Saturday 3 November 2007

Nanshan Grand Buddha Statue & Temples

Today Ellie, Franny and I went on a bit of a sightseeing tour to the Grand Buddha statue and the temples in the Nanshan tourism zone. The Buddha statue is 38.66 meters tall, weighs in at 380 tons and is made of copper and tin. Right underneath the Buddha is the temple of ten thousand Buddhists - it has 9,999 small gold painted Buddha statues - with the grand Buddha on top being the 10,000th Buddha - it was pretty amazing and the temples were full of statues and paintings.

We went for some lunch and then went ten pin bowling in the tourism complex - I guess they don't get many tourists in Nanshan in November as they had to open the bowling alleys and switch on the lights just for us! :-)

This afternoon we went into Huangcheng, the place where I seem to spend most of my life at the moment and did some more shopping (although didn't buy anything..).

I've been contemplating finishing at the school a few days earlier than I had planned and catching an overnight bus down to Shanghai to do some sightseeing - the volunteer coordinator here seems happy for me to do that so I'm going to try and get it sorted this next week - and will probably fly directly back to Beijing to catch my flight home on the 24th. It will be another city to explore so can't wait.. Ellie thinks I'm a bit of a cop out now as that means I only have one more weekend left here - she wants to do some traveling and sightseeing too at some point so hopefully she'll come down to Shanghai too then catch the bus back up.

I've added a few more photos onto Facebook from today - we have an early start as we are visiting Yantai city tomorrow.

Fireworks

There I was thinking it's coming up to bonfire night and I'd miss the fireworks this year - definitely not the case. The Chinese like to use fireworks to celebrate occasions, and there are lots of birthdays and weddings in China!

I was woken up this morning by a load of fireworks going off - I wouldn't have minded if it was dark (well, actually I probably would as I was still sleeping) - but it was light outside. It's not the first time I've heard fireworks during the day - they seem to let them off at some pretty strange times.

The past couple of days have been quite quiet - all the English lessons have been cancelled as the kids have been doing some sort of tests - it's left us with not much to do apart from freeze. My apartment is currently 10 degrees inside and with the Chinese not turning on the heating until 15th November I can see it getting colder. I've been told it's warmer outside in the UK than it is in my apartment!!

We've taken to walking around shops a lot as they are warmer than here and we've had Chinese hotpot a couple of times to keep us warm. Last night Ellie and I were invited out by Daniel, Frannys bloke and a few of Daniels business colleagues - one lived in Australia for 4 and a half years and his English was pretty good - the older one had heard I was quite good at drinking and I'm sure wanted a drinking competition - we had quite a few toasts! I definitely wasn't going to get as drunk as I did at the school lunch - I've only just recovered so I took it a lot slower this time!

We're off doing some sightseeing today so will let you all know where I've been and what I've been up to later!

Thursday 1 November 2007

My head hurts!

I have an alcohol induced hangover and for once it's not my fault.. ;-)

Yesterday morning I went to the kindergarten with Ellie again and did a lesson on colours - the Chinese English teacher in the school didn't come in with us to translate when the kids don't understand and keep them under control so it was certainly a challenge - I kept the lesson to the very basics only using the colours blue, pink, white, red & yellow - keeping a 4/5yr olds attention for 20minutes based on teaching them just those colours so they remember them is quite hard work.

In the 'noon-time' as they like to call it over here (i.e. lunch) we were invited to have lunch with the heads of the schools - junior school, senior school, Franny, Ellie, me, and a couple of other blokes - they certainly like their toasts, and we were drinking something which they called white wine - it was actually 38% proof firewater! They welcomed me to the school, thanked me for coming to teach and toasted just for the sake of toasting I think - "Gambei!" - that's Chinese for "Cheers!" and then had me down the glass.

I was sat in between the heads of the Junior and Senior school and they kept on topping up my glass and proposing a new toast. I think we polished off the bottle of "white wine", finished off a pint and a half of lager and then another bottle of the "white wine" - I was drunk, but I don't think I was as bad as the head of the junior school - Franny translated what he said and it came out that when he comes to England he is coming to see me to be his drinking partner as nobody else can usually keep up with him...! :-)

At least I had no lessons yesterday afternoon - I slept the alcohol off and slept through until this morning and just taken paracetamol to try get rid of the headache. I'd love to know how much work the head of the junior school got done yesterday!

I've got a meeting this morning at 9.30am with the English teachers on the subject of Chinese diet and nutrition - I think they pick a subject every now and again and discuss between themselves to improve their own conversational skills and ability of English. Franny seems to be the only one that can speak fluently so it will do them all good. I know next to nothing about Chinese diet and nutrition though so it could be fun.

Tuesday 30 October 2007

Kindergarten Kids

Hey All,

I did my first lessons today, well - they weren't really my lessons but still! I went to the English office this morning in plenty of time for my class - the teacher is supposed to come collect you and take you to the class. The time came.. and went - I asked Franny if I should be teaching and she said "oh no, it is cancelled, - all this week cancelled - you start next week!" So, that leaves me with nothing to do all week then!

