Video

Not sure if anyone out there is still checking and reading this blog, but for you brave few here is a video compilation of some of the short video clips I took while I was in China.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4bCZtKGysc


And also I made a short song not too long ago using some photos I took



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IDgA3HCWjg

Sorry for the hiatus...

Sorry for the long, unexpected hiatus from posting on here. Soon after I returned from my previous 4 day visit to Hong Kong, I came back to China and noticed that I could not access my blog. Everytime I tried to go to the address, that infamous "Page Not Found" error appeared as it does for Youtube, The Huffington Post, The New York Times site, or any other site the Chinese government deems unsuitable.

It wasn't just my site that was blocked, but the entirety of blogspot, so I could not access my friends' or my little brother's site either. Speaking of which, check out David's blog - he's staying in Mexico for several weeks this summer.

www.couchinmexico.blogspot.com

Anyway, theres a lot of stuff I can probably catch up on later, but today I fly out in a few hours for home. I am a bit excited, although kind of sad to leave so soon. I hope I can return to visit or possibly work here again for a short time.

I'm currently in Hong Kong now, which is why I can access this site now. We got in on the bus in the afternoon yesterday. Someone on our bus was carrying some Hakka wine in their bag in the storage below that broke, so when we unloaded at the stop we noticed that parts of our bags were wet and smelled funny. I recognized it as that Hakka wine stuff I've tried a couple times. I never really liked it to begin with, as it's a weird tasting wine that's a bit similar to barbeque sauce in taste, so now I really hate it as it got into my new sleeping bag that was strapped on the outside of my backpack...ugh. I washed it at the hotel last night, so I think I got most of the stain/smell out, but I guess I'll clean it when I get back.

The highlight of last night was getting to see the Hong Kong light show, something they do here every night at 8pm. I hadn't had a chance to see it on my other trips here, so I figured I better get down on my last night to see it. It was very cool, and I recommend you look up some videos of it or something to get an idea of what it involves, although I'm sure it won't do it justice.

Anyway, I'll try to do some catching up later - I posted a new link to another Facebook photo album on the right, so check that out.

Alright, I have to catch a flight in a bit...

Hong Kong day 2

Yesterday, Day 2, was the day we set out to take care of our visa requirements to be able to reenter and live in China for the last few weeks. We woke up early around 5:30 am and set out for Hong Kong Island from the express train that runs near our hotel near the airport. We got into town in the right neighborhood and found the building and eventually the office, but it was closed. We were kind of worried so we went up to this other immigration office with a huge line but I asked and it turned out to be just for Hong Kong, and they told us to go back to the Chinese one. We walked back thinking we had just got there too early and to our luck we got back and were about 3rd in line. After running through hoops and waiting around an hour, filling out some paperwork, ect, we found out that we did not need to renew our visas after all, since they are multiple entry visas to begin with. Ah well, at least we didn't waste our whole day doing this, and it's good to know or else we'd have to have waited until Monday to pick up our new visas, when we're supposed to be back Sunday to the school. But all is well and we are good to go. The trip to Hong Kong was still necessary because we have to exit and reenter China to reset our visa's 90-day-stay limit.

We ended up walking and taking the train around the city for the whole day, first going through another street market area that wasn't as good as the one yesterday. We just started walking and then found one of the cool parks in the city that contained a free plant conservatory and a free birdhouse to walk through, and a Greek style Olympic theatre/arena where people were taking some wedding photos. We found a Subway so I ordered a meatball sub and ate at a small park across the street.

EDIT:
I can't believe I forgot to mention this when I typed this post earlier today, but the coolest part of yesterday was probably when we both went to a beach and swam in the ocean - well, actually the South China Sea, but it still counts. It was really awesome and the scenery was great, and the water was obviously very salty.



Later on we went to the Walled City Park, which is a Walled-City Park, not just a Walled City-Park - sort of an historic park about an old part of the area that was a walled city.

For dinner we wanted to try some Japanese food so we went downtown and found a decent Sushi place. I only had sushi one time before so I didn't know what to get and nothing seemed too appetizing, but I got a couple of things and it was actually pretty good, and much cheaper than an equivalent sushi place in the US. Afterwards we decided to go see a movie at this huge shopping center place. We saw the new X-Men Origins Wolverine movie, and it was pretty good for a pulp action film. Afterwards walking back we found a street DVD dealer selling movies outside of the subway entrance, so I bought 3 movies for 50 HK Dollars - the X-Men movie I just watched, W. , and Slumdog Millionaire. I haven't seen Slumdog yet but I've heard it's pretty good, so I picked it up.

Today we are going to Macau and getting there from a ferry in the city.

An awesome day in Hong Kong

So now ends Rebecca and I's first day on our 4-day trip to Hong Kong, what a hell of a first day it's been. We got up earlyish at the school and took a motorcycle taxi to the Wuhua hotel across town to catch the bus that goes to Hong Kong. The ride was nice and took about 5 hours or so. Going through customs on both the Chinese and Hong Kong side was a breeze, and that's when we first started seeing a lot of people wearing breathing masks - I figure it's due to all this swine flu scare and people are being extra careful as SARS is still a recent memory. Walking around the city today, I'd say about 10% of people were wearing these masks, mostly employees of stores and whatnot.

After getting off the bus in the same neighborhood we got on the bus the first time in Hong Kong, we first went to get some money exchanged and the found a place to eat - a cool french-style sandwich shop. Rebecca was really excited to finally have a salad and got a tasty panini sandwich. Afterwards she also bought some sorta expensive Haagan Dass ice cream.

The whole day we've been going a few places around the city using the subway system, which is clean, orderly, and very easy to use and manuver around in. Hong Kong has a great public transit system. We did some shopping in the street markets where you bargain for deals. I ended up getting a chairman Mao 'zippo'-type lighter, a tie for my suit, and a cool traditional looking Chinese shirt and pants that looks like pajamas or something you'd do Tai Chi in.

For dinner we found a Pizza Hut and we shared a large stuffed crust pepperoni and olive pizza. Afterwards I found an ice cream and then we searched for a bar to get a drink, so I ended up getting a nice dark Guiness Stout to end the day.

I'm typing this from the 'executive lounge' of the 5-star Marriot hotel we are staying in for three nights. Rebecca's mom travels a lot for her job so she racks up points for hotels, so she's providing us the hotel with her points for free. So thank you a bunch Rebecca's Mom!!! This is the most classy place I've ever stayed - so it doesn't even have that typical 'motel' smell. We arrived here about an hour ago and it's awesome, and I'm planning to go use the 24 hour pool/spa after this. We're on the 15th floor overlooking the ocean, which I can't really see right now but I'm sure it will be stunning tomorrow morning. Didn't think I'd get into this when I signed up for going to China!

Tomorrow we go to get our visas renewed, which is the whole point of taking this side trip to Hong Kong. I can tell this is going to be an awesome stay in Hong Kong. I'll upload pictures after I get back 'home' to Shuizhai High School.

I just wanna ride my motorcy...cle

I've never driven (is that the right verb?) a motorcycle before in my life, until tonight. Well, it was a motor scooter, but it still counts right? Kevin let me try out his scooter earlier so I drove on it for about 5 minutes or so down the road and back to the school. Having so much experience with the physics of my acoustic motorbikes I had the basics of balance down so I was a pretty good driver. From the little bit I got to drive, it was very fun. It was an automatic transmisson, so all you had to do was twist the throttle handle - still want to ride a 'real' motorcycle with a manual transmission sometime and I'd like to do it here because all of the motorbikes have very small engines - great for beginners. Maybe some day I will get a motorbike...

As for my normal, human-powered bike, I've taken a couple of nice rides around town and a short ways out into the country side the past couple of days, seeing lots of cool sights and scenery. The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous the past few weeks, so what better way to enjoy it than on a bicycle? As I've mentioned before, my bike here is heavy and slow, but still a joy to ride around - and I just keep in mind that it's good training for the riding I'll be doing when I get back, and that riding this old clunker now will make my bikes back home seem really awesome when I return. I plan on leaving it here in the apartment for the next group of interns to use, but I want to remove the sweet bell and take it home.

