so! hengxian! im going to try and condense the last week into one post, or else i'll spend the rest of my stay here writing blogs. so i shall give things headings, because i like headings, and i like things to be organised. if you have adverse effects when reading heading, i suggest you leave. now.
our first morning:
we awoke on the first morning in hengxian to the pitter patter of about 700 feet right outside our room. turns out the basketball courts is the site of the compulsory morning exercise routine. i managed to sleep through the majority of it though. it was hard, but i battled on and slept in till the indecent hour of 9.30, whence i was awoken by the musical strains of an avril lavigne song... they're obsessed with her here, her posters are everywhere, the students all love her, its crazy!
our first outing:
on our first day here lily took us for a walk out in the town to show us where the supermarket is. was a very interesting experience. let me just say i have never been stared at so much in my life! people would stop what they were doing to watch us walk past. people on motorbikes would turn their head to stare as they drove by, its crazy! and they all smile and wave, and some say hello, its great. little kids and old poeple seem to get the biggest kick out of it. however we didnt realise how odd it is for them to see a western until...
mobbed by students:
we came back from our first solo walk around the town, and one of the students, a lovely boy named danny, came up to us and started talking to us. so far the students had kept their distance, content with simply waving and saying hello. danny, it appears, was simply confident enough with his english skills to approach us. so we were chatting to him on the basketball courts when another boy, lung, came up and asked us if we would like to stand in the shade, as "the sun is bad for you" (everyone here is worried the sun will ruin our lovely pale skin...). as soon as we were in the shade and talking to danny and lung, WHAM! we were sorrounded by about 20 students, it was insane! they were all saying hello and trying to introduce themselves. we started talking about their exams (they have uni entrance exams in june) and why we were here, and they were all shocked to find out we were only 18. the only students at the school at the moment are senior 3 (yr 12) students, and they're all between the ages of 18 and 20. the most bizzare and amusing part of this conversation was that one of the students told carina we were the first foreigners she had ever seen. and she's 18!! and she's not the only one. a senior 2 student (yr 11), told carina the same thing at dinner the other day. so im sure you can imagine the reactions we get from the students.
dinner at lily's:
on our second night in hengxian, our link teacher lily showed up and invited us around to her apartment to meet her family. turns out today is another celebration of the spring festival that only happens in the country, so lily had lots of family over. they were all very friendly but didnt speak much english. then lily brings out something that looks like a stick of bamboo, and asks us if we would like some. turns out its sugar cane, so lily suts a huge piece each. so prizes for guessing what it tastes like. it wasn't too bad, bit weird though. she tried to offload some onto us, but we hastily declined. turns out that the farmers were having trouble selling sugar cane because the cold weather made it go hard in the middle. so the government orded all government workers, including teachers, to buy 100 sticks of sugar cane! even students had to buy some!!! twas communism in action my friends! then she tells us its dinner time and tries to make us eat more food, even though we had told her we'd already eaten. in the end we just ate anyway. she made some lovely tofu, and was extremely flattered when i told her how good it was. it was a throughly enjoyable evening, but i think i had enough food to last me unitl next week. but of course, as we were leaving, lily gave us some apples and oranges... all anyone ever does around here is feed us!!
observing classes:
we spent some time this week watching english classes, just to familiarise oursleves with the battle field. the first classes we watched was lily's senior 3's. you should have seen the reception! as we were walking past the classes rooms students were waving and yelling hello, and we got to lily's classroom everyone cheered, it was hilarious!!! the students kept inviting us to next to them but we opted to sit up the back out of harms way. they had a double english lesson and in the break lily went to find another class for us to watch, leaving us to the mercy of her students. as soon as she left they ran to the back of the class and bombarded us with questions and whatnot. one of the students told carina that lung, the boy we spoke to the other day, was going around telling everyone he thought she was beautiful!! then lung asked her how much money she had?! was very amusing.
all the students seem to be well behaved, bit mechanical though. shall be interesting to see how they respond to the games i have planned for them!
hengxian:
hengxian. it's actually a rather rural town. if i knew the population i would tell you. its 115km from the provincial capital nanning, and anything outside nanning if pretty much rural. its a very cute little town,not much traffic, but those who do drive dont seem to know. i keep going to cross the road only to be honked at by someone because i've looked right instead of left. must get used to that little peculiarity. carina believes our school is in the "bronx" part of town. the other part of town is "fifth avenue". the only difference is that the few nice shops in hengxian are in the smae area, and it's a bit cleaner round there. we went for a walk near the school the other day which was fun. carina freaked out at the sight of two dog carcasses hanging in the window. we also found a pet store that sells the cutest little turtles. they ranged from about 4 cm long to 9 cm long. if they didnt carry selamonella i would buy one. those three wheeled motor taxis that i will one day get a photo of si#o you understand what im talking about, only cost 2 yuan maximum to get anywhere in town, thats how midget sized we are!
the school:
the school is rather large. there are 2678 students here, virtually all of which board. they sleep in dormatories of twelve, some of which dontnhave windows, just metal bars... their beds are wooden slats which they cover with a woven reed mat and a thin quilt. sure as hell makes me appreciate my apartment!! were on the ground floor of a seven storey apartment building, which is one of the tallest in the school. there are six basketball courts, an oval with a running track around the outside, and two volleyball/badminton courts. they school is extremely clean and extremely green. southern gunagxi is subtropical, so there are plants and trees everywhere. the classrooms are nice, heated by some magical system that i couldnt see, and small but not cramped.
