Our first chaperone free day

We made it through our first morning exploring by ourselves.  Since the cell phone battery went dead, it is a very good thing we did not get lost.  We are a little apprehensive to take the bus because all the bus schedules are in Chinese. Hence, we walked and we walked a lot.  Both of use are pretty beat at the moment.

The first thing we did was walk through a couple markets.  Anyone up for some live chickens or ducks?  ;o(
I can't bring myself to buy fruit.  The fruit is just on the ground, sometimes in boxes.  The fruit: peaches, oranges (which are green in color), pears, etc look delicious.  Maybe one day.  In the market, we bought breakfast.  (I am craving some American food today... more to come on this later)  We had some fried dough.  I was thinking that would be safe to eat.  Hot boiling oil should kill all germs, right?  It reminded me of a long doughnut and kinda tasted like a pancake.  Pancakes and doughnuts are American!

Next we walked down the major street toward Beijing. We walked by some military folks carrying big weapons. Made me pretty nervous just to see guns so big so close. I told Ryan we needed to walk on the other side of the street on the way back.  I remembered seeing a Pizza Hut on the way to town.  I thought it was close by, maybe a mile or so.  Remember, I want American food?  We got to the area where we thought the Pizza Hut was but could not find it.  We did see a Dairy Queen.  We also found a tourist center.  We went in and found a very nice gentleman that knew only a little English.  He called a friend who speaks a little more English to help us out.  Long story short, we did not have pizza for lunch.  We think there is a Pizza Hut closer to the center of Beijing.  We did get directions to another pizza place but couldn't really follow the directions so we tried Dairy Queen.  The DQ had ice-cream so I had that.  I ordered an Oreo blizzard ice-cream cone.  Not quite like home but it hit the spot. The other things on the menu weren't American.  We also looked at a KFC menu. We think they had pork sandwiches on the menu. We decided to wait to eat closer to home.

Next stop was Wu Mart.  The trip was pretty successful.  I finally found mascara!  The mascara cost more than our lunch that we ate a little later.  As most of you know, when I come to cleaning, I like to use only natural cleaners (aka vinegar in my case).  I can't seem to find vinegar.  I know they use it to cook so it has to be sold somewhere.  Also, the towel I bought the other day is terrible. It doesn't absorb water.  What kind of towel doesn't absorb water?  Then today, what I thought was a bath towel is really 2 hand towels.  oops.  If only I could sew them together.  I asked Ryan to get the alternation place to sew them together.  haha that would never work (language barrier). 

Next was lunch.  One of the ladies that worked in the restaurant spoke a little English.  She helped us order.  We got spinach with peanuts, noodles with chicken, bean sprouts and eggs.  We also got noodles.  This all cost about 8 bucks and could have feed about 6 or more people.  Next time we only need to order one thing. The English speaking waitress was named Sophie.  She was super sweet. She helped us with mixing the noodles.  She even gave us her phone number in case with need her help.  She said maybe we can come over to her house for dinner one night.  Wow. This would never happen in the USA.

Well that is all for now.  We are off to find the dry cleaners.  Wish us luck.
-julie

My attempt at a video

Tour of our apartment

Yongding Branch of Beijing No. 2 Experimental Primary School

We are mid way through out second full day at the above referenced school.  So far everything has exceeded our expectations.  Our dorm room with shared facilities turned out to be an apartment (living room and bedroom) with a private bath - with a western toilet.  The school was built in 2010 and is in excellent condition.  I haven't gotten an official figure but it appears there are about 600 students that attend from the local neighborhood.  We have 8 co-teachers in the English department.  Julie will be teaching grades 1, 3, & 5.  Can you guess what grades I'll be teaching?  I won't keep you in suspense any long: 2, 4 & 6.  As we don't start teaching until Monday, we haven't been given the curriculum or our class schedule but have been promised it soon. 

The other teachers and administrators have been incredibly nice even though we had to go to the principle's office and the police department with 24 hours of our arrival hear.  Come on, you didn't think we really got into trouble did you?  Everyone is very protective of us and we are most definitely in good hands.  This has been very helpful as it is rare to find some one who speaks English at a high level and our Mandarin has a long ways to come.

I have to get back to work but we'll get some pictures of the school and the area up so you can see our new world.

Have a great day,
Ryan

off to the school!

We are off to the school later this morning.  Very excited!

Last night we went to the night market.  Very interesting! we saw lots of food. Snake, critters of all sorts, cat, dog, testicles, and lots more things I was unwilling to try.  Ryan and I ate a pork dumpling of some sort.  Well, I hope it was a pork dumpling.  haha. I'm pretty sure it was, pork dumplings seem to be popular for breakfast and have had several of them.  I wish we would have remembered the camera.  

Yesterday we learned lots of Mandarin.  Most importantly, I learned how to say water in Mandarin.  The other night we couldn't figure out how to order water so I had no choice be to drink beer.  Beer seems pretty easy to order. 

The food here for the most part is amazing.  It's either incredibly delicious or completely inedible. Often times things come to the table and look kinda weird but taste delicious- like this pork dish and an egg and shrimp dish.  Again need to remember the camera to share this.

Here are a few pictures from our first Chinese home (the hotel):

Yeah you can see into the shower from the bedroom ...

and you thought you'd seen travel size toothpaste.

Pictures from yesterday.

Labels

Day One

Good morning to those just waking up in the USA.  We have almost made it through our first full day.  We hope we can stay awake through dinner.  I am so tired.  Ryan and I woke up pretty early this morning.  Ryan was a little more adventurous than me and went on a walk in the rain.  He bought his first breakfast- a McDonald's egg mcmuffin sandwich. I am so glad he is willing to try new things.  (well maybe after trying kidney kabob's last night for dinner, he had enough.)  Later we had a more traditional breakfast.  We both enjoyed the pork dumplings and rice.  Some of the other options including warm milk, we left on the table.

After breakfast, we got to check out the local store before class.  It's fun shopping for feminine products when you can't read the labels.  On the way back we saw my dream car.  It was pink! I also got to try out the squat toilets.  I won't go into details, but I haven't figured those things out yet.  Second time was much easier.

After class we went to the forbidden city.  Lots to see and hopefully we will get the pictures attached.  Pictures will tell the story of that a lot better than me.  Lots of interesting things to see.  Ryan and I split a spicy chicken dish with rice and vegetables for lunch.   

Over the top of the world

We arrived @ Beijing Capital airport @ 2:30.  The flight was long and as far as we can tell the sun has been up since we saw it come up on our flight to DC nearly 24 hours ago.  We flew north out of DC over Montreal, Greenland and then the north pole before passing through Russia and Mongolia.  It was a bit surreal flying over the top of the world!

We are checked in to the Hanting Express in Beijing and will be orienting at this location until Tuesday, which means that we will get to sleep in the same place for multiple nights!  It really is the simple things that make life great.  On Tuesday we trek out to the 'boonies' to begin our jobs.

As it is 6 am your time, Good morning, we hope you are reading this following a good nights rest and we hope to get one for ourselves before to long.

-Ryan