Out of the City

Today is a national holiday which means.... NO SCHOOL!!! And when you are living Ina foreign country and you don't have to go to work, you go sightseeing. Or in our case, we went hiking but it included sightseeing :).

Our principal and his wife invited us to join them for a morning of hiking and sightseeing outside of the city. Of course we jumped on the opportunity to get out and see some of this beautiful country. So we met them this morning at 7:30 at their apartment. At 7:40 we were on the road heading out of the city!!! 

Sometimes on a really clear day you can see mountains in the distance and that is where we went. About 40 minutes out, there is a national park. It was so amazing to see green trees and leaves, and smell the fresh air! We drove up most of the mountain and then had the choice between two different sets of stairs. 

At the entrance ready to begin the hike/climb to find out what's at the top. 

I don't think any of us were prepared for this climb. We knew it would be stairs, but I don't think we expected steep and eleven steps. But we were champs and made it to the top! It was so pretty! At the top of the mountain is a temple for people to pray to Buddha and their ancestors. So it smells a lot like incense and people where buying fruit and candies for their ancestors. It is very interesting to watch.  

After we rested at the top, it was time to walk back down. The steps were easier to go down but you had to focus on not falling! But we made it!!!  

We did it!!! So proud of us!!! 

We took our time going back down the mountain. I got to practice my Vietnamese with the driver, telling him to stop so that we could take pictures. It was so pretty!!! 

Pretty view! 

The fountain outside a small cafe.  

Town at the bottom of the mountain. 

I love flowers. And the ones here are just so pretty!!! 

National Holiday Kick Off!

So it's a national holiday here in China! We are off work for seven days (Oct.1-7th)! It is so awesome to have 7 days off of work to enjoy China life. I don't have plans to see any Beijing tourist attractions because everyone around China come to Beijing for the holiday. So I am just going around and hanging out with friends here in Beijing.

Tuesday was like our Friday night so the foreign teachers at school went out! We decided to order some food from a local restaurant and pick up some drinks and hang out at the apartment. We order lamb. OH MY GOODNESS it was delicious and super cheap compared to Western prices! I have to say this was probably the best meal I have had in China. Everyone back home keeps asking me about the food and I keep saying it is ok but it's not my favorite. Well, I might have found my favorite! And it is also expensive for China standards! LOL. It was so good. Did I say that? Well I need to say it again.... IT WAS DELICIOUS!

Our AWESOME group of foreign teachers starting the holiday off right!

On Wednesday it was rainy here so I stayed in and watched movies. We went out for a little bit just to get out of the apartment but it was nice to have a lazy day. :) I also got some laundry done! Laundry is still the chore I loath even here in China because it is the one thing that is never done. You are always wearing clothes so there will never be a time that laundry is all done! UGGHH It's the chore that never ends, it goes on and on my friends. People started washing clothes not knowing it wouldn't end, but they continued washing clothes forever...just because it's the chore that never ends.

Thursday (today) we went to the infamous Silk Street Market. This is considered one of the 7 wonders of the modern world. I was definitely expecting something different than what I saw. I was thinking it was going to be an outside market because it is where the Silk Road was and that was were people would bring their merchandise to sell, it was like the black market of the old days. But nope, its like a mall with tons of small shops. It's kind of hard to go shopping here because you can't look around at the different things without the Chinese people trying to get you to buy it before you have had a chance to look at the product. It's crazy! The salespeople stand at the entrance to the small shop and yell at you while you are walking by. I can't tell you how many time I heard "hey pretty girls", "hey girl", "beautiful girls come look at this", "girls buy a shirt for your boyfriend". I wonder if they have to practice these phrases before they can work at the shop. We also had people asking us if we wanted to buy a suit. All of us were girls! Crazy, but definitely something you have to experience!

The infamous Silk Street Market, not at all what I expected!

Spent the day shopping with these lovely ladies!

Then we went to SanLiTun, a popular expat area. We looked at another market there to see if they had any clothes but they were kind of expensive so we decided we would go to the Zoo Market sometime during the holiday. We also stopped in the Apple store. I really wanted to see the new iPhone 6 plus (OMG its huge!) and we looked at the iPads. It was crazy packed and we didn't make it past the first table. Good thing the first table was the iPads.