I made myself useful by marking loads of sheets where the kids had written out alphabets and then decided that if I can't teach this week I might as well try see what the lessons are like. This afternoon I went down to the kindergarten with Ellie, the other English volunteer - she did a lesson on colours and then we sang some nursery rhymes pretty badly.. :-)

The next lesson with a different class Ellie kindly handed over to me - I did animal names, and "my name is..." and "I'm a boy/I'm a girl" sentences - Ellie helped out lots saving me when the kids were losing attention. We sang happy birthday as it was one of the kids birthday today - he was 5 yrs old. Cake is a big thing in China - people get huge cakes as presents and this boy wasn't an exception! The cake got cut up and we got given a huge slice of cake each to eat and then finished off the lesson.

The final lesson we did the same as the second - these kids were a lot louder and a bit harder to control - it was all good fun though and good to get into the swing of it for when I teach the older ones next week. I don't have any younger ones to teach - but it's good to see how different people approach the lessons and control the class!

Tonight Ellie, Franny, Daniel and I went out - we went to a Chinese bakery and I bought some bread things with jam inside - they will do for breakfast as I doubt I'll make it over to the canteen for 6.30am... We then went to have Chinese hotpot.

Chinese hotpot is amazing - you have a boiling pot with small gas heater each on your table. The pot is full of boiling water and a few herbs - you pick vegetables, thin slices of meat, seafood, noodles etc and they bring big plates of the raw food to your table - you then cook it yourself and dip it in sauce to eat on your plate - it's amazing how quick some of the slices of meat cook and a whole different way of eating. The funny thing was - on the table next to us they had ordered some seafood creature type thing - these were alive and crawling about in the bowl they came in. The guys just picked them up with chopsticks and dropped them in the boiling water - I suppose at least you know your food is fresh!

We went and played pool, did some shopping (where I have now bought a hot water bottle so I don't have to freeze all night!) and then came back. Ellie and I are in the kindergarten again at 8am tomorrow morning so I'm going to get an earlyish night.

Monday 29 October 2007

Lessons

It's nearing the end of my first full school day here and I haven't been further than the English office, Principal's office and the canteen! I have my schedule for the next week - I'm mainly teaching levels 4, 5 & 6 - looking at the books they have it means they know the basics and are pretty similar level in skill to our 6yr olds and up.

The funny thing is I was awoken at 6.20am this morning by whistles and lots of noise - I looked out of my window and all the kids were getting marched down to the school - right past the apartment block I'm stopping in - breakfast is at 6.30am, lunch at 11.10am and then dinner at 4.40pm. You have to be dead on time as they don't hang about. The kids are getting marched back up to where they live during the week at the moment - you can hear the noise, chanting and whistles outside.

The food is pretty good, I had what we would call egg foo yung and some bread thing for lunch - and some beef dish for dinner. You just have to point and use lots of mime to order what you want. The amazing thing is that it is so cheap here - after Beijing it is a relief. The meal tonight in the canteen cost 3.5 yuan - i.e. about 25p!

Hopefully I can get into a classroom tomorrow and do some teaching!

Yantai - Nanshan Bilingual School

I'm here in Yantai now - what I didn't realise is Yantai is actually an area - there is the city of Yantai and then many towns within the Yantai municipality. I am actually about 1hr out of Yantai in the Nanshan area close to Longkou.

Jack picked me up at the airport and took me to his office where he gave me some details on the area and the school. He then took me to a hotel where I met Ellie (the other English volunteer here) and Franny (one of the Chinese English teachers). We drove to Nanshan and dropped the bags off at the apartment late yesterday afternoon and went into the nearest built up area (I have no idea what it was called!) to do some shopping.

Later on we met up with Daniel (Frannys bloke - who doesn't speak any English) and went for something to eat in one of the local restaurants. With Yantai being on the coast it is famous for it's seafood - we had some fantastic fish, some Chinese hamburger looking things and some sweet potato that tasted and looked like it had been coated in a toffee apple sauce - I'm going to have to get our local Chinese to start making that!

In case you are wondering - all Chinese have English names as well as their Chinese ones - ones that can be pronounced by us foreigners.. ;-)

The apartment is quite modern; I have a computer with broadband, a small kitchen, bed, bathroom, TV and cable TV - the only thing that's not so great is that there is no hot water and the Chinese don't believe in turning on any heating until mid November at the very earliest - it is absolutely freezing here! The weather is similar to that back at home - just without any heating!

I've just got into the school now- figured it has to be warmer than the apartment so Franny met me at the school gate to take me in - I think it has over 2000 students and is huge, lots of potential for forgetting names and getting lost!

You get stared at quite a lot being one of the only English people in the area and a little sea of faces turned, stared and were pointing when I walked through the school yard. I got a few "Hello!"'s when walking through the school. Ellie had warned me of the staring and pointing yesterday- she has been here 2 months and says it still happens to her every day. It's quite funny - it must be strange for them to see foreigners.

I'm sat in the English office at the moment, having met a few of the English teachers and I should be meeting the school principal soon...