Slight change of plans...

I've decided to spend only one day at Huangshan (Mountain) and the second day at the Huangshan grottoes and Huangshan Stone Forest. They look really amazingly cool. The grottoes are these man-made caves that no one can figure out who built them or why.
You can read about them here, here, and here.
They're close to my hotel and the entrance fee is half of that of Huangshan (Mountain). I'm looking forward to riding on a bamboo raft down the river. I may even go horseback riding if I feel like it.

I've come down with a rather nasty cold since Nanchang, so I decided we would watch a movie in my Secretary class today. We watched Stardust, which they really seemed to enjoy. I'm going to ask them to write a short story or something to accompany the movie when we finish it on Friday.
After class Jennifer and I went downtown so I could buy a backpack for my trip. We found one on walking street, and I found another cute Le Sportsac that would be a good size for my clothes when I visit Nanchang. I also found a hairstraightener which was only 25rmb, so we'll see how long it lasts. I left my sunglasses in Nanchang at Nathan's apartment, and I know I'll need some for the mountain so I bought some Louis Vuittons for $1. They make me look super fly.

I finally finished Eat Pray Love. It's really brilliant and I highly recommend it. It is, in a lot of ways, the reason I'm really excited to take this trip alone next week. I'm lending it to Pearl (one of Nathan's fellow teachers), so hopefully she'll enjoy it too. Perhaps I'll even do a little meditating on Huangshan (Mtn.).

I've got to make my Lesson 4 power point for tomorrow. I also need to get Hamlin to buy my train or bus ticket to Huangshan for me. Excited!

P.S. I have Washington state and Texas postcards, but I need some from other states and countries to show my kids. Please?!

Weekend in Nanchang

Hello! I am home safe and sound after my trip to see Nathan in Nanchang.
I took my first train trip by myself and Nathan picked me up from the train station. The next day we ate Sichuan food with one of Nathan's fellow teachers then we went into town to have a look around. It was boiling hot there, so I bought a skirt to wear instead of my jeans. We walked around for awhile but it was truly too hot to enjoy it, so we headed back to the campus to get ready for the evening.
Nikoli, Nathan, Simon, and I went downtown for some dinner. It was pretty good but the service was terrible, most likely because they were understaffed and incredibly busy. Post dinner we walked around and tried to decide which club to spend our evening in. We ended up in Babyface where we danced, sang, drank, socialized, and spoke Chinese. A good time was had by all. Nathan and I ended up crashing on Nikoli's couches because Nathan's electricity was out and it was too unbearably hot to sleep in his apartment.
This morning I was still feeling awful from the Chinese food we had eaten the day before and the boys were incredibly hungover. We had brunch at a baozi and noodle place before heading back to Nathan's apartment so I could pack up. We bused into town then I took a train back to Jiujiang.

Next week we have a holiday (seven days off!) so I've decided to go to Huangshan. Nathan is going with a friend of his, Liz, to Shennongjia, but they are leaving on Friday so I can not go (I have to work on Saturday and Sunday). Huangshan is a few hours away by bus or train in Anhui province. It's a world heritage site and there are monkeys as well as hot springs.
You can find the official website here.
I'm going to stay in a hostel that's next to the train station and bus into the park which should only cost about 13rmb. I plan on spending at least one whole day, most likely Monday, hiking up one of the many paths. I would really like to see sunrise there, so I'm going to have to rent a private bus one day, since the regular bus doesn't leave quite that early.
I'm staying in this hostel for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday night. It's pretty cheap and I get a private room. Since it's the busy season, I'm betting there are going to be a ton of foreigners there, so it will be pretty neat to meet up with some other westerners, plus, this is a great opportunity to practice my Chinese.
I know some of you are going into blind panic right now about me traveling by myself. You all know, of course, that I'm an adult and can take care of myself. If I have any issues with language I have more than one friend who speaks English and Chinese. This is too great of an opportunity to pass up. I promise I'll be safe and take every precaution necessary.
I'm so excited!

P.S. Check out the wikitravel for Huangshan here.

Penelope

Today was relatively uneventful, once again. I know I taught two classes today, but this morning is a blur, so it's a good thing I collected their papers so I know it even happened.

My 2:30pm class was pretty great though. I had already had them earlier this week, but due to the new schedule, I had them again. Since I didn't want them to get ahead of the rest of the classes, I decided we were going to watch a movie instead. I picked Penelope, and they loved it! They wouldn't even let me pause it so they could go on their ten minute break.
I had them write up a short paragraph about 'Who was your favorite character? Why?', and I figured I would post a few of their answers up here.
So, here goes:

'My favorite character is the main actor of the movie. I don't know how to spell his name maybe it's 'Jonhny' or 'Johnny'? I'm sorry. But I really like him very much. Because he is so handsome and so man! My feeling of him is very special. He is a gentleman, though he has no money. I like him also because he makes the actress Penny feel like so happy. They're really happiness. He's a good man.'

'I think Pene is my favorite person in the movie. In my opinion, she can face her reality. She knows want her want and what to do. At least, she is smart and brave. When she have a trouble, she can't give up. At that time, she is work hard to explore true love. At last, she defeat her psychology obstacle acquire freedom. In that situation, she stick to study and enrich her knowledge. The spirit is worth us to study.'

'From the movie, I like Penny's character best. Although she had a pig's face, she never gave up the hope of living. Her childhood was still happy, she had lots of toys. And what's more, she changed Jony's life. Jony didn't go to gamble. And he found a job what he liked to do. Finally, Penny wasn't a pig's face, she and Jony lived a happy and enjoyable life.'