Yesterday Rebecca and I decided to head down to one of the parked-boat restaurants to get some good duck meat. While we were eating a man from one of the adjacent tables sat down at ours to talk to us and ask us a few questions, so we talked to him what we could with the little Chinese we knew. He gave me an expensive pack of cigarettes, and then told us that he would pay for our meal. Sweet! I should have ordered a beer if I would have known that would happen. I'll probably save the cigarettes for a gift back home or something.

Tonight Rebecca and I went out to dinner on another parked-boat restaurant with the headmaster of our high school, Mr. Chow, along with the English teach Lily who assists us, her husband Tom (who drove us to and from), the headmaster's wife (an English teacher at the school) and son, and some others from the school. The headmaster's son was about our age and he spoke English very well, so Rebecca and I spoke to him a lot during the meal. He wanted us to come visit him in Guangzhou, so we may take him up on the offer and try to go there our last weekend or something. He was very interested in and knew a lot about American culture, so we talked about a few things like music, movies, and how I really got into the show Prison Break since coming to China.

At the dinner tonight the headmaster brought a bottle of baijiu (bye ji-oh) and gave everyone a little bit. Baijiu is a very strong, clear grain alcohol. I love beer but I am not so much a fan of hard alcohol, but at least they didn't drink and toast as hard as the last time I had the baijiu with the other headmaster from the rural middle school. This time we could sip on it as little as we wanted after each toast, and not have to slam a shot. We had some interesting food for dinner, whole shrimp, some raw fish that wasn't bad and didn't taste raw, some little fried whole fish that weren't too bad either. I mostly stuck to the normal noodles for most of it - it was a good meal but not something I would want to have everyday.

Afterwards Rebecca and I walked downtown for some ice cream and then to the riverside area where they have dancing and carnival activities every night. I decided to try out this big inflatable cylynder that you can crawl into that was set in a shallow pool of water. I had some fun running, flipping, spinning around in it, though it wasn't the best idea on a full stomach. It was a ton of fun and I plan to do it at least one more time before leaving.



So we're set to go to Hong Kong this Thursday. We'll be leaving our city on a bus that leaves at 8 am and should arrive in Hong Kong sometime in the early afternoon. We'll be spending 3 nights in Hong Kong in our free hotel near the airport(thank you Rebecca's Mom!!!) and return to Wuhua (Shuizhai) Sunday. Our main purpose of the trip is to get our business visas renewed. Our visas are only valid for 90 days before a renewal, and we are in China for 100 days, so we have to exit the country to renew our visa and re-enter it, thus the trip to Hong Kong. We also plan to take a day to visit Macau, which is an old Portuguese colony and a short boat ride from Hong Kong. We plan on getting Japanese food, Pizza, and Portugese Food mainly, and whatever cool, good cuisine we come across in Hong Kong. And hopefully not Swine Flu...

May Day in Meizhou pt 2

Yesterday's trip to Meizhou was pretty amazing. Instead of taking a bus as Rebecca and I usually do, this time we got to go in a taxi provided by the school. We went with Kevin (an English teacher here) and his wife and left the school at about 8 am. The taxi we took was not a conventional taxi, but more of a personal taxi - it would be like me offering a taxi/rides service back home using my car. Martin explained this idea to us a couple weeks ago when we visited him in Huizhou - some people who own cars work as unofficial taxi drivers partly in order to escape some steep taxes.

For the first part of the day we visited a fairly posh tea plantation that was very touristy. It was about 15 miles or so outside of Meizhou. It was all on a mountain, so exploring the plantation/park we climbed some roads going up to mountain to see different shops, tea fields, and park areas. The scenery was beautiful and we had a few nice hilltop views, so I took many pictures.



After walking around there for awhile we headed back into Meizhou where we had lunch at good restaurant. I had one of my favorite Chinese dishes, fried tofu in some kind of sauce. The way Chinese meals work is that instead of everyone having their own individual plate with their own meal, all the food is in the middle of the table on a big lazy susan and each person has their own small bowl and spoon and a bowl of rice, so it's more like a family dinner.

After eating we drove a shopping district in the city where Rebecca and Kevin's wife went shopping and Kevin and I went separately, going to shop for DVDs and cameras mostly. I ended buying a few more good DVD movie collections. I browsed some cameras though I was not planning on buying, and Kevin ended up buying new digital camera.

I tried to call Rebecca's cell phone in order to meet up with them but her phone couldn't get service. Kevin called the taxi driver and we drove back to the place in the city where we split up, and we eventually found the girls there. It could have been much bigger of an ordeal but we lucked out.

Today I went to the mountain overlooking the city again, this time with Rebecca, Zhou Ting (I gave her the name 'Jodie'), a student I know from the high school and her little brother and sister. The three of them had their three bikes and I had mine, but Rebecca doesn't have one here so I offered to carry Jodie's little sister on my rear rack so Rebecca could ride her bike. It's a common site in China to see a person pedaling a bicycle while another person sits on the rear rack, both feet opposite the chain side. Luckily the girl was small so it wasn't very hard to pedal or balance. It was a short bike ride for me but fairly long for them, and I was ahead of them the whole time even though I was going much slower than I usually go. I guess I just like to bike fast.



I put new pics in Facebook album 9 and have the new Meizhou photos in album 10

May Day in Meizhou

Tomorrow begins May, my last month in China. Since tomorrow is May Day, the students have a 3-day weekend. We're taking advantage of the day off tomorrow to travel to Meizhou with the English teacher Kevin and his wife. Instead of taking the bus as normal, we are taking a taxi this time which the school is paying for - and should be much faster than the bus.

May Day as you should know is the 'real' Labor day, an international holiday where we honor the labor movement throughout the world and the men and women who fought and died for the freedom and privileges we have today. We working class Americans enjoy such things as weekends and 40 hour workweeks with overtime pay thanks to the American labor movement. It's a pretty big holiday here in China, not so much in America as I can recall.

Today was Rebecca's turn to visit the Da Jin school in Da Tian village, so I had the whole day off. I decided to take a short bike ride down the river south of town a couple of miles until I reached another bridge near a small village town. I sat at a gazebo thing near the bridge to eat my sandwich and many young elementary aged kids gathered 'round to look at me. I pulled out my camera to take photos of them but when I did so they all screamed and ran away from the camera. I outsmarted them by switching to my camera's video function, turning it on and then pointing at them as they ran away - it makes for a pretty funny little video clip.

I visited a calligraphy artist's shop today to pick up a couple of items for gifts back home. Rebecca and I stopped in last night to ask for prices of certain things, and I returned by myself this afternoon to purchase the stuff. When I entered they served me tea so we sat and drank tea for awhile, communicating what little I could with the shop owners. Then a very old man came to sit with us, who was the shop owner's father. I was surprised he knew a little bit of English so we had a fairly limited conversation. One thing I've noticed living here is that you don't really need to know a language to communicate with someone, as body language and gestures act as universals - but it helps that I know a little bit of Mandarin. The man said he was 92 years old and was fairly excited to see and talk to me, and I shook his hand as I left.

The weather here has been amazing for the past few days - mild temperatures with no rain and lots of sunshine. In May as we draw closer to the rainy season we'll probably get frequent rain, so I'm enjoying this pleasant weather while I can. I'm I'll have more stories and pictures to post after tomorrow's trip to Meizhou.

Where the heck did April go?

This past weekend Rebecca decided to cook a meal at our place. I wasn't involved in the getting food/cooking process too much so it was mostly her thing along with the help of girl student here at the school named Fish. Many of the students have English names that are not neccesarily names as they are things sometimes - others include Watermelon, Promise, Sweet, to name a few. Anyway, so we had a big meal with pork (i think) stuffed tofu, green beans, egg, and rice. Along with the girl Fish an English teacher Kevin and his wife joined us for the meal as well. While the girls were preparing the meal, Kevin and I went down the street to get some eggs as well as 4 bottles of Kingway beer to split between us for the meal.



