Blogs from Taizhou, Jiangsu, China, Asia - page 5

Saturday: We got invited over for lunch across the street. The family wants us to tutor their 9 yr old son every weekend (Sundays) to improve his English. They cooked a large meal (like most traditional Chinese meals) with some different types of food. Some were good, most were really bad. Especially "river crab"...tastes NOTHING like ocean crab...yuck. I tried most things, and they kept bothering me to try more. I can only push my limits so far without throwing up on the table. They were really nice, but I hate when people force feed me, especially when I've been feeling sick lately. Sunday: The boy (who we named "Erik" for his English name) came over for an hour. We showed him pictures of Canada and food, and pictures of animals. Found out today that I ... read more

Monday: I felt super sick when I woke up, I had no voice...so I wasn't able to go into work since I'm pretty useless as an English teacher with no voice. I stayed home and rested. The girls stopped by at lunch and asked me a bunch of questions about Canada again (which was hard to do w/ my voice being gone pretty much) and they offered to bring us shopping on Friday since we get paid. We'll probably treat them to dinner as well. I hope to get a warmer sweater at least and maybe new sunglasses. Tuesday: I felt even worse, but I at least had my voice pretty much back. Still have a hard time talking loudly in class with my sore throat though. Classes went alright, I showed them pictures of Canada ... read more

We ended up not going to work today since no one seems to care about the contract so until we are treated like professionals we will go back to work. We’re just going by the contract so we’re not doing anything wrong. We went to the internet café (gross!) and sent Steven (coordinator) an e-mail saying we’re very dissatisfied with this school and the way we’re being dealt with here. I don’t know what will come of this but I sure hope it gets better. I’ve been saying this for almost a month now. Mr. Yong finally came by with a computer teacher and fixed our computer…only after a week of waiting! He also gave us the key for the other apartment so we can grab the VCD player so we can start renting movies to ... read more

Went to an internet café down the street today. Very gross environment…smokers…people spitting on the ground…yuck! Rained for the first time since we’ve gotten here…very cold and wet rain. We made our own dinner tonight since we been eating “take out” a lot lately. We found a really good place 2 minuets away from our apartment that has rice or noodles (your choice) with veggies for really cheap, very delicious as well. Went to bed early, had early classes Monday morning.... read more

Our computer broke last night. Makes a weird beeping noise when we try to turn it on, hopefully this problem gets fixed ASAP! Classes went alright today, some not so great (poor English). Ben’s mom called this morning which was a nice surprise! First person from Canada to call us…very nice to hear from home. Went to KFC and the supermarket tonight, took a cab there and he overcharged us. We were bound to be taken advantage of here. KFC was good, but different…the chicken in the sandwich was much more spicy and instead of coleslaw or macaroni salad they give this veggie mix salad (corn, green peppers etc) mixed with mayo…was kind of weird, but not too bad overall. Much cheaper than in Canada (about $7 Canadian for the both of us). No one came ... read more