Some random pictures from the last few days

As you may know, Julie and I struggle when it comes to using our camera.  Since we actually remembered, here are a few:

We were looking for Central Perk and found Central Park.  We will try again today to find the FRIENDS' cafe.

 We didn't know there were copyrights here...

 Forks.  Guess we looked like we couldn't use chopsticks.  We used the chopsticks though.

When we got home from our Beijing trip, the guard at the school gate gave us this.  Someone had left it for us.  We think it was the principal.  Nice to have a present waiting for us when we got home.

 It's Great Wall of China red wine.  Very good.

 When we couldn't find the FRIENDS' cafe, we went to Holly's cafe.  I make goofy faces.

 Picture of lunch.  Spinach was okay but not as good as our regular place we go to close to home.  The Kung Pao Chicken wasn't that good but Ryan ate it.

 Take out.  Where are the Chinese take out boxes?  Oh well. it was very yummy.

 Look at that building.  Hard to see but it's a very cool design. That is the CCTV building, I'm sure we'll get a better picture before too long.

We learned the Beijing subway system is incredibly easy to use, but if you want to sit down you better move fast.  The doors open and all of the sudden you are surround by the world's fastest speed walkers.   I had walked Julie all over the SOHO district/area and we also found Little Moscow - I don't know if it's called that or not but it sounds good to me. So Julie was pretty tired, we picked one guy sitting and surrounded him and waited for him to get up.  Once he did, she pounced.  Success!

-Ryan & Julie

Made it through the first month

Hello All,

Ryan has been up since 6:00 am this morning to watch the FSU game.  They won.  That's all I know about the game...

I am been spoiled over the years in the USA with seedless grapes.  I spent at least 15 minutes this morning cutting the seeds out.  I think I prefer this to biting into the grapes and spitting the seeds out.  Last weekend the principal gave Ryan and me a ton of grapes.  I think we are about half way through.  The hardest part was trying to figure our how to wash the grapes without safe running water.  I boiled some water in a pot on a hot plate and let it cool off, added some vinegar  let the grapes soak for a few minutes and then let them dry.  I guess it worked, that was a week ago and we are doing ok.

Expected the unexpected was somethings we were told when we first got to China.  We were told we got next week off for National Day and Golden week.  Then we were told on Friday that we had class on Saturday.  What?  We would be following the Wednesday schedule so I would have 4 classes and Ryan would have 2. What? not fair! So I had to work on lesson plans because I had nothing planned.  On Saturday morning, we were told that we would not be having class in the morning.  There was an English singing contest for the 1st and 2nd graders and Ryan and I were to be judges.  It was very cute to see the little ones sing English songs.  So we ended up only having to teach 1 class each in the afternoon.   At least I am ready for when we get back for the holiday with all my lesson plans that I worked on.  Also, I'm feeling a bit under the weather so I'm glad I only had one class.  I think one of those little kids must have given me a cold.  I'm not too surprised.  I have seen some interesting things in class: at least once in a first grade class, I see a kid picking his or her nose.  I've had a kid throw up in class. Once, I saw a kid with something black in his hand and went over to see what it was; it was hair.  He had cut hair!  Anyways, I guess I need to use more hand sanitizer.

Since we got paid on Friday in cash we needed to open a bank account.  One of the English teachers said she would take us to the bank. We found out we were the first foreigners to open an account at that branch so it took awhile.  Also, the account is only in Ryan's name. (If you read yesterday's blog by Ryan, you know I kinda has this coming) I'm not sure if they have joint accounts but they said he can give me his pin and I can get money out.

Bringing back the pop-top

Last night me made a special trip to the Wu-Mart to pick up some Harbin:

 I'm guessing this is the official Chinese beer of the NBA.  Harbin is in the northeast portion of China and is home to amazing ice carvings come winter time, so we have been told.  Apparently they carve a small town out of ice.  A place with this much ice must make good beer and it turns out they do.  They also still use the pop-top.

