Oops

I grabbed my US cell phone charger instead of my camera charger. Good thing Jenna has a EOS! I would have been stealing her photos anyway.

Yangshuo: Part One

Taking the bus to Yangshuo was funny- the lady at the hostel told us to wait on a curb for the bus. So we were waiting and thought we were in the wrong place until a bus came slowly towards us, with a woman hanging out the open door yelling "Yangshuo! Yangshuo!"

Our hostel here, the Giggling Tree, is really unique and is owned by a Dutch couple that bought a farm village 4km outside the main town and converted it into a hostel. We're in the middle of a field and
surrounded by the karst peaks. It's a refreshing change from the tourist trap that is West Street.

Last night we just walked around West Street, where I had an amazing veggie burger (with cheese and fries was only 18rmb!) and drank some crappy local beer. We had a hard time finding a cab afterward so we bargained and hopped on the back of a motorcycle to come back!

Today we met a woman who teaches in Shenzhen and her parents who are staying in the hostel. We took a bus up to Yangdi and then walked a trail for 3 hours along the Li River. It was beautiful and surreal. Pictures don't do this place justice. Then we took a bamboo river raft down to Xingping, which has the Karst scenery that is pictured on the back of the 20rmb note. No, we didn't have a 20rmb note.

Tonight we ate at a really great vegetarian restaurant and are just hanging out at the hostel now. I love staying at hostels because you meet the nicest people that make great day trip buddies. Tomorrow we're going to hike another trail nearby that ends at a great Karst mountain but will probably use bikes for most of it.

On another note... something is wrong with my iPod and the volume up button is jammed so the annoying square in the middle of my screen won't go away and I had to lock my sound. I miss my pals at the apple store.

First Stop: Guilin

Jenna and I arrived in Guilin late Sunday night and settled into our hostel (Wada hostel, if you're ever down here).  Our dorm was really nice and we even had our own little bathroom!  Monday morning we woke up and walked to the market behind the hostel to grab some breakfast.  I bought four yummy baozi for 1kuai and then we walked over to McDonalds, where I discovered that my backpack had been opened and my wallet had been stolen! 

We ran back to the alley, but the baozi woman said that she remembered me putting my wallet back in my bag.  I started panicking, running around the alley and was just about to give up and start calling my banks when I checked my backpack again.  My bag had been opened again and the thief had put my wallet back in my bag, without the cash, but everything else intact!  I'm almost more angry that they snuck by me twice, but I guess its better that I lost 300RMB rather than 300RMB + ATM cards.  So that was my exciting morning.  Grr! 

Jenna and I then headed to the Solitary Peak, this giant stone that is the highest peak in Guilin.  We climbed to the top and even though it was a cloudy day, the view of Guilin was spectacular.  We also walked around the park, that was actually Guilin Normal University.  Those lucky students have such a nice campus!  When we headed back to our hostel, we had a new roommate named Caerin from Ireland.  The three of us then went to the Sun and Moon Pagodas to see them illuminated at night, which was also very pretty. 

We ate at a Northeastern China restaurant which was alright and then we went to a random Irish bar (Caerin's request) and were accosted by some Chinese men.  They always want to speak in English with foreigners, buy foreigners drinks, and then 'gan bei' every five seconds. It was a rather funny night, if anything, but definitely not what I would call "cool" Chinese people. 

We're headed to Yangshuo this afternoon where we will be staying at a hostel called The Giggling Tree, which is owned by a Dutch couple who basically bought a village and turned it into a hostel. It should be interesting. 

Till next time~

Adventure Itinerary

My grades are done!  I slogged through and only failed five students.  There were a whole bunch that got by with a 60 or 65, because I'm merciful, but I failed the kids that never even bothered to show up but once or twice.  I'm going to turn in my grades tomorrow and then it's off on vacation with Jenna.  It's the trip I've been dreaming about doing since I left China and I am very excited to travel down to the southwest region.  So here goes...

