real world : zhangjiagang

so, while I'm trying to upload some videos of the show, I'll update you on the rest of the week.

Last week, Carol asked Candice and Fabrice if a camera crew from the local tv channel could film them for a day. It wouldn't be that weird except hat the reason the picked the 2 of them is that their skin is darker! lol, anywhere else that would be racist and offensive, but not in China. They said that they want to show that they have people of all races teaching at our school, so thats kind of nice i guess..i don't know its just funny that they would even ask them and not think it was weird...

So, yea..monday morning around 8am the camera crew knocked on our apt building door cause they were there to film Fabrice getting ready for the day, lol. Then they followed him and Candice to their classes and filmed them teaching. Meanwhile, I went ot my first class at 10am and the class wasn't there. I went o the office and found out that the sports meeting had been rained out and postponed to monday so all of my classes were cancelled. I went ot the feilds and watched some of the kids races and talked to a few of them who were watching, and then wen back to my apt. WHen I got there the camera crew asked if I would stay and let them film me too. So I waited with them for a a few min until Steve, Candice, Fabrice, and Dennis came. They then moved all of the furniture on the first floor into the kitchen and had us bring down more chairs from our rooms, lol. The 5 of us sat in the kitchen and they filmed us eating mooncakes. Tuesday was the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival here, basically like our Thanksgiving. Everyone has a big family dinner, looks at the full moon, and eats mooncakes. They're small little cakes with fillings (red bean paste, eggs & fruit, and some other random things) that come packaged in all different boxes. They also had us say "I love Zhangjiagang" in Chinese, lol, and then followed us in a cab with the camera out the window as Candice and I rode our bikes to go eat lunch. They followed us in the restaurant and filmed for a bit and then said they'd see us back at school. Later that afternoon they filmed me and Candice at the sports meeting, and singing in her room!! LOL they wanted us to sing a song in English so Candice played some music on her computer and we sang along, they loved it ! LOL sooo hilarious, I seriously was about to pee in my pants, lol. They said it's gonna be on tv on National day (oct 1st) and we asked for dvd so hopefully we'll get one! lol.

Monday night, both Candice and I met with Fun Shi Ja, and then yesterday just I did. We figured out that we'll both go mondays and then each go one other day alone..that way I'm now free to tutor one-on-one for Flora's school on Thursdays. Monday we just went to restaurant and ate and then sat there and went over Chinese and English stuff. Yesterday though was pretty funny. She had gone with her parents last week to a "western" restaurant and thought it was really good, so we went there for dinner. When we sat down, however, they brought us different menus then the ones she had just had last week. They had less choices, and were more expensive! but they had everything in English and Chinese. She asked the waitress why and she said that since I'm a foreigner we get a different menu, but they brought the other menu out for her too, and it just had more choices, for cheaper and was also in English! Fun Shi Ja asked why the price for the same thing was different (18rmb and 32rmb) and he waitress just said that thats what her boss decided. So Fun Shi Ja ordered some steak thing that she had just had and thought was really good for both of us..and they brought it out and was awful, lol. I was just relieved that she thought it was bad too, but she was really angry. She yelled at the waitress that the food was bad and after like 5 min of yelling back and forth they took our plates back. Then about 15 min later they brought us new one'ssayng it was a better cut of meat. The dish was supposed to be "western food" so it was a peice of meat with some sort of bbq sauce and fries which were totally soggy. Fun Shi Ja said that last week when she had ordered it, it was totally different, different meat, different sauce, and it came with noodles! lol..i told her that in the US we would have just left, but we stayed and then paid the 32rmb each!! i couldn't believe that they didn't give us the lower price. After that whole thing we went to this cake store cause she had a gift certificate there. She picked out some cakes that she thought I would like and they were soo weird! lol. Some are like stale pound cake with fruit filling, and some are actually 2 pancakes with a blob of jelly in the middle. oh and they all are pre-packaged and have one of the preservative little pouches that say "do not eat" on them..pretty weird.

so, thats about it. I bought some balls at a toy store the other day and figured out that my cell phone has a stop watch so I've been using those 2 things to keep my classes interested..I've just been doing differnt review things, and i played "we're going on a picnic" with a few of my classes.

We are off all next week for the National Day holiday, which is actually on Oct. 1st, but we have to teach this Sat and Sunday for some reason.. Steve and Drew are both visitng friends that live in China, so Candice and I are going to meet up with a few other CIEE people in Nanjing. Nanjing's the biggest city in our province,about 3 hours away by bus, and everyone I've talked to said its pretty so thats exciting. It'll be nice to leave our city for a few days, and to be able to hangout with some other people too. lol. I booked the hostel for 3 of us, and had Fun Shi Ja help me buy our bus tickets yesterday so everything's set. We're gonna leave Tues morning and proably come back Fri night, cause everyone in China travels next week and therefore getting back on the weekend will probably be insane.

so, the videos aren't really working with the blog, but i put them up on you tube so hopefully you'll be able to see them :)
here's the link
http://www.youtube.com/Lchayot

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