last night we had another home visit to go on and chantelle and me volunteered to go. We went to paul and bree's house.
Okay Paul's house wins. No, he didnt live in a gigantic apartment, they actually had a house, and it was GORGEOUS! and humongous and just shouted we have money. Paul is one of my favorite kids and one of the cutest. He always seems to be off in his own mind in class but really he is one of our smartest kids. He speaks some of the best english in the class and he's just a really really smart kid. but he's also a little wierd he'll just get up and start doing karate chopping and what not but with his smile and laugh you just cant not love the kid. His parents seemed young and very put together, but also very very nice. Pretty much all of the rich kids their dads are in what else but the lighting business. (In case you didnt know thats all our town is, is chandelier shop after chandelier shop after light shop after light shop, its actually pretty ridiculous). And Paul was so cute. His parents said whenever teachers come to visit he gets really excited. It was so true he couldnt stop jumping up and down and going all over the place for like half an hour. Okay so if we didnt think he was super smart already, this house visit shocked us. So what we do at school is we have 6 subjects we teach, kitchen, shop, arts and crafts, drama, games and gym and we just interact with them. We have certain parts of speech they say and if they say the one we're focusing on for the day they get a token (for example one is concept of wants "i want ____"). So they get tokens and then at the end we count them and they get to shop at "store" which is just our boxes full of little toys as their reward. Well turns out Paul plays ILP school with his mom. And it was absolutely amazing. It cracked us up because he would be the teacher and he mimicked us SO well! it was hillarious. we have a list of rules and number one is "No Chinese" and if they do they have to go sit in the chinese chair, and his mom says he'll send her to a chinese chair. Its hillarious. so we played it with him for a little and he was giving us tokens and we were just busting up laughing. And then we had store and he had his own little box of toys and he was just so smart and just super impressed us. And it was funny because he had a little matchbox like car and he said it was 100 tokens and this is my proud little moment, but i busted out 1 of like 5 chinese phrases i know and used it on him. He told me it was 100 tokens and i said "oh, tai gui la (tie gway la)" which means too much! (we use it in bargaining) and his mom heard me and just started laughing and then paul looks and me and looks shocked said "UH! No chinese!" then he said "you have two more chances and then you get a strike, which is totally what we do with the kids because we have strike cards where they get three strikes then they have to go talk to teacher tina (our Foreign Affairs Officer) or Callie (our head teacher). It was just super impressive. He is so smart and he speaks english SO good. It was amazing. The only thing that was lame was that his parents were going to take us out to a dinner, but we had another appointment so we had to tell them we couldnt. but we were way bummed because i really really wanted to go.. laaame
Then we went to bree's. We love bree, she is pretty much our smartest student. She's one of the smallest cutest little girls and she can be a little pill sometimes but thats only because she's so smart. She forms sentences on her own and everything. its ridiculous. But we go to this shady kind of neighborhood and she takes us upstairs to this kind of run down office place and we go into her mom's big office and thats where we had the home visit because her mom had to work? i dont know it was wierd. And it was kind of sad because her parents didnt really seemed that interested in her progress or in her education, compared to the super involved and super inquisitive other parents we've met. and it was kind of annoying because bree's two year old brother just kept spilling a bunch of stuff and throwing things and it was just awkward because the mom wasnt really talking. I dont know it was just kind of lame. but bree was the high light definately. She is one of the cutest kids. And it was funny on the way home we were talking to her and saying some chinese, like asking her chinese name and then she said Zhongshan Park in chinese and chantelle tried to say it back and bree just pointed to her and let out a big fat "HA". and i just start laughing and chantelle's just like "ugh. i just got laughed at by a 7 year old." It was funny. And minus the setting we loved seeing bree. and these house visits help SOO much. I think the kids are more comfortable with us and we have fun a lot more now. It just seems like we're better friends with the kids.
okay now for changes. So its kind of upset our little world of guzhen but other school have WAY more kids that we do so they've actually needed some teachers to move to other schools. So the first week Megan moved to Xiaolan, the school in the next town over. And then Lucy moved back to live with her family and study for a test in April for a new job. So now we Tina, who is the smallest cutest lady ever. She's the same age as lucy about early mid twenties. And we just love her death. She speaks suuuch good english. Well then a couple days ago we heard they needed even more teachers in Kaiyin (two towns over, we're still all part of Zhongshan) so now Lorenda and Jaimee moved today to go there for the rest of the time. Its just been very frustrating trying to work this out and they give us seriously no notice at all. So now we went from 7 teachers down to just Chantelle, Jae, and me and Callie. Which we're a good little group and its going to be a lot more peaceful in the living conditions because sometimes i felt i was going to snap. But i'm sad that the girls had to leave because we had some good times and enjoyed each other. The other thing that is way way stressful is now our teachings all messed up. We went from team teaching, switching off in 6 half hour rotations, so really i only taught for an hour and a half. To then we were going for four 35 minute lessons in a row with no break, but one day a week we werent going to have to teach. To now where we will teach two subjects a week and have 6 rotations at about 25 minutes a piece with no breaks. It kind of stresses me out, and i think i'll just be really tired by the end of the day, but this is what i signed up for so i'm okay with it.
so thats whats new, and it was sunny for a while but now its gotten a touch colder.. sad face.. but other than that, s'all good.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
home visits
so we thought we were going to do home visits the week when we got back from vacation but we didnt... well turns out we had them this week.
way neat experience.
so these kids are pretty much well off, like really well off. which is ironic because i guess all of the teachers here thought we were going to be teaching the kids from the ghettos. i just thought it'd be middle class regular kids. ooooooh no. these kids are loooooaded.
okay side note two of our teachers, lorenda and jaimee actually got pretty violently ill. we're pretty sure it was food poisoning because the rest of us didnt get sick.. but we cant figure out what did it. lorenda's vegan so we're thinking it might've been some wierd thing she picked up at the store.. but we're not sure. but it was pretty bad like from 7pm to 2 in the morning throwing up every 20 minutes. its the exact thing i've been dreading. hopefully i can avoid for my time here.
so since they were out of commission chantelle, jay and me went the first night. we went to three kids' houses. lucy and their teacher cindy went with us, lucy was the translator. we thought that the home visits were going to be the parents take us out to dinner, but this wasnt the case (its different for each home visit). we werent sure what it was going to turn into but the first day we just kind of sat there while lucy talked to the parents. it was kind of frustrating because she wasnt translating at all so we're just confused. lucy said our job was to interact with the kid and talk english with them.
first visit: LEO, the new kid
Leo had been in our class a day. so we're like um.. how are we supposed to report on his progress and what not. we go in and its this really nice apartment (nobody has houses hear, just really big apartments). and i am very happy we got to go on these home visits because we got to see where these kids are coming from and we totally gained some insight into what makes them the crazy little kids they are. so leo to sum it up is a spoiled only child. there were toys everywhere and the tv was on the whole time and he just was absorbed in playing with toys and eating his little raisin candy. it was so hard to hold his attention for more than 10 seconds. oh and this kid, automatically the coolest kid. he has about a 12 inch long braided rat tail. ha. its hillarious. and the first day at school he just kind of seemed zoned out and kept doing these like karate stances and i couldnt get his attention. well turns out he's infatuated with Ultraman. which is has many many action figures of, and well it just made his personality make more sense. the one thing that made me laugh the hardest was that these parents have these really nice photo albums made of their kids. they're a bit ridiculous. but one was leo just dressed up in different costumes, one being superman and he was in action hero stance.... which a bigger version was sitting, framed, on the mantel. it cracked me up.