food:
we're given free meals in the school canteen, and lily kindly explained to the staff that we are vegetarians. she's told half the school it would seem; whilst waiting for bowls yesterday one boy told us that after lily told them we were vegetarian he started eating vegetables and stopped eating meat!!! it was only a temporary change of heart however.
for students, breakfast is at 6.15, but lily arranged it so we can go and get it when ever we want and just heat it up in the apartment. each day we get two steamed buns each - one with some kind of sweet seasame paste, and the other plain (which we've been smothering with jam we found in nanning!!) they also give us two hard boiled egss and some horrible tasting millk which we've been trying to explain we dont want, without any success.
lunch is begins at 11.20am (!!!!) and dinner at 5.35pm (!!!), however we've been told that we can go 10 minutes earlier to avoid the rush. and boy is there a rush!!! first you have to line up to get your bowl and spoon. next you have to line up to get rice. they give you HEAPS of rice, and thankfully carina and i got across that we dont need that much. next you go to a seperate line for the rest of the food. and boy do they give you food. all of this takes about 15 minutes. im yet to finish a single meal ive had at that canteen. i think thats just me though, carina cant seem to get enough food. its pretty bland stuff though, and the rice is a bit dry. theres not much variety, but we dont mind because its freeeee!!
everyones shocked that we keep eating there, even lily! she's worried we dont like it, but its not that bad. some of the students have offerd to show us the restraunts in hengxian, but im not sure if they will have much vegetarian food, and anyway, they're not free!
being vegetarin in china isnt that hard, its the explaining it to people thats difficult, especially in restraunts. we had lunch with our other link teacher the other day and she said people dont understand why were vegetarian, because in china they put meat in everything! other then that no one seems to have a problem with it!
classes:
we found out the other day that our classes are voluntary, and were teaching out of a text book, which we thought would be disasterous, but has turned out ok. the text book is pretty good, and it takes the stress out of lesson planning. we've also been given the ok to teach some of our own stuff which is nice.
we got our timetables yesterday, which is all good news! we teach 6 classes each, but we have them twice a week (means double the lesson plans though =[ ). carina is teaching all senior 1 classes (yr 10's) and im teaching all senior 2 classes. and because the classes are voluntary theyre tiny by chinese standards. our largest class is 31, and our smallest 27. and, just to make things brilliant, i odnt start teaching untill 4.05pm everyday!!! gives carina and i plenty of time to cycle around hengxian on the bikes were yet to get. i start teaching on monday and i have written up my first lesson plan, all by myself! its all about australia, and about me learning students names.
giving someone a name:
alot of consideration goes into naming someone. you have to make sure the name you give them is interesting, reflects their chracter, and is a bit unique. it has to be a name they can be proud of, but is still respeactable. something that is cool now, but will be equally awesome next week. there is a lot of pressure on the namer.
alot of our students have approached us with requests for english names. they see it as a bit of a status symbol. and fortunatly thye understand that it is easier for carina and i to pronounce and remember, although we have been trying hard with their chinese names. so when lung, the boy who questioned carina about the state of he finances in what iwas sure was some kind of marrige proposal, asked us to give him an eglisg name, we thought long and hard about it for 20 seconds and called him liam. what a lovely name! i hear you cry. why thanks you, carina and i thought so ourselves, which is why we chose it. since that day of triumph, two young girls have also requested english names. we named one shy yet charming girl penny, and a friendly and good natured girl kim (it suites her perfectly, i dont know why though). which is a vast improvement upon the english name her friends were calling her - table! turns out her name sounds like the chinese word for table. i was speaking to a senior 3 student last night who i had met before, and i told her i had unfortunatly forgotten her name, and could she please teach it to me again. with much patience and good humor, she taught me her name, and then told me she would think of an english name for herself, as it would be easier for me to remember, and she was sick of her friends calling her ice cream (never fully understood why they did that). about twenty minutes later she asked me what i thought of the name 'sunny', and i told her it was perfect. it suites her good nature and happy disposition perfectly. now all i ahve to worry about is that the students will become better at it then me and i'll be out of a job!
well thats all for now folks, as more intersting things happen i'll forget to tell you about them.
hope your all having a wonderful time with out me, i dont see hwo you could though.
love from claire.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
from beijing to hengxian (not very inventive, but it'll get better).
sooo, where are we up too... ahh yes, the 4 am make up call! how terribly delightful!
got up and realied i wasnt as packed as i thought, so had a mad rush to get everything in pack and down stairs by 4.30. lost one of my padlocks, which ended up being at the bottom of my pack, but it meant that most of my clothes in the bottom pocket of my bag were vulnerable for the entire trip =[
got given a "breakfast box" on the bus. mine contained a pastry like edible, which was quite nice, but contained a solid slab of something green that looked like seaweed flavoured jelly. i avoided that bit. said good bye to everyone at the airport, except for four gappers who were flying later. checked in without any problems, except that my bag had magically gained weight even though i didnt buy anything in beijing.
just to show you how good chinese airport security is: i took a pocket knife onto the plane in my hand luggage =D accidently of course. they scanned my bag yet didnt notice it was in there, and i had completely forgotton about it.
flight was ok, slept for most of it though. the woman infront of us put her seat back just after take off, told us to shut up, and went to sleep. this of course made us giggle for a good 5 minutes, all the while eliciting evil glares from the man next to her, who we assumed was some sort of male relation and not just an angry passanger.