Lately I've been on a serious music-downloading binge, downloading dozens of albums people have uploaded to the internet. I like to use sites like Megaupload, where people upload a .zip file of an album, i download it directly from the site, unzip it into a folder using WinRAR, and then sync it to my iPod. I'm also using a cool program called Floola that allows you to use your iPod to upload to/download from any computer. Normally you're stuck with one computer with iPods, but this program is pretty nifty, and you can drag and drop the program onto your iPod so you can bring it with you to use on any computer without setting it up, so it's great for traveling, or just for sharing music with your friends. Sharing is caring.

Rebecca and I are each supposed to write up an article for a newspaper or something in English in the next week or so. I don't know too many details about the paper at the moment, if it's local or something or if it more like one of the English Weekly things the students here get.

I've been doing some shopping the past few days - picked up some decent sandals and also got a few nice quality plain t-shirts that are comfy and nice looking. I'll probably hold off on too much more shopping until I visit Hong Kong in a couple of weekends.

I've got less than 5 weeks left now until I return to America, where the nice warm bike friendly June weather will await me, as opposed to the frigid winter I escaped from a couple months ago. This trip is like having an extended summer season for the most part. I'm still not too anxious to get home yet, and I'm actually starting to get worried that I will miss this place when I leave. I think by the last week I'll be anxious to get back home though. This trip has gone by so fast so I'm sure these last few weeks will fly right by.

Bike stuff mostly

So I haven't made a new post for almost a week. I know, I'm getting sorta lazy doing this plus I just don't have much exciting stuff to really talk about.

I got my first flat tire on my bike the other day. I was riding out to the mountain by myself to go climb it when I look down and see my front tire is flat, so I get off my bike and start walking back, looking for a bike mechanic. I stop at a motorcycle mechanic and they pointed me to a place across the street where a bike mechanic was. The guy put my bike on a stand and removed the tube from the tire without taking the wheel off, something I never do - I like to take the wheel off the bike and the tire off of the wheel, but this guy did a good job fixing it without doing either. He patched the hole in the tube and found the culprit - a small bit of sharp metal in my tire I must have picked up.

There were a handful of young boys hanging out at the shop and after I got my bike fixed I played with them some by trying to ride their 2-wheeled skateboard thing. I've seen these things in the states, it's basically a skateboard in two parts that can be twisted, and each part has one wheel that swivels. It looks completely unstable, but I tried to get it going and had some success after watching and imitating how the boys were riding on it.

I'm glad I decided to buy one of those LED headlamps before coming on the trip. I'd been wanting one for a while for biking and camping purposes and figured it might come in handy over here. It has, as I use it for biking at night - it really helps light up some of the darker roads and helps me be seen by other people at night. I plan to use it in the future for biking, as it makes a decent headlight to see somewhat and mainly to be seen. It'll be great for touring since I'll be able to set up camp in the dark with both hands free.

Speaking bike touring, I'm currently planning a fairly big bike trip this summer soon after I return. I'm planning to drive to Pierre, South Dakota in my car with my brother Will and my bike and gear. My brother will drive my car back separately, and I will be left to bike back to St. Charles following the Adventure Cycling Association's Lewis and Clark route, which follows the Missouri River for most of the way. The route I'm doing is about 1000 miles and will probably take about 2 weeks to complete.

Bike touring is a great combination of two of my favorite activities - cycling and traveling. I do unsupported, fully-loaded touring, which means I do not have a support vehicle and that I carry camping gear in order to camp along the way. Everything I need to live is on my bike - it's a pretty interesting way to travel. I started doing this last summer, mainly taking short, overnight trips. I want to try something a bit more ambitious this summer, so I'm riding part of the Lewis and Clark trail. And I'll most likely keep a blog or a crazyguyonabike.com-journal of the trip. Other than that, I still plan on taking lots of short tours again around Missouri.

I started (re)reading Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions a few days ago, and I'm already about 2/3's the way through. I finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for the second time recently, and I enjoyed it again. I used to think reading books twice or more was useless, but now I see that reading a book multiple times isn't so bad, and helps you enjoy and know the book more.

Piiiiiizzzzzaaaaa!!!

Saturday Rebecca and I took a weekend trip to the city of Huizhou (Hway - Joe) to stay with Martin and his wife Amy. Huizhou is on the way to Shenzhen/Hong Kong and it took about 3-4 hours from bus stop to bus stop. When we arrived in Huizhou, we literally stopped and got off at a spot on the highway where Martin and his friend with a car waited to pick us up and drive us to Martin's apartment at the school. After a quick settle in to the apartment, we went for a walk around the high school campus where Martin and Amy teach. It was a very large school and to us it looked more like a college campus.

Later Martin and Amy fixed us a good lunch at their apartment, and then Rebecca, Martin and I took a city bus into the city where we walked around. We walked through a pedestrian shopping street free of traffic and also along a lake. At one point we entered a large mall and one of the first things I saw was a Papa John's pizza. Jackpot, I knew where I was going to have dinner! After roaming around the huge mall for a little bit, we went back to the Papa John's to have dinner. I ordered a 9" pepperoni pizza and a bottle of Heineken that came with a frosted glass. It was a very expensive meal by Chinese standards, but about normal for a comparable meal in the states. It was very delicious, made with real cheese and it was definitely authentic, as much as Papa John's pizza can be. It was the first time I've had pizza for about 2 months, since coming to China.



Today there was a guy outside of the school gates playing electric guitar. He was obviously pretty poor and was playing for money. Rebecca called me on my cell phone to let me know about the guy at the gate, so I went there, but decided to run back to the apartment to grab my camera and my guitar. I attempted to play along with him on my guitar, but it didn't work out too well since I think he was tuned a full step down from what mine was. He had a generic stratocaster hooked up to what looked like a homemade amplifier. I was surpised to see he was using a multi-effect pedal that was pretty much the same one I used to have for my bass guitar. I listened to him play and sing a few songs and then sorta asked him if I could play using body language. I played a little bit of "Red House" and part of a solo from "Suzie Q" then handed it back to him. He said "xie xie lao shi" (Thank you, teacher). I put a few yuan in his bag and left. I ended up getting a couple of short video clips of him playing with my digital camera, which has a video function. I figure now that I have an 8GB card I should take advantage of it and capture some video as well as audio. Maybe when I return I can edit it all into a short documentary of sorts. I'll definitely try to get some video of the crazy traffic over here.

Today was my turn to visit the Da Jin primary school in Da Tian village. I got up early in the morning, walked to the bus station and rode to the village and got dropped off at the school. I taught two classes today, and the kids seemed to be a tad less rambunctious than last time. I taught what I was supposed to from they book they provided me, and I had to improvise the rest. I took advantage of their energy and did a couple of simple Total Physical Response exercises, like having the kids "JUMP!" or "Sit quietly..."

I had a nice lunch at the school with the headmaster and a couple of teachers. After that I had about an hour and a half until the bus came, so I used most of my time walking down the road a little ways from the school. I spotted a tempting foot path off the side of the road, so I took it and it led me up to the top of a moderately big hill. At the top there was a big grave, like many of the ones seen in this countryside. I also had a decent view of some of the village homes and farms below and the mountains in the distance.

This weekend Rebecca and I are going to visit Martin at his home in Huizhou. Martin used to work at our high school in Shuizhai and was the main liaison for the past interns, but ended up moving to another city fairly recently. He recently stopped by the school a couple weekends ago and we chatted with him briefly, and he invited us to visit him at him home sometime soon. I'm trying to look up the population for the city, and I found one site that says it has about 2.7 million people. Pretty big city...

I went to the Bank of China today to exchange some more of my American dollars for Chinese Yuan. The exchange rate is pretty amazing, and I come out of the bank feeling a lot richer than when I entered. It's about 700 Yuan to every 100 American. While they were dealing with my paperwork to exchange, a woman behind me brought in an old US 20 dollar bill, so I showed her a $1, a $5, and a new $20 I had with me.

So we finally got permission to take a trip to Hong Kong, which will likely happen in early May as we're planning. We need to take this trip in order to renew our visas, since our visas are valid for 90 days per entry and we are here for about 100 days. Hong Kong should be fun to visit again.