second visit: Blake, cute shy kid
Blake is one of mine that i'm over. (we each have about 3 kids that we are over). He has the saddest little cute face. his eyes have this cute watery look to them all the time. he's way way cute. his house was like the first. huge flat screen tv, nice furnishings, and whatnot. and something the parents do is just shove a bunch of food in front of us. most of the places we just got fruit and hot water (to replace the tea we would've had). but blakes house we banked on. he had like this tub of candy that they offered to us and most of it western candy! (china doesnt really have chocolate or anything, they think its chocolate but believe me when i say its far from). but okay so we dont drink tea and lucy tries to stop them before they serve it to us. but blakes mom started making these individual cups of something that looked like coffee, so we're like lucy is she making us coffee? and lucy's like no its milk tea. and we're like um.... well.... we dont drink tea. and lucy tells us its not tea. so we're like okay, we dont want to insult these people because they seriously monitor whether you're eating what they've presented for you. and jay, a very very smart girl says yea its just like a milk drink. so we're like okay we're safe. well number one turns out milk tea is black tea with sweetened evaporated milk (didnt find that out until we looked it up at home later that night) and i saw chantelle's had a chocolate looking thing so i assumed mine was chocolate. i take a drink and i'm like "hey guys..mine tastes like coffee..." and jay's like "well i think mine's strawberry" and chantelle said her's tasted like chocolate so i'm okay well mines probably just chocolate. nope turns out its coffee milk tea. so we're like great. i just broke like half of the word of wisdom in one sip. and thats not all they offered us some gourmet chocolate covered crackers, we look at the label and it says Bourbon. hahaa. we were like crap.. we're going to have to talk to the branch president about this one. lol. we had a good laugh. and the visit really went well, we got blake to talk to us a lot more than leo. it was fun.
visit three: Jodie, super outgoing girl
So we're all excited for jodie's house because she gets so excited whenever we show up at school. so we're thinking she's going to have a heart attack when she sees us at her house. yea. not the case. we go in and we think her mom didnt tell her because she walks out and sees us and just has this look of shock and horror on her face. it was wierd. i thought she just woke up or something but we freaked her out. she didnt talk the entire time she went and hid in another room. like didnt even smile the whole time. it was weird. we seriously freaked her out. but her mom was way way cool and actually just had another baby girl 3 months ago. so that was exciting. but pretty much lucy and her just chatted for an hour while we just sat their and had our own conversation, we talked about what we were going to name our future kids. and jodie's mom had these really really good fruit platters. it was fun.
DAY TWO
so lorenda and jaimee were still ill so we took the next night too. i call this series the factory kids.
So guzhen (where we live) is just full of lighting shops, mostly chandelier. buts it seriously lives up to its name as the lighting town. so the other three kids just lived in gated really nice apartment section of town. these kids live about 20 minutes way in factories. they live in the factories that their dad's run. and let me tell you, it made the previous night kid's look poor. it was ridiculous.
first visit: Andrew, mischevious cute kid
so we get picked up in this nice SUV (barely anybody drives more than a car, if that) and they take us to the factory. we walk a couple of flights of stairs and get to the apartment part of the factory and oh my gosh. it was SUCH a nice place. huge screen tv awesome huge leather couches. his mom comes down in this silk house robe. lol. it was amusing. andrew is kind of a mischief maker but this house visit went SO well. he was playing and talking to us so much. and we had so much fun. then they showed us some of his drawings and we saw his room and then proceded on a tour of the home, including the pool! and their little white fluffy dog that andrew so lovingly gave it the english name of jessica. lol. it was cute. but we had a really good time there. it was fun. (ps. andrews the kid that drew the inappropriate puppet. lol)
second visit: Ya-Ya
Ya-Ya is a girl that i dont really know that well and she's not particularly one of my favorites. She had dance class that would pull her away from ilp class alot so she was gone alot. but her house was really really nice. and everything seemed golden. we got to see her room and whatnot. it was a good visit.
third visit: Mike, the chubby kid
so it was kind of late by now and we go to mikes house and i think he was already in bed but she woke him up to say hello to us. but he didnt stay in the same room with us. i loved his mom. she was way cute and i also respected her the most. because she seemed to want to fix some problems and seemed the most concerned with her child's progress instead of the others who just wanted to hear that they were doing well and what not. it was sad because she was telling us that his chinese teachers dont like it and he thinks its because he's fat. but he's really not, like his body's not, his face is just rounder. he's so cute! and he's SOOO smart. he's one of our smarter kids. but he's kind of above than just coloring something and so he just kind of sits there and mumbles to himself sometimes or just seems disconnected. its like he's not being stimulated enough. so we talked about what we could do. but i really liked his mom. oh and funniest thing ever. like this just made our night. so mike is kind of quieter but he gets into these goofy moods and just mumbles and mutters to himself, and we've gotten not mad at him, but have told him off for it. well comes to find out his mom says he's like in love with Mr. Bean. he watches the show non-stop. and we're all just like, oh my gosh. that makes SOO much sense! he does the Mr. Bean face all of the time now thinking about it! and he just mumbles like him. it cracked us up.
so we're just really really happy we went on these. it was such a neat experience for us. and i loved just being at their homes and just observing and learning more about their lives and how they really live.
oh yea ps. lorenda and jaimee went on one last night with karen's family. turns out they're the flipping loaded ones. they took them out to a dinner that cost 800 yuan and gave them both red envelopes with 200 yuan in them. red envelopes are gifts you give to people and they just have money in them. so we put that in a community jar. but flip. we totally got cheaped. but whatever.
oh and update. lucy's gone. we're way bummed out and sad about it. but she's actually been so thinking about quitting for a long time. she doesnt really like her job which we cant take personally...but we are kind of her job. but she also doesnt like "the bond lady" jane bond, who is her boss at Bond Language Institute (which is the people that are kind of over us too). she wants to work more as a diplomat kind of. she took a test when she got out of college and was off by like 5 points to get into the career she wanted. so she's going back and living with her parents and studying to retake the test in april. she said we can come visit! so we're way excited for when we can do that. but we're still way bummed because she was so much fun...
now we have tina. the cutest funnest little chinese lady, she about the same as lucy i think around early mid twenties. but she doesnt live with us like lucy did, so thats a tad inconvenient. but we're excited. we'll miss lucy but we're excited to have tina. and we'll still get manderin lessons, and she said if we stay dedicated we can go to two a week lessons. yay!
so thats life. schools still good. the kids are still a bunch of brats that are too cute to get mad at. :) all well in china
Sunday, February 17, 2008
back in guzhen and the turtle temple
today was the first day back teaching. the 2nd semester has started and it feels good to have routine back and it feels SO nice to have our kids back. they are more of a blessing in my life than i could've ever imagined. i didnt realize how much i miss their smiles and wierd quirks while we were on vacation until today.
okay but first. i've been lazy updating the blog so i'll have to update you on the past week's happenings.
we had the rest of last week off, part of spring festival (chinese new years). it seriously goes the whole two weeks, its awesome.
we mostly just lounged around the apartments, you know taking our vacation from our vacation. mostly just enjoying our last little bit of sleeping in and having no obligations. oh. and probably some of the best news, at least to us. chantelle and me went out and bought padding for our beds!! you have no clue how excited we were when we came home and put it on our beds. and i wasnt thinking and sat on my bed and still bracing myself for the hard wood impact i was pleasanly suprised because it was SO SOFT!! i was seriously giggling and giddy all night. chantelle was laughing at me because i couldnt stop smiling. and instead of buying a heater i just bought the loveliest fleece blanket. its a beautiful thing. its kind of funny how just a blanket and an inch of padding can bring so much happiness into my life.
