Advertisement
Published: December 16th 2011
Edit Blog Post
It has been so long since I have updated my blog, so to my friends and family who keep up to date on it, I’m sorry! I knew I would be busy coming here to teach, but I didn’t know HOW busy I would REALLY be! If you’re not a teacher, or don’t work with kids, you’d be surprised how much time lesson planning takes up each day! I’ve had a blast doing it all though, from power points to games and activities for my kids, I’ve had such a great experience, and its only been Two Months (well… almost!). I’m also creating really awesome and special relationships with a lot of my students, which I didn’t see coming, considering the massive class sizes. But each and everyone has given me so much love and support as students, I couldn’t ask for a better group!!
Where to begin with what we have been up to!... Well, it’s been coming up to Christmas, ridiculously fast – and it’s been a completely different world this holiday season. Normally surrounded around my family and good friends at home, going out for dinners, exchanging gifts, reuniting with people at Exam Breaks, this
has definitely been out of the norm for me! I have to admit, that the Chinese have gone over and beyond with their decorating for the holiday season. There is Christmas Music blasting through every store and restaurant, which I love of course. And the Christmas decorations are put up everywhere – huge trees (all fake of course) in hotels and city squares, as well as mini trees in store shops. It’s actually really awesome, and something I didn’t expect. Although they don’t fully understand here what Christmas is all about (they see it through a very materialized viewpoint – from what I’ve experienced), they definitely have made a tremendous effort! Courtney and I have even decked out the apartment with loads of decorations. I found a mini mini MINI Christmas tree for ten yuan (not even 2$ Canadian), which is really cute – and yes lacks some umph to it, but it’s better than nothing!! My WHOLE family is getting together this year, which is rare because the majority of my family live in Ireland, so we normally don’t have big Christmases, so Im looking forward to skyping everyone Christmas Morning (their time), as if I were there myself!
I’ve downloaded a ridiculous amount of Christmas movies and songs which have kept me busy and in the festive spirit on my downtimes! I’ve done well keeping myself in the holiday mode, because it is so easy to forget that it’s that time of year being here!
The weather has certainly dropped since end of November/ beginning of December hit. For a few days we had extremely cold temperatures, where I found myself bundled up as if I were at home for a few mornings. But it’s gotten back to about 16-20 average temps every day. Hopefully it doesn’t get colder again!! One trend in China which I just can’t jump on the bandwagon for, is really puffy and shiny materialed coats. Because when it’s cold, its FREEZING for them. So they all buy these puffy powder puff coats, that are all made out of this metallic and shiny material – half the kids at school sit at their desks (with no universal heating, it SUCKS for warmth at school, I was teaching with my gloves and coat on everyday!) and they look like little snowmen with all of their coats on, it’s so cute and funny.
We made it to Guangzhou (the capital of Guangdong Province) last weekend, and it was a great day trip! We got the Fast Train for 18 yuan (approx. 3$ Canadian) to Guangzhou which took about 30 minutes, and from there we hopped on their incredibly clean and modern subway which we took advantage of all day. It was so easy to use and get around on! We made it to the Zoo which was quite an experience. I saw my first Panda in China, which I thought was awesome – he was amazing. Such a beautiful animal, I have loved pandas since I was little (actually since the movie came out in the 90s, The Great Panda Adventure), so it was really special for me. The zoo was really cool too with a lot to see and do, and actually really nicely laid out – it reminded me of New York’s Central Park Zoo, the way its smack dab in the middle of a huge city, I thought it was very similar.
We went to Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall, which was a beautiful big temple like building, with bright colours and a huge
garden and yard around it – it was really nice. We also found our way to the Bright Filial Piety Temple which was amazing. One of the oldest and most historic temples in China, apparently. It was such a cool thing to go to – it was around 330, and a lot of people were leaving school and work to go and pray, so we got to watch a lot of people pray to their Buddha and witness how their religion kind of works. I want to learn more about it, it really interested me. There’s a main temple in the middle of the area, and then five or six little halls around it with a Buddha of different significance in each to pray at. Coming up to the temple, the street went from a modern atmosphere to a historical one, almost as if you were stepping back hundreds of years ago – old homes turned into little store fronts were bursting with colourful Buddha statues and incense sticks to buy for the temple. It was such a beautiful street.
We have been really busy, and I can’t believe that we’ve almost been here two months –
it’ll be exact next week! Time is really flying by here. My dad and brother have booked their flight into coming, my mom is planning hers and my boyfriend is also looking into it – so life is good!! I am so fortunate to have the constant support and interest about my journey at home, so I know what I’ll be grateful for this Christmas. There is so much to do and see here, 24 hours in a day is not enough!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.056s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 12; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0287s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb