Time to catch up

Sorry about not posting a blog in a while, it's been a busy couple of weeks with school and other things.

So the only interesting news is that for Easter weekend, Vivi and I went to the beach, Dameisha. We stayed at the Sheraton that I absolutely love. It's an incredible hotel right on the beach. They have their own private beach which is very, very important in China. You'll see from some of the pictures how packed the beaches get on the weekends.

Other than our beach trip, not much has happened. I got my raise at school so I'm not making 11,500 RMB per month, which is very nice. I'm also tutoring a 12 year old boy named Bill during my lunch break for 45 minutes Monday through Thursday. Bill's younger brother, Stanley, is one of my students at the kindergarten. It's good tutoring him because he was born in Canada and went from K to 3rd grade before returning to China so his English is great. They just want me to work with him so his English doesn't suffer while being in China.

I'm also teaching an extra class on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school from 5:00 to 5:45 with some kids from my class. It's a great source of extra money and the parents mainly want me to just play with the kids and teach a little English. It's nice because I can teach them English they can use, such as complete sentences and common questions and answers so they can actually begin to communicate.

This month, I'll begin tutoring a girl from my K3 class and possibly have classes on Mondays and Wednesdays after school from 5:00 to 5:45 for students from my K3 class. Let me explain the K3 class thing. I have 1 class I'm in charge of at the kindergarten, called International 1A. International means they get a foreign teacher while the 1 means they're 1 level, the youngest students in the school with an international teacher. Once a day, from 10:40-11:05, I teach in a K3 class. The K means they only get an international teacher for 1 class everyday (cheaper) and the 3 means they're 3rd level, so they're about 5 years old. This is a great class to teach and a nice break from the 2 and 3 year olds. I'll be doing a demonstration class for the interested parents next week and we'll see from there if they're interested.

Oh yea, I also I had to go to Hong Kong last weekend to simply get my passport stamped and leave the mainland. My visa's good for 1 year but only in 3 month stays, this means I need to leave the mainland at least once every 3 months. Normally this won't be a problem because I plan on going to Hong Kong for many reasons this time around (hiking, Disney World, sight-seeing, friends) but because we've been strapped for cash while getting settled, we haven't had the chance. Anyways, I was able to simply walk to the border in less than 20 minutes from my apartment. I left mainland China, walked across a bridge and just 3 minutes later, I was at immigration for Hong Kong. Totally, it took me less than 25 minutes from closing my apartment door to getting my passport stamped by Hong Kong authorities.

Once I was over the border, I had to get on a train and go one stop, turn around and come back. They don't allow to simply go across, turn around and come back. Once you're in Hong Kong, you have to get on a train so I didn't have any other choices. It was interesting to be able to simply walk across the border like that.

The big news that I know my family's waiting to hear about is me meeting Vivi's family. Tuesday night I ate dinner with her grandmother, aunt, uncle and her uncle's mother. This was the most awkward dinner of my life for many reasons. One, they spoke their town's language (Heyuan), not Mandarin. While my Mandarin's not great, I can usually understand the basic ideas of sentences and can actually respond in Mandarin. I sat there quiet for pretty much the whole time, not fun. Second, it was the first time the grandmother, and possibly everyone else at the table, had ever been face to face with anyone who's not Chinese so there was this weird feeling. Third, after the dinner, the women left to the bathroom which left me sitting across from the uncle in complete silence for at least 3 minutes. They weren't too interested in talking about me and Vivi because they've already asked her a million questions, they just socialized.

Besides the meeting, when a boyfriend meets his girlfriend's family in China, he must present the family members with gifts, hembao (money) and of course, pay for the meal. I presented her grandmother with 500 RMB (roughly $70) and the other older woman with 200 RMB (less than $30) because she's an older woman and that's tradition. We also bought gifts for the grandmother and aunt. This is simply tradition that has carried over from the days of dowries. In China, when a girl gets married she is seen as leaving her family and entering the man's family so the man must give compensation for the loss of a daughter.

Saturday we're going to Dongguan to meet her mother, father, a different aunt and uncle for lunch. Vi told me yesterday that we'll be sharing a car with her aunt and grandmother on the way there because it'll be cheaper and faster (it's May Day, a large holiday in China so any and all forms of transportation are crazy). I'm not excited about this for 2 reasons: it's cheaper for them because I'm obligated to pay and this means I'll be quiet for an even longer time tomorrow. It will also be awkward in the car, just like it will be at lunch. Needless to say, as much as I want to meet her family, I'm glad this will not be a normal occurrence, there's no words that can truly describe the feelings of sitting at a table with her family members and have no idea what's going on around me at all.

Oh well, I love Vi and this is important for everyone involved so I'm just going to suck it up and keep a smile on my face and be as polite as possible so hopefully they won't be disappointed with Vi's decision. They won't tell her she's not allowed to be with me but I just don't want Vi to get that feeling.