'I like Johny. Before he is a blackship and he gambled all the day. Quickly, he lost his family's pocesses. He is handsome and honest. When he saw Penne, everything changed. Many people saw Penne were all run away, except him. He destroyed the photo. Maybe he fell in love with her, he begged the other two people give it up. As a matter of fact, he wanted to help her, but he didn't meet her situation. He felt sad. Then he changed a lot for her. They love each other. At last, they live together!'

In short, go see Penelope, it's the bees knees.


Only one other thing of any somewhat importance happened today... air raid sirens went off for about five minutes. Now, anyone who has lived on the UNT campus would be used to this, but the light in the elevator was also out adding to the confusion of the moment. Frightening! However, one dark elevator ride complete with air raid sirens to the eleventh floor later, I am home and ready for some dinner.
Is it the six-month anniversary of the earthquake?

Lucky me!

Today I received not one, not two, but THREE care packages and a nice card! I am such a lucky girl.
I am now stocked on cereal, mac n cheese, and various other goodies thanks to Liz, Mom, Grandma, and Jenna. THANKS!!!!

Today wasn't particularly special. I taught only one class but I was so wiped when I got back that I crashed out on the couch chair. A text message from Hamlin woke me up and he dropped off my packages and card. He invited us foreign teachers to dinner, mostly so Mr. Chao (head honcho) could meet Cary the Canadian. It was good times and pretty darn good food. Cary showed us a new liquor store after dinner where you can get some western and Korean goodies.

Oh! When I woke up this afternoon, there was some kind of something going on in the courtyard with a ton of students. There was ballroom dancing, roller bladers, and hip-hop dancers. Pretty awesome.

Tomorrow I have two classes to teach. One of them I already had this week, but since they have changed the schedule, I have them again. We're going to watch a movie. The other class is only on Lesson 2 and I need to get them caught up to the other classes. Friday is my yucky day with classes from 8am-4pm. I'm sure it will be fine though, I'm starting to get the swing of this.

Relaxation time, then bed.



P.S. For all those who don't know how to leave a comment on the blog-a-log:
Just write your comment in the little box on the right hand side of the screen. Make sure to sign your name. Then click the little bubble next to 'Anonymous'. After that just hit 'Publish Your Comment'. Simple as that. :)

Well, I'm lazy

Nathan was here this past weekend so I haven't updated in quite some time.
Class must have gone fine on Friday, because I don't remember any of it. I do remember the loooooooong wait until Nathan got here at around 10pm that evening. I think I mainly just cleaned the apartment and took a nap though.

We went to bed relatively early Friday night, but instead of being nice and letting me sleep in, Nathan made me get up at around 10am Saturday. I was not happy. We spent the day exploring Jiujiang on foot and taking the 'long way' to McDonalds. After McDonalds we explored the city some more, even got to see the Yangzi. I would have to say the highlight of the day was playing basketball at some underground arcade we found. A true work out... and I kicked Nathan's bootay.

Saturday evening Jennifer joined us for an evening at the DXD Club. Nathan soon made friends with the manager who was a nice guy. I even had a chance to practice my Chinese with the random people that joined us for drinks in our booth. At one point the manager had his 'cousin/sister/friend' come over to our booth to join us. She immediately found Nathan rather intriguing and was "all over him" (i.e. she had her hand on his knee, from what I saw) while I headed off to the bathroom. We found out later she was a prostitute from Anhui Province. Pretty amusing.

In Jiujiang the night life usually begins around 8pm and ends at 12am. We stuck with that theory and bailed around midnight.


I was not feeling stellar the next day so Nathan and I opted to stay in and watch movies. I would defintely recommend Speed Racer, Shoot Em Up, and Happy Together.

On Monday was more of the same. It was a holiday here so we stayed in for the most part watching more movies. I love Penelope and In Brugues, brilliant movies. We bought Nathan some school supplies, but I've just noticed that they're sitting on my coffee table. So much for that.

Nathan left today and I had class. Class went just fine apart from the tv episodes I showed the class not having subtitles. Shame. They also gave us new schedules this week. My Thursday and Fridays are awful, completely stacked with classes. The rest of the week is looking okay though. I've already had one of those classes for the week, but after reading their dialogues it looks like we have a few things to discuss. It's rather sad when they don't know the difference between when to use 'is' and when to use 'are'. Sigh.

Not sure what this weekend holds. I was going to head to Lushan with the school, but they want to leave Friday at 6pm and return Sunday. I have told them I will not be attending, mostly because I know that I would come back absolutely exhausted. I think I'll try to get a ticket to Nanchang to see Nathan.

Right, I'm wiped. Sorry this isn't the most stellar of blogs. I promise I'll be more detailed next time.

Will update this evening.
I am alive, just been busy with Nathan.

Thursday

Today went a lot better than the last time I met with BE3. For one, the bad kids decided not to show up for class. Hey, no sweat off my back, they get zeros for the day. For another, I was way more organized this time. We watched Apprentice, then did a lesson on hotels. They wrote up some dialogues which I had them turn in. All in all, a successful class.

Jennifer and I went downtown again after we finished teaching. We got some great fleece blankets which will be a commodity here in the winter when we have no heaters. We also saw another bai ren (white person), but he didn't come talk to us, and I feel pretty guilty for not saying 'hi'. He looked like a nice guy, so I hope we run into him again so I can make up for it. Every time we go to McD's we seem to see foreigners.

My apartment is relatively done being finished. I'm still debating painting the walls, but for now, it looks pretty good. Certainly a lot more homely than when I first moved in. I took pictures which you can find here .

Nathan is probably coming to visit this weekend. We haven't had much of a chance to talk because I've been so tired and stressed from school.

Three day weekend, three day weekend, three day weekend!