arrived in nanning at about 11am found our luggage with out any troubled (thankfully my unprotected clothes had not been violated), and were met by our link teacher betty and the school driver. they had a very cute sign with our names on it. caitlin and lauren were met by their link teacher, shadow, who started stroking their arms and saying "ohhhhh, so beautiful!". our link teacher has studied in canada, so we didnt get that kind of reception. on the way out she asked us if we would like to go out for lunch and we declined, but realised that gap may not have informed them of our vegetarianism (carina is also vegetarian). we had assumed they wouldd have, but it occured to us on the plane that they may have left that responsibility up to us... it appears this was the case. fortunatly she was shocked but not mortified as we had expected. on the way to hengxian (pronounced hung-she-en), we pulled over; turns out betty decided we needed food anyway. we were a bit apprehensive as to how she would take the whole vegetarian thing - turns out she understood perfectly! the food was nice, but the drinks... chinese people dont drink alot of water, especially not at meal times; they always drink tea. however we were lucky enough to experience the wonders oooofff...... corn juice! yes corn juice. it is really just pureed corn. warm purred corn. its actually not that bad. but i would never drink it again. ever. its weird.
we arrived at our school and were shown to our ground floor apartment. tis very big, but terribly cold. its all tiles, and a bit drafty, but im sure it'll be great in summer. we have seperate bedrooms, a lounge/computor room, a laundry, something you could call a kitchen if you wanted to, and a bathroom with a western toilet. we also have a squat toilet, but thats acting as a drain for the washign machine. we've called it 'the wooden palace', because everything is made of wood. everything. all the furniture is wood, the COUCHES are wood, and i swear on my life that the matresses have wood in them some where. we've called the bathroom 'the swamp', because there is no seperate shower cubicle, so the water just goes straight onto the floor and down a drain. but the drain is a bit dodgy, so it floods a bit first, hence the name. everything is brand new, because they've never had gapper before so thats nice.
that night betty and lily took us out for dinner to meet all the other english teachers. we rode to the restraunt in a vehicle that is very hard to describe. its a kind of three wheeled motorbike thing, with an area at the back to sit in, but not like a rickshaw. i shall get a photo of one so you can see. the dinner was nice except they kept trying to feed us an eggplant dish that had chicken in it. we just kept ignoring it. and they gave us more corn juice...
the 21st was the lantern festival, the last day of the spring/new year festival, so children were letting off crackers and fire works. we told our link teachers that in australia you need a permit to let of fire works and whatnot, and they were very shocked. they offered to take us to buy some after dinner, an offer we hastily excepted. we bought 60Y of fireworks and crackers, and took them back to the school to let of on the oval. they were spectacular! one of them started shooting balls of fire or something along the ground, a spectacle we were not prepared for, and one of them hit carina in the leg, twas hilarious! some of the smaller ones were these amazing showers of sparks, and one of them was like fireworks we get at home; huge colourful explosions in the sky.
one of them was a dud, so lily went and returned it, so we have a spare one to let off next celebration.
that night all we heard was the sound of fireworks. it was a very exciting welcome to our new home.
got up and realied i wasnt as packed as i thought, so had a mad rush to get everything in pack and down stairs by 4.30. lost one of my padlocks, which ended up being at the bottom of my pack, but it meant that most of my clothes in the bottom pocket of my bag were vulnerable for the entire trip =[
got given a "breakfast box" on the bus. mine contained a pastry like edible, which was quite nice, but contained a solid slab of something green that looked like seaweed flavoured jelly. i avoided that bit. said good bye to everyone at the airport, except for four gappers who were flying later. checked in without any problems, except that my bag had magically gained weight even though i didnt buy anything in beijing.
just to show you how good chinese airport security is: i took a pocket knife onto the plane in my hand luggage =D accidently of course. they scanned my bag yet didnt notice it was in there, and i had completely forgotton about it.
flight was ok, slept for most of it though. the woman infront of us put her seat back just after take off, told us to shut up, and went to sleep. this of course made us giggle for a good 5 minutes, all the while eliciting evil glares from the man next to her, who we assumed was some sort of male relation and not just an angry passanger.
arrived in nanning at about 11am found our luggage with out any troubled (thankfully my unprotected clothes had not been violated), and were met by our link teacher betty and the school driver. they had a very cute sign with our names on it. caitlin and lauren were met by their link teacher, shadow, who started stroking their arms and saying "ohhhhh, so beautiful!". our link teacher has studied in canada, so we didnt get that kind of reception. on the way out she asked us if we would like to go out for lunch and we declined, but realised that gap may not have informed them of our vegetarianism (carina is also vegetarian). we had assumed they wouldd have, but it occured to us on the plane that they may have left that responsibility up to us... it appears this was the case. fortunatly she was shocked but not mortified as we had expected. on the way to hengxian (pronounced hung-she-en), we pulled over; turns out betty decided we needed food anyway. we were a bit apprehensive as to how she would take the whole vegetarian thing - turns out she understood perfectly! the food was nice, but the drinks... chinese people dont drink alot of water, especially not at meal times; they always drink tea. however we were lucky enough to experience the wonders oooofff...... corn juice! yes corn juice. it is really just pureed corn. warm purred corn. its actually not that bad. but i would never drink it again. ever. its weird.
we arrived at our school and were shown to our ground floor apartment. tis very big, but terribly cold. its all tiles, and a bit drafty, but im sure it'll be great in summer. we have seperate bedrooms, a lounge/computor room, a laundry, something you could call a kitchen if you wanted to, and a bathroom with a western toilet. we also have a squat toilet, but thats acting as a drain for the washign machine. we've called it 'the wooden palace', because everything is made of wood. everything. all the furniture is wood, the COUCHES are wood, and i swear on my life that the matresses have wood in them some where. we've called the bathroom 'the swamp', because there is no seperate shower cubicle, so the water just goes straight onto the floor and down a drain. but the drain is a bit dodgy, so it floods a bit first, hence the name. everything is brand new, because they've never had gapper before so thats nice.