Also, I've neglected to mention it yet, but I have to talk about my awesome mosquito killing device. It's basically a handheld bug zapper that looks like a tennis racket. You plug it into the wall to charge it and then you go around and zap mosquitoes with it. It has an on and off switch, and to activate the electricity you press a little button on the handle with your thumb and swat away. When you hit one, you get the satisfaction of a loud POP with a little blue spark. Sometimes it will sit and electrocute for a second before popping with a spark, and sometimes it will sit there and sizzle if you keep holding down the button and you'll get a fried mosquito smell. It's a whole lot easier and satisfying than trying to squash them.



Here are some pictures from the day - check out facebook album 8 for more

view from the top of the hill I climbed


some kids excited to see a waiguoren

Met another foreigner today

As I mentioned in my last post, this Sunday was Easter and I ended up attending a Christian church here in town. It was my first time going here, and it was very packed for this weekend. It began with some singing, and I recognized some of the tunes and the word "Hallelujah." The sermon got kind of boring but at the end there was a variety show with a choir performance, children's choir, and some women dancing with percussion and saying things. All in all it was pretty interesting.

Inside the church


Leaving church


Today we only taught 2 classes instead of 3, since we do not teach grade 1 this week. This means no classes tomorrow and 2 again Wednesday. For the lesson today and this week we wanted to get the students to talk and creatively produce language on their own, so we did an activity splitting the classes into 9-10 groups of 6 students or so. We gave each group a slip of paper with a list of people and we had the students create a sort of scene with the characters and come up with questions and answers each person might say. For instance, on slip had "Doctor, Nurse, Patient" for a scene at the doctors office, or "Restaurant manager, waiter, customer" for a restaurant scene. Near the end of class we tried to get the students to volunteer to act theirs out, and we actually had some success with this - in the first class a group of girls acted out their restaurant skit and they seemed to have fun with it. Not all of the students were as into it, but I'm glad some were and I consider it mostly a successful lesson.

With my short day, I decided to walk my bike down to the shop I bought it from to have it repaired. It has cottered cranks (ancient bike technology) so they are a bit shabby and come loose sometimes, so I had to get that fixed. I got my cranks fixed and my saddle level and tightened again so I was ready to go. I brought my camera along because I figured after getting it repaired I would ride out to the mountain and climb to the top. The bike is very classy with the upright posture and classic single speed look, but it's not without its problems - it's falling apart slowly and its heavy and inefficient. I miss my Long Haul Trucker touring bike at home, and returning to it will be so much sweeter after riding this heavy clunker around.

Someone told us that we are now in the rainy/wet season here, and apparently it stormed last night, but early on today it was really nice and sunny. Without my usual afternoon class, I figured it was a good opportunity to go to the mountain. At the foot of the mountain, I hear some distant thunder and figure it may rain. Oh well. I finally make it to the top and am greeted by 3 mean dogs at the main plaza place. The place is totally empty except for a young girl and boy hanging out at the top in the little Chinese gazebo thingy. I go there to read and it starts to rain, then pour heavily with some wicked lightning. I could see the town below when I first got there, but now it was completely covered by the storm passing through. Luckily the gazebo thing gave me shelter from the heavy rains, so I just waited it out with the two other kids until it finally calmed down. I knew I was stuck on a mountain in a rain storm, but I didn't worry since I figured it would pass, and it did.

Back down in the city I was riding back home on the main street on the sidewalk I see a white person walking by. I stopped and went up to him to say hi and we talked for a few minutes. He was Spanish and said that he was in town because his girlfriend lives here, and that he runs an import/export business. I'm not sure if he was an American citizen, but he did say he was living in America for a little while and he showed me his Florida ID/driver's license. I told him I was teaching English here and he said something like "good, because no one here can speak it!"

I'm still playing lots of Ping Pong, and am definitely improving my skills at the game, so hopefully I can find people to play with back home.

I don't think I've mentioned it here yet, but China ended up blocking Youtube on its internet, so if I try to access it I get that oh-so-familiar "Page load error" message. It happened a few weeks ago during my stay here, so I was able to access it before but no longer. The Huffington Post is also blocked, which is kind of a bummer, but having Youtube blocked is a much bigger deal. Oh well, I can live without it, but it gets annoying because about EVERYONE uses Youtube to show video on the internet nowadays. But it doesn't matter when I can buy cheap, nice suits.

My bike with a dog at the foot of the mountain. Someone was kind enough to get it out of the rain while I was away.

Met a fellow American today...

Rebecca and I decided to take yet another trip to Meizhou today, leaving on the bus at about 7 am. When we arrived at the bus station in Meizhou, I waited in the lobby while Rebecca used the restroom, and I just stood there kinda zoning out and staring blankly at a map when all the sudden I hear someone say "howdy." Whoa! An American! He asked me where we were traveling and I told him about how we were living in a nearby city teaching English and were in Meizhou visiting for the day. I forgot where exactly he said he was going, but he and his Chinese wife were traveling though the country, coming from Guangzhou (near Hong Kong) and passing through Meizhou at the moment. He said his name was John and he was from North Carolina, and I told him he was the first American I've seen in several weeks.

Rebecca and I chatted with him at the bus station for just a few minutes, but it was really cool finally getting to see another Westerner. It was one of those moments I've sort of been waiting for, not sure if it would likely happen or not because Westerners are so few and far between around these parts. Plus it was nice to talk to someone new who could comprehend every word we said.

From the bus station we decided to take a motorcycle taxi to the lake in Meizhou, and when we arrived it was pretty awesome. Meizhou has been the most impressive city I've ever been to when it comes to public parks - they are all over this city and each one is really great. They had some carnival rides running at this park, so we rode in the Ferris wheel and got a good view (and photos) of the lake and park. Afterwards we walked over and rented a pedal boat to ride around on the lake for an hour - it reminded me of riding my recumbent bike back home. It was a bit cramped for my long legs, but my knees are thankful for the light pedal resistance. At times we'd cut the steering to the left or right and 'cut donuts' on the lake - very slow like. Who knows what the people on shore thought of the crazy Americans. Hey, there's only so much you can do in the middle of a small lake on a pedal boat. At one point we saw an empty bottle floating in the lake, so we pedaled over to pick it up.

View from the top



We took a taxi to the shopping part of time and split ways for a few hours to shop separately. I bought quite a bit of stuff today - a few DVDs including that new Frost/Nixon film I've been wanting to see.

I picked up some gear for camping and bike touring
Sleeping bag - 1.65 lbs, packs small - about 27 dollars
Cycling gloves - they have nice padding, far better than my current Wal-mart ones - about 5 bucks
750 ml Aluminum Bottle - about $3.21
Cookset with pot and lid, skillet, folding handles, two Chinese styled bowls and one Chinese style spoon, and a scrubby brush - not the lightest, but nice - a little more than $15



I also bought a new 8GB memory card for my digital camera, I current have a 1 GB. I guess this really wasn't all that necessary, but at least now I can hold 8 tons of pictures and I got it for a decent price of about 30 bucks.

I am now past the halfway point of my stay in China. It's all gone so fast, and I'm sure the last half of this trip will fly by even faster before we fly back. I'm not homesick and I don't feel too anxious to get back yet, though I think I probably will the last week or so.

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday and I plan to go to church. Yes, there is a Christian church in town not too far from our school, and Rebecca attended one time so far. I really want to go and experience the Chinese version of this ritual - should be pretty interesting.

Got kinda sick, no big deal

This Tuesday I got kind of sick with something for the first time over here. I got back from teaching three classes in a row Tuesday morning and was sitting at the computer and I felt tired and kind of cold, so I put on my hoodie, got in bed, covered up and took a nap for a couple of hours. I woke up and I still felt bad - damn, I'm sick.

I took a couple of Ibuprofen that I brought along with me from the States and started to feel better eventually. In the evening Rebecca wanted to get some food at a restaurant and then walk down to Texas Burger for an ice cream. I was feeling better at the time so I went for the walk. After eating a plate of noodles at the restaurant, I felt better and ended up eating 2 ice creams at the Texas Burger. The ice cream there is the best in town that we've found so far - it tastes like the real thing, but we're pretty sure it isn't since most people here are lactose intolerant.