Not sure if I care for the pop-top.  It starts of all well and good but too often the last pull to remove the top comes with some beer.  There is just no need for that kind of waste.

Today was payday and our boss brought our salary into the office while I was teaching class. She brought it (the cash that is) over to Julie in the middle of the office with all the other teachers sitting around and asked her if the amount was correct.  Julie let her know it was and then our boss asked her to count it to make sure it was right and then sign the receipt, assuming it was right.  This would have been fun to watch.

It's nice to get paid again, although my salary was given to Julie so let's hope she'll cover me for the next month.

Have a great day,
Ryan

Moon Cakes

Today all the teachers received Moon Cakes in preparation for the Mid-Autumn Festival.  Next week is a national holiday as the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day fall on consecutive days and Julie and I are headed to Shanghai with a couple of our fellow teachers.  As we will be getting the week off and we were given Moon Cakes to celebrate I thought I would check out what this Mid-Autumn thing was all about.  I won't ruin the fun for you: Mid-Autumn Festival


Now to the important stuff, Moon Cakes.  Here are some pictures of what we received:

Count 'em! That's ten Moon Cakes.  So much for losing weight on this trip.

There are Chinese characters on the cakes but  I do not know what they say, as I didn't do that much research.  

The packaging is very beautiful and the cakes are individually wrapped and sealed for maximum freshness, I guess.  The breading is sweet but pretty firm as it holds what I would most closely describe to a fruit cake inside.  Except it is better because it seems to have peanut butter as a binding agent.  Also, there inner cake has dried fruits (not sure what kinds) and some small flat nuts that I cannot identify and it topped off with a vanilla flavor.  So for those of you who are more culinarily (probably not a word but I like it) inclined or want to do some research for fictional extra credit you can let me know what I ate!

Have a great day and we'll talk to you soon,
Ryan

Something we all think we know how to do

This weekend I learned that I tied my shoe laces wrong.  Turns out if you are right-handed you probably do to.  At least I found out before I was thirty as opposed to this guy who didn't find out until he was fifty:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAFcV7zuUDA

Just thought that was some good information for you all have.  This week we broke out the badminton rackets and of course the shuttlecock, because it would just be pointless without the shuttlecock.  Turns out Julie and I are about on the same level when it comes to badminton, except that I am willing to dive all over the court and Julie not so much.  On Monday our game ended when the shuttlecock somehow made it through Julie's racket and hit her in the forehead (that happened two more times today but she decided that our game couldn't end that way today)!  It's still not clear who won, but my guess is it was the people who were watching us.

We are two days into our teaching experience and it turns out getting kids to behave when you don't know the same language can be a bit tricky.  Are the kids just taking advantage of language barrier or do we need to come up with better lesson plans?  We'll keep trying new things and let you know.

Hope everyone is having a good week,

Ryan

It's Saturday

Hello All,

Thank goodness I am feeling better today.  Teaching 4 classes with a tummy ache is not fun.

Since the school does not provide food to us on the weekends, we must fend for ourselves.  Last night we went to a local bakery to buy some bread for breakfast.  We ended up buying croissant rolls, a loaf of cinnamon bread and some cookies.  Most of the cookies didn't make it back home.  The bread is delicious too; we had to taste it before bedtime.

This morning we had a pretty lazy morning.  We watched some t.v. on hulu and did laundry.  There are only washing machines, no dryers.  We lay our dedicates around the house on various pieces of furniture and hang the rest of the items in a closest.  Anything that would wrinkle, we take to the dry cleaner.  It's about  about 50 cents piece.

