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Published: December 6th 2009
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I woke up at 7:30 am to get to the gate by 8:00 am. I was supposed to meet Robert from Foreign Affairs, Jamey and Priscilla, Nahoko, and Ms. Tokudome (Not sure that's how you spell it...) there to embark on our journey to Shiyan. Jessi was supposed to go, but she sent me a message that morning and said she just didn't feel like it. Kyle was already there. He left early Friday to go and spend the day with a Chinese friend and would meet up with us that morning when we got there.
When I got to the gate everyone except Nahoko and me were there. Nahoko was right behind me. Robert's daughter and wife were there also. We all piled into the van and got started.
Robert talked to Jamey and Nahoko a lot which left me to just listen to my iPod. I also played Word Warp which I'm now totally addicted to. We had barely started when we stopped and pulled over. Robert's daughter, who is my student, had gotten car sick. She had to spend the rest of the trip in the front seat. I felt pretty bad for her.
We
made pretty good time, and we got to the school about 9:45. There's still a lot that needs to be done, but they seem to be convinced that the English department will move there next year. Several departments have already moved, actually. I wasn't aware that so many had..
We walked in the teaching building. It's muuuuch bigger. The first thing all of us did was go to the bathroom. I won't comment on it, but I do hope they get cleaned before we move. I was going to go upstairs and look around, but Robert's wife told Louisa (his daughter) that it was too cold inside and that we needed to go outside where it was warmer.
We went outside and stood around a while before Nahoko suggested we go look around inside anyway. So we went. Somehow J & P were in there looking around already. So Nahoko, Ms. Tokudome and I went in and looked together. We tried to look in classrooms, but we couldn't open any of the doors. We ran into Robert, J & P in the hallway and decided to go and look around the rest of campus.
We walked all
over and saw the library, student dorms, student cafeteria, future homes of teachers... etc. The cafeteria was the best because everyone was staring and pointing. Kyle caught up to us as we were finishing up, and we went ahead and got back on the van.
The next stop was the museum. Robert paid for us all to go in. It was pretty cool... It had a really awesome dinosaur exhibit - which turns out to be the only pictures I got because they told Nahoko to tell Jamey we weren't allowed to take pictures. I was taking them discreetly without my flash, but I decided I should probably stop too. There were two floors, but it wasn't huge. We enjoyed it a lot.
After we were finished looking around Kyle and I were standing in the lobby, and he told me to buy him something from the shop. I said, "Okay, come on and pick something out." We got in there, and the guy behind the counter started talking to us in Chinese... Kyle was a good faker; he would repeat words he understood and shake his head. I thought that was pretty awesome. In the middle of
this, Robert's daughter came in and saw what was happening.. she started laughing because she knew we couldn't understand and got the guy to talk to her.
We got in the van and started talking about what we were doing about lunch. Robert said he would drop the Americans off somewhere and then take the Japanese teachers somewhere else. We, the Americans, got dropped off at a big department store with a KFC attached. I got a mexican wrap and sat down. Kyle joined me with two wraps. J & P had to sit somewhere else because it was so crowded.
We went in the department store after lunch and looked around. Kyle split up from us and went upstairs. J & P and I decided to go upstairs and see what else they had to offer. This is when I found the coolest pillow EVER. It's a bunch of bananas.. and it says, "Funny Shake" on it. We walked around and shopped and lost Kyle completely. He called me and said he went walking.
We left the store and found Kyle. I went with him and J & P went the other way. Kyle and I
found the Korean market where Jessi and I went the first time I went to Shiyan. Kyle bought some Santa suits and some little toy Santas. While we were doing that, the lady told one of her friends that I had really long eyelashes. The only reason I know this is because Kyle understood and told me. I bought a penguin hat. I bought it because I wanted to give it to one of my friends, but I tried it on and kind of want to keep it now. haha.
We also found the walking street, and Kyle tried on a suit jacket. It looked really nice, but he didn't get it. I asked him why he didn't get it, but he couldn't give me a good answer. He just said he couldn't because... and that's his reasoning. He was going to get a jacket from another store, but they were either too small or weird.
We walked back to where we were supposed to meet the van and decided to go to McDonalds for a snack and to use the bathroom. Kyle got fries, and I got chocolate apple pies. We passed some monkeys on leashes that
did tricks on the way.. Before we saw some rabbits and gerbils for sale.
We piled in the van and went back to Danjiangkou. The whole row in front of Kyle and I were asleep for a lot of the trip. Kyle and I shared our music with each other pretty much the whole way back. It was fun.
Oh, Robert was talking about women spending money, and he asked me if I was a spender. He said it, "spenda" though. So before I could answer he said, "Oh! Brenda Spenda!" and cracked up. It was funny.
Kyle and I went to eat dinner about 7. We went to the Muslim noodle place and got gai fan.. which is just stuff on top of rice. It was pretty good, and then we went and got something to drink. That was pretty much the end of my night.
It was a good day, and I got some pictures, so maybe this is a good blog. Hope you enjoyed.
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Amy
non-member comment
Cool
Your love of the banana pillow is a little scary. Keep the penguin hat, it's cute!!