By the end of the day, I felt pretty much fully recovered, so I didn't know what it was. Did I get some kind of food poisoning? I didn't have an upset stomach or want to vomit at all, just felt 'bad' and had a sorta headache. I woke up the next morning feeling sorta crappy again but nothing a couple of Ibuprofen couldn't cure. From there I haven't felt bad, and this morning I woke up feeling great. I'm not sure what it was that I came down with, but at least it wasn't too serious and I'm glad I recovered so quickly.

Wednesday I tried out my new suit for the first time, wearing it to all three of our classes that day. The students at the school really seemed to like it and thought it was pretty cool.

We've gotten some rain recently, not too much though. I'm still grateful to be in such a nice climate - it was nice to escape those frigid midwest temperatures back in February for the warm subtropics. We had one week of cold weather here early on, but other than that we've had nice warm temperatures with a few chilly rainy days every once in awhile. And I'm glad that when I do finally return to the States it will be June and warm weather will await me.

New suit and shoes

So I want to confirm that the stereotype of Chinese people eating dog is absolutely true - at least in this region. In my time here so far I've seen a few dogs being butchered or parts of some being sold on the street. Yeah all kinds of meat are butchered and sold at little stands on the streets. Rebecca and I had a sort of funny encounter with this fact on our morning walk to the bus station last Thursday to go to Da Tian. We were walking along and a man across the street gives us a big 'Hello!' and a wave with one hand and then lifts his other arm up holding a pole with a dead dog hanging on the end of it.

I know some of you are dog lovers and I myself really like dogs. But yeah, that's just how they do things over here. It might seem strange or even wrong, but you really only have a right to complain if you are a vegetarian. Us meat eaters have no room to judge eating dogs when we kill pigs and cattle everytime we enjoy a delicious burger or bacon.

I haven't talked about teaching for awhile, so I'd like to mention that we basically recycled a lesson from a couple weeks back for this past week. Instead of using Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again," this week we used the The Avett Brother's "The Ballad of Love and Hate." It was a good song to use since it is very long (took up the whole class period going over it), the lyrics are clear and understandable, and it tells a story. It was pretty awesome seeing a classroom full of Chinese kids singing along to The Avett Brothers.

Saturday Rebecca and I had our first experience cooking - well mostly Rebecca but I helped a little. I woke up in the morning and a couple of English teachers were in our apartment with Rebecca - they went to buy some food off the street for making dumplings earlier - a large carrot, some pork, and some pasta sqaures from the dumpling restaurant to make our own dumplings. I helped make a few dumplings, grabbing a thin pasta square, using the chopsticks to grab a little carrot/pork mix, and then wrap/fold the dumpling. One of the teachers did the cooking, boiling water in our wok and boiling the dumplings for several minutes. It was a good meal - maybe I will attempt to make some when I return to America.

Making dumplings in our dining room





Today we got lunch on one of the many boat restaurants on the river. Sitting next to the water I could see lots of litter and garbage floating by, and some of the patrons and restaurant hosts didn't think twice about tossing tissue paper into the river. !!! Anyway, there was kind of a funny moment because our waitress handed us two glasses for our table. One had a small blemish on the lip, and the woman picked it up and looked at it for a second, and then just tossed it into the river. We had a good laugh after she walked away. It's too bad, I would have kept that glass. I just thought that moment was kind of funny.

Anyway, today was kind of a big shopping day for me as I picked up a few nice items. My first find of the day was a big "Adidas" (emphasis on the "") backpack. I bought it to replace the small backpack that I carried over with me, as this one can hold more stuff. I know it's probably not the best quality, as it's not really an Adidas bag, but hey I haggled it for 25 RMB, which is about 4 bucks American. Flying over here I only had one big backpacker-type backpack and one smaller school backpack for everything I brought with me - I like to pack light. This is a slight upgrade to my carry-on backpack and will be great for traveling in the future for all kinds of trips.

Last night I went shopping around for shoes - I figure it's best to go ahead and get a good pair or two over here where I can find a much better deal on some. I found a few last night but they didn't have my size, 46. I figured my waiguoren feet were just too big for the shops over here - no one carried size 46. However, I didn't think to look for size 44, which also fits - turns out about everyone has shoes in this size. I went to the store today that I went to last night to try on the cool shoes in a 44 and they fit fine. Sweet, time to go back and get the moolah to buy them.

After going back home to get the money, I walk back into town and decide to stop and look at some suits in a store. One of the women at the shop gives me a suit to try on so I do, but I don't really have an intention on buying it, since I didn't have the money - the price read something above 500 RMB. However, I like it and she thinks I want to buy it, so she goes to check it out and I try to explain I don't have the money for it. I show her that I have 250 RMB and she says that's ok. I confirm it by writing "250?" on a piece of paper and pointing to the whole suit - she says yes. Well, looks like I'm buying a suit today. I was kinda wanting to buy a suit over here at some point anyway, and today I found a deal I couldn't pass up - a nice new dark blue suit for about $37 American.

I now have no money to buy the shoes I originally walked into town to get, so I head back home yet again to get more money and walk back into town to the shoe store, try on the shoes, and buy them. The black leather shoes are really nice - sort of a mix of dress and casual, very clean and stylish. And only $30 American.

I love this country.

Here are the shoes and the suit I bought

I've been to the mountain top

Today Rebecca and I met up with two girls at the school to go climb a mountain just outside of town. They brought a bike along for Rebecca to use for the day and I got on mine and we all rode a few miles through town to the outskirts and came to the foot of the mountain. We parked our bikes and began walking up the nice concrete path all the way up the side of the mountain. It was a steep climb, but it was surprisingly short and fairly easy for the amount of distance we covered. At the top was a sort of park with a monument and some shops, and a great view of the whole city of Shuizhai. We walked down the other side and around on the road that leads to the peak. I will have to make more trips here, as it is very easy to access with a short bike ride. Too bad I don't have a bike with a granny gear to climb the hill - no way in hell am I pedaling my heavy single-speed up that mountain or coming down with its ancient rod brakes.

We found out friday that this weekend is a 3-day weekend for us and the grade 1 and 2 students - apparently its the Qingming /The Clear & Bright Festival that occurs on April 5th. We don't teach classes monday, so we are considering another visit to Meizhou that day.

Walking through the city tonight we decided to stop by the calligraphy artist's shop that I visited by myself the other day. We walked in and he served us tea and talked some. I don't know how we do it, we only speak a spoonful of Chinese and he spoke no English, but somehow we still had a conversation of sorts. Eventually he got out the calligraphy gear and let us take a shot at it. I know how to write some Chinese characters, so I did what I could and did a decent job at it. I went over to buy a brush but he refused to let me pay for it, giving it as a gift. Plus I guess it was sort of 'broken' since the brush was fluffy and not sharp - I guess it needs to be sharp to do caligraphy properly. Pretty awesome though, since I was planning on using it as a gift anyway.

Here are some pictures from the day

Overlooking Shuizhai


On the other side



Terraced rice paddies

My birthday and Da Tian village visit

So yesterday, April 1st, was my 22nd birthday - and what a place to celebrate it in! We taught our normal Wednesday classes that day and each class gave me a gift of some sort - all in all I ended up getting a nice ping pong paddle set, a ceramic Buddah in a cool gift box (I thought it was a chocolate Buddah at first, so I'm glad it will last!), and some handmade cards and some candy. Between classes I went down the street to a fireworks shop and bought a couple of items - a fountain and a thingy that shoots the exploding colorful flares into the air. We ended up walking down next to the river bank at night to shoot them off. It's not illegal here apparently, as we here fireworks go off all the time - something I might have to take advantage of while I can.

I ended up getting a couple pieces of mail Tuesday - one from my Mom which I think she sent before I left, and a birthday card from my brother Nathan and his family (good timing!).

Searching at the some the DVD shops around town, I found computer games and software and I ended up buying Half Life 2 and Age of Empires 3 for a couple bucks, and then I found Photoshop 9 for less than a dollar, which is literally a steal. But hey, we've all broken the speed limit...

Today Rebecca and I spent all day in and around Da Tian village. We got up really early and walked to the bus station at 6:15 to catch the 7:00 am bus to Da Tian. It was a really small bus, and at one point there must have been about 30 people on the bus made for 20 or so - so Rebecca and I got up from our seats at one point to offer them to some elderly women who thanked us for giving up our seats.

