Overdue Update

Hi All!

So I know I’m LONG overdue for an entry.

Right now I’m working on creating a big entry about life in general here but I’m not sure what topics to cover.  If you’d leave some suggestions in the comments below I would greatly appreciate it!

In the meantime I have a few updates:

A few weeks ago I went to Qingdao with 4 other foreigners for a weekend.  It’s where the sailing portion of the Beijing Olympics happened.  It was a pretty cool city because it was controlled by the Germans for a long time.  It also had HILLS! Hills are quite the novelty for someone living in Dongying where stepping onto a curb could be dizzying for some residents.

I ended up being in many pictures as lots of Chinese tourists also go there.  It was off season so there weren’t a lot of foreign tourists.  It was a tonne of fun, I love that attention and the Chinese love having pictures with us.   I’ve had the pictures from this trip online for a little while.

After repeatedly bugging our bosses for some confirmed dates of holidays the foreign teachers here were pleasantly surprised to be done by December 30.  We’ll be off until at least Feb 6.  With a bit of luck it will be even longer.  I’m still working on what to do during this time although Nathan is coming to visit me which will be awesome!  I think we’ll probably head South for most of it but there are some neat things in the North as well that I’d like to see such as ice castles in Harbin.  We tend to think that travel in China is cheap and it is but only because of how far you sometimes have to go.  What I mean is $200 for a flight doesn’t sound cheap but when you realize it’s for the same distance as going to Winnipeg from Waterloo it isn’t so bad.  Asia is huge so unless you pick a small area it can add up to get around.

It's a picture! What do we do? The same thing we always do!

On Sunday I decided I was going to go out walking far and see what I discovered.  I found a pretty cool late with an island in the middle that you could walk to out across this land bridge.  I met three girls there from the college who all added me on QQ (the Chinese msn messenger) and then so did a bunch of their friends.  I have plans to go play some badminton/pingpong with them this weekend.  I’m sure I will get beaten horribly but will be fun to play again.

Also, they invited me to their house church on Tuesday night and I went.  It was pretty cool and nothing like I imagined.  It’s in an “apartment” but it’s huge and the whole thing is the church, it’s not like it’s someone’s house.  It is made specifically for this purpose.  They even had a lady come whose English was very good for me.  The others can speak English on some level but not considerably better than my Chinese.  It’s especially hard as biblical words are hard even for English speakers.

On Monday I was really sick.  In the morning I taught three classes and ran back to my room between each class to use the toilet.  I also had a plastic bag in my pocket just in case.  At lunch I threw up for awhile then slept hoping I’d feel better when I woke up.  I didn’t.  So I called my boss and said I wasn’t teaching in the afternoon.  We get a bonus of 150 CNY for up to 10 sick classes we don’t use so to miss a whole day of 6 classes costs 900, it also means I’d only have 4 left and most days I teach at least 5.  This policy means all of us have taught a few days when we really should not have been.

The next day I felt quite a bit better.  It must have been food poisoning.  I ate lots of food Sunday from strange places but I often do so.  Something probably just wasn’t cooked quite enough.  For the rest of the week I have felt ok but haven’t had a lot of energy or appetite.

Well that’s my update for now.  I’m actually looking forward to a weekend in Dongying if my plans with these college students pan out and it sure seems like they will since they keep reminding me and saying they are looking forward to it.

Today it was snowing when I woke up.  Pretty big flakes too.  The kids were all nuts running around in it.  There’s no grass here or ground so it wasn’t too dirty but trying to teach them was impossible.  By noon it was all melted.  I did get some good pictures out of it though.  Although I missed a few when I didn’t have my camera right in the morning.

That’s my update.  Again, please use the comments below to make suggestions about what you’d like to know more about.  Such as: how do you order food? What are the roads like? Do people talk to you? etc.

Ciao!

Wiseguy1

PS: New pics added to Life in China album.  Mostly from my walking around on Sunday and a few of the kids in snow.