Vivi's Big Weekend

This weekend was/is a time of firsts for Vivi. Saturday, she bought contacts that she can leave in her eyes for a month without having to take them out once. This was a concept she did not believe last year and luckily, we stumbled on a Lens Crafters just down the street that carries these contacts. She had worn the daily contacts before but hated putting them in every morning so she stopped altogether. She's been just wearing her glasses when she has to read and being partly blind the rest of the day. It's been even better being with her and her being able to actually see things clearly now.





The even bigger and definitely more exciting first is the new oven. We bought a little oven for the apartment Saturday afternoon. This is the first oven Vivi's ever used and even the first one she's ever seen in a house/apartment. It was about $50 and it's great. We had originally put a smaller one in our cart but we ran into one of my students' parents at Metro and she told us we'd regret not getting the next size up. Well, we took her advice and got one size bigger, best advice in China, so far.





While we were at Metro, we bought cake mix and sugar cookie mix to test out the new oven. Vivi really wants to learn how to bake so this is the introduction course to baking 101. We made the sugar cookies tonight and they came out great. Vivi even went so far as to exclaim, "I love myself!" because she loved her cookies so much. We had some milk delivered to the apartment from a small convenience shop and we offered the deliver girl a cookie. She happily said yes and absolutely loved it. A big smile came over her face and she said, in Chinese, wow, so great! This, of course, just made Vivi even happier.





We also bought a little set with an apron, oven mit, hot plate holder and a towel. Vivi was really excited about this when we bought it and I wouldn't allow her to wear it until she began baking so tonight was the first night she got to wear it. It really was like a kid on the day of Christmas opening her gift and getting a chance to play with it. This was a really fun night and we've been smiling the whole time.

Next up, chicken wings!

You can see more of the pictures from our first night baking in my photo albums.

Vivi's First Blog!!

So the rest of this blog will be Vivi writing about her new job, I helped edit a little. People seem to be curious about her job so she's going to write a little so everyone can know what it is she does:

I work for an American company as the assistant to the boss. It is a small office but a very good location. I just need to take the train to get there and walk about 20 meters after I get off the train, very convenient. It is very different with America as Nicholas has said. He said it is kind of funny how much we care about transportation in China, all because most of the workers don't have a car in China.

Usually I get up at 7:45 am, work starts at 9:00 am. It takes 45 minutes to get there. I have been the first person in the office the past 2 weeks but not because I get there earlier than the start time, only because the other three workers come late. The boss is very nice and has a very relaxed attitude towards the work start time.

My job is mainly finding the best source for goods in China, which is not hard. It is the exhibition season in April, so I have been busy preparing things for the fairs. I worked over time 4 days straight last week and Nicholas thinks some of the tasks can wait to be completed the next day. I agree with him but I always want to finish as soon as possible.

That's all for now. Hope everyone is doing well.

Ocean Park Xiaomeisha

Friday, yesterday, the school went to Ocean Park in Xiaomeisha. It's like a mini-Sea World. This was a fun day, even though it rained the entire day. I was also exhausted by the end of it. The best part was a stroke of accidental brilliance. Accidental brilliance is when something happens, by accident, that other people would think you did on purpose and think you are brilliant for doing it.

The day started with everyone meeting at the kindergarten as normal. We had been told that if it was raining, we would go next week. Well, it was raining. We, the foreign teachers, did not want to teach and we were praying we'd still go. Luckily, the school decided to go anyways.

The school hired coach buses instead of opting to take the school buses, thank goodness. There was every parent or grandparent for each of my students except one boy, Simon. Simon is probably the smartest student but also is the cause of most the problems in the classroom. Since his parents had to work, he was my responsibility for the day.

We loaded up the bus and headed out in the rain. I was surprised to find it was only about 30 minutes away. We got there, took a big group picture in the front (I don't have a copy yet, I'll get one soon) and made our way in.

The first thing we saw was the polar bear. While I was looking forward to this, it just made me sad. It was poorly taken care of and in horrible conditions. It was in a box the half the size of the bus we were just in. There was nowhere large enough for it to swim and nothing for it to do, just a flat bottom. The polar bear was just walking back and forth, you could tell it wasn't happy and it needed more room to move around and feel comfortable. I like to think that it's only in that area for an hour or two a day for show and there's another place they keep it that's better suited for a polar bear.

Anyways, after that we made our way to the main stage area, where they have the big tank for the show. We sat here for about 45 minutes while the kids ate their snacks and shared. Evidently, on field trips, the kids don't get actual lunches but whatever they can pack in to a bag. Usually this consists of little cakes and candies and maybe some fruit. I ate some interesting Chinese things that some parents brought so overall I had 4 chicken wings, about 30 roma tomatoes, 3 swiss cake rolls, 8 sheets of seaweed, 1 cheese muffin, 4 dumplings, 2 hard boiled eggs and a box of soy milk, by far my least healthy lunch so far.

When the show started, it began with some synchronized swimmers which were interesting enough because they kept their show highly energetic and short. Then some special divers came out. They were more interesting but didn't do anything too grand. The best part of the show were the clown divers. I got a video of a minute of what they were doing but they were very entertaining, Sea World should steal their idea. I'm disappointed I missed filming their first minute because it was great.