that night betty and lily took us out for dinner to meet all the other english teachers. we rode to the restraunt in a vehicle that is very hard to describe. its a kind of three wheeled motorbike thing, with an area at the back to sit in, but not like a rickshaw. i shall get a photo of one so you can see. the dinner was nice except they kept trying to feed us an eggplant dish that had chicken in it. we just kept ignoring it. and they gave us more corn juice...
the 21st was the lantern festival, the last day of the spring/new year festival, so children were letting off crackers and fire works. we told our link teachers that in australia you need a permit to let of fire works and whatnot, and they were very shocked. they offered to take us to buy some after dinner, an offer we hastily excepted. we bought 60Y of fireworks and crackers, and took them back to the school to let of on the oval. they were spectacular! one of them started shooting balls of fire or something along the ground, a spectacle we were not prepared for, and one of them hit carina in the leg, twas hilarious! some of the smaller ones were these amazing showers of sparks, and one of them was like fireworks we get at home; huge colourful explosions in the sky.
one of them was a dud, so lily went and returned it, so we have a spare one to let off next celebration.
that night all we heard was the sound of fireworks. it was a very exciting welcome to our new home.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
More from Beijing
hello my friends!
hope all is well where ever you are, i can assure you that im fine. as i said before, i can't access this blog site, therefore i cant read what ive written, so i apologise in advance if i repeat myself.
so, beijing. a very intersting city. not as dirty as i expected. less smog. i didnt have any trouble breathing, the air tasted/smelt fine. although this probably has alot to do with the up coming olympics. which china is obsessed with. there are ads and count down boards, and baloons, and merchendise, EVERY WHERE. im already sick of the olympics. SICK OF THEM I SAY!
so, onto my next two days in bejing.
DAY 2:
we had a breifing at the "cultural and education section" of the british embassy. soooooo boring and pointless. is was stuff we had heared A MILLION times before, about respecting chinese culture and customs, not putting yourself in danger, and what services our embassy offers (not THOSE kinds of services you dirty minded people! although if it was about those kinds of services the morning maight have been more interesting.) the only good thing to come out of this session was the free pencil that you dont need to sharpen. dont need to sharpen! how brilliant! you just change over this little nib thing, and wow. anyway, moving on from my childish distractions.
after this boring waste of time (yes, i know its important that i listen to these things, BUT I ALREADY KNOW THEM! and if other gappers didn't they're deaf and deserve to be mugged), we went for luch, which was a much more pleasent experience. we did something rather smart, and got all the vegetarians on the one table (something we did for the rest of our meals in beijing), and got tom the tour guide to order soe extra vegetarian food for us. it was very nice, but sooo filling,a dnthey just keep bringing food, food, and more food! we were never able to finish a meal, we felt so wasteful. the meal was rather uneventful, except that one of the gappers on another table kept asking what each dish was, and it turns out that one of the dishes was toad (not suprising as they had live toads hopping around in a tank to one side of the restraunt). the most amusing thing about this was that it seemed to be the most popular dish, and when i told everyone what it was they (mostly ditzy girls) freaked out and were utterly repulsed. so i, wonderful i, used this oppurtunity to falunt my moral superiority by laughing at all the meat-eating fools who cant stomach their habits.
after lunch we went to tiananmen square which is huge, but not quite as huge as i expected. it was covered in people though. so many people. sooooo many people. they were everywhere. we didn't stay very long, and didn't get to see mao's body, *tear*, but we did get a nice group photo infront of the entrace to the forbidden city. onto the city of forbiddenness. quite amazing. its absolutly flippin' huge (that was for you diana). amazing architechture, as we all know. everything was so colourful and intricate and amazing. and you cant go inside any of the buildings though, and you cant see much of the inside, so it becamse a bit repetative though. still a wonderful experience though. we went to look at the gardens, which were a bit plain though because it's winter, but still lots to see. they have these weird trees that grow with lots of twists and turns. one of them it supported by these big metal frames and straps, and we decided it looks like a distressed mental patient. there was also this huge rock formation one of the emporers orded to be carried from somewhere; its very big and full of little nooks and crannies, and therefor the ideal climing rock. which has obviously been observed by others, because there was a sign saying "a single act of carelessness leads to an eternal loss of beauty". tre prophetic.
the forbidden city was interesting becuase it was our first experience of being a speactacle. people would point and wave and smile and take photos with us, it was great. one leady literally draged her son over to say hello to us and have his photo taken with us. chinese children are so cute, the wear the craziest clothes and hairstyles and are so adorable!one small child was staring at caitlin and i so we said "no hao" to her, and her mother told the child to say hello back, but she was too shy. instead of leaving it as most western mothers would, she refused to leave untill the child said ni hao to us in the sweetest little voice, we felt so loved.
it wasnt only small children who were amused by us. a middle aged man said hello to caitlin in english (she gets alot of attention becuase she has noticably blue eyes and blonde, curly hair), and she responded with ni hao, which he thought was absolutly hilarious, and so pointed, laughed and said something in chiese, it was an absolute riot!