then on saturday gary (one of our native coordinators) took us to a really neat buddhist temple thats right in zhongshan. we werent too pleased with more stairs (we were still recovering from moon hill and what not). but it was a really pretty escape from the city and it was so nice to get some fresh air. all gary told us was that it was a temple with turtles in it? so i'm imagining like a tank with huge sea turtles (i have no idea why) but it was amusing because it was just a large pond with little turtles swimming around. there
was a statue in the middle of a turtle and 2 fish on the side and you try and throw jiao (coin money) into the mouths for good luck. but gary said that there werent as many turtles as usual. but the ones we saw were pretty cute. then a few more stairs and we go to the temple. there were these humongous statues of some angry looking guys, a giant gold buddha (of course) and this really pretty gold shrine of another diety that i didnt know the name of. it was all pretty but of course we couldnt take pictures inside the places. it was interesting to watch, except part of me didnt like it because it felt like we were making a tourist attraction out of religious ritual and something kind of sacred to them. but it was still interesting. so they buy incense, lots of incense. there are these metal cart like things that they put little incense into, but then they had these narly 6 feet giant incense. they were flipping awesome, but the whole place smelled of incense, which some i didnt mind but getting a mouth
ful wasnt fun. then we walked around this park afterwards. it was ver
y pretty but i was kind of tired and i forgot my camera so the pictures up are chantelle's. oh okay so this park was an island? or it was just near a river, but near the end there was this
bridge and right under it were hundreds and hundreds of "goldfish" (thats what gary called them). but you could buy little pellet food. and all these fish just swarm in a huge pile. it was gross but really pretty? i dont know how that works but it was.
other than that the only thing that has happened is last night we were invited by the school to a restaurant for dinner. everybody who works at the kindergarten was there.
it was a "the new semesters starting"/crap-we-have-to-go-back-to-work dinner. it was a good seafood restaurant. the most sketchy thing we had was pigs feet other than that we had good fish, good soup, and chicken. and it was all pretty good for the most part and we went from table to table toasting them (lucy said now everyone at the kindergarten will like us). its very interesting. things like toasting people at dinner are important here. and lucy told us when we cheered we had to say gong she fat sigh (i have no idea how to really spell it). but it means good fortune and happy new year to you.
alright. well now life is back to the normal routine. back to sketch meals from the cafeteria and little kids that make me smile. and waking up to dumb machines punching holes in the ground and creepy music they play over the intercom at the school that we can hear from our apartment. :) but alls well and now we're in for the long haul.
okay but first. i've been lazy updating the blog so i'll have to update you on the past week's happenings.
we had the rest of last week off, part of spring festival (chinese new years). it seriously goes the whole two weeks, its awesome.
we mostly just lounged around the apartments, you know taking our vacation from our vacation. mostly just enjoying our last little bit of sleeping in and having no obligations. oh. and probably some of the best news, at least to us. chantelle and me went out and bought padding for our beds!! you have no clue how excited we were when we came home and put it on our beds. and i wasnt thinking and sat on my bed and still bracing myself for the hard wood impact i was pleasanly suprised because it was SO SOFT!! i was seriously giggling and giddy all night. chantelle was laughing at me because i couldnt stop smiling. and instead of buying a heater i just bought the loveliest fleece blanket. its a beautiful thing. its kind of funny how just a blanket and an inch of padding can bring so much happiness into my life.
then on saturday gary (one of our native coordinators) took us to a really neat buddhist temple thats right in zhongshan. we werent too pleased with more stairs (we were still recovering from moon hill and what not). but it was a really pretty escape from the city and it was so nice to get some fresh air. all gary told us was that it was a temple with turtles in it? so i'm imagining like a tank with huge sea turtles (i have no idea why) but it was amusing because it was just a large pond with little turtles swimming around. there
was a statue in the middle of a turtle and 2 fish on the side and you try and throw jiao (coin money) into the mouths for good luck. but gary said that there werent as many turtles as usual. but the ones we saw were pretty cute. then a few more stairs and we go to the temple. there were these humongous statues of some angry looking guys, a giant gold buddha (of course) and this really pretty gold shrine of another diety that i didnt know the name of. it was all pretty but of course we couldnt take pictures inside the places. it was interesting to watch, except part of me didnt like it because it felt like we were making a tourist attraction out of religious ritual and something kind of sacred to them. but it was still interesting. so they buy incense, lots of incense. there are these metal cart like things that they put little incense into, but then they had these narly 6 feet giant incense. they were flipping awesome, but the whole place smelled of incense, which some i didnt mind but getting a mouth
ful wasnt fun. then we walked around this park afterwards. it was ver
y pretty but i was kind of tired and i forgot my camera so the pictures up are chantelle's. oh okay so this park was an island? or it was just near a river, but near the end there was this
bridge and right under it were hundreds and hundreds of "goldfish" (thats what gary called them). but you could buy little pellet food. and all these fish just swarm in a huge pile. it was gross but really pretty? i dont know how that works but it was.other than that the only thing that has happened is last night we were invited by the school to a restaurant for dinner. everybody who works at the kindergarten was there.
it was a "the new semesters starting"/crap-we-have-to-go-back-to-work dinner. it was a good seafood restaurant. the most sketchy thing we had was pigs feet other than that we had good fish, good soup, and chicken. and it was all pretty good for the most part and we went from table to table toasting them (lucy said now everyone at the kindergarten will like us). its very interesting. things like toasting people at dinner are important here. and lucy told us when we cheered we had to say gong she fat sigh (i have no idea how to really spell it). but it means good fortune and happy new year to you.
alright. well now life is back to the normal routine. back to sketch meals from the cafeteria and little kids that make me smile. and waking up to dumb machines punching holes in the ground and creepy music they play over the intercom at the school that we can hear from our apartment. :) but alls well and now we're in for the long haul.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
last day in yangshuo..
tomorrow we take a sleeper bus back to zhongshan...and i dont want to leave yangshuo and you cant make me.
today chantelle and me just branched off for the first bit of the day. theres this mountain right smack in the middle of the town and on top is a pagoda that we've wanted to walk to. so we get there, and first walked through this creepy park that had these little kid rides and like carnival music. and i dont know if it was the jingles, the kind of shady overcast day or what but it was really creepy. it felt like one of those parks that all of sudden monsters attack you or the statues come to life and try and kill you.. idk. it was creepy. so we walked through creepo park and got to the mountain and we didnt even think of this but of course, more stairs. you know because 826 to moon hill wasnt enough lets do some more. the view from the top was amazing. today was a little clearer so we could see more mountains and we got to see all of yangshuo from the top. it was cool. we could see everywhere we've walked and our hostel. it was neat.
then our big adventure for the day is we went cormorant fishing. its one of the attractions that yangshuo has to offer. you get on a motor boat and follow a fisherman on his bamboo raft on the Li River and he has about 7 cormorant birds that fish. we didnt know how it worked but we soon found out. they are duck like birds that dive into the water and catch the fish but they have ropes tied around their necks tight enough so they dont swallow the fish completely. so when he sees that their necks are thick he pulls them in, or sometimes they even just hop up and he makes them regurgitate them into a basket. its kind of gross but also kind of really awesome at the same time. so we just cruised around watching it. it was really cool.