Next we were off to get a massage, do some errands and eat lunch.  I wrote down the Chinese characters for massage before we went to the spa.  After about 5 minutes of talking to the spa employees, everyone had figured out why we were there.  First off, they don't massage men so poor Ryan missed out.  My massage was terrific.   I got to listen to Ryan talk to the other employees in broken English; it was pretty entertaining.  I am going back tomorrow for a facial.  Errands can be interesting because we can't read in Chinese.  Yesterday, Ryan asked the other English teachers where he could get contact solution.  They said he needs to buy it at an eye doctor's office.  One of the other teacher's found out and said she had some new extra bottles Ryan can have. Next stop was the little mini mart type store across the street.  We are looking for floor mats, q-tips, and hand soap.  No floors mats.  We found some soap but couldn't tell if it was hand soap.  I did find q-tips.  We also picked up some grape juice and diet soda.  Next, we went to a slightly bigger market down the street.  We were able to find the rest of the stuff on the list.  Success.

After shopping, we went to lunch.  Wanted something light as we are meeting a teacher's friends for dinner.  We went to our "usual" place.  We have been there about 5 times so I think that qualifies as our usual.  We ordered the same thing we ordered the first time we went there: spinach with peanuts, and a dish with chicken, bean sprouts, noodles, some grass looking vegetable, eggs, and some soft taco shell type things.

Then we were off to meet one of the English teacher's friends.  It was the parents of a students she tutors.  Everyone spoke very little English and the English teacher helped translate some.  We had a good time getting to know everyone.  When they asked us about our day, I say I got a massage and showed them the attempt at writing massage in Chinese.  The dad who is a Chinese teacher thought was writing was very funny. I think I need more practice! They took us on a tour around the area.  They were having dumplings for dinner and let us try to make some.  We need some practice on that too.  They said after 30 years we might be a good as they are at making them.  Dinner was wonderful.  So many things.  We had duck eggs for the first time.  They were salty.  Not sure if that's the way they come or if seasoning was added.  We enjoyed the dumplings.  We had pork dumplings and vegetable dumplings.  We don't know what the vegetable was but it looks like grass but tastes pretty good.

 The bread from the bakery.  We will have to visit there again.

 Lunch.  We can make "tacos"

 Spinach with peanuts.  This is one of our favorite dishes.

 The family made us red tea.  We finally know what a tea light is.

 The father, son and friend.  The sign says something like, "See the buildings from the river"

 Haha.  Not sure what to say about this one.

 We need to practice! Those are our dumplings on the right side.  The ones falling over.

 At least our dumplings tasted good.

 Ready to eat.

 Look at all the food.  And the dumplings multiplied many times over.

Goodnight

Thursday in the city

Upon returning to the school on Wednesday afternoon I scurried off to teach my two remaining classes of the day. While I was gone Julie was informed that our return trip in search of residency permits would begin around 8 am tomorrow morning.  This meant that we would miss our weekly visit to the sister schools (Ryan - Shimenying and the 70 first graders and Julie - Feng ... still learning how to spell this schools name).  Given the state of my voice on Wednesday afternoon this was not a bad thing.

Thursday morning we promptly make it to the parking lot just before 8 am to begin our journey.  Fifteen minutes later a fellow teacher runs out to tells we should wait in the teacher's office as the driver is running a little late.  Come 9 am we are off.  It took about an hour to get back to the last building we visited on Wednesday.

The driver lets off at the door and this time we somewhat know the drill.  Up to 2nd floor east and wait for Lily to do her thing.  The scenery today is just as good or better than yesterday.  Most people are in very good and I get a very cheerful form a elderly British gentleman on my way in.  In this place we are not nearly the exception that we are most of the time China.  At our home when walking around if I say 你好 / ni hao (pronounced: nee how) to a passerby I usually get a weird look then a smile as they decode my poor pronunciation and then a smile.  Here that is not he case plenty of foreigners all the time.

Lily promptly finds an officer and waits a while to get to speak with him.  Once she gets her turn it takes about half an hour before they come and retrieve Julie and I.  We are whisked towards a desk with a very long line.  The officer takes us to the front of the line.  Doesn't matter where you are it really is all about connections.  The clerk looks at our information and does something with her computer for about five minutes.  Then she points at me and says something which I am then told to sit in the chair.  The clerk keeps looking at our forms and working on her computer and then pushes a receipt looking piece of paper toward me and I am instructed to sign.  Julie's turn.  We get through this no problem.