that night we went to see and acrobatics show, which tom the tour guide told us we "certainly wouldnt fall asleep in!". it was absolutly amazing. men doing these amzing flips and balancing acts, women bending themselves in ways you would never think possible with out the breaking of bones. one act was a group of men jumping through quite small wooded hoops. which doesnt sound too hard, but you should see it. at one stage the top hoop was atleast 8-9ft tall, and these men were doing the craziest flips and jumps through, with a simple run up to launch themselves, it was insane!!!! one of the most hilarious part of the evening was when a large group of chinese people walked past us in the lobby, and two of the women at opposite end of the group were having a massive, extremely vocal argument about something, which resulted in one throwing her water bottle at the other, is was so bizzare, but so throughly amusing, i loved it!
after the show we went to a restraunt, which was pretty much the same as all the others, without any amusing toad stories. when we got back to the apartment we decided to go find and internet cafe. we ran into one of the others gappers, tom, who had thought ahead and got the hotel staff to write down the chinese chracters for internet cafe. we tried showing it to a few poeple, but they gave very compicated directions, and we never managed to find an internet cafe. in the end we stopped some man who was running past us and he seemed very excited and asked us to follow him. it may not have been the safest thing to do, but he was rather weedy, and we were in a group large enough to be considered a mob, so we felt safe. anyway, he led us down a dark alleyway, and we started to susupect he was going to take us to his house or something, but alas, good ol' il capitano (he gave us his buisness card and his english name was captain =P) led us to an internet cafe!!!! but the fun didnt stop there. there was a sign written in perfect english that said it cost 4 yuan an hour, but for some reason the women kept trying to charge us 10... so the whole group (about 10 of us) were pointing at the sign saying "si!" the chinese word for four, and she eventually got the message, but it was all very weeeeiird...
after that we went back to the hotel and i found a note in my room from my gap partner carian, who hadn't joined us on our adventure, saying she was two rooms down. so i joined her and had a wonderful evening staying up until 2.30am talking to a whole group of lovely gap people!
now, DAY 3:
go a wake up call at the late hour of 7am, breakfasted, and departed for a wonderful morning of rickshaw races around the hutong area of china. its very old and has traditional houses with the cetral courtyard. we visited one and the owner told us that the rooms were available for rent for students and backpackers (lauren, i do believe we should look into this...), and delighted in telling us that only a few weeks before that a newly married couple had spent their wedding night in one of the rooms. there were three caged brids in the courtyard and there was one big fat black one that looked like pure evil. it kept flufifng its feathers up and staring at it, it had the wierdest eyes, it was hilarious! it looked like it was on speed.
afterwards we went on a tour of the area in rickshaws; its a great way to see the city. we went past beautiful old buildings and bridges, and old men smoking pipes, it was so quaint! the rickshaw drivers were racing one another and at one stage our driver hung onto the back of another rickshaw and stopped peddling! lazy lazy man!
next we visited the summer palace, its huge, and by huge, i mean absolutly freaking massive!!!!! most of it is taken up by this giant lake, and as it is winter in beijing, it was frozen, it looked amazing! the buildings were really similar to those in the forbidden city, and the long corridor was beautiful. we were pressed for time so we didnt get to see all of it, but what we did see was fascinating. with so many people there its hard to imgaine what it would have been like when the dowager empress livid there. next stop was lunch, which, as usual, was uneventful, except i did have my first experience of a squat toilet, which isnt as bad as everyone says it is; it just like going to the toilet when camping except that someone has already dug the hole for you and you DEFINATLY DONT flush toilet paper =D
next was the great wall; an exhilirating experience! it was 600m to the highest point in the area, and i only made it half way! go me and my half-arsed effort. its really hard though, becuase the wall its self is quite steep, and each step is very steep, and very worn in places. it was a nice view, bit bare because its winter, and unclear because of the smog, but still quite nice. coming down the wall requires less effort, but is far more difficult, and requires alot more skill and balance. one of the gappers matt thought it would be amusing to HOP down the great wall - mata, one of the nz gappers had her phone really to film his failure, but alas, he made it =P i found the best way to do it is at a slow jog with a steady rythem.
that night we went back to the internet cafe, and nearly three quarters of the group joined us; the lady at the desk look horrified, eh eh eh eh eh!
nothing more happened - we went and had an early night as we were getting a 4 am wake up call =D to catch our 7:30am flight.
so this is where i leave you my friends, next time will be all about hengxian....
saty safe, dont do drugs, i know i wont =D
love from claire. =D
xo.
hope all is well where ever you are, i can assure you that im fine. as i said before, i can't access this blog site, therefore i cant read what ive written, so i apologise in advance if i repeat myself.
so, beijing. a very intersting city. not as dirty as i expected. less smog. i didnt have any trouble breathing, the air tasted/smelt fine. although this probably has alot to do with the up coming olympics. which china is obsessed with. there are ads and count down boards, and baloons, and merchendise, EVERY WHERE. im already sick of the olympics. SICK OF THEM I SAY!
so, onto my next two days in bejing.
DAY 2:
we had a breifing at the "cultural and education section" of the british embassy. soooooo boring and pointless. is was stuff we had heared A MILLION times before, about respecting chinese culture and customs, not putting yourself in danger, and what services our embassy offers (not THOSE kinds of services you dirty minded people! although if it was about those kinds of services the morning maight have been more interesting.) the only good thing to come out of this session was the free pencil that you dont need to sharpen. dont need to sharpen! how brilliant! you just change over this little nib thing, and wow. anyway, moving on from my childish distractions.