oh and there were two very good looking french boys on our boat. one lived in hong kong and the other, his name was matthew, was visiting him and they came to yangshuo on vacation. i still cant figure it out but accents get me everytime. (especially the french ones). oh and our boat driver told us that the fisherman was 87 years old. crazy.
other than that we just went marketing some more and just soaked in yangshuo as much as we could.
our bus doesnt leave until 8pm and we check out at noon, but the hostel is nice enough to let us keep our stuff there until we leave so we'll do a little bit more tomorrow.
and then home. we dont teach until the 18th so we still have some vacation. we might go to shengen but we havent decided.
picture commentary: alot of the cormorant pictures are me trying to get them mid dive.
today chantelle and me just branched off for the first bit of the day. theres this mountain right smack in the middle of the town and on top is a pagoda that we've wanted to walk to. so we get there, and first walked through this creepy park that had these little kid rides and like carnival music. and i dont know if it was the jingles, the kind of shady overcast day or what but it was really creepy. it felt like one of those parks that all of sudden monsters attack you or the statues come to life and try and kill you.. idk. it was creepy. so we walked through creepo park and got to the mountain and we didnt even think of this but of course, more stairs. you know because 826 to moon hill wasnt enough lets do some more. the view from the top was amazing. today was a little clearer so we could see more mountains and we got to see all of yangshuo from the top. it was cool. we could see everywhere we've walked and our hostel. it was neat.
then our big adventure for the day is we went cormorant fishing. its one of the attractions that yangshuo has to offer. you get on a motor boat and follow a fisherman on his bamboo raft on the Li River and he has about 7 cormorant birds that fish. we didnt know how it worked but we soon found out. they are duck like birds that dive into the water and catch the fish but they have ropes tied around their necks tight enough so they dont swallow the fish completely. so when he sees that their necks are thick he pulls them in, or sometimes they even just hop up and he makes them regurgitate them into a basket. its kind of gross but also kind of really awesome at the same time. so we just cruised around watching it. it was really cool.
oh and there were two very good looking french boys on our boat. one lived in hong kong and the other, his name was matthew, was visiting him and they came to yangshuo on vacation. i still cant figure it out but accents get me everytime. (especially the french ones). oh and our boat driver told us that the fisherman was 87 years old. crazy.
other than that we just went marketing some more and just soaked in yangshuo as much as we could.
our bus doesnt leave until 8pm and we check out at noon, but the hostel is nice enough to let us keep our stuff there until we leave so we'll do a little bit more tomorrow.
and then home. we dont teach until the 18th so we still have some vacation. we might go to shengen but we havent decided.
picture commentary: alot of the cormorant pictures are me trying to get them mid dive.
Friday, February 8, 2008
adventures in Yangshuo
yesterday, we thought we kind of wasted but it actually turned out to be a good adventure in itself. we started out the day buying bus tickets for back home and there are tons of tours and attractions around here but we just had to figure out which ones and from what place (there are tons) so yesterday was kind of configuring day. but we still wanted to do something, we've stayed local, we wanted to explore.
so first we ventured outside of the hotel and we were right outside of the hostel when a parade literally just attacked us. we were wondering if we'd see any like dragon new years festival things, or dances. we got our fireworks and we figured that was it. nope. we got our dragons. there was a group of 6 dragons manned by 2 people each and then behind them was 2 dragons that had about 7 people under it. there were drums and cymbols and it was just crazy awesome. oh! and our isreali friends from the previous night were there. we didnt talk to them..but i kind of snuck pictures of them?...kind of stalkerish but i wanted proof they existed. that pretty much started our day out good.
so then after we bought tickets and ate (we ate at a place called minnie mao's (like the gov't person) and a picture below was on the wall of the restuarant. haha) we thought about just renting some bikes for 10 yuan. well we got the urge to rent MOPEDS!! (electric bicycles) ha. we've wanted to ride one ever since we came to china. their everywhere and everybody rides them. so we got them for 60 yuan and went off. it was just lorenda, jamee, chantelle and me and we just wanted to go exploring, no real destination in mind. most of the attractions in yangshuo/guilin are just seeing the sights on bike or bus or moped whatever. so there are tons of side roads all around the mountians so we just discovered one and went with it. its so ridiculous how gorgeous this area is. like we're just in a huge valley surrounded by these majestic beasts of mountains. we drove around for about 3 hours and by the time we were done our hands were freezing but it was AWESOME. i pretty much want a moped of my own now. oh and funny story so if you've ever heard brian regan there's a routine he does about borrowing a car that has a shortaged out horn that just honks randomnly. yea. chantelle's was doing that pretty much the whole way back once we got back on the main highway. i was busting up laughing because she couldnt get it to stop and then it just went straight honking with no break. it was hilarious. we finally had to pull over and turn it off and on and fix it. but it just cracked me up.
okay um.. the other thing that happened yesterday was the dress fiasco. so we heard there were places that would make custom dresses for you for really cheap and we heard there were some places here. so we checked around and we saw a couple and just asked them how much they wanted. and it was the traditional dresses you see like made out of silk. so we figured we get one because we can and it'd be neat. but the prices were a little more than we expected so i found one shop that made a more casual dress, it still had a certain chinese-esque to it but wasnt the fancy ones. so i bargain with her down to way cheap and so she takes down all of my measurements (with the length she said the number like she was amazing anybody was that tall.. and kind of embarassing but she also laughed while writing down the measurements for my butt?.. they dont see curves much here i spose..)and chantelle found a dress she liked but they'd have to make it, but they didnt have the color fabric she wanted. so after a long time of saying no, i really dont want it, i left my down-payment and we left. we saw a dress shop across and a couple shops down from the previous so we checked it out. and the lady was a little peeved at chantelle for not buying it and then it got awkward because we figured out that they were together shops so she asked the lady about the cost and she ran over to the other lady we just left. we think the lady was just bitter at us so she told chantelle that she didnt have that dress and then she came to me and told me to follow her.. and it was just really awkward. but she brought me to her friend who spoke english and she told me that the person who makes the dresses wasnt in town anymore and that they were sorry. ha. yea they "werent in town" right. so got my money back and we just avoid the dress shops at all costs. we didnt really really want the dresses anyways so we were happy and dealing with that lady just made us REALLY not want one. so that was..um interesting/frustrating.
okay now today. i'm sorry i forgot to write yesterday so this one is kind of long..
today was country-side bike tour day.
we ended up choosing this one lady named wei wei to be our guide to moon hill (one of yangshuo's biggest attractions). and lets just say we chose right.
we got mountain bikes and rode through yangshuo country. and it was gorgeous, of course. there are a bunch of little paved/dirt roads for the bikes and it was just plain awesome. we ride through country side surrounded by crops and we also go through a bunch of towns. we rode 30 kilometers to moon hill where we hiked up 826 stairs to get there. oh my heck do my legs hurt. its been foggy lately which has kind of been a downer but we could still see a lot. the funniest thing though, right before we got to the hill wei wei warned us that these ladies would follow us and try and sell us WAY overpriced drinks and postcards. and sure enough we passed them and they literally ran over to us and followed us to moon hill. and we had one that hiked ALL the way to the top with us still trying to sell us stuff. there were like 10 of these old ladies each with their own little coolers and postcards. it was quite humorous but quite annoying at times when they didnt seem to understand no (chinese or english) lol.
