http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/mvaahh/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from mvaahh en-us Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:07:27 +0000 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:07:27 +0000 So today was a classic China dayI tutored seven seven year olds in the morning which was hell because we were doing clothing and they were bored after the first ten minutes. I revived them with designing the clothing on paper dolls and lost them again when we went back to the book. Got them back with my find the tshirttrouserssocks and get itthem on faster than the other guy race and lost http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangdong/Shenzhen/blog-397695.html Hello lovesNews I didn't get one of the three CTLC Associate Coordinator jobs like I had hoped however they offered me a compromise. Over 1000 people applied to be in CTLC next year so they think we'll be up to full capacity which barely ever happens people don't get on the plane they don't make it through training or they freak out after seeing chicken feet for the first time and hop o http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangdong/Shenzhen/blog-392299.html Thank you all for the Happy Birthday wishes I've found that I always have low expectations for my birthdays abroad probably due to a lack of mail year round but following suit with my best birthday ever the one in France this year's birthday was better than I thought it could be. From ecards emails messages and wall posts I was sent love from all my friends at home as well as my friends http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangdong/Shenzhen/blog-384699.html I'm doing a lesson on being in a restaurant this week where the kids make up their own restaurant and menu and then practice ordering from it. One group named their restaurant Lead you into a trap restaurant. This is how I feel about most restaurants in China this week. I got food poisoning in Yangshuo google that shit Yangshuo not the food poisoning it's incredible We bought a new memory http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangxi/Yangshuo/blog-384695.html Home sweet Chinese home. Instead of understanding nothing I understand single words or phrases with no context...ultimate frustration. It's actually good to be back though.We had a meeting this morning at school where the headmaster spoke for an hour an a half about the new semester. I understood nothing but when I asked everyone told me it was nothing important. I'm always amazed at how long Ch http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangdong/Shenzhen/blog-371148.html Cambodia smells of sandalwood and mosquito incense coils as it is the dry season it smells of dust. We just arrived in Sihanoukville from Siem Reap and the famous Angkor temples. I'll get back to that some other time. They are incredibly amazing. That is all for now. Sihanoukville is a sleepy beach town that expats get sucked into for months. There's all kinds of delicious western food we ca http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/South/Sihanoukville/blog-369626.html I made it to Cambodia As I've been far too enamored with my surroundings to post anything about Vietnam I'll have to go back to it with the help of my pictures once I'm back in China. Brief overview Vietnam smells of incense smoke and dirt people burn paper money in the streets to pray for wealth and incense burns under every tree and in every family shrine. The cities smell of exhuast h http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Cambodia/South/Phnom-Penh/blog-368053.html Itrsquos been awhilemdashthe holidays were a blur here as I went to Beijing for Christmas and Hong Kong for New Years with my friend Sulava from college. Herersquos a somewhat brief overview from the last few weeks.Christmas in Shenzhen It was very strange being away for Christmas. Not many people celebrate it here and the lack of Christians assures unbridled commercialism without any of t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-361325.html I was able to talk to three of my best friends from Connecticut on skype on Sunday It was glorious. They were all home for Thanksgiving and a cocktail party at Erica's. It reminded me that Thanksgiving came and went and although we had a dinner it was seeing them and receiving an email from Enrique that made me realize I hadn't actually taken a moment to think about what I'm thankful for. So he http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangdong/Shenzhen/blog-350217.html On Friday the Shenzhen Education Bureau bused a bunch of foreign teachers to Guangzhou the capital of Guangdong for the Guangdong Tourism Festival. Once on the buses they provided us with the most hideous hats you've ever seen the gray brim was about four inches too long and they were bright orange with Shenzhen written in pink across the front. I loved it and wore it as long as possible. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangdong/Guangzhou/blog-350174.html After Chinese class and a brief stint at 3D Bar a place where fun nights out go to die Dan Cody and I found ourselves wandering around Shenzhen on a Wednesday evening. We walked aimlessly imploring China to provide us with some form of entertainment. Due to the severe lack of benches in China we sat in the filth against a wall to people watch. China instantly came through for us. Within fi http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangdong/Shenzhen/blog-344769.html Election day in China. I prefaced each of my lessons today with pictures of McCain and Obama the words election vote candidates and campaign. Most of it went over their heads but they all recognized Obama and shouted his name over and over mostly because they like the way it sounds but also because most Chinese seem to think he's soo good soo good They were praising him before his victo http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangdong/Shenzhen/blog-344691.html There's a Taiwanese restaurant around the corner from our Chinese classes. We'd been there once before and the Taiwanese owner who speaks perfect English was really cool with us. He gave us his business card and told us to call him if we ever needed any help kept talking about what a favor we were doing for China and gave us the most delicious lemon spiced tea for free. The food was good and http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangdong/Shenzhen/blog-344619.html Last week I got a new tutoring job in addition to the two eight year olds I teach once a week for an hour. I'm currently tutoring a CEO of a major chinese company. The ad on the listserve said looking for female tutor and was about this 40 year old ceo who wanted to meet frequently. SHE wanted someone to practice conversational English before SHE moved to Vancouver for business.I was like oh co http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangdong/Shenzhen/blog-344613.html This past weekend a group of us went camping at Tai Long Wan on Hong Kong Island. The metro ride into Hong Kong from Shenzhen is surprisingly easy and fast. It took less than an hour. We then took two buses towards the coast and the mountains I had no idea that Hong Kong Island was so hilly and had such amazing beaches From the last bus stop it was a six mile hike which took us three hours due http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Hong-Kong/Hong-Kong-Island/blog-336374.html What a good China weekendI got up early this morning to meet Pearl one of the Chinese English teachers from my school and Ian for a trip to Nanshan. We went to Tianhou Temple which is dedicated to a goddess that protects fishermen. Shenzhen was a small fishing village before Reform and Opening so Tianhou is sort of like its patron saint. The temple is over a thousand years old but it's been http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangdong/Shenzhen/blog-333597.html Bright and early on Thursday we caught a bus to Yongding a town in interior Fujian. The bus trip ended up being about two and a half hours so we were in Hukeng Village by taxi early. We met some locals who offered us a room in their tulou right away so we were able to drop off our bags in our very basic accommodations and get something to eat. Our tulou was falling apart in places with one ent http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Fujian/Yongding/blog-331306.html National Day break What a tripOur 14 hour train from ride Guangzhou to Xiamen Fujian was a blast. The train was packed and we were all separated because we got our tickets so late. I had to have two women move out of my sweet window seat and made instant friends with the guy next to me who was a librarian at a science and technology library in Guangzhou. He was a Hakka and told me all about http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Fujian/Xiamen/Gulangyu/blog-331303.html One of my students' English names is Undertaker. That takes a close second to Smite.China nearly got the best of us and buried our dreams of a good break. Nearly. The Shenzhen Education bureau has had our visas for about two weeks to obtain our work visas. We have a week off next week for National Day and most of us were planning on traveling. However you can't travel in China without your passp http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/blog-327844.html It's been awhileThere's a typhoon coming A typhoon Doesn't that sound much more exciting than big rain storm with wind I was looking for hostels for a potential trip to Hunan type in Zhangjiajie or Wulingyuan into google images to look at where I'm going hopefully if we get our passports back for National Day break. We have a week off but because of the holiday we have to work Saturday a http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangdong/Shenzhen/blog-326611.html