after this boring waste of time (yes, i know its important that i listen to these things, BUT I ALREADY KNOW THEM! and if other gappers didn't they're deaf and deserve to be mugged), we went for luch, which was a much more pleasent experience. we did something rather smart, and got all the vegetarians on the one table (something we did for the rest of our meals in beijing), and got tom the tour guide to order soe extra vegetarian food for us. it was very nice, but sooo filling,a dnthey just keep bringing food, food, and more food! we were never able to finish a meal, we felt so wasteful. the meal was rather uneventful, except that one of the gappers on another table kept asking what each dish was, and it turns out that one of the dishes was toad (not suprising as they had live toads hopping around in a tank to one side of the restraunt). the most amusing thing about this was that it seemed to be the most popular dish, and when i told everyone what it was they (mostly ditzy girls) freaked out and were utterly repulsed. so i, wonderful i, used this oppurtunity to falunt my moral superiority by laughing at all the meat-eating fools who cant stomach their habits.
after lunch we went to tiananmen square which is huge, but not quite as huge as i expected. it was covered in people though. so many people. sooooo many people. they were everywhere. we didn't stay very long, and didn't get to see mao's body, *tear*, but we did get a nice group photo infront of the entrace to the forbidden city. onto the city of forbiddenness. quite amazing. its absolutly flippin' huge (that was for you diana). amazing architechture, as we all know. everything was so colourful and intricate and amazing. and you cant go inside any of the buildings though, and you cant see much of the inside, so it becamse a bit repetative though. still a wonderful experience though. we went to look at the gardens, which were a bit plain though because it's winter, but still lots to see. they have these weird trees that grow with lots of twists and turns. one of them it supported by these big metal frames and straps, and we decided it looks like a distressed mental patient. there was also this huge rock formation one of the emporers orded to be carried from somewhere; its very big and full of little nooks and crannies, and therefor the ideal climing rock. which has obviously been observed by others, because there was a sign saying "a single act of carelessness leads to an eternal loss of beauty". tre prophetic.
the forbidden city was interesting becuase it was our first experience of being a speactacle. people would point and wave and smile and take photos with us, it was great. one leady literally draged her son over to say hello to us and have his photo taken with us. chinese children are so cute, the wear the craziest clothes and hairstyles and are so adorable!one small child was staring at caitlin and i so we said "no hao" to her, and her mother told the child to say hello back, but she was too shy. instead of leaving it as most western mothers would, she refused to leave untill the child said ni hao to us in the sweetest little voice, we felt so loved.
it wasnt only small children who were amused by us. a middle aged man said hello to caitlin in english (she gets alot of attention becuase she has noticably blue eyes and blonde, curly hair), and she responded with ni hao, which he thought was absolutly hilarious, and so pointed, laughed and said something in chiese, it was an absolute riot!
that night we went to see and acrobatics show, which tom the tour guide told us we "certainly wouldnt fall asleep in!". it was absolutly amazing. men doing these amzing flips and balancing acts, women bending themselves in ways you would never think possible with out the breaking of bones. one act was a group of men jumping through quite small wooded hoops. which doesnt sound too hard, but you should see it. at one stage the top hoop was atleast 8-9ft tall, and these men were doing the craziest flips and jumps through, with a simple run up to launch themselves, it was insane!!!! one of the most hilarious part of the evening was when a large group of chinese people walked past us in the lobby, and two of the women at opposite end of the group were having a massive, extremely vocal argument about something, which resulted in one throwing her water bottle at the other, is was so bizzare, but so throughly amusing, i loved it!
after the show we went to a restraunt, which was pretty much the same as all the others, without any amusing toad stories. when we got back to the apartment we decided to go find and internet cafe. we ran into one of the others gappers, tom, who had thought ahead and got the hotel staff to write down the chinese chracters for internet cafe. we tried showing it to a few poeple, but they gave very compicated directions, and we never managed to find an internet cafe. in the end we stopped some man who was running past us and he seemed very excited and asked us to follow him. it may not have been the safest thing to do, but he was rather weedy, and we were in a group large enough to be considered a mob, so we felt safe. anyway, he led us down a dark alleyway, and we started to susupect he was going to take us to his house or something, but alas, good ol' il capitano (he gave us his buisness card and his english name was captain =P) led us to an internet cafe!!!! but the fun didnt stop there. there was a sign written in perfect english that said it cost 4 yuan an hour, but for some reason the women kept trying to charge us 10... so the whole group (about 10 of us) were pointing at the sign saying "si!" the chinese word for four, and she eventually got the message, but it was all very weeeeiird...
after that we went back to the hotel and i found a note in my room from my gap partner carian, who hadn't joined us on our adventure, saying she was two rooms down. so i joined her and had a wonderful evening staying up until 2.30am talking to a whole group of lovely gap people!
now, DAY 3:
go a wake up call at the late hour of 7am, breakfasted, and departed for a wonderful morning of rickshaw races around the hutong area of china. its very old and has traditional houses with the cetral courtyard. we visited one and the owner told us that the rooms were available for rent for students and backpackers (lauren, i do believe we should look into this...), and delighted in telling us that only a few weeks before that a newly married couple had spent their wedding night in one of the rooms. there were three caged brids in the courtyard and there was one big fat black one that looked like pure evil. it kept flufifng its feathers up and staring at it, it had the wierdest eyes, it was hilarious! it looked like it was on speed.
afterwards we went on a tour of the area in rickshaws; its a great way to see the city. we went past beautiful old buildings and bridges, and old men smoking pipes, it was so quaint! the rickshaw drivers were racing one another and at one stage our driver hung onto the back of another rickshaw and stopped peddling! lazy lazy man!