Jenna & Alison's January Adventure

January 10-12
Guilin

January 13-15
Yangshuo

January 16-18
Kunming

January 19-21
Dali

January 22-23
Lijiang

January 23-25
Tiger Leaping Gorge

January 26-27
Go back to Lijiang, take train to Kunming

January 28-31
Beijing

February 1
Take train back to Qingdao

February 4
Flight to AMERICA!

I'll have wifi at the hostels I'm staying at and will be posting via email.  Since I went to Yangshuo two years ago, I knew I wanted to come back.  This time we will not be staying on the super-touristy West Street, but instead will be staying at a village-turned-hostel about 3km away from the Yangshuo hotspot.

I've also been very interested in the Yunnan province for about two years now and am looking forward to exploring Naxi villages and seeing many Buddhist temples.  The Tiger Leaping Gorge, of course, is bound to be the high point of the trip and will take us 3 days to hike there and back.  I am also looking forward to spending time in Dali and seeing the famous Stone Forest.

Exciting stuff over here!  Until the next post...

Exam week sucks for teachers too

This is the point of the semester where I salute all my college professors that had to read final papers a foot or more high.  Thank you, dear professors, for reading all of those pages and still managing to like me enough to let me pass your course.  I take back any frustrated thoughts and expletives that came through my mouth as a result of waiting for final grades. 

I have eight classes of about 52-56 students, one class of 30, and one class of 25.  This leaves me with a lot of finals to grade before I leave on vacation.  Here's what I had them do:

Part One: Listening Comprehension

I asked them ten questions that they then had to write the answers to.  Spelling didn't count and I basically wanted to make sure they understand what the hell I've been saying the past few months.  I asked questions like:

- What is the weather like during the winter in Qingdao?
- Do you like spicy food? (the most commonly misunderstood -- many thought I said 'seafood')
- What are you planning to do for Spring Festival Vacation?

Part Two: Oral Dialogue

I had my students pull topics out of a box which they then had to create an oral dialogue with their language partner(s).  These dialogues had to be at least 5 lines per person, greetings and simple answers excluded and they were not allowed to read from notes.  Topics include:

- A is meeting B for the first time and they will be roommates in college
- Something really bad happened to person A
- What are you planning to do after graduation?

The first part took half the class last week and then I helped them prepare their dialogues.  This week I've been listening to oral dialogues in the freezing hallway.  It's taking a surprisingly long time to grade all of these. 

Now I am going back to merge their individual grades with their group grades and weighing attendance and the final exam.  It really sucks.  I also was overly generous with the first few classes I graded so I then have had to go back and deflate those grades. 

I've failed two kids already.  I've processed seven out of ten classes and I have to have this in before I leave on vacation on Sunday.  My bosses originally wanted it in this evening but we all told them ther was no !@%^@ way that we could have it all done yet, especially considering we were still doing exams this morning and afternoon.  So yeah, that is my life right now.  This is going to be a fun weekend. 

This is what happened when I left my students in the classroom when I was doing oral dialogues in the hallway.  I wrote "Chill out, guys!" because they were getting really antsy and rowdy!

My fan page has 500 members

Teaching is for the egotistical.  I mean, who else would put themselves up on a stage or podium to tell others about the alleged knowledge that they possess?  People who think they are awesome.

I think I am pretty awesome.  Clearly I do, since I blog about my life, assuming that I'm snarky and interesting enough for others to pay attention.  And, well, teaching oral English makes you feel pretty freakin' awesome.

It's like having a personal fan club of 50+ students with ten different sections.  They love taking pictures with/of me, saying "Hello teacher!" or "Hello Miss Alison!" on the street, and complementing me on my smile or telling me that I'm beautiful.  If you ever feel like you have a self-esteem problem, come to China and these students will throw so many nice things your way, you will feel like you are a model turned genius.

Here is a picture of my class 15, my highest level that I teach.  They are all pretty great and have a very good command of English.

