2nd weekend of shenzhen

sooo, these blogs are completely sporadic, i know that...but i thought this weekend deserved a write up.

spent a big chunk of my thursday in the police office doing interview things for visa applications...it was dumb and pointless as is much of the bureaucracy of china. then the weekend came and friday we went out to futian and i slept on a floor for 4 hours before waking up to stumble my way home...to find that i was locked out of my apt. THEN i spent the rest of the day with a friend in another part of town to waste time until i could go home. so i went to an art expo area of shenzhen to see the very talented replicas that chinese people can make of famous art....seriously, not 1 original piece. (oh wait, some of this was saturday).

sunday, i guess, is the day i really wanted to write down to remember. So my friend Nick Chen (pictures below) and I hiked to the top of the highest mountain in shenzhen or in this province or something like that. it was a long hike, but worth it at the top. Made a few chinese friends on the way up which was cool...i have been completely impressed with how friendly everyone here is for such a big city.

anyway, the funny part came on the way down off the mountain. we got to a point where there were a few routes down and decided that we didn't want to go the same way down so we asked a few people if we could take a different trail. They of course encouraged us and said all the trails lead to the end and go down the mountain...i guess it would have been useful to ask WHERE the trails led....so we hiked for an hour and 1/2 without seeing a single person/pass an abandoned station/through a worker village/to the bottom of the sea port. NOT where we wanted to be...very far actually. So we ended up hitchhiking with a man named benjamin who gave us a lift for the about 20 minute drive back to the apt where we left from...

so that's my story for you people who read this...kind of long. anyway, news on top of this is we have national day off which means we have teh week sept 29 through oct 5 off and we're planning our vacation. So far it's fujian province, guilin/yangshuo, or philipine islands. what's everyone else's opinion? ps - we're still waiting on visas so it's entirely possible i might just be stuck here....

pics of new pad!MY ROOM!
ROOMMATE BEN'S SMALL ASS ROOM

teaching, teaching, teaching.

so this whole lesson planning thing takes a lot more out of you than i thought. i have newfound respect for all the teachers i've ever had. its such a pain not having an exact plan and not knowing what will actually get the kids involved...and on top of that being at a good school that requires me to grade and do all that stuff, i thought this was going to be fun! haha

anyway, done with the first full week of classes and on to the second. I haven't had a monday class yet though...holidays and started on a tuesday, so i've only had 3 day weeks thus far, but not lying when i say they are jam packed with classes. I have 17 classes a week, which may sound easy, but on top of that i have to lesson plan for each one because i teach 3 levels...so naturally they need different levels of english and it's hard to remember sometimes which ones are the better classes and which aren't...

So i know this is a lot of complaining to do in one sitting, but i guess it's just one of those days. I love being here, living RIGHT on the beach and making some good chinese friends, but this humidity/heat is killing me. it's austin heat with houston humidity...killer. and i teach classes without AC...

Lastly, just an update on the more interesting stuff, social life, I have made a few chinese friends who are all really nice and fun to hang around. Some of the teachers here are cool too but a little older usually. This weekend was the first real weekend we have had without training or things to do so we got to hang at the beach and go to the city to party which was fun. Ended up out until 8 am bc i thought it was a good idea to just party until the buses started working again bc taxis are expensive.

Oh and last night my friend got a "chuanr" stuck through her foot on the street...for those who don't speak it's basically just a huge toothpick that holds food together with a sharp pointy end. So she's in the hospital now. And as for the rest of my life, i'm still waiting to move into the permanent residence, living now in a studio with a roommate...

Nervousness

This is Darragh and Nick.  Two guys in program. One from Ireland and the other from San Francisco.  Kool kids.  

Our first adventure night out in Shenzhen.  Ben and Jeff.

Went on a hike/walk today and found tons of these freaky spiders (one of which almost attacked Nick's face...)

So tomorrow I will finally meet my school teachers and headmaster.  Kind of nerve racking...none of us know what to think...i'm kind of glad i have one person from the program with me at the same school so at least it won't be one on one all the time with the chinese folk.  I have lost a lot of my chinese so it has gotten a little frustrating trying to communicate sometimes...especially bc i have to be the translator for 1/2 of the people seeing as they don't know much of the language.

Anyway, crazy night out last night again...went to an entirely outside barstreet place in futian.  Drank too much as always and ended up eating KFC for the first time ever.  Here it's ken de ji.  Only had french fries and ice cream though...

some contact info here: my new cell # is 86 755 158 155 977 93 (#'s are so long here! although that includes the country and city codes)

Certified?

So finishing up all the training finally...thank god.  It was truly boring, but kind of fun to get to know a new area of Chinar.  Took a test this morning to get certified and we have a ceremony at 3.  I have to dress up...this sucks.