Lily leads over to the waiting area where we are told the driver had some errands to run and should be back in about a half hour.  Lily proceeds to inform us that we won't need to come back but she will.  The officer she had spoken with was kind enough to let us do our part even though the permits would not be able to be issued today.  So two days and at least eight hours and we were need to for about five total minutes.

My voice is very thankful that we go the day off and given that we had kindergarten on Friday morning it proved to be crucial.  By the end of my second to last class on Friday afternoon my voice was just about gone, but one bottle of pear juice and a much more well behaved students in my final class and I got through it without any issues.

Time for the weekend.  On the agenda, we are going to some one's house (we have never met them) to make dumplings on Saturday and FSU/Clemson on Sunday morning.  #GoNoles!

hard days night

Julie and I have had a rough week here! Let me tell you a little about our last two days.  Poor Julie has had to teach one class and I had to teach two.  Can you believe it!  This is bureaucracy in action.  Yesterday (Wednesday for those keeping score at home) we left the school at 7:30 am to head into the center of this beautiful city to get our residency permits.  So far so good.

 First stop is a quaint yet very busy street that was typified by a lot people just hanging out.  On one side of the street it sort of looked like a line had formed as many men had brought folding chairs and stools to sit on, but yet unorganized enough to make one question themselves.  The other side seemed to consist of the men who drove the guys on the other street to this location.  All that being said, our guide Lily emerged from wherever she disappeared to with our 'Foreign Expert Permits' and so I thought 'Mission Accomplished' and back to school.  Oh but I was wrong.

Turns out what we had retrieved at our first stop was not our residency permits and we were off to stop number two to fetch said permits.  (Now please remember this is a second hand account of an arguably confused  bystander)  We enter a very nice office building and head to the second floor. Upon exiting the elevator I oh so cleverly spy a sign that says 'Foreign Affairs Service Center' - or something like that - and we head in that direction.  It is a pristine office.  Not many people. Very white and clean with black chairs and what should have been the biggest sign we were in the wrong place, no lines.  We were in the wrong place.  Our guide, Lily, easily figures this out with a quick conversation and procures directions to the correct location which luckily turns out to be just a block away.

Upon arriving and passing the guarded gate, I once again cleverly spy a sign, this time saying, "Foreign Visa's - 2nd Floor - East."  We enter and head to, "2nd Floor - East."   Now this is more like it.  Lines everywhere.  Lily somehow makes her way through and get's us in line.  Then the well oiled machine begins to hiccup.  Lily takes great pity upon Julie and I and asks that we take a seat while she works her way through the process.

The chairs are comfortable and the scenery is quite entertaining.  For the last two weeks we have been basically the only white people around now we sit in what could be the United Nations lobby.  Characters of all shapes, colors and well whatever other adjectives you would like to employee are now hustling and bustling and keeping Julie and I fascinated.  Unfortunately, the hurdles cannot be cleared today and we plodded out of the building, back to our car and driver without our permits.

To be continued ...

Hello all,

We are almost through the second week of teaching.  This teaching stuff is hard.  I'm not sure how to get the kids to listen.  I have tried all kinds of things.  I think I have passed on some knowledge to some of the kids though.   So a partial success. 

We found out today that the school has bought us bikes.  We are supposed to bike to the other branch schools on Thursday.  I hope I remember the way.  My school is on the way to Ryan's so maybe he will ride his bike with  me to school.  :o)

The principal has asked all the teachers to take part in at least 2 physical activities a week.  Some of the teachers have decided to do aerobics.  I went to the music room and watched the equivalent of youtube videos.  It was pretty funny.  I think it was everyone's first time.  I was the only English speaking person for most of the class so it was pretty funny.  I was having trouble with some of the moves and they tried to teach me.  Lots of counting and laughing.  I was also the strongest person in class. I was the only person to use the 3 lb weights of the entire class.  :o)

 Tomorrow I have 1st grade.  I am pretty nervous.  Those kids are tougher than I am.  Wish me luck.