We taught 3 classes total at the Da Jian primary school at the village - the second class was very rambunctious so it was a bit hectic, especially with kids hitting each other. However, it balanced out with the last class we had, which was very well behaved and attentive, so we taught a few basic things and played a couple rounds of hangman. How much a difference a few years of age can make.

Usually Rebecca and I go alone every other week to visit Da Tian, but this week we were also set to visit a nearby middle school, so we both ended up going. After leaving Da Jian school we met with the headmaster of the Middle school and had a royal buffet of a lunch at a nice restaurant with a couple of young English teachers from the middle school. Afterwards they got us each a hotel room for a couple hours of rest and then we headed to the Middle school - there we just went outside to talk to a massive swarm of middle school kids asking us questions. After a while I got to play some ping pong with some students and teachers.

After that was over, we left with the headmaster of the middle school in his car back to Shuizhai. After a couple of random stops we stopped to eat dinner at a restaurant. We sat and drank tea with some other older fellows and communicated with what we knew of Mandarin Chinese and the little English they knew - surprisingly successful I guess. Tonight was my first experience of the Chinese hard drinking culture - as someone brought along a bottle of fairly strong stuff - 52%-alcohol-by-volume type strong stuff. We all had little chalice shot glasses that must have been 1/3 or 1/4 of a shot, but still it seemed like the men offered a toast every few minutes, and they'd refill the chalice after every toast. I'm not a big fan of hard alcohol - well, it's not a big fan of me - so I dreaded each shot fearing it would want back out, but luckily I didn't get sick and got a nice decent buzz from it along with a delicious meal. Also, I'm grateful the headmaster didn't drive us the rest of the way in, and that we had a sober driver take us back to school.

Also, I gave gifts to the headmasters at both of the schools. For both I included a small bottle of wine, a can of Budweiser, and a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon - all of which I picked up in Shuizhai. I figured they'd appreciate the wine and American beer.

Here are some pictures from the day

This photo does no justice to this amazing mountain




Doesn't this photo make you want to be an environmentalist?


More photos from the day can be seen in facebook albums 6 and 7 linked on the right side of the page.

Another day in Meizhou

So my last post was early this morning - now I'm posting at night after returning from Meizhou with a little bit less cash and some more shirts, pictures, dvds, and memories.

We had some rain today on and off, and when it rained it really poured, so I'm glad I wore my rain jacket and water resistant pants. Otherwise a pleasant day to roam around Meizhou once again to shop and explore. On the bus ride over there was a TV playing a DVD of some apparently famous singer performing live shows - it kind of reminded me of a Chinese version of Branson shows or something you might see on PBS occasionally.

I really loaded up today on cheap DVDs and 'Engrish' shirts, and one really cool shirt that has an olde timey Harley Davidson on it - the one that looks basically like a beach cruiser bicycle with a motor.

For DVDs I got:
-Curb Your Enthusiasm seasons 1-5
-Sopranos seasons 1-6
-compilation dvd with 18 films including Fight Club and Oceans 11 trilogy
-compilation dvd with a bunch of chinese films, a couple that I watched in my college film classes, Wong Kar Wai's "Chungking Express" and "2046." I just tested it and I'm kinda bummed it doesn't have English subtitles - oh well I'll probably use it as a gift before I leave.
-compilation DVD with all 6 Star Wars, X-Men, and the new Die Hard

Rebecca and I decided to visit the university in Meizhou today, so we took a motorcycle taxi to it and walked around for awhile. There were a couple places where you could walk up on a hill with sidewalk paths and stairs into some woods. A few student couples were back there kissing - taking advantage of what little privacy they can get in this country. We wondered around the really cool campus some, and saw many high school students - we assume it was a high school visit day, being Saturday and all.

Walking along I spotted human-sized hamster wheels and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to try them out. Here is a picture of me on the hamster wheel:



Afterwards we wanted to head back to the bus station, so we hopped in a pedicab - a bicycle rickshaw - and pointed to a bus station on our map that we thought was the correct one. It was not the right one and they didn't have a bus to go back to Shuizhai. But outside were a few taxi drivers or something who were trying to get us to take their taxi back to Meizhou for 120 yuan - much more than a bus ticket back. We asked them about the bus station but they kept offering the taxi. It took me a minute to figure out they were just trying to take us in their taxi and prevent us from taking a bus or going to another bus station. Damn they were persistant, we finally walked away and one of the men kept talking to us, and even lightly pinched my arm to get my attention as we tried to walk away, and they followed us for a few blocks in their taxi and motorcycle. Looking back it was kind of funny, but at the time I was losing my patience and starting to get frustrated since they persisted so much almost to the point of stalking.

So we finally take a motorcycle taxi to the correct bus station but we are too late. Damn. We call the teachers who assist us at Shuizhai for some help - we called Lily and she offered to give us a ride back, since she and her husband happened to be in Meizhou as well and were about to leave. They came by and picked us up at the bus station and took us to eat at KFC, buying us each a meal. Rebecca and I are extremely grateful for Lily and Tom for giving us a ride back home and for feeding us dinner - they sure made things much easier for us this evening.

For more pictures of today's trip to Meizhou and some from yesterday out to the countryside, go to this link http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2090425&id=36105183&l=16a3e6f9e5 or click on the "Facebook Album 6" link on the right side of the page.

Also, our internet is working again so I'm posting this from my room.

Dinner and hot springs

Yesterday Rebecca and I were invited to eat dinner at a student's house in a nearby town. We took a motorcycle taxi truck from the school entrance about 8 km or so to the town, went back on some narrow winding streets/alleys until we arrived at his home. We sat and drank tea and ate snacks watching Chinese television in his living room with his 93-year-old grandmother while his mom prepared dinner. We decided to go for a short walk out back into the farmland - here are some pictures:





After the good supper of chicken, vegetables, rice, and a little bit of homebrewed rice wine, we headed to the nearby hotsprings pool for a swim. I believe it's run off of a natural hotspring, but they have a nice pool facility built around it. It's a perfect combination of hot tub and swimming pool, and felt very relaxing.




Our friend Wei Guo Quan and his friend who ate dinner with us took us all the way back to our school on their motorcycles, and we paid them a little cash for the trip.

We still are without internet in the apartment, and will contact someone soon about the problem. We are planning another Meizhou trip today, so I am sure to have more pictures (and DVDs!) from that trip.

Checking in or something

Well I just had a close call with a motorbike that whizzed by me by inches, good thing I didn't step out into the street for a second...

Anyway, our apartment's internet has been non-existant for the past couple of days so I have to make occasional visits to this internet cafe down the street.

I make frequent visits to the Texas Burger fast food place in town, most often to enjoy their good, cheap ice cream. Last night Rebecca and I stopped in for an ice cream and they gave us each a discount card. Must be for going there so often -anyway it gives us a discount on some food and ice cream, so it's pretty awesome.

Yesterday I decided to eat at an authentic Chinese place, just any one of the billions in this town. So we stopped by this one place just down the street from the school and they served us a bowl of dumplings. I now have a new favorite place to eat, and I've visited two more times already. I believe it is the only dish they serve there, but it is amazing - it makes it real easy to order food if they only have one thing. Did I mention that they have peanut butter at this place, and that peanut butter and dumplings is a good combination?

The less-than-50 cents dumplings.


I don't mean to talk crap but using the squat toilets here in China is really not all that bad. It is essentially a glorified hole in the bathroom floor, so no porcelean throne to sit on. You simply roll your pant legs up and squat all the way down so your chest rests on your knees basically, and do your business. It's much more sanitary than a Western toilet, since you don't touch anything. Also, it all seems to move much faster - must be something with the anatomy and the body position. To flush, with our set-up, you simply fill a bucket of water and dump it in to flush. We also shower in the same room, and the toilet acts as the shower drain as well and sorta cleans the toilet when you shower. In the bathroom is our propane tank which provides gas to our water heater for showers and the small cooking range in the adjacent room. It's all a pretty nice set-up, I just always wear flip flops in the shower.

Planning another trip to Meizhou this Saturday - hope the weather is nice again. It's a tad chilly and bit rainy here currently, but nothing too bad.

