Blogs from Kunming, Yunnan, China, Asia - page 7

Today was my last day at the school. ): Amy was super sad, I almost cried. We chilled at break and then played games with her friends (that I gave the names Katie, Sarah, and Jamie too). We played their version of Ninja Ninja Turtle (Duck Duck Goose) and this other game where everyone except one person made a train and the one person left out has to tag everyone behind the first person. The group donated fans for each classroom (which was greatly needed. I probably lost at least 10 pounds simply by sweating so much while teaching). Amy gave me a bracelet on Monday. She gave me a note today saying how I was her favorite teacher and how much she loved me (a scan of the note will be posted on facebook when ... read more

The Chinese do not build elevators in buildings that are 6 stories or shorter. Some of us had wondered, before the trip, why are most Chinese people thinner than most Americans even though they eat a lot of carbs? Well it's probably because they have to walk everyhere. There are steps all over the place and the terrain is pretty hilly. It doesn't take long for that quick relief of flat land to quickly start taking you up or down. That's what we realized, is that we needed all of the food we could get to just maintain the amount of energy that we burn in a day. My apartment here is 6 floors up. The school I work at has 4 floors and to get to any of the classrooms I have to at least ... read more

Yunnan (you non) & Kunming- (coon – ming) We landed in Kunming at 4:45 am and I didn’t sleep at all on the 2-1/2 hr flight. I had a nervous feeling about landing this time since we switched employers and were depending on our last school not to cancel our Resident Permit cards. After our experience leavingIndiaI was almost counting on trouble getting back intoChina. Fortunately for us there were no issues and we cleared customs relatively quickly. After getting our bags we saw a lot of people either waiting for their flight or waiting for the cab line to open. Our flight wasn’t the only one to have landed in that hour, yet for some reason the airport goes out of their way to shut down the cab service at this time. Our solution was ... read more

I finished my final week of teaching in Wuhan on Friday. The final teaching day was actually Thursday and we combined classes, so I had 2 classes of about 40 students each. Great day of bedlam as I assigned students to various companies that had to make deals with each other, in English. Most students jumped into the game with relish, while others (remember, these were all doctoral candidates) just didn't have a clue. Friday was a thanks and farewell party with much picture taking, gift giving and long goodbyes. You can see some of the many photos taken of the event by one of my students at http://www.flickr.com/photos/67941382@N02/. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get him to edit out the one involving a red dress. While it was difficult to say “goodbye” to my almost 80 students, I ... read more

Good morning. Yesterday (July 20), we visited the World Horti-Expo GardenThe World Horti-Expo Garden is a botanical garden center in Kunming. It played host to the October 1999 Kunming International Horticulture Exposition. As an international botanical garden, the Expo Garden has become a significant Kunming landmark. The World Horti-Expo Garden covers an area of 218 hectares and is consisted of 5 indoor exhibition halls (China Hall, the Man and Nature Hall, the Green House, the Science and Technology Hall, and the International Hall), 6 theme gardens (the Tree Garden, the Tea Garden, the Bonsai Garden, the Medicinal Herb Garden, the Bamboo Garden, and the Vegetable and Fruit Garden) and 34 outdoor gardens of domestic participants, 34 outdoor gardens for foreign countries and international organizational and 9 outdoor exhibition area for the enterprise participants. The World-expo Ga ... read more