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Published: February 22nd 2010
New Coat..
Martin enjoying his new coat, but not the cold weather. Well, we've been back for almost a week and life is already starting to settle in.
The first day back, we ventured out to Nanshan, our neighboring district, to buy Martin a replacement coat for the one he left in Thailand. We ended up getting the exact same coat, half off. Score! That area of Shenzhen was CRAZY crowded with Chinese tourists from other provinces, while Bao'an felt eerily empty. On our packed bus ride home, a woman began vomiting all over the bus. Then, we walked into the grocery store building where we always shop and witnessed a baby pooping in the corner. Welcome back to China.
It was bitterly cold the first few days back (but is starting to warm up)- I never thought we'd pack a space heater in our backpack for a weekend trip to see our friends Pete and Elyse, but it happened. They got back from their own month-long adventure (to Australia and New Zealand) the day after us, so we got on the hour long bus journey to go see them on Friday afternoon. It was nice to see familiar faces again! China sure builds friendships quickly. 😊
The four of
Super Bowl
At our good friends Pete and Elyse's place, we set up the Super Bowl to watch on the computer. Yes, it was still cold. us spent the evening just chatting about our trips, eating dinner at a nearby restaurant (our first Chinese meal out since being home!) and drinking beloved Tsingtao while watching the Superbowl on the computer. I may have fell asleep for most of it...surprised? The next morning, after a delicious breakfast by Pete, we explored Longgang a little and ended up at the top of a pagoda at the park near their house that they hadn't yet ventured to. It offered beautiful views of Shenzhen, and lots of Chinese residents to stare at us in amazement. Oh yeah, we're back in China...people stare and point and ask you to be in pictures with them. Really, China, WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THESE PICTURES? Elyse posed for one that is now probably on some site called 'myforeignerpics.com' or something. I'll never understand it. Welcome back to China. Shortly before vacation, a new grocery store was put in right by their apartment, so we had fun perusing the aisles and buying imported items like PASTA...something I always crave. 😊 I'm not sure what we did the rest of the day other than lay around their place- we watched superbowl commercials online, followed by
Park
A park in Longgang with the Chinese New Year decorations. two pretty bad movies- "Year One" and "District 9". I fell asleep during District 9 and Elyse fell asleep during Year One...I wish I'd slept through Year One instead. As we'd had a late lunch of spaghetti made by Martin and Pete, Pete and Elyse just had some popcorn for dinner and Martin and I ran across the street from their place to get takeout. Yep, takeout Chinese food. Ha ha ha. Unfortunately, it's a little harder here as you have to actually speak Chinese, and the waiters always pretend not to know what you're saying when you pronounce the word that basically means "to go box" (we have problems with the tones). Plus, you sound like a caveman. We walked in and as they tried to seat us, we shook our heads and said "No. To go box. Menu? 1 of this. 1 of that. Thanks." Awesome, huh? 😊 But hey, it worked and we left 15 minutes later with styrofoam containers of deliciousness. Welcome back to China.
On Sunday, we pretty much got up and headed home. We had to wait almost an hour for our 'Airport Express' bus to show up, when it usually comes about
Longgang Pagoda
Climbed to the top of a pagoda in the park. Beautiful! every 15-20 minutes. Luckily, it wasn't packed, and we got home in under an hour. We thought we didn't work until Tuesday (per a text earlier in the week), but our contact teacher texted us to let us know school started Monday. Okay, cool. We got our schedules in the afternoon, and they're pretty similar to last semester. We thought for sure we'd end up teaching all of our classes every week, but we're still on an every other week schedule. During 'odd' weeks, we teach our 'even' classes, and vice versa. Martin teaches Senior 2, classes numbered 0-13, and I teach Senior 1, classes numbered 0-12. So, that means we each teach about 6-7 classes a week again. That's nothing. Our contract stipulates we can teach up to 15 classes a week, and most foreign teachers in the program are closer to that. We're not going to complain! We also have opposite Mondays from each other off, I have every Friday off and Martin has every other Friday off...that will make for some nice long weekend trips this semester!
Today was supposed to be one of Martin's Mondays off, so he spent the day relaxing and catching up
Beautiful Longgang
The park is just beautiful, minus the peeing babies that parents hold up to the bushes. with things online, while I prepped for my three afternoon classes I was supposed to have. Upon walking into my class 4, I noticed the desks were rearranged, and all their books were completely cleared off the desk, something that never happens. It was strange, but I chalked it up to it being a new semester and went about setting up my stuff. The students seemed surprised to see me, and as more walked in there were murmurs and strange looks, so I tried talking to them about it. "What is different? Where is everyone else? Is something happening today?" Nada, really. Hmm. A minute before the bell rang, a Chinese teacher walked in with a stack of papers and just stared at me. Everyone nervously shifted and nobody said a word. "Um...is there a schedule change today? I do not teach you?" I tried. One student's eyes lit up in understanding. "Exam! We have exams!" Ohhhhh. Of COURSE you do. It's the first day back from vacation, that makes perfect sense!?! I tried to lighten the awkward mood while gathering my stuff and said "Okay, well, byeee!" on my way out. Gee, China, I wish you wouldn't care so
Take Out
Our first Chinese Take Out Food....In China. much about losing face and just outright tell me if I'm in the wrong place!! I passed a Senior 1 English teacher on my way back to the office and said "So, all of Senior 1 has exams? I don't teach?" "Of course not!" she laughed, hurrying to her class. Of course not...welcome back to China.
We'll see if I have classes tomorrow...! 😊
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