Blogs from Wuhan, Hubei, China, Asia - page 21

I now have solid plans for my upcoming vacation. I’ll be getting on a bus to Shanghai at 7 PM on Sunday evening, and staying there for about a week. I’m going with two of the other teachers at the school, and for the most part I’m letting them decide on what sites we go to see. What I’m really excited about is getting to see my friend Lindsay. She was an EF student on the Marymount campus two years ago, and I used to tutor her in English. When I said goodbye to her I more or less resigned myself to the idea that there was a good chance I wouldn’t be seeing her again. I’m absolutely thrilled that things worked out differently than I expected at the time. The act of buying the bus ... read more

Ik verblijf inmiddels al drie weken in de Volksrepubliek en heb het hier nog steeds zeer naar mijn zin. Mijn Chinees wordt er dag na dag beter op en conversaties voeren gaat steeds vlotter. Ik probeer ook regelmatig af te spreken met Chinezen en Koreanen om zo buiten de lesuren ook regematig Mandarijn te spreken. Gisterenochtend nog een razend interessant gesprek( in het Chinees!) gehad met onze Koreaanse klasverantwoordelijke over de verschillen tussen Zuid-en Noord-Korea en hoe hij de toekomst van zijn land ziet. Op culinair vlak maak ik niet echt veel vorderingen wegens mijn onwil om de karakters voor allerlei soorten groenten en sauzen in te studeren. Ik kijk gewoon of het noedels of rijstgerecht is en kies tussen schapenvlees, rundsvlees, kip of varkensvlees. Van de Engelse vertaling van gerechten word je ook niet veel ... read more

Pictures!... read more

The internet here hasn’t been working all week, but it’s back now. Yesterday was a Chinese holiday called “teachers’ day”. As the name would suggest, it’s a day of appreciation for teachers. The kids all came to school with flowers and gifts for us yesterday. It felt like it was my birthday or something. Most of the kids just brought single flowers, some real and some plastic. However, many kids also brought gigantic bouquets of flower. Each office at the school is shared by at least five or six teachers, and all of the offices are crowded with beautiful flowers right now. The smell walking into the offices is intense. Some of the students also brought us items such as traditional Chinese souvenirs, chocolates, moon cakes, and memorabilia from the Olympics. I need to work on ... read more

How time flies. According to my homepage, it has been 101 days since I have last posted a blog. I had intended on writing a reflective wrap-up of the year’s trials and tribulations, but time just got away from me. Before I knew it I was back at home spending a whirlwind 6 weeks trying to see as many people, go as many places and eat as many things as I could before heading back to Wuhan for another year. Oh, did I forget to mention that? That was going to be another blog in and of itself. I guess I have a lot of catching up to do, so here goes: I am back in China! Last April, I was starting to ruminate about my plans for what was next. Everyone that I was there ... read more