then we walked back down where we met with wei wei again. coolest part. she actually was born and lives in moon hill town. so part of the tour package was that she took us to her house where her dad cooked lunch for us. and i'm not kidding, this was THE best meal i have had in china. it was cool, before we left she called her dad to pick some vegetables out of the garden. and they used eggs from their own chickens. so this was like authentic. we had a chicken and potato dish, a pork and mushroom dish, cooked cabbage, this awsome bamboo chute like vegetable with peppers and these awesome meat dumplings wrapped in egg. the flavors were unbelievable how good they were. it was ridiculously good. it was just a neat experience over all.
then we headed back but on the way we stopped by and saw another yangshuo tourist attraction, the big banyan tree. this tree is around 1500 years old. its ridiculous. and pretty cool. it had these branches that grew out of it and then into the ground like seperate trees, but it was all connected. so of course we got some pictures.
then we headed back
then we came back and kind of split up and chantelle and megan and me all went back down to west street. it really is just a fun place to be. so we've pretty much gone everyday and been all around west street and bought things here and there. now we have our friends of yangshuo. walking around and realizing this just put the biggest smile on my face. our friends:
-wei wei, of course. she even gave us here personal number to call for more tours and we wave and smile at her.
-the first day we bought watercolor painting from this man and his wife. and we walked by them and they recognized us and gave us a hearty HELLO! and Happy New Year!!
-there are men that sell flutes and just play them along the streets. (its actually quite cool just to walk down the street and hear them play) the first day megan bought one and we talked to him for a while and he played for us. so today we saw him and he was playing in the crowded streets and he sees us and stops playing to say hello! hello! to us. :)
-then we found the nicest lady who paints vials from the inside (its ridiculous how detailed and beautiful these pieces are) and so we met her when a bunch of us bought stuff from her. and every time we walk by here she gets the biggest smile on her face and waves and say hello!
-and of course our israeli friends.. haha. who we saw walking again today. (i keep telling chantelle this is the third time we've seen them, so its a sign. i have to marry isaac now) haha
-and our newest friend, a bunch of people paint shirts and shoes and stuff and its very goodlooking. they mostly do these asian type looking cartoons (not anime) and its very cool and you can get them custom made. so megan bought a shirt that she had an english saying translated on it. and then chantelle bought a bag that she had a sunflower and her chinese name on it. and these are the things that really mean something to buy. its not just another trinket. so i got a black scarf and wanted my chinese name on it along with some kind of picture including stars because my name (xiao xingxing; shoaw shing shing) means little star. so you can see the picture of what's on it down below. and i absolutely ADORE it! when i saw it i was ecstatic. she is a very good artist. so we are now friends with her.
and its those people, that we've bargained for stuff but made friendships kind of along the way that just put the biggest smile on my face. so now we walk down west street and maybe pass their shop give them a big smile and wave and say hello. its just things like that that make me not want to leave and love yangshuo even more :):)
so first we ventured outside of the hotel and we were right outside of the hostel when a parade literally just attacked us. we were wondering if we'd see any like dragon new years festival things, or dances. we got our fireworks and we figured that was it. nope. we got our dragons. there was a group of 6 dragons manned by 2 people each and then behind them was 2 dragons that had about 7 people under it. there were drums and cymbols and it was just crazy awesome. oh! and our isreali friends from the previous night were there. we didnt talk to them..but i kind of snuck pictures of them?...kind of stalkerish but i wanted proof they existed. that pretty much started our day out good.
so then after we bought tickets and ate (we ate at a place called minnie mao's (like the gov't person) and a picture below was on the wall of the restuarant. haha) we thought about just renting some bikes for 10 yuan. well we got the urge to rent MOPEDS!! (electric bicycles) ha. we've wanted to ride one ever since we came to china. their everywhere and everybody rides them. so we got them for 60 yuan and went off. it was just lorenda, jamee, chantelle and me and we just wanted to go exploring, no real destination in mind. most of the attractions in yangshuo/guilin are just seeing the sights on bike or bus or moped whatever. so there are tons of side roads all around the mountians so we just discovered one and went with it. its so ridiculous how gorgeous this area is. like we're just in a huge valley surrounded by these majestic beasts of mountains. we drove around for about 3 hours and by the time we were done our hands were freezing but it was AWESOME. i pretty much want a moped of my own now. oh and funny story so if you've ever heard brian regan there's a routine he does about borrowing a car that has a shortaged out horn that just honks randomnly. yea. chantelle's was doing that pretty much the whole way back once we got back on the main highway. i was busting up laughing because she couldnt get it to stop and then it just went straight honking with no break. it was hilarious. we finally had to pull over and turn it off and on and fix it. but it just cracked me up.
okay um.. the other thing that happened yesterday was the dress fiasco. so we heard there were places that would make custom dresses for you for really cheap and we heard there were some places here. so we checked around and we saw a couple and just asked them how much they wanted. and it was the traditional dresses you see like made out of silk. so we figured we get one because we can and it'd be neat. but the prices were a little more than we expected so i found one shop that made a more casual dress, it still had a certain chinese-esque to it but wasnt the fancy ones. so i bargain with her down to way cheap and so she takes down all of my measurements (with the length she said the number like she was amazing anybody was that tall.. and kind of embarassing but she also laughed while writing down the measurements for my butt?.. they dont see curves much here i spose..)and chantelle found a dress she liked but they'd have to make it, but they didnt have the color fabric she wanted. so after a long time of saying no, i really dont want it, i left my down-payment and we left. we saw a dress shop across and a couple shops down from the previous so we checked it out. and the lady was a little peeved at chantelle for not buying it and then it got awkward because we figured out that they were together shops so she asked the lady about the cost and she ran over to the other lady we just left. we think the lady was just bitter at us so she told chantelle that she didnt have that dress and then she came to me and told me to follow her.. and it was just really awkward. but she brought me to her friend who spoke english and she told me that the person who makes the dresses wasnt in town anymore and that they were sorry. ha. yea they "werent in town" right. so got my money back and we just avoid the dress shops at all costs. we didnt really really want the dresses anyways so we were happy and dealing with that lady just made us REALLY not want one. so that was..um interesting/frustrating.
okay now today. i'm sorry i forgot to write yesterday so this one is kind of long..
today was country-side bike tour day.
we ended up choosing this one lady named wei wei to be our guide to moon hill (one of yangshuo's biggest attractions). and lets just say we chose right.
we got mountain bikes and rode through yangshuo country. and it was gorgeous, of course. there are a bunch of little paved/dirt roads for the bikes and it was just plain awesome. we ride through country side surrounded by crops and we also go through a bunch of towns. we rode 30 kilometers to moon hill where we hiked up 826 stairs to get there. oh my heck do my legs hurt. its been foggy lately which has kind of been a downer but we could still see a lot. the funniest thing though, right before we got to the hill wei wei warned us that these ladies would follow us and try and sell us WAY overpriced drinks and postcards. and sure enough we passed them and they literally ran over to us and followed us to moon hill. and we had one that hiked ALL the way to the top with us still trying to sell us stuff. there were like 10 of these old ladies each with their own little coolers and postcards. it was quite humorous but quite annoying at times when they didnt seem to understand no (chinese or english) lol.
then we walked back down where we met with wei wei again. coolest part. she actually was born and lives in moon hill town. so part of the tour package was that she took us to her house where her dad cooked lunch for us. and i'm not kidding, this was THE best meal i have had in china. it was cool, before we left she called her dad to pick some vegetables out of the garden. and they used eggs from their own chickens. so this was like authentic. we had a chicken and potato dish, a pork and mushroom dish, cooked cabbage, this awsome bamboo chute like vegetable with peppers and these awesome meat dumplings wrapped in egg. the flavors were unbelievable how good they were. it was ridiculously good. it was just a neat experience over all.
then we headed back but on the way we stopped by and saw another yangshuo tourist attraction, the big banyan tree. this tree is around 1500 years old. its ridiculous. and pretty cool. it had these branches that grew out of it and then into the ground like seperate trees, but it was all connected. so of course we got some pictures.
then we headed back
then we came back and kind of split up and chantelle and megan and me all went back down to west street. it really is just a fun place to be. so we've pretty much gone everyday and been all around west street and bought things here and there. now we have our friends of yangshuo. walking around and realizing this just put the biggest smile on my face. our friends:
-wei wei, of course. she even gave us here personal number to call for more tours and we wave and smile at her.
-the first day we bought watercolor painting from this man and his wife. and we walked by them and they recognized us and gave us a hearty HELLO! and Happy New Year!!
-there are men that sell flutes and just play them along the streets. (its actually quite cool just to walk down the street and hear them play) the first day megan bought one and we talked to him for a while and he played for us. so today we saw him and he was playing in the crowded streets and he sees us and stops playing to say hello! hello! to us. :)
-then we found the nicest lady who paints vials from the inside (its ridiculous how detailed and beautiful these pieces are) and so we met her when a bunch of us bought stuff from her. and every time we walk by here she gets the biggest smile on her face and waves and say hello!
-and of course our israeli friends.. haha. who we saw walking again today. (i keep telling chantelle this is the third time we've seen them, so its a sign. i have to marry isaac now) haha
-and our newest friend, a bunch of people paint shirts and shoes and stuff and its very goodlooking. they mostly do these asian type looking cartoons (not anime) and its very cool and you can get them custom made. so megan bought a shirt that she had an english saying translated on it. and then chantelle bought a bag that she had a sunflower and her chinese name on it. and these are the things that really mean something to buy. its not just another trinket. so i got a black scarf and wanted my chinese name on it along with some kind of picture including stars because my name (xiao xingxing; shoaw shing shing) means little star. so you can see the picture of what's on it down below. and i absolutely ADORE it! when i saw it i was ecstatic. she is a very good artist. so we are now friends with her.
and its those people, that we've bargained for stuff but made friendships kind of along the way that just put the biggest smile on my face. so now we walk down west street and maybe pass their shop give them a big smile and wave and say hello. its just things like that that make me not want to leave and love yangshuo even more :):)
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
HAPPY NEW YEARS!
so we're not going to mention the getting to Guilin part of the trip because that was a nightmare and a bad experience all together so we'll just forget that part.
but we are now in Yangshuo (yang-shwo) Guilin (gway-leeng). and i am in love with it.
our hostel's pretty sweet, it has a portland-ish feel to it. i love it. and best things ever 1. WESTERN TOILETS! 2. MATTRESSES!! AND PADDING!! 3. HEATERS!!!!!!!!
leaving here is going to be hard. this place is what we imagined china as. it's a very touristy town but there are shops everywhere, particularly West Street which is the main street and where everything is but the best part is we are surrounded by huge gorgeous mountains. and not like in the distance mountains, like in your face mountain after mountain with a beautiful river running through the town (Li River). its ridiculous.
so today was exploring and seeing what we got day. but actually turned into art appreciation day. we set out to explore West Street, which we knew was the place to go and hey what do you know, its down the street from our hostel.
so there are tons of shops that sell the scrolls with chinese paintings on them, like the ones you see everywhere. but this one a little different. it was owned by a husband and wife and their daughter, who are all artists. and they hand-painted every picture, but these werent just the scrolls of the regular repeated pictures you can find anywhere, these were gorgeous watercolors of the Li River and other scenes from around Yangshuo. They were absolutely amazing, so we picked up a few there.
Then more walking. and its not set up like booths, they're more like walking into stores, just very little ones but you cant just go and look at stuff because then you excite the people and they think you're actually going to buy something, but you just want to say, nope just looking. we feel bad just walking away so we act interesting and listen to their little sales pitch in the little english they know. the only bad part of yangshuo is that its new years right. like the actual days are today and tomorrow even though they celebrate it for two weeks. and its actually a family holiday so a bunch of places either close down early or just are closed. so it was actually pretty dead today. so we were DEFinately noticed. we also bought some big fans too which were pretty.
and then all day we've been trying to find a place that makes custom dresses. our head teacher told us this is the place she got hers, but we couldnt find one so we're going to keep trying.
then probably the coolest thing of the day. so we went and got lunch at yes, KFC..(its just a quick place we can trust) and then we were just walking along the street and this store that just had a table outside of it had these hand painted teacups that caught my eye. and this lady goes on and on about how the red is the color of lucky in china, very popular. and yellow is very nice. red color and yellow color are emperor color together. and blue, is very favorite. and we're just like yea.. they are very beautiful. then the others walk up and they go into the store and we go around this curtain deal and this room is just a bunch of shelves full of these little vases. but these just werent vases these were all hand painted GORGEOUS vases. they were exquisit.
and the brother was in the back and he just starts talking about the vases and turns out this is no ordinary store. these vases were all hand-painted by his father, who turns out is a very famous and prestigous artist. His works are actually in some art museum, i cant quite remember the name, but he showed us pictures of the pieces that are in the museum and he was featured in a newspaper. but these vases were absolutely amazing. he turned off the lights and put a candle in them and told us this is how you have to view the pieces because that is how you can truly see the beauty, and believe me it made a difference. they were so details the ones he was emphasizing were these red ones that had bamboo painted on them. and he said that only his father can make the porcelin the color red it was and on it had a chinese proverb on it that said "you can eat without meat, but you can't live without bamboo" and he told that the bamboo grew straight and upwards and so should a man. it was way neat. they had lamps all over the place that he insisted that every time you'd even look at a lamp too long that you have to "kiss" it to the lamp to get the best look. we spent so much time in that shop. we were just awed by the beauty of these vases. also one of the teachers bought a flute from some man in the street and he played it for us. it was awesome. just over all art appreciation day.
