbed to the top of a temple that overlooks all of downtown Beijing, pretty cool! Would have been more impressive had the sky been clear...smog sucks. but still cool to see. The next day we went and saw the China Art Museum, very interesting, a lot of old chinese paintings as well as some modern chinese photograps and a Goya exhibit as well as a bunch of other things it was awesome.
Then we were off to the two major shopping centers there. They are painfully large and crowded, at first we were amazed by it, but after trying to get around the dizzying displays of millions of knock-off clothes we got lost in an 8 story mall that was slammed with people. On top of that we wondered around what could only have been Chinatown in China...it was like the mecca of Chinatowns, way cool but exhausting to say boo yao (no thanks) to vendor after vendor offering endless junk for best price!
As we were wondering around the city we happened to stumble upon a strange roller coaster type contraption just chilling in the middle of the sidewalk. The first things out of Diogo's and Pat's mouths were "we're doing it". Now for those of you who know me well will know how I felt about this...But all that aside they both strapped in to the unknown as pat was asking the ride operator if he could guarantee they wouldnt die on the ride, the ride operator's response was a simple "no" and then pat told him he would come back as a ghost and haunt the ride operator if he died, and the operator responded "no no dont do that". Needless to say it was hilarious to watch them scream like little girls as they were reversed bungee jumped into the air and fell back down like the Big Shot in Las Vegas on Crack.
We are now almost done teaching our final group of middle school students in the Southern Beijing school in BDA. Next week we are off to northern Beijing to our next school for a whole new set of kids and crazy experiences. Teaching is definitely fun, and I really have no idea how they are letting us teach...the kids deserve so much better haha. But its been fun and I cant wait to start the new school. Stay tuned!
Then we were off to the two major shopping centers there. They are painfully large and crowded, at first we were amazed by it, but after trying to get around the dizzying displays of millions of knock-off clothes we got lost in an 8 story mall that was slammed with people. On top of that we wondered around what could only have been Chinatown in China...it was like the mecca of Chinatowns, way cool but exhausting to say boo yao (no thanks) to vendor after vendor offering endless junk for best price!
As we were wondering around the city we happened to stumble upon a strange roller coaster type contraption just chilling in the middle of the sidewalk. The first things out of Diogo's and Pat's mouths were "we're doing it". Now for those of you who know me well will know how I felt about this...But all that aside they both strapped in to the unknown as pat was asking the ride operator if he could guarantee they wouldnt die on the ride, the ride operator's response was a simple "no" and then pat told him he would come back as a ghost and haunt the ride operator if he died, and the operator responded "no no dont do that". Needless to say it was hilarious to watch them scream like little girls as they were reversed bungee jumped into the air and fell back down like the Big Shot in Las Vegas on Crack.
We are now almost done teaching our final group of middle school students in the Southern Beijing school in BDA. Next week we are off to northern Beijing to our next school for a whole new set of kids and crazy experiences. Teaching is definitely fun, and I really have no idea how they are letting us teach...the kids deserve so much better haha. But its been fun and I cant wait to start the new school. Stay tuned!
Monday, July 23, 2007
Traveling to Tianjin and HP
Our last day of class with the 2nd group of students was great. We started learning a popular chinese song by the name of "Peach Flowers" by Ar Niu. My guess is that he is the equivalent of Justin Timberlake over here...we also played several games with the kids and at the end of class we were given new Chinese names. Mine is Gao Wen Shan, which roughly translates to gentle mountain, the kids explained that the character Gao is a very honorable characteristic to have among the Chinese so Im proud to have that as a name.
Friday July 21st - 9pm Beijing time...7am in Colorado, I stumble into a bookstore with a nice poster for the 7th Harry Potter book hanging up in the doorway. Being that it was not nearly midnight yet and I was anticipating there to be a slim amount of books available in china I wasnt expecting much. However what do you know, there is a single U.K. Edition copy of book 7 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sitting on the front shelf. $208RMB later and I was a very happy dude. Somehow I miraculously managed to get a copy of the book a good 18 hours before I would have in Colorado. Im so stoked.