After the clowns, they brought out the seals, then the sea lions, followed by the dolphins. Here some of the stuff was interesting but the only really good part was seeing how high the dolphins could leap out of the water, incredible. You can see in the pictures how high they're getting, at least 25 feet it seemed.

After the show, we made our way through the little aquarium they had and eventually over to a ride for younger kids. The ride took about 20 minutes and was very slow and not interesting. One of the kids fell asleep during the ride. I took a picture of her, Iris, because she's just too cute.

We walked around the park for about an hour then got back on the bus and headed back to the school. I tried to sleep on the bus but my entire class began singing English songs and pointing out everything that it's raining on, including each individual car and tree. I guess I should be happy that the parents were so happy the kids were using English and enjoying it but I really just wanted a nap. We got back to the school and we were allowed to go home early. It was a great Friday.

New Pictures

I've posted many pictures and numerous videos on picasa site online, look on the right side of this page under About Me. They're some good ones and I'll post more because I had 7 students out sick Friday and a couple of them are my favorites. Enjoy.

Street Fooooooooooood!!!!

First things first, VIVI'S GOT A JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She'll be an assistant to Ernesto Tovar, the Chief Executive of Gambe Group, a trading company based in Miami, Fl. This means she'll be speaking English all day and all night now. That's kind of funny because English was the class Vivi hated most during all of her days in school, including college. Now, her boyfriend and boss only speak English, how ironic. We went out to a Cantonese restaurant Saturday night to celebrate and had some great beef and chicken. She has been so excited the entire weekend and she's looking forward to tomorrow morning.

Today we woke up to absolutely beautiful weather so we decided to head back to Dongmen to eat street food for lunch and enjoy the weather a little bit. My favorite taste is spicy tofu on a stick, it's great and it's only 1 RMB, about 15 cents. Vivi's favorite food are these cream puff things that have a little bit of seafood in them, although I can't taste the seafood at all. They're also very good. They drizzle this cream sauce over top and some green flakes, I have no idea what the flakes are. The other great options are the sticks of meat. There's a ton of different types to choose from. We had some spicy chicken and some beef meat balls this time, the chicken was excellent but the meat balls were just so-so.

By far the most popular item is a bowl of spicy noodles. Vivi had these today and I usually do but passed on them for the meat on a stick. The noodles are so good and so popular that the tables are all taken and people have to just stand around and eat their noodles standing on the sidewalk (you can see this in one of the pictures). The noodles are great and of course, cheap.

We walked around for a short time because it was just too crowded today, again, check out the pictures. We found a 2 RMB shop (their version of the $1 store) and I found some great toys and prizes for my students. I bought a police car that the boys will love and some of those toys that have water inside with balls and baskets that you press a button that shoots air inside and makes the balls float so you try to get the balls in the basket. I think the kids will love it. I'm going to tell them that all the kids who can sing the song on their own, read the book and know all of the new words and sentences at the end of the week will get one. This gives them a goal and a reason to try harder, for those you usually don't. Also, anytime they're acting up this week, I can pull out the toys to get them back on track.

That's all for now and Vivi's going to write a little something at the end of the week about her new job.

Saturday - The Toilet Restaurant

Today Vi and I decided to make our way back to Dongmen (walking street). There are a lot of shops there with great street food and last time we were there, we saw a restaurant called the Modern Toilet Restaurant and we decided we wanted to try it out.

The cool thing about this restaurant is that you either sit on a toilet for a chair or on a booth (nowhere near as fun as sitting on a toilet). Vi said it's a Taiwan restaurant so they had a bit of everything. I had spaghetti and salmon with a cream sauce while Vi had a Udon noodle bowl. We also had two little sides of fried potato wedges with cheese and bacon bits and a fried shrimp dumpling thing. It was all good. Another interesting part was the food was served in some form of a toilet. The funniest looking dishes were the one that the couple next to us got (that's the picture you see here) and the ice cream. Let's just say it looked less than appetizing in the dishes they were served in, but funny in a way.

I took just a couple quick pictures of the area and a short, 10 second video to give you an idea of what it's like. It was raining and it's cold so we didn't want to stay out very long. The video is just to show you how crowded it always is and how there's always people shouting with megaphones about special deals and prices to attract people in, it's very annoying. You can also see one of the McDonald's and KFCs in the area. I could actually see two other McDonald's and another KFC from where I was standing.

After Dongmen, we got back on the subway to go one stop to our place. We decided to go to Wal-Mart to pick up some extra food for the weekend. Since it's cold, Vi wanted to make traditional Guongdong soup for tonight...I hope I like it. While in Wal-Mart I thought it'd be interesting to get a short video to just show how crowded, loud and busy it always is. After I took the 10 second video, a plain clothed security officer approached me and told me to delete the picture and to not take anymore. Anyways, it's crazy inside that place. We bought a few things and just came back to the apartment to have a lazy end to our Saturday.