okay now for night time. so today and tomorrow is the actual new years day. so the day might've seemed shut down but it came more to life during the night time. there were more shops open and we just looked around some more, boosting the chinese economy by buying souviners and what nots. we went and ate at some chinese restuarant (ha, yea what else right?) and then it was dark so we headed to the waterfront. because connecting to West Street is the Li River, which we didnt realize before and we knew there were going to be fireworks there so we went and there were. lots of them. there were just groups of people doing their own thing. so we watched them a bit and then headed down a bit more to where more people were with bigger ones. and we get to this main waterfront area and we buy some fireworks (way dirt cheap and good ones too, as in mortar type, as in awesome). and they're just going off everywhere. theres a bunch of kids with sparklers and these poppers that make our poppers look like pieces of dirt. they actually have a big (ha i just tried to type big and huge and didnt notice and accidentally wrote buge haha) okay they have a big crack and explode with smoke and all and everyones throwing those at each other. it was just neat especially shooting them off over the river. okay now for the good story. so we're in a touristy place right now like there's tons of foreigners but no americans so far. we met an older swedish man at the bus station today. and megan had a good little convo with a german couple with their kids. and we've just seen a bunch of foreigners, mostly russian. okay so we're standing there on this stone bridge thing and chantelle and me are shooting off these roman candle like deals. and i'm just holding it out there and fidgeting with my camera and out of the corner of my eye i see these two white guys standing next to us and as i'm shooting off this firework i see them take a step closer. and i'm just like oh gosh. so one comes up and asks me "how does this work" pointing to the firework. and i tell him, well you just light the top and then hold it out. nothing too exciting but hey its..fun?.. yea totally got hit on tonite. by two very goodlooking ISRAELIC boys (though they looked more european to me). we ended up talking to these guys for a good 15 minutes, because i mean come on, they were goodlooking and had sweet accents. you cant just pass that up. The one that talked to me first was Isaac (he pronounced it like eet-zik) and he was from Jerusalem. ha. yea. and so was his friend Omer (also from Israel), but they met here in yangshuo. Isaac has been traveling different places around asia just going to a bunch of cities and countries and Omer is pretty much just touring asia. its ridiculous. and at the beginning of the conversation Isaac was telling me about this regae party later and he hands me a flyer because i asked him where it was (don't worry i had no intention on going) and the flyer says "Bob Marley: 6 Feb 1945; When the moon and the Bob share a birthday, music will fill the universe" lol. but we talked to them and told them we were teachers and talked about nothing and watched some fireworks together. and then they said they were going to the "big regae party" and that we should come. here we had to tell them that we cant go to bars or drink alcohol or we get sent home (an actual ilp rule, along with pairing off with opposite sex) and we had to part ways. but meeting them totally made my night, and i guess i was really happy after that and kept saying it was a good night until lorenda said "well of course its a good night when you get hit on." haha. so that was a good little ego boost i spose. :) so mom, i'm bringing home an israelic boy if thats okay :) haha.
okay so we saw fireworks tonite and it was good, but i expected a little more to be honest. so as i was writing this blog it was like 3 minutes until midnite and pretty much our town just EXPLODED with fireworks. there are these machine gun ones that literally shake your body if your in the vacinity and thats exactly what they sound like is just a big loud machine gun of explosions. yea i'm pretty sure like 100 went off at the same time along with tons and tons of the huge loud ones. it sounded like a storm/war was going on so we booked it out onto the street and the sky was FILLED with fireworks. and it was legit because some of them were behind the mountains which then lit up from behind. we went up to our rooms on the 4 floor and had a good look out on some big ones that were farther away.
so FINALLY we're in 2008. i always thought i was a day ahead of all of you, but really i was a year behind. lol. but we finally caught up.
so HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEARS!!!! year of the rat/mouse, here we come :)
but we are now in Yangshuo (yang-shwo) Guilin (gway-leeng). and i am in love with it.
our hostel's pretty sweet, it has a portland-ish feel to it. i love it. and best things ever 1. WESTERN TOILETS! 2. MATTRESSES!! AND PADDING!! 3. HEATERS!!!!!!!!
leaving here is going to be hard. this place is what we imagined china as. it's a very touristy town but there are shops everywhere, particularly West Street which is the main street and where everything is but the best part is we are surrounded by huge gorgeous mountains. and not like in the distance mountains, like in your face mountain after mountain with a beautiful river running through the town (Li River). its ridiculous.
so today was exploring and seeing what we got day. but actually turned into art appreciation day. we set out to explore West Street, which we knew was the place to go and hey what do you know, its down the street from our hostel.
so there are tons of shops that sell the scrolls with chinese paintings on them, like the ones you see everywhere. but this one a little different. it was owned by a husband and wife and their daughter, who are all artists. and they hand-painted every picture, but these werent just the scrolls of the regular repeated pictures you can find anywhere, these were gorgeous watercolors of the Li River and other scenes from around Yangshuo. They were absolutely amazing, so we picked up a few there.
Then more walking. and its not set up like booths, they're more like walking into stores, just very little ones but you cant just go and look at stuff because then you excite the people and they think you're actually going to buy something, but you just want to say, nope just looking. we feel bad just walking away so we act interesting and listen to their little sales pitch in the little english they know. the only bad part of yangshuo is that its new years right. like the actual days are today and tomorrow even though they celebrate it for two weeks. and its actually a family holiday so a bunch of places either close down early or just are closed. so it was actually pretty dead today. so we were DEFinately noticed. we also bought some big fans too which were pretty.
and then all day we've been trying to find a place that makes custom dresses. our head teacher told us this is the place she got hers, but we couldnt find one so we're going to keep trying.
then probably the coolest thing of the day. so we went and got lunch at yes, KFC..(its just a quick place we can trust) and then we were just walking along the street and this store that just had a table outside of it had these hand painted teacups that caught my eye. and this lady goes on and on about how the red is the color of lucky in china, very popular. and yellow is very nice. red color and yellow color are emperor color together. and blue, is very favorite. and we're just like yea.. they are very beautiful. then the others walk up and they go into the store and we go around this curtain deal and this room is just a bunch of shelves full of these little vases. but these just werent vases these were all hand painted GORGEOUS vases. they were exquisit.
and the brother was in the back and he just starts talking about the vases and turns out this is no ordinary store. these vases were all hand-painted by his father, who turns out is a very famous and prestigous artist. His works are actually in some art museum, i cant quite remember the name, but he showed us pictures of the pieces that are in the museum and he was featured in a newspaper. but these vases were absolutely amazing. he turned off the lights and put a candle in them and told us this is how you have to view the pieces because that is how you can truly see the beauty, and believe me it made a difference. they were so details the ones he was emphasizing were these red ones that had bamboo painted on them. and he said that only his father can make the porcelin the color red it was and on it had a chinese proverb on it that said "you can eat without meat, but you can't live without bamboo" and he told that the bamboo grew straight and upwards and so should a man. it was way neat. they had lamps all over the place that he insisted that every time you'd even look at a lamp too long that you have to "kiss" it to the lamp to get the best look. we spent so much time in that shop. we were just awed by the beauty of these vases. also one of the teachers bought a flute from some man in the street and he played it for us. it was awesome. just over all art appreciation day.