Anyways...The next day after class we were off to Tianjin for some sightseeing as well as to meet some new friends. Little did we know we were about to become the guests of honor at a going away party for our new friend Mary. The food was exquisite, and we ate like kings all weekend. The family's hospitality was tremendous, they showed us around Tianjin. What an awesome city. The financial district was very modern with some awesome architecture and the best part was it wasnt terribly hot outside and not very crowded for the 3rd largest city in China. In all fairness that was just the financial district that im referring to. Later in the day we were able to see old Tianjin, the culture street in the city. It was awesome, tons of shops to bargin for things at. Pat got some chopsticks, I got a nice painting and Diogo got some cotton candy. All in all our stay there was very nice, we really enjoyed it there.
Today we are back in Beijing and get to plan our next adventure. Today I believe we are going into the city on our own so that in itself will be quite exciting. There are plenty more stories to come so stay tuned. Also we are uploading a lot more pictures to the site I mentioned before, so check that out too!
Friday July 21st - 9pm Beijing time...7am in Colorado, I stumble into a bookstore with a nice poster for the 7th Harry Potter book hanging up in the doorway. Being that it was not nearly midnight yet and I was anticipating there to be a slim amount of books available in china I wasnt expecting much. However what do you know, there is a single U.K. Edition copy of book 7 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sitting on the front shelf. $208RMB later and I was a very happy dude. Somehow I miraculously managed to get a copy of the book a good 18 hours before I would have in Colorado. Im so stoked.
Anyways...The next day after class we were off to Tianjin for some sightseeing as well as to meet some new friends. Little did we know we were about to become the guests of honor at a going away party for our new friend Mary. The food was exquisite, and we ate like kings all weekend. The family's hospitality was tremendous, they showed us around Tianjin. What an awesome city. The financial district was very modern with some awesome architecture and the best part was it wasnt terribly hot outside and not very crowded for the 3rd largest city in China. In all fairness that was just the financial district that im referring to. Later in the day we were able to see old Tianjin, the culture street in the city. It was awesome, tons of shops to bargin for things at. Pat got some chopsticks, I got a nice painting and Diogo got some cotton candy. All in all our stay there was very nice, we really enjoyed it there.
Today we are back in Beijing and get to plan our next adventure. Today I believe we are going into the city on our own so that in itself will be quite exciting. There are plenty more stories to come so stay tuned. Also we are uploading a lot more pictures to the site I mentioned before, so check that out too!
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Teaching the kids part deux
So today we began our second round of teaching a whole new set of kids English. I got to start the day by myself. I would like to say it was because I lost a game of rock paper scissors, but I actually volunteered for it. The first hour was kinda scary...lots of blank stares at me while i nervously tried to think of what to teach them and keep the class interesting at the same time. Once again Bingo has saved the day...the kids love the game. We taught them all about colors, clothes, families, numbers, time, sang the A,B,Cs and plenty more...
I forgot to mention we went and saw Transformers the other night...Michael Bay you have vastly surprised me. That movie was awesome! and what really made it great was that we got to see it in a Chinese movie theater, (in english with chinese subtitles) and we were the only Americans in the room. So at every little joke we were bursting out laughing and im pretty sure we were the only ones who got the jokes. haha. That and Diogo absolutely lost it every time someone gets blown up in the film.
So ya, tomorrow we have some more awesome classes to teach and no doubt, hundreds of awkward silences and stares throughout the lesson. The kids are in fact very smart and seem to be picking up on what we teach them very quickly, however they are all very shy and for that reason they dont speak up much...we're working on that...
for example, if the kids dont speak up and volunteer to answer a question, Pat hits me with a water bottle. I dont care too much for the technique for obvious reasons, but it is surprisingly effective.
I forgot to mention we went and saw Transformers the other night...Michael Bay you have vastly surprised me. That movie was awesome! and what really made it great was that we got to see it in a Chinese movie theater, (in english with chinese subtitles) and we were the only Americans in the room. So at every little joke we were bursting out laughing and im pretty sure we were the only ones who got the jokes. haha. That and Diogo absolutely lost it every time someone gets blown up in the film.
So ya, tomorrow we have some more awesome classes to teach and no doubt, hundreds of awkward silences and stares throughout the lesson. The kids are in fact very smart and seem to be picking up on what we teach them very quickly, however they are all very shy and for that reason they dont speak up much...we're working on that...
for example, if the kids dont speak up and volunteer to answer a question, Pat hits me with a water bottle. I dont care too much for the technique for obvious reasons, but it is surprisingly effective.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Back to the Beijing
As we said our goodbyes to our trusty guide Dhon and the awesome countryside that is Tibet we all thought about when (if at all) we would be back. For some, once was more than enough and yet for me, I cant wait to be back in the mountains, whether it is Colorado, here or somewhere else i cant get enough of the scenery. The plane ride back was good, we had a layover in Chengdu, panda capital of China. Then to Beijing where we got to see the two schools we would be teaching at, and then moved in to our rooms at the first school, BDA in southern Beijing.
