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.

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...

The great wall..

I've just got back from trekking on the Great Wall of China and my legs ache! We set off at some ridiculously early time this morning to travel the 3 hours by mini-bus to the Simatai section of the Great Wall of China.

I was pleased to find out that I wasn't the only person on the tour today and there were two others, a couple originally from Holland, now living on an island just off Venezuela - their English was spot on perfect and the man looked, acted like, and spoke exactly like a slightly younger version of John Cleese! It gave me someone that I could have a full conversation in English with at long last!

The wall was fantastic, extremely steep in places and crumbling in spots - the weather has been a bit misty again but I think I've managed to get a few good photos.

One of the things you will find in Beijing is locals trying to sell you things stood loitering outside any main tourist area/monument. They are pretty hard to shake off and even by saying "bù ya" - i.e. No! or shaking your head they just follow and follow asking you to buy and look at whatever they are selling. I'm getting used to it by now and getting quite good at telling them to go away (or haggling and getting goods for less than half price ;-)) but the other couple that were on the tour only flew in yesterday. I warned them of this when we were in the mini-bus on the way up as they were planning on doing some sight-seeing over the next few days and didn't for one minute think there would be anybody harassing us in a such a remote place as Simatai - I was wrong!

As soon as we got off the mini-bus and started walking there were people on the roadside with an assortment of souvenirs - even the official Beijing 2008 olympic t-shirts (apparently!). A few followed us all the way up - pretending not to want to sell us anything, just talking to us - I had to laugh as I knew exactly what they were up to - befriend us, tell us how poor they are and then at the end get us to buy whatever souvenirs they have... I was right - although it didn't even take that long! When we got to a resting point on the way back down the books, t-shirts, postcards, pictures came out of nowhere from within their bags and they tried selling us things - funnily enough they bypassed me as they thought I was the son of the couple that went up with us and when straight for them - makes a change not to be the one being harassed! They swore blind on the way up they wouldn't buy anything - yet when the sob stories came out they gave in - I knew it would happen and had to laugh - they will have to get stronger willed than that over the next few days otherwise they will end up spending a fortune in Beijing!

Anyway, today is my last full day here - I have to try and find Beijing City Airport again tomorrow and get the internal flight to Yantai where the school is. Hopefully Jack Liu the volunteer coordinator is picking me up from the airport in Yantai - it could be fun if he doesn't show as I don't have a clue where I'm going! I'll post again when I get there.

zài jiàn! (Bye!)

Sightseeing

Wow, where do I start! The last couple of days have been pretty manic - I'm trying to fit in as much sightseeing over the 3 full days I'm in Beijing as possible. I've been to many tourist areas and feel like I've only just scratched the surface. It's a fantastic place and I'd recommend it to anyone to come visit!

Yesterday, armed with my Beijing city map I started walking from the hotel with an aim not to stray too far and get lost - I ended up walking miles..!

I found I'm actually really close to the Forbidden City. It seems that most people in China use their local park as a community centre - in a stroll around Jingshan park I found people dancing, flying kites, playing cards, chatting, practicing marshall arts, playing music, singing, exercising - the park had such an open community feeling and it was great to see what the Beijing residents spend their time doing. The park had one main tower/pavilion at the very top of the hill, and several either side with some fantastic views of Beijing from the top. Jingshen park was a former Imperial garden and used to be in the grounds of the palace - it was at Jingshen park that one of the Chinese Emperors hanged himself when a peasant uprising army took Beijing in 1644 and the top tower/pavilion is a memorial to the Emperor.

I then walked to Belhai park to the West of Jingshen park and climbed to the top of the island in the middle where a white dagoba stands - inside the white dagoba is Buddhist scriptures. The whole park was amazingly picturesque and there were small pavilions that had musicians in playing along the waterfront, monuments and statues everywhere and plenty of traditional style chinese buildings - it's really difficult to explain in words however I've taken plenty of pictures so I'll put some photo's online when I get to Yantai and the computers are free to use.

I went to the world famous (not for the right reasons!) Tiananmen square - the square is the largest municipal square in the whole world. The Chinese are preparing for the Olympic games next year and they were starting to prepare the olympic displays for all the visitors from across the world. I've just tried accessing the Wikipedia site for the square however the Chinese have a country level firewall and it restricts what content people can view on chinese internet - it is heavily censored and I'm guessing that the history of the square is a bit of a touchy subject!

