zhangjiagang has an island?! lol

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soo, once again i haven't written in awhile..things here have been pretty routine though..aside from the fact that we now have internet in our apt. which is amazing!! of course now that i don't have to plan to go to the office to put up pics and stuff..i'm just lazy and never do, lol. anyway, my students have been pretty crazy as usual, lol..but i think i'm starting to be able to control them a bit more and figure out things that they'll actually do..or at least i'm getting used their craziness, lol. I've also finally gotten to know some of kids a little better, and can actually recognize them, and know their name and which class they're in, which is cool, lol.

umm..tutoring's been going well too. for some reason they changed around all of our schedules but i still have all of the same kids, plus 2 new ones, Jenny & Tom. Jenny's in 8th grade and has lived in China for like 8 years I think. She's totally fluent in Chinese and goes to a private Chinese school, and her English is really good which is kind of crazy cause she doesn't speak English in school at all. She's kinda quiet though too, so i feel like i'm basically interviewing her the whole time, lol. Tom's in 7th grade and goes to the international school in Suzhou so his English is also pretty good. He can be soo serious about studying though its hysterical, lol. The first time I tutored him he set a timer so that we could spend 30 min. reading each english book that he had, lol. We ended up just talking about blood transfusions (that was the topic of one of the reading comprehension articles, lol), and then his school, and then he taught me about korean history, which was random but interesting..and he decided to just turn off the alarms, lol. The past few times we've also ended up talking about random things..wars, history, and illegal immigrants, he's really like crazy smart though so once he's on a topic he talks forever, lol.

last week i brought my bus map to meet with Fun Shi Ja hoping that she could explain some things to me about it..which she couldn't really, but anyway I found out that Zhangjiagang has an island! it's north of the city, in the yangtze river (which i found out is actually called the Chang Jiang here) and when I started asking about what was there and how to get there, Fun Shi Ja said that she would take us that weekend. She said had only been there once and that it was mostly just a country club type place for golfing and horsebackriding, lol..but then i really had to see it, lol. So, last Sunday me and Candice took a bus to the suburbs/countryside of Zhangjiagang where Fun Shi Ja lives. It took about 40 min. and then she met us, with her mom & dad, at the bus stop and then we drove about 10 minutes to the dock. We waited a little while and then took like a 10 min ride on the ferry to the island. There wasn't really too much to see, but it was fun anyway..we ate lunch at a restaurant there (apparently the only good one, lol) and then drove around the perimeter of the island. There was a nice golf course, some random horses, some houses, a school, and some ponds or canals where they harvest pearls which is pretty cool (fun shi ja also said that they harvest pearls in lots of places in china..so she didn't think it was that cool, lol) It was kind of a cloudy, foggy day but I think in the spring it would be really pretty there. Once we were back at the dock we took the ferry back. However, Fun Shi Ja's dad stayed in the car on the ferry and then after waiting for about 10 min after we had docked, he called and said that his car wouldn't start... so, some coast guard type guys helped roll the car off of the ferry, and then they waited there for someone to take it or look at it, and we went shopping for a bit before taking the bus back.

k, putting up the pics..and then off to meet fun shi ja!

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Photos

fun shi ja & candice
before the ferry ride

fun shi ja, candice and me
waiting for the ferry!

fun shi ja's mom & dad
they're so nice :)