The first week of classes went really well considering. The first morning of classes I was stuck in the room sick from an obscenely spicy beef dish that I got at a restaurant the night before. Needless to say, I know know what it means to breath fire out my butt. I healed up quickly and helped Diogo finish lessons for the day which really did go quite well considering none of us had ever taught before, and we really had no idea what to do. All I can say is thank god for BINGO. combined we probably played it at least 100 times over 3 days. Fortunately the kids loved it.
At the conclusion of our first week of classes, we all retired to the local massage parlor for foot massages...quite possibly the best idea ever. so relaxing. and 70 minutes for about $5, how can you say no to that? We also treated ourselves to some fine restaurant cuisine...it really wasnt that fancy, but in comparison to what we've been eating at the school's cafeteria it was heavenly.
Over our 3-day weekend, we adventured around Beijing by ourselves by buses and taxis to see the temple of heaven. We also were able to spend the day at the Kelly's friend Rick's house, which ended up being one of our best days so far in Beijing. The day consisted of hiking the Great Wall all morning...about 4-6 miles of steep hills and crazy man-made steps. There was also a race from one tower to another tower between Pat and I...I almost beat him but collapsed right at the end, we both realized it was a bad idea about 5 steps into the race...haha oh well great workout. and according to Mao, we are officially men now that we have hiked the wall. After that we were able to go swimming and relaxing in the spa near Rick's house. All followed by a delicious mexican food dinner, first and probably only mexican food we will find in China. We finished the day by buying about 8 pirated DVDs...when in rome? haha
Yesterday we went on a field trip with our 2nd group of middle school students to the Summer Palace as well as two major universities here in Beijing. The summer Palace was amazing. Probably one of the cooler things to see in Beijing for sure. The kids are awesome and they know a lot of english. This makes us kind of nervous about having to teach them english because our strategy of using categories of easy vocab words with bingo games might not fly with these kids...Im sure it will be fine, and Im really looking forward to it.
More to come soon...
The first week of classes went really well considering. The first morning of classes I was stuck in the room sick from an obscenely spicy beef dish that I got at a restaurant the night before. Needless to say, I know know what it means to breath fire out my butt. I healed up quickly and helped Diogo finish lessons for the day which really did go quite well considering none of us had ever taught before, and we really had no idea what to do. All I can say is thank god for BINGO. combined we probably played it at least 100 times over 3 days. Fortunately the kids loved it.
At the conclusion of our first week of classes, we all retired to the local massage parlor for foot massages...quite possibly the best idea ever. so relaxing. and 70 minutes for about $5, how can you say no to that? We also treated ourselves to some fine restaurant cuisine...it really wasnt that fancy, but in comparison to what we've been eating at the school's cafeteria it was heavenly.
Over our 3-day weekend, we adventured around Beijing by ourselves by buses and taxis to see the temple of heaven. We also were able to spend the day at the Kelly's friend Rick's house, which ended up being one of our best days so far in Beijing. The day consisted of hiking the Great Wall all morning...about 4-6 miles of steep hills and crazy man-made steps. There was also a race from one tower to another tower between Pat and I...I almost beat him but collapsed right at the end, we both realized it was a bad idea about 5 steps into the race...haha oh well great workout. and according to Mao, we are officially men now that we have hiked the wall. After that we were able to go swimming and relaxing in the spa near Rick's house. All followed by a delicious mexican food dinner, first and probably only mexican food we will find in China. We finished the day by buying about 8 pirated DVDs...when in rome? haha
Yesterday we went on a field trip with our 2nd group of middle school students to the Summer Palace as well as two major universities here in Beijing. The summer Palace was amazing. Probably one of the cooler things to see in Beijing for sure. The kids are awesome and they know a lot of english. This makes us kind of nervous about having to teach them english because our strategy of using categories of easy vocab words with bingo games might not fly with these kids...Im sure it will be fine, and Im really looking forward to it.
More to come soon...
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