okay now for night time. so today and tomorrow is the actual new years day. so the day might've seemed shut down but it came more to life during the night time. there were more shops open and we just looked around some more, boosting the chinese economy by buying souviners and what nots. we went and ate at some chinese restuarant (ha, yea what else right?) and then it was dark so we headed to the waterfront. because connecting to West Street is the Li River, which we didnt realize before and we knew there were going to be fireworks there so we went and there were. lots of them. there were just groups of people doing their own thing. so we watched them a bit and then headed down a bit more to where more people were with bigger ones. and we get to this main waterfront area and we buy some fireworks (way dirt cheap and good ones too, as in mortar type, as in awesome). and they're just going off everywhere. theres a bunch of kids with sparklers and these poppers that make our poppers look like pieces of dirt. they actually have a big (ha i just tried to type big and huge and didnt notice and accidentally wrote buge haha) okay they have a big crack and explode with smoke and all and everyones throwing those at each other. it was just neat especially shooting them off over the river. okay now for the good story. so we're in a touristy place right now like there's tons of foreigners but no americans so far. we met an older swedish man at the bus station today. and megan had a good little convo with a german couple with their kids. and we've just seen a bunch of foreigners, mostly russian. okay so we're standing there on this stone bridge thing and chantelle and me are shooting off these roman candle like deals. and i'm just holding it out there and fidgeting with my camera and out of the corner of my eye i see these two white guys standing next to us and as i'm shooting off this firework i see them take a step closer. and i'm just like oh gosh. so one comes up and asks me "how does this work" pointing to the firework. and i tell him, well you just light the top and then hold it out. nothing too exciting but hey its..fun?.. yea totally got hit on tonite. by two very goodlooking ISRAELIC boys (though they looked more european to me). we ended up talking to these guys for a good 15 minutes, because i mean come on, they were goodlooking and had sweet accents. you cant just pass that up. The one that talked to me first was Isaac (he pronounced it like eet-zik) and he was from Jerusalem. ha. yea. and so was his friend Omer (also from Israel), but they met here in yangshuo. Isaac has been traveling different places around asia just going to a bunch of cities and countries and Omer is pretty much just touring asia. its ridiculous. and at the beginning of the conversation Isaac was telling me about this regae party later and he hands me a flyer because i asked him where it was (don't worry i had no intention on going) and the flyer says "Bob Marley: 6 Feb 1945; When the moon and the Bob share a birthday, music will fill the universe" lol. but we talked to them and told them we were teachers and talked about nothing and watched some fireworks together. and then they said they were going to the "big regae party" and that we should come. here we had to tell them that we cant go to bars or drink alcohol or we get sent home (an actual ilp rule, along with pairing off with opposite sex) and we had to part ways. but meeting them totally made my night, and i guess i was really happy after that and kept saying it was a good night until lorenda said "well of course its a good night when you get hit on." haha. so that was a good little ego boost i spose. :) so mom, i'm bringing home an israelic boy if thats okay :) haha.
okay so we saw fireworks tonite and it was good, but i expected a little more to be honest. so as i was writing this blog it was like 3 minutes until midnite and pretty much our town just EXPLODED with fireworks. there are these machine gun ones that literally shake your body if your in the vacinity and thats exactly what they sound like is just a big loud machine gun of explosions. yea i'm pretty sure like 100 went off at the same time along with tons and tons of the huge loud ones. it sounded like a storm/war was going on so we booked it out onto the street and the sky was FILLED with fireworks. and it was legit because some of them were behind the mountains which then lit up from behind. we went up to our rooms on the 4 floor and had a good look out on some big ones that were farther away.
so FINALLY we're in 2008. i always thought i was a day ahead of all of you, but really i was a year behind. lol. but we finally caught up.
so HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEARS!!!! year of the rat/mouse, here we come :)
Monday, February 4, 2008
last day in sanya
Sanya is famous for its beaches. Our goal today: go to the beach. We actually planned on just having a chill day at some beautiful beach but it didn’t work out how we expected but it was still all good. We had to go to downtown to buy our bus tickets to
Oh man. Okay so for dinner we went to this flipping awesome place. The night before we were just in downtown Sanya and some Chinese guy stops us and tells us about his restaurant. We’re just okay, okay, sure. But he actually spoke really good English and he just kept telling us what his restaurant had, it was a buffet with “no limit” ha-ha (he made that point clear). He was just very entertaining. Somehow he started going on about how language is “peripheral technology” and we laughed and he just kept telling us about marketing skills? I don’t know it was just funny and a little unexpected. One of the funniest things he said was as we were walked away he yells “We are confident, we are the best” fist in the air and everything. We told him we’d go to his restaurant and we had all intentions to. So Chantelle and me and two other teachers (the rest wimped out on us) went. This. Place. Was. Awesome. It was on the fourth floor so we’re taking escalators up to it and on the last one to the fourth we see him and at first he didn’t recognize us and then he goes “OH! What a coincidence!!” and we said that we were going to come to his restaurant. So he actually walks us in and goes around to all of the dishes and explains to us what each one was and they actually had this really good Brazilian BBQ (?) it was different meats on these huge skewers and he told us all the different stuff (pork, chicken, Peking duck, ox tongue (?!), squid, shrimp). So he lets us go and we’re just like this place is legit. And the food was awesome. Two boys would come over every now and then with a huge skewer of some meat and they’d slide off a chunk of meat and give it to you and might I say it was quite delectable. So we stuff our mouths, as we Americans do best and on the way out we see him again and get a picture with him and he showed us on the way in that he has his guests sign the walls of the restaurant. So they gave us markers and we made our mark. We were really proud of our choice.
For our night’s finish it was one of the experiences that just makes me stand back and say “I love china.” So its new year’s right. And we’re pretty much on the ocean front and every night there’s been people shooting off fireworks. So tonite we decide we have a night out on the beach and shoot off some firework. So it’s the same four of us that went to the restaurant (the others wimped out, yet again) and we walk out of our hotel with some small fireworks the other girls bought the previous day and right next door is this little store of snacks and what nots (I’d say convenience store but its more of a hole in the wall…). This cool old lady owns it and we’ve bought drinks from here before and we needed a lighter. We buy one and she sees that we have fireworks and she’s motioning to us exploding. And we’re just like “yea… fireworks” but she shows us to the back and she has more. So we’re like heck, why not. So she shows us this one that looked like it’d just shoot like roman candle type ones in the air and we’re not too thrilled. And I think she noticed our expressions because she brings us to the back room and busts out a box of mortars. All I hear Lorenda say “are those mortars?” and we’re OH YEA! Jackpot. We get a box of 10 of them for 30 Yuan (that’s about 5 dollars folks). So we head out to the beach. And I don’t know how it happened but we had a father and his son (probably like 8 years old) shooting them off with us. We had 2 firework salespeople trying to sell us more, no matter how much we say no and we’re eating sugar cane (?!) (it’s a chute that you bite off a chunk, suck out the sugary water and then spit it out, its was like chewing on some bark, but of course full of sugary goodness). We’re just like, “only in china”. So we shot them all off had a couple of good-looking foreigners that the other girls met the night before stop and say hello. oh and we think some guy trying to sell us this floating lantern thing that we wouldnt buy stole lorenda's flip flops. haha. we seriously couldnt find them. But pretty much our last day in Sanya: two thumbs WAY up.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
monkey island
we arrived in sanya yesterday.... lets just say getting here was interesting.. involving a ten hour sleeper bus and some more buses..a ferry... and thank goodness for a lady who travelled with us that spoke english.
so yesterday we just explored the city to see what it had to off. we found some markets and a huge mall and a strip of booths.
but today... we went to MONKEY ISLAND!!
its everything the name says it was. an island with monkeys on it. we took a cable car up to it. we were surrounded by gorgeous mountains and palm trees. and the monkeys were everywhere! they'd walk by you, they'd come and just sit next to you, they'd jump out of the bushes, they'd just be sitting there. but you had to make sure they werent the grumpy ones...haha. i had one swat at my camera because i got too close. but most of them were just chill and the babies were SOOO cute. we watched a circus show and an acrobat show, those were def interesting. but it was way cool and the island was BEAUTIFUL!
it was just an awesome day.
so yesterday we just explored the city to see what it had to off. we found some markets and a huge mall and a strip of booths.
but today... we went to MONKEY ISLAND!!
its everything the name says it was. an island with monkeys on it. we took a cable car up to it. we were surrounded by gorgeous mountains and palm trees. and the monkeys were everywhere! they'd walk by you, they'd come and just sit next to you, they'd jump out of the bushes, they'd just be sitting there. but you had to make sure they werent the grumpy ones...haha. i had one swat at my camera because i got too close. but most of them were just chill and the babies were SOOO cute. we watched a circus show and an acrobat show, those were def interesting. but it was way cool and the island was BEAUTIFUL!
it was just an awesome day.
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