Before we headed home we went to a local market to buy some fruits and meat. It was really cool to see the different sellers set up with their produce and groceries and meats. I am also very glad that I don't have to go places like this to buy meat in the states. I am pretty sure I would become a vegetarian very fast if I had to look at meat like that every time I wanted to buy it. I ended up buying some Nutella (because it is very hard to find here in China, surprise surprise) and some granola bars! Yup I can still eat Western food here in China, it's just a little more expensive but totally worth it!

This is how you buy meat at the market in China. Ummm, no thanks! LOL

Well there are still 5 more days to enjoy in the holiday! I bought Rosetta Stone Mandarin Chinese for 60RMB (about $10) so I plan to start that and then I bought some movies for 10RMB (about $1.60) so I will have stuff to do at home when I am not out hanging with friends! Happy National Holiday!

Busy Busy China Girl

These past two weeks have been so busy! I started my home tutoring, my roommate's friend from Germany came to town, we went sightseeing, and of course I have been working :). Lots of things going on and it's all amazing!

I started my home tutoring last Wednesday (July 30th). It was awesome! The family lets me join them for dinner. It is so amazing to have the opportunity to eat Chinese home cooking. It's always delicious. During dinner they try to communicate with me in English, usually asking me questions like "What is this?" "How do you say this?". Sometimes they speak Chinese and I just smile because I have no idea what they are saying. LOL. But they are super nice! The little boy I am tutoring is really sweet and a lot of fun! The mother gave me his English books from school to use for lessons and then I have just been building from there. The mom wants me to be strict with him but I like being fun and he speaks English with me, which is the point. I guess I might have to start being more structured during some of the lesson :). But all in all I am really enjoying it and the family is super nice. It is also a plus that they come and pick me up and drop me off! The only thing I wonder about is when I am going to get paid.

The little boy I am tutoring teaching me how to play Chinese chess. You can see people playing this game everywhere in China!

Last Friday my roommate's friend from Germany came to Beijing. So that night, after home tutoring, we went out. I thought we were going to go to out at like 9pm but no we left our apartment at 12:30am (technically it was Saturday morning, but it still counted as Friday night in my mind). We went to the club, Caribe, in downtown Beijing. We got there around 1am and it was packed! We danced a little bit, well I danced a little they danced a lot. Then I sat in one of the booths and just absorbed the atmosphere. It was crazy but there were a lot of foreigners so it was nice to hear English being spoken in public. By 4am I was ready to go home. Smoking is the thing to do in China because they do it everywhere including inside. So the loud music (which I love) combined with smoke gave me a headache and I was just ready to go. So we left the club and walked to Starbucks. We were going to grab something to eat then head home. Unfortunately at 4:30am Starbucks is out of everything except for coffee. Which really isn't surprising but it sucked! I was going to order a shaken lemon tea but they were our of lemon. How to you go out of lemon at Starbucks?  Oh well. So we headed home empty handed and got home around 5am. That's right this small town girl stayed out at the club until 5am. I will probably never do it again but it was definitely a fun experience. 

The club, Caribe, where we danced the night away. LOL.

On Saturday we all stayed in to recuperate from that morning's events. LOL. Saturdays are still really hard for me. I look forward to them all week but when they get here I am just homesick and wish I was back in the States with my family and friends. So that Saturday was no different.  I spent the day watching netflix because if I go into my room and be by myself I just cry and I didn't feel like crying. So everyone else took a nap and I watched movies. I successfully made it through without crying! That was my goal!

Sunday was my second time singing on the worship team at church! There was a guest worship leader and she did great! I really had so much fun singing and worshiping with them. And I didn't feel as nervous. I was still a little nervous but I think I enjoyed it more. I don't really know if I sounded good. I was still getting over a cough so I am pretty sure my voice cracked a couple of times. But all that matters to me is that I had a good time!

