Whatup folks. still in training in zhuhai, and getting a little sick of going to school all day, but we are almost home free.
We have found an awesome restaurant near our hotel and often walk there with a herd of americans, which makes me a bit uncomfortable, but i think they like the business. Ive eaten there pretty much every day for the last week and have yet to be dissapointed. the dumplings are to die for.
I have been spending most nights at bar street with assorted groups of americans, which always proves interesting. there are some pretty upscale bars and clubs (expensive by chinese standards, but still very cheap. however, when you can get a giant beer in the corner store for 60 cents, its amazing how quickly you start to think that 3 dollars for a beer is outrageous), and an astounding number of chinese people drinking and partying on weeknights. most of the tables have cups with 5 dice in them, and they play this game called bullshit. basically turn your cup over and look at your dice, then continue around the table one upping the person before you about how many of each number are on the table (ex. i think there are 9 4's between everyone. ok, i think there are 11 4's, etc) until someone calls bullshit. then you add up all the dice and if the bullshitter is right, the person they called out chugs their little glass of beer. If they are wrong, they do. quite fun, and also good practice with chinese numbers. if you sit down at a table with guys and start playing, the waitresses (and more than likely prostitutes) sit down and start playing with you. makes me feel a little weird, but they are fun to party with. hey, my name is Danny, i like to party. id introduce myself that way, but i think they might misunderstand my meaning.
after drinking heavily for 4 nights in a row, on thursday night i decided to go get a massage. I was a little uncomfortable not speaking the language and not sure exactly what was going to happen, but one of the girls in our program who speaks a lot of chinese was able to tell them what i wanted. so i got myself an hour long, full body massage for 7 bucks. not too shabby. It was kind of tickling in the beginning and I had to seriously stifle my laughter so as not to look like a weirdo when I couldnt explain what i thought was so funny. i remember thinking at one point wow, this chick is really strong. and then realized she was standing on me.
Interesting fact about China - They won't give you a bag in the supermarket for your groceries. Great, right? reduces waste. however, I went into KFC and ordered a meal, and my cup of soda came in a bag. not just in a bag like they do in mexico, in a cup and then in a bag. go figure.
they are also still obsessed with the olympics over here. most channels have world leaders praising China (no matter how obscure, they had the president of iceland on the other night), or are just replaying every event.
we turned in our preferences for teaching assignments today. I requested to teach Junior or senior (not primary) in one of the Special Economic Zones downtown. Ive been told that our schools will have cable tv, but most only have dialup internet. however, we only teach 15 classes per week, and they are less than an hour, so i should have plenty of free time. Hope all is well in the states.
who the hell is Palin? What a lame attempt to steal Clinton supporters. Hopefully the fact that she is a nobody and most notable for being anti-choice will prevent that from happening.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
lets see if this works
So, i have finally made it to the internet cafe. I just walked around with a guy whose mandarin is much better than mine for about an hour trying to figure out where an internet cafe is and how to buy a card and actually use it. We walked into a couple places full of guys playing warcraft before figuring out the system.
the flight down and bus to zhuhai, pronounced juhai, was a serious fiasco. We couldn't fly into Hong Kong initially because there was a typhoon over here so I was stranded in San Fran for a day. I was able to meet up with some people from the program though, so that wasnt too bad. Once arriving in Hong Kong things got a bit out of hand. I won't go into details, but just say that so far i have not been impressed with this programs organization skills. everything is subject to change at any moment, including what we are paying for or not, and they have very little useful information about the city they chose for our training. but anyways, enough griping.
The people in the program seem pretty cool, and every chinese person i have met is very friendly. Except for the first guy looking at my passport when I arrived in Hong Kong, who proceeded to show my passport picture to the lady next to him and tell me i looked like a girl with my long hair. My mandarin is actually pretty good compared to most of the people in my program, and I got myself out of the elementary class. We have a very good TEFL(teaching english as a foreign language) instructor, and I am excited about teaching.
Walking around the gigantic supermarket yesterday was quite an experience, many things I have no idea what is in the package. However, I often feel I can trust anything with Jackie Chans face on it. This guy slangs pretty much anything over here, from beauty products to snacks to you name it. In most restaurants I often have to point at something that looks edible and hope for the best. However, it is usually delicious. Lots of fried rice and dumplings accompanied by strange vegetables.
This place is TROPICAL, which i was not expecting. It is humid as hell, sort of like florida weather, and I feel a bit foolish for bringing all of the warm clothes that I did. The smells are also very strange. one minute it is a delicious scent from a nearby restaurant, then urine, then another delicious restaurant, then overwhelming dumpster smell, then restaurant...
After walking accross a bridge to an island nearby, we found that you could walk up a set of stairs to the top of this island. on the way down, there was a view of the bay, filled with fishing boats, and large highrises in the background. as we proceeded down the steps, a man started playing his chinese guitar and i realized that this is EXACTLY how i pictured china. every city I have seen is filled with what I can only call neighborhoods, which consist of hundreds of skyscrapers that are entirely filled by tiny apartments. It remindeds me of that scene from the matrix where they are growing the humans. These buildings are totally black at night, which is a bit eery. We will be in Zhuhai for about another week, then we move to Shenzhen. I look forward to unpacking and getting to know the surroundings I will live in for the next year.
the flight down and bus to zhuhai, pronounced juhai, was a serious fiasco. We couldn't fly into Hong Kong initially because there was a typhoon over here so I was stranded in San Fran for a day. I was able to meet up with some people from the program though, so that wasnt too bad. Once arriving in Hong Kong things got a bit out of hand. I won't go into details, but just say that so far i have not been impressed with this programs organization skills. everything is subject to change at any moment, including what we are paying for or not, and they have very little useful information about the city they chose for our training. but anyways, enough griping.
The people in the program seem pretty cool, and every chinese person i have met is very friendly. Except for the first guy looking at my passport when I arrived in Hong Kong, who proceeded to show my passport picture to the lady next to him and tell me i looked like a girl with my long hair. My mandarin is actually pretty good compared to most of the people in my program, and I got myself out of the elementary class. We have a very good TEFL(teaching english as a foreign language) instructor, and I am excited about teaching.
Walking around the gigantic supermarket yesterday was quite an experience, many things I have no idea what is in the package. However, I often feel I can trust anything with Jackie Chans face on it. This guy slangs pretty much anything over here, from beauty products to snacks to you name it. In most restaurants I often have to point at something that looks edible and hope for the best. However, it is usually delicious. Lots of fried rice and dumplings accompanied by strange vegetables.
This place is TROPICAL, which i was not expecting. It is humid as hell, sort of like florida weather, and I feel a bit foolish for bringing all of the warm clothes that I did. The smells are also very strange. one minute it is a delicious scent from a nearby restaurant, then urine, then another delicious restaurant, then overwhelming dumpster smell, then restaurant...
After walking accross a bridge to an island nearby, we found that you could walk up a set of stairs to the top of this island. on the way down, there was a view of the bay, filled with fishing boats, and large highrises in the background. as we proceeded down the steps, a man started playing his chinese guitar and i realized that this is EXACTLY how i pictured china. every city I have seen is filled with what I can only call neighborhoods, which consist of hundreds of skyscrapers that are entirely filled by tiny apartments. It remindeds me of that scene from the matrix where they are growing the humans. These buildings are totally black at night, which is a bit eery. We will be in Zhuhai for about another week, then we move to Shenzhen. I look forward to unpacking and getting to know the surroundings I will live in for the next year.
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