So, as many of you know I love milk.  I love ice cold milk, that is refrigerated.  For that matter, I sometimes add ice to my milk to make it colder.  I have been known to drink 2 gallons of milk a week all by myself.  Well, things have changed.  Here, the only milk they have is shelf stable milk. This is not milk.  I'm not sure what it is.  This is barely edible.  I wish I had a video of Ryan drinking what he thought was a juice box.  It was a shelf stable milk box.  Milk should not be room temperature.  It should not come in a juice box.  It should not come in a container that resembles a plastic coke bottle. 

So my favorite food they serve at the school is the noodle soup.  This stuff is always awesome.  Sometimes it spicy.  Sometimes it has lots of cilantro.  It has onions and broth.  And since we eat with chopsticks, slurping is completely acceptable.  Maybe that is why I like it some much.

Last night for dinner we had a green pepper and chopped up beef dish.  It was delicious.  We ate a ton of it.  I could not get enough.  We were sure it was beef.  It was some of the first beef we had since we got here.  We told everyone about it this morning.  They didn't believe us and double checked our source.  Needless to say, we had pork.  The Vice Principal said that maybe they can get us some steak.  We said no need, just put a lot of soy sauce on our pork and we won't be smart enough to know the difference. 

-julie

Pizza buffet

We set out to find the pizza buffet after lounging around Sunday morning.  It was a slow start as one of us got up at midnight to watch football and didn't make it back to bed until a little after three.  Once we made it off campus we hopped on the bus and headed into town.  We got a nice long walk in town as I pulled us off the bus about five stops early.  Once we made it to the restaurant - there was a journey around the entire intersection but that is just how things go when you can't read any of the signs - we took a few minutes to attempt an decode the buffet process in China.  Turns out it's pretty much the same as in the USA.  You pay up front for so so food and then leave in pain.  Now we don't have to worry about going there again.

After lunch it was off the Wu-mart.  It's probably about the same square footage as a Wal-Mart but it's on four levels.  The top level is household items, clothes, electronics; then you get pet food and some other things I can't remember and we didn't need; then fresh food and finally the ground floor is packaged food.  Shopping is still shopping and not my favorite choir, but we did get almost everything on our list, however I haven't figured out if people wear contact lens here and whether or not I can buy saline, that'll just be for another day.

On our way to dinner we bumped into the one Chinese person we know in our neighborhood who isn't a coworker.  She was on the way to the spa but instead on walking us to dinner and helping us order our meal.  Very nice but a little pushy.  I've been told China is a land of contradictions and I think nice but pushy is a good example of just that.

I hated that I had to miss the golf outing this weekend but it sounds like it went off with out a hitch.  I'm in for next year.

Hope you all have a wonderful day,
Ryan

Weekend No. 2

The thing we've learned about China is to go with the flow.  We were asked if we would like to go to a mountain walking race and we said sure.  Walking a 10k in the mountains would be a great way to spend a Saturday.  On Friday were told we would be picked up at 6 am and then taken to the bus station to ride an hour an half to the festival - still in the same district of Beijing, it' a big place in more ways than one.  We got on the bus and found out our 10k was a 20k, this was to the great dismay of our colleague.  Things often seem to change at the last moment but so far they always work out well.

Here are a few pictures from the walking festival in Zaitang, Mentougou, Beijing (Map):

Julie and our fellow teacher, Rose.

How come Ryan has on the only green shirt?  Turns our I wear a XXL in China and that size isn't very common.

Dam!

The Chinese don't like Naked Flames.

We were very tired as your can tell from the pictures it got pretty steep, but it was well worth it and at least we didn't get signed up for the 100k.

As one of the few foreigners in attendance we were interviewed by three TV stations, two radio stations and a couple newspapers.  Turns our we are much more popular in China.

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend,
Ryan & Julie

Our first working Thursday ... for one of us it's been a while.

