Beijing & The Great Wall

This past weekend, my roommates and I boarded the fast train to Beijing for the weekend. We arrived at our hostel Friday night.

The following morning, we went to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. This section is not as popular among the nationals, and is not the place that is most often photographed (Badaling is the part of the wall that you will most often see pictures). However, it was a great section to visit as it was not too busy and the sight was still breathtaking! I enjoyed every minute of it. Then after we walked around on the wall, we took a slide down from the top of the wall.

That evening, we caught the subway and headed over to the Olympic Green. The subway is really easy to follow which makes it very nice for directionally challenged people like myself. Plus, Stephanie was along with me and had been in Beijing before. The bird's nest and the water cube were lit up. The torch was a little hard to see on top of the bird nest, but I did see it. It actually looks smaller than the one here in Qingdao.

Here I am with my milk tea. :)

On Sunday afternoon, we went to the Temple of Heaven and walked around. While looking around one of the buildings, a Chinese lady ran up to Stephanie and I, pulling our arm and saying "Oh, you our friend! Take picture?!" They wanted to take a picture with us and were so excited just because we were Western. Although I have had some stares, "Hellos", and pictures taken of me discreetly, I hadn't had anyone pull me into a picture with them.


After walking around the Temple of Heaven, we walked by TiananmenSquare and the Forbidden City. Later that evening, we headed back to Qingdao for my last week of teaching.


Next week is Spring Break for the students, so today was my last day of teaching. Yesterday, my students threw me a "surprise" going away party. I was actually quite impressed with how well they kept it a secret. I only had a couple of the second graders make some funny comments like saying "p" instead of party as if I didn't know how to spell the word party. :) My roommates and I are planning on traveling south for vacation to see some more of China. Then next Saturday I will be flying back to the States. It has all flown by so quickly!

From the Other Side of the Ocean

Two weekends ago, Deborah and I decided to go to the more German part of town. Qingdao was at one time under German rule, so there is some German architecture there. The picture above isn't really German, but it is the pier and there were a lot of people on it and it was pretty windy that day (as it is quite often in Qingdao). We wandered around this part of town and saw a couple of old churches and buildings, ordered food at a restaurant by pointing at pictures, and I had my first taste of red bean. Red bean is a popular dessert food here. It is often in things like ice cream or pretty much anything. It is a sweet bean. It can be deceptive as you might pick up some ice cream or candy and think that it is strawberry. After biting into it, you'll realize that it isn't strawberry or chocolate. I tried a red bean pie at McDonalds and it wasn't so bad after having heard varied opinions from foriegners here.

After eating out with a Chinese couple whom I met at the school, we went shopping and bought some ingredients to make real Chinese food on our own. So, last week my roommates and I made hot pot, a very traditional Chinese meal. Normally, they have an actual hot pot that they will put on the table. Since we didn't have this, we just cooked the food in a pot and ate around hte stove.


Last week, I spoke during an elementary assembly, and then had my students sing a song that I taught them. They did a great job, and here are some pictures of my students below.
Well, I know that this post is not quite as long as the others, but I just wanted to show some pictures from the past couple weeks. Thank you for your thoughts and for showing an interest in my teaching and life in China.

From the other side of the ocean....

On your mark...get set...go!

March 7, 2009

(I'm a little behind on updating this...so, this all really happened a week ago)

On your mark...get set...go! After strolling around the Olympic Center in Qingdao and then grabbing some Chinese food in Jusco, Stephanie challenged Deborah and I to a race.

The place: Jusco Supermarket (which by the way is crazy on a Saturday-just imagine wal-mart with little elbow room times 100-okay maybe I exaggerated a little).

The challenge: Getting through the crowd at Jusco, finding the items on a grocery list, and paying for them at the check-out line. Whoever gets out first wins an ice cream cone at McDonalds (which is about 2.5 quai - less than a fifty cents).

Deborah and I were up to the challenge. We both needed to find an apple, yogurt, chips, and pepperos (these wonderful little graham cracker sticks with chocoloate). So we both headed to get the apples. We had to wait in line to get them weighed. There's no room for being polite in these lines. If you don't push yourself to the front and make it known that you want help, people will just get in front of you. So, you have to be a little aggressive (same concept for driving and walking across the road too). I got my apple weighed and made it through to the next stop-yogurt. My decisiveness (okay, maybe lack of decisiveness put me behind as I had to choose between sour cream and onion or plain chips. Then, I got stuck behind a slow line, and Deborah won :(. I don't know what the cashier said, but I made it through okay and got my purchases. It was a fun experience and I still bought myself a cone at McDonalds.

Before our shopping excursion at Jusco, we went to the Olympic center to look around. Here are some pictures from that little trip....

Meet the mascots:

Did you know that the Olympics have official mascots? I didn't realize this until coming here. This is actually just a picture of a picture at a bus stop. Each of these little characters has a name and has quite a bit of symbolism connected with it. Their names from right to left are: Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, Nini (it is very common to double the names).

This is a view of our apartment complex (the tan colored buildings) from the Olympic complex.

Week One in China...

(the International School where I am student teaching)

My first week in China has flown by. Monday was my first day at school, and I met my nine 2nd and 3rd grade students. Since it is an international school, the students that attend the school come from a wide range of countries, backgrounds, and cultures. The majority of the students are Korean, but there are many different nationalities present in the classrooms. My days begin with a 5 minute walk along the Yellow Sea to the bus. After a twenty minute busride, I arrive at the school around 7:10 am. Then, the school day begins. I am fortunate to have teaching assistants who will continue to help in the classroom throughout my time here. It is very helpful to have them since my class is a combination of second and third grade students at different levels and requiring different instruction according to their grade level and language level. All of my students are able to interact verbally in English, but are still learning vocabulary and struggle with reading comprehension and writing. My school day ends at 3:00, and then I catch a bus back to my apartment sometime after that.

The other staff at the school have been very welcoming, and we have had many opportunities to eat at various restaurants. This past week I ate at Korean, Turkish, Chinese, and Mexican restaurants. Qingdao has a wide variety of international restaurants and foods to choose from.

On Tuesday night we ate at a Korean Barbecue restaurant. The meat was cooked right in the middle of table. We also had bebimbop which has rice, and vegetables, eggs, and spicy sauce (see picture below). The egg is put into the bowl uncooked, but the bowl is so hot that as you mix the ingredients together the egg cooks right in the bowl. It is very cultural in China to order the food as a group rather than individually as we do in the States. You get to try more food this way, as you just use your chopsticks to try whatever is on the table.

Today we went to the market to get our vegetables and fruit. Although, we could buy this kind of produce in other stores, the market tends to be less expensive. In addition, as you develop guanxi (gwanshee) with a person at the market, the prices are not as expensive as at other places. Guanxi is developed as two people begin to develop a friendship or any kind of personal connection. Building guanxi with the Chinese people is an important concept. If you don't have guanxi with someone, they don't feel that they owe you any special favors. However, the opposite can be true if you do develop guanxi with a person. For example, my roommate always goes to the same people to buy her vegetables and fruit. As these people continue to recognize her, she is able to slowly build guanxi with them.

All of the fruit and vegetables in the picture below cost us about $9.00.