In the evening my tour guide Lily picked me up and we went to the Beijing Opera - this is a mix between traditional operas and amazing acrobatics - they kindly provide wireless headphones with subtitles in English so you know what is going on!!

This morning Lily picked me up bright and early and I went on another mad dash around Beijing - we went to the zoo to see the Pandas, followed by a trip to the silk market, the Beijing Bell and Drum tower, a rickshaw ride around the hutongs, I had lunch at Mr Lees, a friend of Lilys in his house in the hutong area, a trip to the chinese doctors for a doctor to explain to me how chinese medicine works, a walk around a temple with the largest Buddha carved out of a single piece of wood in the world (It was over 60feet tall!) and then finished off at at the china tea company where they taught me how to drink chinese tea and then tried many of the different varieties!

I've just eaten dinner and I'm about to go to Qianjai - a lake where Lily has told me there is live music on an evening. I've got trekking on the great wall of China tomorrow - so no doubt will have more to say when I get back...

Here in one piece (just..)

It's over a day and a half later but I am finally here. We had a 3 and a half hour transfer in Dubai and the contrast between the UK, Dubai and China is immense. Dubai was full of rich Arab businessmen and their 10 wives following behind - the airport was packed with people sleeping on the floor strewn about everywhere, and people pushing into queues left right and centre!

I got something to eat whilst I was in Dubai - had a choice of over 30 restaurants and what did I pick... McDonalds - the McArabian burger sounded too unique to miss! :-) I had to chuckle when they had McArabian burgers, date pies (instead of apple pies) and they even sold spring rolls! I thought the menu of McDonalds was universal!

I got to Beijing at 3pm this afternoon - the airport is strictly governed by some rather scary looking blokes in uniform - they look like they wouldn't hesitate to lock you up if you put so much as a hair out of place! Everyone handed in the million forms you have to fill in to get through and not a word was said! It was all quite eerie.

I then had the joys of getting to my hotel - with a taxi driver that couldn't understand me, and me not being able to understand him - a game of charades and lots of pointing later (and a couple of wrong turn offs and car journeys around Beijing) we finally got here - only to find they'd double booked my room!!! They've upgraded me for tonight and I have to move to the room I should have been in tomorrow.

I went for a wander earlier and got harassed by an 80ish year old chinese bloke, ended up with him cycling around with me on the back of the bike in like a rickshaw thing showing me the 'hutong's (the lanes and alleys where a lot of the chinese people live) - you have all the main roads with the big businesses and hotels on and lurking behind is an absolute maze of alleyways with hundreds, if not thousands of houses squashed in there - all tiny, falling in bits, patched up, with a very communist/poor feeling about the place.

There were public noticeboards with pictures of the chinese president on, police around all the time and what amazed me was that each block had their own communal loos and washing facilities - none of the houses had their own bathroom! The only buildings that looked good were the government buildings and the schools.

I may have only been in Beijing a matter of hours, but one of the most distinguishing things I have noticed so far is the vast array of smells my nose if having to decipher - you turn a corner, walk past a different building and you get something unique every time - the whole place has a different smell to it and I'm not sure whether I like it or not - it reminds me of old chip fat oil at the moment!

Anyways, I think I've rambled on a bit too much - I've got a pretty lazy day tomorrow to catch up on not having any sleep for 36hrs, going out at night - then I've got a tour of Beijing planned in for Friday and trekking on the great wall of China on Sunday.

I'll post on here again when I get chance to get to a computer again!

2 days to go...

It's been a hectic weekend trying to get everything sorted but I think I'm finally there..!

I eventually received my visa (along with my passport that I had to send off to them) through the post on Friday and got my money converted to Chinese Yuan. I've bought a load of stickers (well done stickers, smiley faces etc) for the kids and planned a load of lessons on clothes, food, sports, body parts, music, weather, the alphabet and more! At least it will mean I'm not really stressed if I get chucked in at the deep end on the Monday morning in class with 40-50 eager eyes staring at me waiting for me to speak!

I fly out from Newcastle to Beijing Tuesday afternoon, connecting in Dubai - I should arrive in Beijing about 15.10 China time (8.10am UK time on Wednesday). The plan at the moment is to chill out for a few days when I get there, go trekking on the great wall of china, do some sightseeing in Beijing and then fly up to Yantai to go to the school at the weekend.

I best get packing....!