I just ate a good piece of fruit I bought from a street vendor the other day. It looked like a peach, and tasted much like a peach, but it had the texture/consistency of an apple - great because I got the goodness of peach flavor but with the behavior of an apple - no messy juices dripping everywhere.

The past couple of days Rebecca and I have been going on walks through the city at night. At this one place down by the river at night there is a nightly carnival-type scene complete with rides for small children, dvd, toy, and food vendors, and a couple of areas where people can dance to music. It makes for a lively and interesting scene. Last night on the walk back we stopped by a place that had pool tables in a building but in the open air next to the main street, so we paid roughly a dollar to play for an hour, and got in 3 games of pool.

So I'm gradually building my 'illegitimate' DVD collection - I found the first three seasons of Prison Break - apparently it's found a niche over here with some people. I've never seen the show before, but I figured I'd try it out since it was only a couple of bucks or so for three seasons. I've watched a few episodes so far and it's pretty good. I just have to put up with Chinese subtitles and an occasional advertisement logo-thingy on screen but otherwise it was a good buy. You get what you pay for but hey, I can't complain.

I'm glad that I've gotten back into a habit of reading again on this trip. I brought a handful of books over with me to read, but we also discovered a small but decent collection of books here in our apartment that previous interns left. So far I've read Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums (thanks Maddy!), and just finished John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley today, where I immediately started Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance. The last two I've already read, but they are deserving of another read, as I still learned new things from the Steinbeck book - it's apart from his other novels as it's a non-fiction account of his epic roadtrip across America with his dog Charley, I highly recommend it.

Rebecca and I were sort of planning a trip for Hong Kong next weekend, but the headmaster here is not allowing it. I can understand, it is a bit early in our stay here and I can understand they are worried we might get lost or whatnot. However, we need to make a trip to Hong Kong at some point since our stay here is about 100 days, and our visas only allow for 90 days without exiting and re-entering the country. No big deal though, I think we will just make another trip to Meizhou for some exploration and shopping in the bigger city.

Check out this video of the Chinese version of hackey sack, called Jian Zi. It's some random video I found on Youtube, but it gives you an idea of how it's played - much like American hackey sack. It's popular with the students at my school and I love to play with them, since my hackey skills transfer well to this game. I've never seen a Jian Zi, the feathered shuttlecock you kick around in this game, in the US, so I plan to bring several back to the states.

One month down...

Wow, I can't believe I've been away for about a month now, it really hasn't felt like that long of a time being away from home. I guess it's just my easy-goin' personality and my love of traveling and seeing new things that has allowed me to adjust so easily to this place. Honestly it's been much easier settling in and becoming comfortable than I imagined it might be. Many modern comforts of Western culture have seeped into this corner of China - something that is both nice yet a bit disappointing at the same time. Supermarkets that sell many things you'd find in the US and fast food joints that sell burgers and cokes. They say this is a communist country, but from what I've seen it's a capitalist culture by all means at this point in time - from the Pepsi advertisements in the school cafeteria to all the shops on the streets selling plastic knick-knacks and colas.

One of the most noticeable differences between Chinese and American culture would be in the traffic/transportation culture. Back in the US, traffic is comprised of 99.9%cars and trucks, and bicycles and motorcycles are considered abnormal or even toys by many people. Here in China though, the majority of traffic consists of motocycles and bicycles. That said, practically all the motorcycles have very small 125cc motors or are 50cc scooters, and nearly all of the bikes are single speeds complete with fenders, rear rack, and handlebar basket. It's very impressive as I've seen people haul more things on their bikes and motorcycles here than most Americans usually load into their enormous SUVs.

Often times you will see bicycles with two people on them, one pedaling and another sitting on the rear rack. You'll see motorcycles carry boxes of chickens, poles, ladders, or pretty much anything that would surely warrant a citation of some sort in the US. Also I've seen up to 4 or 5 people riding one motorcycle, though three or less is more common. For hauling cargo and people, motorcycle trucks are very popular here. I posted a picture of one hauling a pig a few posts ago, but basically it is a motorcycle body on front with a two-wheeled rear chasis that can hold a small cabin for passengers or a bed for hauling things - they seem very efficient. People here seemed to be more conscious of efficiency and space saving - you have to be when there are so many people in a smaller space with less resources.

And traffic itself would be considered fairly insane to the average American. Cars, motorcycles, bikes, pedestrians, street vendors all use the same streets, so it can get a bit crowded sometimes. Honking is a constant and ever-present reality, as cars and motorcycles consistantly beep to let people know they are there and are coming through, and people just don't get pissed off about honking like they do in the states. People pull out onto a road from side streets often without bothering to check cross traffic. I'm simply amazed that there are not collisions everyday at all the intersections, but they seem to manage and survive with this system fairly well.

So now I am about one third of the way through my stay here in China. I'm really not homesick at all, though I do occasionally crave pizza and the non-existant cheese that goes on those pizzas. I think I'm really going to miss this place in many ways when I have to leave, especially all of the cheap prices for everything.

A day in Meizhou

This morning Rebecca suggested that we take a trip to the nearby larger city of Meizhou (pronounced May Joe), since it was bright and sunny outside (though a tad chilly). Always up for an adventure, I agreed. We got a few things together and took a motorcycle taxi to the bus station. We got there a few minutes before a bus to Meizhou left, so just in time! The bus ride took about 2 hours, with some of it being on rough roads currently under construction, so a few slow, bumpy parts of the ride.

From the bus station in Meizhou we just started walking. It was about lunchtime and we were hungry, so we stopped into a nice restaurant and ordered a couple of dishes - a plate of chicken and a plate of fried tofu squares in some good sauce, along with the rice and tea they give you. A good meal that only cost about $6.57 US altogether, also nearly what our bus tickets to Meizhou cost.



We walked around some more and found a really cool park where we stopped to take some photos and chill out for a bit. Check out this cool rock island thing on the pond that can walk out on.



We stopped by some shops where I picked up a couple of 3-star ping pong balls, a guitar strap, deck of cards, and a "shuttlecock" that is kind of like a badminton one, but is made for kicking around like a hackey sack. I've kicked one around a few times with people on campus so I decided to buy one. I'll likely buy a few to bring back to the states. Also, I regret not bringing my hackey sack.

I decided to stop into a DVD store to browse around and I found tons of cheap (and likely pirated) DVDs of American movies - DVD sets of 2 or 3 discs that contained between 10-20 movies. I found collections that had all the Godfathers, Star Wars, new releases, Harry Potters, ect... I was tempted to pick up several at this time, but decided to buy one for now to test out. I ended up buying the entire Band of Brothers miniseries for a buck 75. I tested it on the computer here and it plays fine, and is in English. Not sure whether it will play in the United States though, but I'll probably pick up more DVD's just because they are so damn cheap.

We were surprised to run into Lily, one of the teachers from our school who is helping us, just outside one of the stores we came out of. Small world.... I got a quick bite to eat at a KFC and then we took a 3-wheeled motorcycle taxi to the bus station, but the taxi guy took us to a college instead, and then to the wrong bus station. We got off there and got a ride to the correct bus station from a guy on a motorcycle. It was my first time on a motorcycle ever, 3 of us packed on the little 125cc powered machine as we rode through the city to the station.

Meizhou is awesome for a day trip, and we plan to make a few more trips back here to this big city to explore and shop around some more.

You can see more of the pictures I took today in this album, also posted on the right side of this page.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2089086&id=36105183&l=9321e

New Bicycle

Yesterday was the first day of warmth and sunshine since all the rain starting last Thursday. Ah, t-shirt weather again - I hope it lasts for a few days at least before it probably chills down again. But no worries, I finally decided to pull out the electric blanket from my wardrobe that one of the former interns left here. It's a true luxury, especially because we don't really have heating here for our apartment.

For our classes this week Rebecca and I are using music. We are using Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again," having students listen to a recording of the song and going over the lyrics. We write them on the board, leaving a few select words blank, and having the class listen to the song and fill in the blank. When we finish the lyrics, I use my guitar which I bring to class to sing the song myself and encourage the students to sing along with us. Since that didn't take up the whole class period, for the first couple of classes Monday Rebecca just improvised and played Journey's "Don't Stop Believing." It was a pretty cool moment seeing a class of 60 Chinese kids singing along to Journey.

