August 31 2013

My computer is still on Utah time, which is pretty funny. So I add 14 hours and that’s the time I’ve got here. Minus an hour, and that’s what my family is at. It’s confusing on occasion, yes- but I technically have two cell phones right now so it’s two against one.

Anyways, we arrived in Guiyang two days ago.

It’s awesome and beautiful and green. We’re definitely in a nice part of town, and it actually kind of makes me think of the Otay Ranch Mall back home to be honest.

But let’s back up-

Everyone was out of the hotel by six in the morning- most took a bus to the train station, a few only had to ride the bus all the way over- and our school, a very nice private school, paid to fly us out there. It took about three hours and gave us the best airport meal I’ve had yet. At least, the roll was incredible. I didn’t eat the yogurt, but Katie said it rocked and ate mine as well, so I’m assuming it was pretty tasty!

Anyways, we talked a lot on the way, all four of us, some of us dozed a bit, and they played a Nicholas Cage movie which was partially entertaining. After all, the sound was off, and the videos up above [I had to crane my neck the whole time] kept closing and coming back down. Definitely random and odd!

And we arrived! The airport had the nicest squatter toilets I’ve seen yet, very nice things. After that we went to baggage, where we found our luggage quicker than ever [maybe no one else had any?], and headed out where we found our new liason, Nicole, and the school driver, an older and very nice man whose name I never caught.

She brought us out as the sprinkle finished up, and we were coated in the humidity we’re going to live in for the next four months. After living in San Diego, it’s not too different to adjust to, thank goodness. We piled into the van and started talking with Nicole- she’s 25, has a boyfriend back home, is one of the Chinese English teachers at our school, and very sweet!

 

First she took us over to the school to see it a little- pretty darn big with about four floors on most buildings surrounding a nice courtyard arena [yay lots of stairs], and then we headed up some steps to eat lunch. We crossed by the kids’ cafeteria and so they kept checking us out, the new foreigners. Right next door is the teachers’ kitchen room where we had the leftovers since we’d arrived late. But it was good!

There was an egg dish- I’m really liking the egg dishes here, and I don’t know why since I refuse to eat eggs at home- along with a spicy chicken drumstick, and a delicious roll. There was also this grainy soup thing with egg or mango- something of that orange-yellow coloring. Not too bad, but there wasn’t a lot of flavoring so I didn’t really eat it.

After that, we checked out our new places. Which got a bit confusing-

Most Chinese couples don’t exactly live together often, and usually have their own rooms. So they offered a two bedroom place to them, and then Katie and I were to get our own places in another building. The latter rooms were tiny, but a bit nicer plus one had wifi. However when we crossed over, I didn’t exactly like the idea of having an apartment to myself in a foreign country, you know? I saw it immediately: it would be like my nights in Florida all over again, being left on my own and just hiding in my room with movies most nights.

Abby liked the smaller ones though, and offered to trade us, and after a short while we decided on the exchange. They’d take the one on the 16^th floor, which was the nicest one, and we’d take the two bedroom one. The van had left us, however, so we had to walk back to our new place with our luggage, while Greg and Abby came back for theirs to take back to their new place. Confusing, I know. And it wasn’t too fun walking in the streets trying to cart up my 50 lb suitcase.

We showered off, changed, and then headed over to our first meeting at the school. We met the other Chinese English teachers, met the Boss Man, and were told the grades we’ll be teaching! Katie has 1-2, I have 3-5, Abby teaches 8 and Greg teaches 6-7. Then we split off to talk with the teachers of the same grades. A little confusing, but we were sorting it out all right- the three ladies, Journey, Yoyo and Krystal are very sweet and funny, and hopefully we’ll become good friends! They showed us the books we’ll be using- I have two of them, Katie has one. Then we exchanged emails since we don’t have QQ yet,a nd they promised to email us more info.

QQ is kind of like their Facebook. They use it more than anything, and everyone gets their number to become friends or whatever on there. We get internet use tomorrow, and hopefully we can make our accounts then! It’ll really help us stay in contact with everyone here much better.

After the meeting ended, we had dinner at the school. Delicious again- and this time we were first, yay! They had delicious fried rice, some other chicken dishes, spicy potato wedges and seaweed something soup. The potato wedges and something else were pretty spicy, and we still didn’t have water which was a bit of an issue! They’d given us some sweet milk juice boxes before but not this tiem, unfortunately. I ended up grabbing some of the watery soup to help my thirst, but it didn’t do enough, so I didn’t get to finish up my “fries.” It was really depressing, I assure you. But Katie and I did prevail and survive. We hung out with our new friend Magi and Nicole who led us to a little supermarket on our street.

It’s very useful, I can tell you that. We had a tricky time translating a few things like bleach to Magi to find there, but eventually we found just about everything we needed. Like water- we really, really needed water then. While we waited for Abby and Greg and Nicole to finish up, the three of us sat on a bench outside and showed Magi pictures of our time here so far.