next we visited the summer palace, its huge, and by huge, i mean absolutly freaking massive!!!!! most of it is taken up by this giant lake, and as it is winter in beijing, it was frozen, it looked amazing! the buildings were really similar to those in the forbidden city, and the long corridor was beautiful. we were pressed for time so we didnt get to see all of it, but what we did see was fascinating. with so many people there its hard to imgaine what it would have been like when the dowager empress livid there. next stop was lunch, which, as usual, was uneventful, except i did have my first experience of a squat toilet, which isnt as bad as everyone says it is; it just like going to the toilet when camping except that someone has already dug the hole for you and you DEFINATLY DONT flush toilet paper =D
next was the great wall; an exhilirating experience! it was 600m to the highest point in the area, and i only made it half way! go me and my half-arsed effort. its really hard though, becuase the wall its self is quite steep, and each step is very steep, and very worn in places. it was a nice view, bit bare because its winter, and unclear because of the smog, but still quite nice. coming down the wall requires less effort, but is far more difficult, and requires alot more skill and balance. one of the gappers matt thought it would be amusing to HOP down the great wall - mata, one of the nz gappers had her phone really to film his failure, but alas, he made it =P i found the best way to do it is at a slow jog with a steady rythem.
that night we went back to the internet cafe, and nearly three quarters of the group joined us; the lady at the desk look horrified, eh eh eh eh eh!
nothing more happened - we went and had an early night as we were getting a 4 am wake up call =D to catch our 7:30am flight.
so this is where i leave you my friends, next time will be all about hengxian....
saty safe, dont do drugs, i know i wont =D
love from claire. =D
xo.
Friday, February 22, 2008
ni hao to you all my friends!
sorry about the late post, it appears chinese internet does not allow one access to my blog site =[
not to worry, my darling sister is posting my rants for me, so now you shall never miss out on my wonderous adventures! [Which I promise that I will in no way alter, censor or embelish - Lauren]
so let us start from the beginning (i hear its a very good place to start):
i caught my flight from melbourne at 5pm, after a lovely farewell from family and friends (pork, im yet to use your gift....). No problem, all smooth sialing to Singapore, except for a migrain i had untill i got to the hotel in Beijing, and then on to beijing! customs and whatnot were fine, and nothing of much interest had happend at this time. arrived at about 7.30 am on the 18th to -7 degrees celcius. fun times all round. it actually wasnt as cold as i expected; i didnt even need my hat or gloves. my scarf was a life saver though as my face was fair freezing.
we were given untill 5pm to do as we pleased, as the uk gappers werent arriving untill later and our tour guide, a lovely man named Dong Wei (english name was tom), thought we would like the time to rest and whatnot. i shared my room with my wonderful gap partner carina, and we spent a few hours wandering around beijing with caitlin (one of the other gappers form our province) and a few other gap kiddies.
beijing is a very intersting city, but its also freaking huge, and many of the attractions are far apart. we didnt go too far from our hotel because we were afraid if getting lost, so we didnt see all that much. what we did see, and something that is a very common occurance around beijing, is these free outdoor fitness centers which basically look like adult play ground. they have weight machines, ski machines, and massagers?!?!?!?!?!? and theyre made of the same materials and colours as kids playgrounds! and people really do spit on the streets, but not as frequently as we were made to think.
our next experience of beijing was attempting to buy lunch. an absolute disaster. tom told us the name of a good restraunt and we asked the hotel staff where it was and to write down the name in chinese chracters so we could ask people if we got lost. their instructions were very clear butb when we followed them we found no retraunt, just shops. we asked a few people for directions and showed them the name if the restraunt but the didnt seem to understad. in the end we jsut went to a restraunt that looked popular. were still not sure if it was the right place or not. then we attempted to order. and failed. fourtunatly one of the gappers, christina, new a little bit of chinese from school, so were were eventually able to order some food. but as for explaining vegetarian...
i tried to use the phrase book, but im 100% sure i was pronouncing it wrong, and even when we showed them the word and they appeared to understand it, the first the they pointed to on the menu was shrimp...
we eventually got through to them and ordered some potatoe dish which was described as sliced potatoe. it lied. it was basically shredded potatoe in oil with a small amount of carrot and something green. and it was cold. and possibly raw.
and then there was the issue of some bizzare bowl of liquid they gave us. we werent sure if it was to be drunk, or used as part of some kind of cleansing ritual, or what. it looked like water, but slightly more yellow, and with oil in it. in the end we decided to ignore it. the four meat eaters on our table ordered three kinds of dumplings and got two types of dumplings and one cold meet dish that had some kind of browish jelly in the middle, which was apprently quite nice.
after lunch we went back to the hotel for a bit. the hotel was quite nice. it was clean and modern and had a western toilet. but dont be fooled into thinking the absence of a sqaut toilet also ment the absence of any problem, oooohhhh no! you see, in china people dont flush toilet paper. theyre sewarge system cant handle. and i forgot. which resulted in a highly awkward situation involving the house keepers, and chardes, an electronic dictionary and a plumber. needless to say i learnt my lesson there....
that afternoon the english gappers arrived and we met the other gapper in our province, caitlins partner, lauren. shes very nice, and has such an amusing accent that started to rub off on caitlin =P
that night tom took the entire group out for dinner at a nearby restraunt and we finally got some decent vegetarian food. there is four vegetarians out of the group of 44, 3 of us are aussies and one is a brit. there was some wierd stuff on the table though, the worst being the preserved egg... its egg that, as we found out from another gapper whos family is chinese, is preserved in a lye solution which turns it black. BLACK. BLACK!!!!!!!!!! it seriously looks like rotten egg. and it smells and tastes horrible. not that i tried any, i wanted to live long enough to at least get to my placment. everyone was trying it whole, but we found out later you're supposed to eat it like blue cheese a very small amount on bread or a biscuit. tre odd.