(and if you are read my earlier post from Brandon/ Pine, he is in the middle, below the guy in the yellow striped sweater, named James)

They think I'm awesome.  Because I am.

New Years in Shanghai

新年快乐！Happy New Year!

I spent my New Years weekend in Shanghai with my friend Max, who is interning at a law firm translating documents and such.  Getting to the city was annoying because not only was my plane 20 minutes delayed leaving from Qingdao because of a late arrival, but the Maglev was broken, so I had to take an airport bus into the city.  Fortunately, I was sitting next to a very nice Chinese man who helped me to figure out which subway stop to take to meet Max for Japanese teppanyaki courtesy of his German roommate, Daniel, and his parents.

Then we went to drop my stuff off and by the time we managed to catch a cab (it was a serious debacle trying to get one and I actually shoved my way into a cab before another guy could), it was about 11:30 PM.  We headed to Kangaroo Bar, grabbed a quick drink and were surrounded by fire torches at the stroke of midnight!

The Modern Shanghai

The next morning I wanted to go to The Bund, but it was closed for renovations for the Shanghai Expo.  I'm still pissed I didn't get to stroll on the famous Bund, which was the only 'must-do' in Shanghai for me.  The expo has seriously taken over the city, with pictures of the little Expo mascot (which looks like a mini-Gumby), countdown clocks, and slogans everywhere.  It's just as crazy as Beijing was about the Olympics.

We walked around on East Nanjing Road, a kind of giant pedestrian mall swarming with tourists and huge billboards.  There was a huge Sephora, Zara, and a huge Nike store with Kobe Bryant on it.

After much wandering around the area, avoiding construction sites and swarming Jan1st tourist mobs, I finally got to take a nice photo in front of the famous Shanghai/Pudong skyline!

Amidst all the development, large malls, and skyscrapers, I was amazed by Shanghai's assortment of public parks.  There are many "little" parks in the downtown area, some complete with little lakes, paddle boats and bumper cars for kids, squares for public ballroom dancing, and places to sit.

And that's about when I concluded that there was nothing that hadn't been run over by hyper-development... so the search for the "real" Shanghai began.

We went to the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Museum in his old house in the French Concession.  I have a lot of respect and love for the man and think he did some really amazing things when he was President of the Republic, including being fluent in English and traveling around the world.  The house was really cool and I totally nerd-ed out looking at old photos and artifacts. 

That evening, we went out to get Korean BBQ with the Germans.  Max and I were really tired from walking around the city all day, so we tried to make it a chill night and go out to a jazz club.  We ended up being too early for the show, so we went back to Kangaroo Bar for a drink or two, and ended up leaving four hours later.  Chinese people are awesome.

In Search of Old Shanghai

The next morning, we headed out to Jade Buddha Temple which houses this GIANT statue of Buddha made out of a single chunk of jade.  It was really neat and the temple was also pretty active.

 

(Not the Jade Buddha.  No pictures allowed in that hall.)

After this, we wandered into a neighborhood not far from People's Square where people (a) didn't live in high rise buildings and (b) weren't surrounded by Western stores.  I love taking pictures of the vendors and stores here and would have taken a picture of every single one if I could. 

 

We also wandered into a pretty cool Daoist temple nearby, which had a ceremony of sorts and some really awesome statues.

 

I find East Asian religions fascinating and always feel a little sacrilegious (read: Catholic guilt) when I take photos in temples.  They are just so intricate and interesting to me that I can't help but take pictures!

Where is Shanghai?

I realize I'm being a huge China snob when I start separating what is "real" and "fake" Shanghai.  But what makes Shanghai, well, Shanghai?  Is it the skyscrapers or is it the old buildings that are being razed to make room for the high-rise buildings?  Or even the Shanghainese feeling that they are superior to the rest of the Chinese?  Maybe it's because I came to appreciate China in Beijing, but Shanghai is just so unlike what I know that it baffles me. 

So that's my "little" post about Shanghai.  I've been really busy this week because it is exam week and I have to grade 500 students!  Next post: Spring Vacation