After church on Sunday we went to the Great Wall!!! Oh my gosh it was amazing! We almost changed our plans because our driver was late and it looked like it was going to rain. But our driver said we could make it so we decided to go and it would be an adventure :). It took us about an hour to make the hour and a half trip to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. Our driver drove like a maniac (well based on American standards), but a normal Chinese driver here in China! It started raining on our drive there but once we got there it stopped and the sun came out! It was magnificent!!! There was barely anybody there so it wasn't crowded. It was like we had it ourselves! I had so much fun and I can't wait to go back when we have more time to explore. 

The entry way to walk on the Great Wall.

I made it! I was on the Great Wall!!! (You can be jealous!!!) :)

Still amazing! The Great Wall.... one of the 7 Wonders of the World!

My travel buddy, Kristoff Karrots, even enjoyed the Great Wall! (you can expect more pictures of him!)

There are so many photo opportunities on the Great Wall.

Next we went to Olympic Park. We decided to stop by on our way home and I am so glad that we did! It was amazing!!! I saw the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube. They are so pretty at night! All the lights are spectacular. My roommate's friend wanted to get dressed in traditional Chinese clothes for a picture (it only cost 30RMB which is less than $5) and they let him wear the outfit around Olympic Park. We didn't make it very far because he was swarmed by people wanting a picture with him. It was crazy!!! People were even wanting our pictures. And then some people passed by taking pictures. It was crazy but so hilarious and fun!!! After we left Olympic Park we headed home because my roommate and I had to teach the next morning!

The Water Cube. This is where Michael Phelps won all those Gold Medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The Bird's Nest. It truly is an amazing sight!

Agassi dressed in a traditional Chinese outfit. Everyone wanted to take our pictures! LOL. Lots of Fun!!!

On Tuesday I came home from work and we went to Tiananmen Square. We went to see the gardens and we tried to find the Forbidden City but had no luck. But where we went was amazing and the scenery was gorgeous. I don't really know the names of all the things we saw I just know that they are pretty :). I think we are planning on going back sometime so I will try to learn more. At 7pm the lights on Tiananmen Square come on. It's truly amazing! I don't have words to describe it, it's just amazing and is definitely a sight to see. Again it was another opportunity for random people to take our pictures LOL. All in all it has been a great week of sight seeing, the only thing that sucked was having to go to work the next morning!

The first picture of our adventure to Tiananmen Square.

Kristoff really liked Tiananmen Square!

All the lights on Tiananmen Square. Doesn't it look amazing!!!

Just one of the cool building we saw inside Tiananmen Square.

Work this week has been a little different. I had to catch an earlier bus because the younger kids were on holiday and the bus I usually ride in the morning picks up the little kids. So I was getting to work at 8:15am rather than 9:10am. I got to spend some more time with the kids and I have really enjoyed that. I love these kids and they are slowing leaving to go back to their international schools. I'm going to miss them, but I'm excited about the new kids I will have in class. 

This week I tried to come up with some fun activities to do with the kids in my class while we were reading The Little Red Hen. So I found some worksheets and put them on a USB so I could take it to school to print them out. When I got there I asked my "boss" if I could use the computer to print off some worksheets for a lesson and he said no, tell the other teacher and she can do it. I just blew it off but it kind of upset me. Like why can't I print off some worksheets to teach the kids? Isn't that what you are paying me for? Anyways I gave the USB to the other teacher and she printed one of the worksheets I had, I guess that is better than none. But it still irked me that I couldn't print my own damn worksheets. 

I talked to my recruiter the other day. I finally got an address to get packages sent!!! Yay! I can't wait to start getting things from home!!! I also told him about the school not allowing me to use the printer. He said the school isn't used to having a foreign teacher that actually does their job. He told me that they really are just looking for someone who shows up and interacts with the kids. It's great that I am getting paid to be around kids because I love it but I have a degree in education and there is so much more I could be doing. My recruiter is going Monday to talk to them about my contract (praying everything goes smoothly) and he said that it might take a couple more months for the school to trust me more so that I can use the computer and printer (and other materials). Basically they want to know that I am going to stay, which I plan on doing. So I will just leave it in God's hands because he truly has been orchestrating a great adventure for me here in Beijing :).