However we decided that besides Willie Nelson we'd need another song to cover in the rest of the classes for the week. For the second song we're doing Pete Seeger's cover of Malvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes." We explain to them what the song is about, being as it's critical of an aspect of American culture. Both songs are fairly simple and clear in the language and singable, so we figured they'd have little trouble deciphering the words.

Yesterday I decided to walk downtown and buy the bicycle I've had my eye on for the past week or so. I've had a difficult time finding one that actually fits me, and this one is close enough to my size to fit comfortably. I paid 360 yuan for it, which is about $52 American, not bad at all.

Here it is. You can see that the cranks aren't at a perfect 180 degree angle, cus the left crank went completely loose on me earlier today. I had a mechanic fix it up but I guess he didn't do a perfect job. Ah well, it still feels normal to pedal and I can always take it to the place I bought it and have them fix it up.


Today I took a nice ride down a street that ended up taking me out of town. I don't know how far I went, but somewhere between 3-5 miles out I'd guesstimate, out to another nearby small town. There are people everywhere, so there weren't really any lonely stretches like you often have on country roads in America. I've become used to the traffic for the most part, I just always check my six every few moments for trucks and motorcycles approaching. But I have a lot of confidence in drivers and motorcyclists over here since bicycles are everywhere, so they know to look for me.

Here's a typical scene on the bridge that we cross to get over to the main street, on the way back to the school. You can see a full-ish moon, the same one from back home!

Rain rain rain

I've been paying attention to the weather back home in Missouri and saw that it got into the 60s and 70s, while here the temperatures dropped this week down to the 50s and likely 40s at times at the same time we're getting tons of rain. It's not as harsh as Kirksville winter but I hope it'll warm and dry up again shortly.

Thursday I visited the Da Tian (大田) village primary school by myself. Rebecca and I are arranged to visit the village school once a week, and we go by ourselves each time, so I decided to go this first time. I left the apartment at about 6:40 am and met the English teacher Cara who showed me the way to the bus station. It was my first time riding in one of those motorcycle taxis I see everywhere - a bumpy but fun ride across town. From the bus station it was about an hour bus ride to the village through some beautiful mountains, countryside, farms, and villages.

At the village school I taught two small classes of young kids somewhere around Kindergarten or 2nd grade age. The English teacher told me to teach out a book they gave me, but it was not enough to fill the class period, so I had to improvise some - I showed them on a map where I was from and also went over shapes and colors and a few basic things with them.

Here's one of my classes at the village school


Here's one part of the village near the school


Today while the rain let off Rebecca and I decided to walk downtown to try and find the American-styled fast food burger joint in town we've heard some people talk about. We asked several students from our school who we met on the street for directions and we finally found it. Now if I ever get the craving for good ol' bad American fast food I know where to walk to.

This yummy meal cost about $2.65 American, including an extra Coke I accidentally ordered


When we first arrived here it was fairly dry before the rains. Today we walked and saw the river which was flowing pretty steady now after three days of rain.

Here's a picture of an unfinished bridge with our school in the background


I also bought my first funny "Engrish" shirt today. It doesn't make any sense as you can see.

'Cold' weather finally

Here's a big pig on a motorcycle-truck (Click to see whole pic, same with the bottom pic)



For about the first week since arriving in Hong Kong and into Shuizhai it was very warm. I didn't know the exact temperatures, but I'd guess mid 70's or so--enough to break a decent sweat.

The past few days however have yielded much cooler temps, probably in the 50s range or so, which can still be quite chilly. However, I just keep reminding myself that I'm not freezing away in Missouri so that keeps me happy. I think this region is in a drought currently, as although we've had overcast skies for the past few days, it's done nothing more than sprinkle, and the river here in town is very low. It will only get warmer as the weeks progress - I love being down near the Tropic of Cancer.

Rebecca and I began teaching our first week of classes this Monday, and in the two days and five classes we've taught so far, it's going really well. Our schedule is fairly light with only eight classes per week, each with a separate class as we teach grades 1 and 2 here at the high school. So the way it's working for this week is that we created one lesson plan and are using it for each class the whole week. We are introducing ourselves and where we are from, and teaching the students about "wh-" questions (who, what, when, where, why, how) and allowing time in each class for students to create their own questions to ask us out loud. We figure it's a great way to get the students talking and using English, as they are very curious about us and American culture. I've gotten at least one question about Obama in each class so far, but many of the questions we get are about our favorite sport or how we like China so far.

I'm surprised it's working out so well so far, and really I haven't been too nervous when I enter the classrooms. I felt much more nervous and pressured doing a practice teaching lesson in my ESL practicum class last semester in front of a handful of college students and my professor. It helps that Rebecca and I are team teaching together and that the students are so enthusiastic, who usually applaud loudly when Rebecca and I enter the room. A couple of classes wrote "Welcome to our class" on the board for us. That sure doesn't happen in America!

Part of one of my classes. All of our classes have around 50-60 students.


One of the English teachers invited us to her apartment on campus for dinner last night, and I have to say it was one of my best meals in China so far. Cara, one of the English teachers who has been helping us a lot was there as well and brought along her adorable baby daughter. Cara told me to bring my guitar over, so I did and played a few songs.

I think by the end of this trip I will be a ping pong master - I've been playing so much with the students and teachers and have noticeably improved my skills through just this week being here. I figure we come to teach English to the students, and they in turn will teach us ping pong.

Here's a pic of me buying a slice of pineapple on a stick from a tricycle fruit

New Computer, New Guitar

Ever since we got to Hong Kong and into Shuizhai, the weather has been fantastic-- warmth and sunshine and sweat. It cooled down a bit yesterday and today, which is actually pretty nice with a light jacket. One thing I don't miss for sure is Kirksville winter.

During a walk downtown I decided to look in some random shop just to browse around and lo and behold I see guitars on display in the back. It was an exciting moment, as I thought I might never find one in this city. Apparently they do have everything and kitchen sink (no really, they sell sinks on the street). I bought a decent acoustic for 250 Chinese Yuan, which is about $37 American. Not a bad deal for something to mess around with during my stay here. I'm sure it'll provide me lots of entertainment plus I may use it for my classes.

Rebecca and I each got our own computers for the apartment a couple days ago, so now we have internet access from home instead of having to walk down the street to the internet cafe where a few kids play World of Warcraft all day. The people who brought the computers over came by soon after we got back from buying my guitar, and one of them brought their young child, who I 'babysat' for a few minutes letting him play with my new guitar. He kind of reminded me of my nephew Justin, because he was very quiet and had a serious look on his face as he curiously played with the guitar as I made different chords. Also, notice the strange body shape of this acoustic guitar.



Rebecca and I start teaching classes tomorrow, and although the school arranged for us to teach separately, I think it will be no problem to let us teach together. Our teaching schedule is very light, as we only have eight classes altogether each week. On Thursdays we are supposed to take a bus to a small village elementary school about an hour away, and we're only supposed to go one at a time for those trips.

One thing about China is that about every time your butt hits a seat you are served tea. At some of the nicer meals we had earlier this week we had tea as we sat waiting for the meal. Also when waiting at a bike shop and a mobile phone store I had tea served.

I've been away from home for well over a week and I've settled in pretty well. I'm kind of surprised how easily I've adapted to my life here, it helps that I'm not the only American around and that everyone here has been really nice. I'm sure by the end of this trip I'll be craving pizza and cheeseburgers and all that high fructose corn syrup-packed American goodness, but the food here is pretty good and there are many Western items like Pepsi and toilet paper available at the supermarket and all along the streets. My favorite so far in Shuizhai are the local bakeries, which beats eating cafeteria (the "canteen") food. Everything here is very inexpensive, and I doubt I will use much of the money I brought with me even though I like to buy lots of soda and bakery items

Homesickness hasn't set in like I thought it might -- I really like this place and find it quite comfortable. I think the warm weather helps.



And my favorite sandwich thingy from that bakery. These cost about 30 cents American