We got home this afternoon and Julie so graciously decided to clean the few dishes we have and it made me think maybe we don't really need dishes?  Here take a peek for yourself:

Today Julie and I went to our other schools for the first time.  Julie taught grades 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 ... well she taught grade 6 twice but it turned our they were actually 4th graders, but it worked out well as they were lovely and very well behaved.  She made a boy cry but we can't be sure that was her fault.  All and all a good day one.

I taught pre-school, grade 1, 2, 3 and 4.  Pre-school, well they are five, it went OK considering.  Then I was told my grade 1 class would take place in the lunch room.  I got set-up and in walked 70 (if not more, they were everywhere) six year olds.  I don't think they learned a thing and two boys somehow got bloody noses but no one died so I'm counting that as a win.  The teachers who were supposed to help me look like they had been beaten by this group a long time ago.  After that it was all pretty good.  Nothing like perspective to put the proper spin on your day. 

Well tomorrow is kindergarten!  How bad could it be?
-Ryan

Teaching

We have completed 3 days of teaching.  I taught 1st grade for the first time today.  One of the hardest things I have ever done.  Anyone try to deal with 40 six years olds at once. The second  time I taught 1st grade was a delight in comparison.  I also taught 3rd grade today.  At the beginning of that class, the projector would not work for my PowerPoint.  I thought I was going to have do class without it but it finally began working.  

I am teaching at another school tomorrow and found out today that I will be teaching 5 classes.  I don't know how old the kids are or what level they are at.  This should be interesting.  

At dinner tonight, one of the teachers told us that there's FRIENDS bar in Beijing.  I can't wait to go there.  

Ryan's computer has decided to die.  Ryan is performing surgery on it right now trying to revive it.  

So I think we have mentioned the food.  For the most part it is delicious, but sometimes it is interesting.  Nothing is plain.  Even cucumbers are covered in garlic.  I have seen shrimp flavored potato chips.  I have not tried them... Dont know if I will.  There is a lot of vinegar on things.  I don't eat those things.  Things that are delicious: cauliflower casserole thing,  dumplings... All dumplings are delicious,  potato and beef casserole thing, rice krispy like puffed oat things, animal crackers (with bird, fish, and turtle shapes) , and noodles in broth with spices.  Oh and the spinach.   

Over the weekend we downloaded hulu so we can watch American tv.  So far we have watched half of season one of Whitney.  Good show.  Any suggestions of what shows we sure watch??  

Teaching

Sorry for the lack of communication but we have been pretty worn out over the last two days, our first two days teaching - ever.   It is quite an experience and effectively communicating with the students (and teachers) can be a significant challenge and takes lots of pictures, gestures and acting.  The flip side is that our attempts to pronounce words in Mandarin are good experiences to empathize with what our students (and fellow teachers) are going through.

Our school has about 900 students and between Julie and I we have one class with every student in the school each week.  Julie covers grades 1, 3 and 5 and I cover grades 2, 4, and 6.  Each class has 35 - 40 students and each grade is made up of four classes.  That adds up to each of us teaching 12 classes a week at our school.  On Thursday's we will be going to different 'sister' schools.  Our school is the Yongding branch and on Thursday's I'll go to the Shimenying branch.  I can't remember what branch Julie goes too!  Finally, on Friday morning's we will both go to the kindergarten that is sponsored by our school.

Here are some pictures from around the school:

Front Gate. The stairs on the right are still being built.

The clock tower and stairs that are being built.

Lobby (picture 1)

Lobby (picture 2)

English Corner (picture 1)

English Corner (picture 2)

This is one of many signs heading into the playground.

Water Wheel, it is very sunny today.

Fountain (not on!).  English Corner is above and to the right.

Sitting area below the English Corner

There are 4 statues of famous Chinese teachers. This is is only one of them.

View from the parking lot.  Our apartment is just to the left of this picture.

Back to work.  Talk to you soon, Ryan.