August 16-31, 2010

August 16 - 31
So the tail end of August has pretty much been the same old same old. A few new things though; I bought a yogurt maker and have been learning how to make yogurt. I have had one success and one failure my third try will be today. I've also started making my own soy milk. I bought a blender and it came with this neat attachment that holds the pulp in the middle and lets the juices strain through when you pour it. I've made many delicious drinks with my blender ^_^ Watermelon juice is my favorite so far.


The summer is still hot. The heat seems to come from every direction. I'll be walking along and think it's very warm only to find I've walked through a heat pocket. The buildings are all made of concrete which I have learned hold heat very well. When you're walking beside them you can feel the temperature rise and almost see heat waves coming from the sides of them. People here even have summer umbrellas; which I thought was funny at first but have realized now that it actually makes a huge difference when you use one. I've also seen scooter-drivers wearing shirts backwards to protect their clothes from getting dirty, but my favorite are the dummy sleeves. Same concept as dummy mittens (the mittens attached to each other with string) but just the sleeves of an old mans dress shirt attached with string. There have been many dishes introduced to me that help "cool your body down"; fruit, types of bean porridge, this weird brown herbal Jello type stuff that actually tastes ok. One in particular that was introduced to me was a clear dish that had stringy things in it. It tasted ok, but reminded me of snot because of the texture….insert shudder here… only after I finished it was I informed that it was bird spit. :-P oh but it's good for you, it's good for your chest and throat! Blech no thanks, never again! Gross, no wonder it reminded me of snot!

Our school was doing it's final performances for the parents the other day. This is where the kids dress up, makeup is loaded onto their faces (boys and girls) and sparkles drench their hair. They all look very cute if only a little strange. During the performance I was shocked to see a foreign kid among the group of Chinese kids; I pointed him out to Phoenix and was then corrected that this kid was not foreign in fact he was an albino kid. It was crazy! He looked just like a westerner; blond hair, white skin. Very interesting.

My Chinese is still improving slowly. I heard about this program at the university that has a beginner Chinese class and they will work around your schedule. So now I am just waiting for my September schedule from my school so I can see if I've got time to squeeze these lessons in. The only problem is that the school is about an hour by bus from my house. So I'll really have to get as many classes together as possible so I don't have to do so many of those trips.

It's looking more and more like I will be staying another year. My master plan is ahead of schedule which means I might not have to sign on with another school next year; I can do more private lessons and more travelling. ^_^ speaking of travelling; I'm very excited for Mom, Nea and John to come in October, the celebrations are going to be wonderful!

I'm looking forward to September.

Roadside Scenery

Lightning Storm and Misc

Beginning....
Middle....

Peak!

Interesting truck.

Interesting sign.

Out and About

Gas Station.

Men's fashion... Rolling up the shirt is back!!!!

Construction. All these buildings are wrapped in bamboo scaffolding.

New Highway.

Getting onto the Highway.

West Lake

Boat cruising on West Lake.

Boat on West Lake.

Paths along West Lake.

Paths along West Lake.

Paths along West Lake.

August 1 - 15, 2010

August 1 - 15

Well hello again everyone.

So far this month has been ok. Not too much new, less rain, a trip to the beach, but still really busy.

Life seems to go by really quickly these days. I guess I am just praying to get through days as quickly as possible and my prayers are being answered. I really can't wait till September though when my schedule will take on a more relaxed pace once again. Between Jordan's Language School, private lessons , my Chinese lessons and study groups it seems I have very little time left to just relax. I have become very accustomed to having days to myself and have learned it's not necessarily a bad thing to enjoy the time off.

School for me has been insanely busy. We have our normal schedules and then we have summer camp classes added to that. It’s not overwhelmingly busy but with my added private lessons it doesn't leave much time for relaxing. Two groups of private lessons finishes at the end of this month, so that will give me back 4 afternoons and I think my other lesson will end shortly after September since the girl is a teacher and has to go back to school.

I have this master plan (that I haven’t been following very well) to save up money and collect enough private lessons to support myself. I’d love to stay another year if it meant not having to work at a school, because then I can do more traveling and concentrate more on learning Chinese. ^_^ First and foremost though, before I make any further decisions on that I’ll see how this year goes.

I've learned that my roommate is a lesbian, which I kinda thought was the case but didn't want to assume. It freaked me out at the start but seems to be ok now; she totally looks like a boy. Ideally I would like to get my own place but at the same time this one is SO close to my school that I don’t want to give it up. I’ll see how the coming months go. I’ve been noticing an increase of cockroaches though since she arrived and I don’t know if it’s because of the weather or if it’s because of her. Seriously some of them are half the size of my palm. It’s so gross! Those ones even make noise when they walk, you can hear the click-click-click-click along the floor as they move around. It’s disgusting and has made me appreciate my mesh tent on my bed that much more.