The presentation I was working on before went really well.  I was asked to be a teacher at a key school actually, which is one of the schools directly controlled by the bureau of education.  I don't know how I feel about it though...involves much more work and more supervision...

Anyway, thought I would just leave a quick update on life here.  Went to the beach last night to drink and chill with some friends.  Took a chill night which was nice again.  I think I've calmed down too much in my old age.  haha.  well until next time...

1 week in 一星期以后

So as I sit here working on my presentation for Tuesday's lesson, I realize that I have been here a week.  Can't believe how fast time flew.  I'm exhausted and am surprised by how much work we actually do.  I mean, don't get me wrong, this kid still parties, but it's amazing that even JUST out of college can make me feel old.  I get questions of what I do for a living now and if I'm married.  I guess that's a whole other off topic subject though.  Although I do feel old now.  I used to never get tired, but I guess partying with these Chinese has finally made a challenge.  We're up at 730 every morning (and sometimes out till 4...haha).

So to talk about this city a little more for those who are interested...it's a cool town.  Not really all that huge for China.  I think it's a very popular vacation destination for Shenzhen families and people from Hong Kong.  Sometimes the accent in Mandarin here is pretty funny because a lot of people speak Canto.  It's nice though...beachy, so I can't complain.

Friday night I had the first late night like I'm used to back in the states.  A few friends and I (Ben, Jeff, and Phong) went to a bar street.  So there are 2 here: one just called bar street (酒巴街）and the other is Hooker street (莲花路).  So Hooker street was friday.  Not to say that we get a lot of hookers in the states, but we drank quite a bit and didn't get home until 4 am...which made waking up for class at 730 kind of difficult...so I didn't.  I made it to the rest of classes though and was 1 of 3 that missed a pointless class so I didn't worry.  Plus my Chinese teacher loves me so I don't worry.

So now I continue with training.  3 days left in Zhuhai and trying to finish a final presentation.  I'm exhausted, but will probably still force myself to go out in order to celebrate finishing the first Chinese test today.  So I haven't changed too much just yet, don't worry.....guess I'm not all that old.

yup, finally here. 终于到了！！

So it may have taken an extra 20 hours, but i finally made it to china...got annoyingly delayed in san francisco as I guess I should have expected with my flight track record.  Anyway, it was actually a good thing, got to stop and hang out with Julie for the night and finally see san francisco since i didn't get to go when my sisters lived there.  Got to say, I actually like it!  Reminds me of a taller austin with less cars

So, next step was the second flight to Hong Kong.  About a 13 hour flight, which stretched to almost 14 in the end (again, just my luck in traveling).  Anyway, also with my luck and just something you would definitely expect of me...I met the ONE mexican on the flight.  He was a cool kid.  about 19 i think and moving ot Hong Kong for college!  studying engineering for the next 4 years because he wanted to be different and not go to the states like his friend.  anyway, gonna end up meeting up in hong kong when i go to visit so i can get my fill on mexicans on the other side of the world since I will be so deprived on this side of the world.

Last bit of news updates, Chinese class is going well.  I love Professor Qiu.  She is probably the funniest Chinese person I have ever met (which i guess doesn't say all that much, but she is hysterical).  We're going to lunch tomorrow because for some reason has taken a liking especially to me and has decided to "raise the bar" when grading me?  sucks.  but i guess it's better than her hating me...she for some reason prefers me even to the chinese kids in class (sort of typical too of chinese people. hyper critical of chinese)...TEFL classes suck and are boring me to death...hopefully they'll help somehow when i start teaching though.  I'm hoping desperately I get high school kids.  I will hate myself if i have young kids.  Oh and apparently someone was telling me that I should teach spanish here.  I can tutor kids and make an additional 180 RMB an hour (about 25 bucks an hour).  They don't have anyone to teach it here so it could be good for me to do since some people want to learn that in addtion to english.

One week left in Zhuhai (city for training) which is this awesome beach city.  really clean and nice.  lots of money here which is a nice break from the rest of china.  pics to come eventually...

1 week

So beginning to realize that summer will end once again/I am actually leaving/I'm going to China in 1 week.  Don't really know if I'm actually ready, but I guess I'm getting bored anyway.

As one would expect, I have procrastinated quite a bit in getting anything done for this excursion.  I officially just sent in my information for health insurance (apparently quite impt and actually required by the chinese govt?).  It was actually due July 18...but I guess I get an exception...

Off to the middle country officially on August 21 and landing there August 22 (the whole intnat'l. dateline thing scares me).  Anyway, welcome to my blog where you'll be able to view some of my adventures/thoughts and such about my at least one year living East.