after dinner a group of us went to the super market to buy bottled water, as the stuff in the hotel was very expensive. it was such an amusing adventure! everything was crazy!! there was coffee flavoured gum, and mango flavoured chips and dried roast veggies, and all sorts of odd things! and dove chocolate, thats big over here.
anywho, that was my first day of adventures, shall keep updating this thing through loztron over the next few days, hope your all well, and, as tom advised us, dont run away with beautifu chinses boys!
thats all folks!
love claire xo.
not to worry, my darling sister is posting my rants for me, so now you shall never miss out on my wonderous adventures! [Which I promise that I will in no way alter, censor or embelish - Lauren]
so let us start from the beginning (i hear its a very good place to start):
i caught my flight from melbourne at 5pm, after a lovely farewell from family and friends (pork, im yet to use your gift....). No problem, all smooth sialing to Singapore, except for a migrain i had untill i got to the hotel in Beijing, and then on to beijing! customs and whatnot were fine, and nothing of much interest had happend at this time. arrived at about 7.30 am on the 18th to -7 degrees celcius. fun times all round. it actually wasnt as cold as i expected; i didnt even need my hat or gloves. my scarf was a life saver though as my face was fair freezing.
we were given untill 5pm to do as we pleased, as the uk gappers werent arriving untill later and our tour guide, a lovely man named Dong Wei (english name was tom), thought we would like the time to rest and whatnot. i shared my room with my wonderful gap partner carina, and we spent a few hours wandering around beijing with caitlin (one of the other gappers form our province) and a few other gap kiddies.
beijing is a very intersting city, but its also freaking huge, and many of the attractions are far apart. we didnt go too far from our hotel because we were afraid if getting lost, so we didnt see all that much. what we did see, and something that is a very common occurance around beijing, is these free outdoor fitness centers which basically look like adult play ground. they have weight machines, ski machines, and massagers?!?!?!?!?!? and theyre made of the same materials and colours as kids playgrounds! and people really do spit on the streets, but not as frequently as we were made to think.
our next experience of beijing was attempting to buy lunch. an absolute disaster. tom told us the name of a good restraunt and we asked the hotel staff where it was and to write down the name in chinese chracters so we could ask people if we got lost. their instructions were very clear butb when we followed them we found no retraunt, just shops. we asked a few people for directions and showed them the name if the restraunt but the didnt seem to understad. in the end we jsut went to a restraunt that looked popular. were still not sure if it was the right place or not. then we attempted to order. and failed. fourtunatly one of the gappers, christina, new a little bit of chinese from school, so were were eventually able to order some food. but as for explaining vegetarian...
i tried to use the phrase book, but im 100% sure i was pronouncing it wrong, and even when we showed them the word and they appeared to understand it, the first the they pointed to on the menu was shrimp...
we eventually got through to them and ordered some potatoe dish which was described as sliced potatoe. it lied. it was basically shredded potatoe in oil with a small amount of carrot and something green. and it was cold. and possibly raw.
and then there was the issue of some bizzare bowl of liquid they gave us. we werent sure if it was to be drunk, or used as part of some kind of cleansing ritual, or what. it looked like water, but slightly more yellow, and with oil in it. in the end we decided to ignore it. the four meat eaters on our table ordered three kinds of dumplings and got two types of dumplings and one cold meet dish that had some kind of browish jelly in the middle, which was apprently quite nice.
after lunch we went back to the hotel for a bit. the hotel was quite nice. it was clean and modern and had a western toilet. but dont be fooled into thinking the absence of a sqaut toilet also ment the absence of any problem, oooohhhh no! you see, in china people dont flush toilet paper. theyre sewarge system cant handle. and i forgot. which resulted in a highly awkward situation involving the house keepers, and chardes, an electronic dictionary and a plumber. needless to say i learnt my lesson there....
that afternoon the english gappers arrived and we met the other gapper in our province, caitlins partner, lauren. shes very nice, and has such an amusing accent that started to rub off on caitlin =P
that night tom took the entire group out for dinner at a nearby restraunt and we finally got some decent vegetarian food. there is four vegetarians out of the group of 44, 3 of us are aussies and one is a brit. there was some wierd stuff on the table though, the worst being the preserved egg... its egg that, as we found out from another gapper whos family is chinese, is preserved in a lye solution which turns it black. BLACK. BLACK!!!!!!!!!! it seriously looks like rotten egg. and it smells and tastes horrible. not that i tried any, i wanted to live long enough to at least get to my placment. everyone was trying it whole, but we found out later you're supposed to eat it like blue cheese a very small amount on bread or a biscuit. tre odd.
after dinner a group of us went to the super market to buy bottled water, as the stuff in the hotel was very expensive. it was such an amusing adventure! everything was crazy!! there was coffee flavoured gum, and mango flavoured chips and dried roast veggies, and all sorts of odd things! and dove chocolate, thats big over here.
anywho, that was my first day of adventures, shall keep updating this thing through loztron over the next few days, hope your all well, and, as tom advised us, dont run away with beautifu chinses boys!
thats all folks!
love claire xo.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
ni hao!
hello!
this is my blog. pretty ja?
please read to learn of my amazing adventures at the hengxian senior middle school, in the southern chinese province of guangxi.
but excuse my attrocious spelling.
=D
xo.
this is my blog. pretty ja?
please read to learn of my amazing adventures at the hengxian senior middle school, in the southern chinese province of guangxi.
but excuse my attrocious spelling.
=D
xo.
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