My Chinese is picking up. I have had a few people tell me I have a really good accent. I was happy about that since it was starting to become a very discouraging learning process.

I’ve gotten to travel to a couple nearby places for day trips. They were nice and I’m hoping I get to go again for more time so I can really see the cities. One was Hangzhou (again), and the other was a lake…the Wenzhounese call it the golden lake because of the sand but I don't know it's real name. I never noticed how long the hoses are at the gas stations here; a car will pull up and the hose can reach around the car… or across the lane. I have also learned that when an accident happens the cars will stay in the exact position until the insurance company comes to view the scene of the accident. It's a pain in the butt for the rest of the cars who are trying to get through.

It's been so hot this past month that I have developed a heat rash behind my knees. It's insanely itchy and is sore when I bend my knees. At first I was told to put baby powder on it to keep it from getting too irritated but now it has gotten serious enough that I have to put this cream on it.

I went to a water park with some of my students and got my first sunburn of the year, that was fun. It's funny though the kids didn't want to go on any of the slides; they were afraid.

Well I think that’s all for now; once September comes I think my schedule will calm down a bit and I will be able to have more interesting activities to add to my blogs.

I don't know what kind of bug this is...

West Lake.

Temperature!!!!!!!!


Boats on West Lake.

Temple on a hill.

July 16-31, 2010

July 16 - 31
First thing's first!
I am so happy that Dan and Tom were able to come to China and that I was able to meet up with them in Shanghai for a day. I arrived at their hotel around 10:15am where we unsuccessfully tried to find a western breakfast for me. We decided we might have more luck downtown. I ended up getting distracted by wanting a Starbucks. Then we wandered over to the mall that had a ton of fake purses and watches. By the end of the day I had two purses; a Louis Vuitton and a Coach, and two watches; a Rolex and a RADO, which I've never heard of but it looks really nice. ^_^ We met up with the rest of their tour group for dinner and a river boat tour. I had a ton of fun and really enjoyed their company. My trip home was a bit of a gong show and ended up costing me another plane ticket, but I made it back in one piece and relatively unscathed.

Secondly: I have been meaning to add this for a while now but kept forgetting. Thank you Elysse for your brilliant advice to make toast.
Elysse suggested (since I can't find toasters here) to just put the bread right into a frying pan and toast it that way. This should have been a logical step to take but for whatever reason I just hadn't thought about it. Either way, I am enjoying toast more often now all thanks to Elysse. ^_^ so thanks again Elysse, it's working really well!

As I mentioned in my last blog the weather here is hot and rainy. There was one particular day that I was going grocery shopping with Anna and Adam, it was raining almost the entire time. When we finished Adam thought it would be a good idea to get a foot massage and I didn't disagree. On our way to drop his groceries off and head to the massage place we saw lots of streets that had been flooded. If it wasn't for us being in a tricycle taxi we would have been wading through water that was past our knees. I couldn't believe how much water there was; it had traffic stopped and streets backed up all over the city. I guess there was lots of flooding all over the province because of the rains, but I still had a hard time believing I had just witnessed a flood; a fairly small one mind you but still; it was interesting to say the least. Actually it kind of reminded me of home during the winters. There'll be a huge blizzard that will block everyone in and the next day a chinook will role through and melt it all. Well here, it will pour rain and the streets will flood and by the next day the sun will have everything as dry as if it had never rained. Granted, it will be very muggy the next day.

We all have had some sort of encounter with those homeless guys on the side of the road who wash your windows or have those funny signs. Well I saw a guy the other day who had a sign around his neck, a camouflage cowboy hat, holding a feather duster. I don't know what the sign said though since it was in Chinese. Either way, I thought, well maybe he's a little loopy or something. Then my bus stopped at a red light and I see this guy walking into traffic dusting peoples windshields and collecting change. How strange to dust someone's windows, but then I started thinking about it; you don't have to cary heavy buckets of water around, you don't have to worry about scratching the windows and Wenzhou is a very dusty city; so ya I guess it does sort of make sense. Ha ha ha. But still seems weird.

School is same old same old. The kids love me; I have them totally fooled mua ha ha ha ha ha ha! My private lessons are going well and my new girl even got to use her English on a foreigner which she was really shy about. Ha ha ha. I think it's funny because it's a very typical Chinese-girl-thing to be: extremely shy.

Aside from that nothing else is new. I'll chat in another couple weeks. ^_^ take care!