After that, we stopped to get our phones that China Horizons gave to us, get the plans figured out and all. Mine took a while because it wouldn’t read the used SIM card for a while, but eventually we got it- and it still had some money left over on it, yay! We fixed up the plan and called it good. Tired and full of groceries, we said goodbye to the lovely ladies and got into our place.

Which was super freaking dusty, by the way. A good bit dirty. We wore flipflops in the shower, it was that bad. Luckily we had bought cleaning supplies and we came with some Lysol wipes that we used to start cleaning. We did our bedrooms [her room has a side of all windows which is gorgeous- well a prettier version of mine since my bed is against the wall. She also has a bigger closet where we put all the shirts and skirts, but she also has a hole in her wall, and my light doesn’t work which is a bit tricky at times. Oh and they did give us a bottom sheet, pillow cover with a pillow, and a comforter with a comfort cover- the last two don’t really fit so it’s super flumpy but I’m not complaining, haha], the bathroom which definitely took a while, we did laundry, wiped down our wooden floors, and eventually called it quits like four hours later. We were exhausted!

That didn’t stop me from getting up early yesterday- we were given Friday off to rest, and I had just enough energy to keep cleaning. I did the kitchen basics, and wiped down the couch and wiped down more of the floor while Katie rested and read ‘The Book Thief.’ We eventually got ready for the day and stopped by the school to use their wifi and check our emails.

Afterwards we returned to the supermarket… for a lot of snacks and goodies. What? We weren’t feeling real meals at the moment so we grabbed a ton of snacks and some random drinks to try. It was pretty entertaining- we had like sweet potato thick chips, ice cream wafers, hard moon pie thingies, baked potato foam hollow fries, and more. Funky, right?

Back at our place, we finished up the kitchen and took out the trash [which had definitely needed doing], before chilling out to read for the day. We watched a movie, read some more, ate some more snacks, organized things for the kids, read some more, and ended the day with ‘A Shot In The Dark,’ a Pink Panther sequel. To be honest, I started dozing during that so it was definitely time to go to bed.

 

And now it’s today! We showered, ate some weird twirly twinkie like things, tried this weird flavored milk, and we’re writing now. We’ll probably watch a movie, since we’re not doing anything until we go get lunch with Abby and Greg about noon- apparently they found a place with fried noodles which Katie has still been craving since our first day here- and after that, the school is taking us with the other English teachers to a banquet and a show. They spoil us already, it’s kind of embarrassing and as for me, it’s starting to get stressful so we’re the best teachers ever, you know?

Oh and Monday, there’s an Opening Assembly. At first they wanted us to sing and dance but at the moment so far, they said just speak some Chinese and introduce ourselves. We’ll see how that goes as well!

 

PS.

After the Great Wall, I totally forgot to mention the Jade Factory we went to. Sorry, it was called the Superior Jade Factory, I believe. That was pretty cool and hey, it had really good air conditioning so I won’t complain. All of us sweaty young adults wandered in through the gift shop and off to the short tour. We got to see some experts at work carving, and then we were brought to another room as an expert explained a few pieces and then how to tell the difference- they get a special little utensil and knock it against the bracelet. If it rings, it’s real. Some fakes sound close, though!

My favorite part that she explained was the Happiness Ball. It’s carved from a ball, of course, of jade- white or green- and then they carve in holes, and then separate it from three layers. So it’s like a ball inside of a ball inside of another ball. But there’s no way you can take them out of course. It’s pretty awesome! I’m hoping to bring a few cheap ones home.

Anyways- they usually carve a dragon and phoenix on those. Those are for the opposites and equals. They symbolize the father and the mother in perfect unity. Strength and life for the family- and it’s like they’re protecting their children inside of the ball, you know? The way it was explained made it very beautiful, the unity of the family. And as long as they are together taking care of their family, they can be happy.

After that, we were let lose to wander around. There was a freaking huge ship piece that was done in jade, surrounded by other artifacts so people couldn’t really touch it or anything. It was about 15 feet long, and at least 12 feet tall, I think. Not sure how much I’m exaggerating but not by much, I promise. It was very impressive!

But yeah, we wandered around and then called it good before wandering through the gift shop and boarding the bus again.

 

CONTINUED

Okay!

So we met up with Greg and Abby for lunch finally. Our first experience really trying to order beef noodles on our own. Which tasted great, by the way, ignoring the fact that people don’t use gloves or anything like that in most places. I’m not feeling sick, so that’s a good sign, right? Anyways, it took us a while but we figured it out, and ate our slightly spicy meal [okay, I’m a wimp- but Katie handled it beautifully as usual, so obviously it can’t have been too spicy or anything].

Then we got ice cream, because that’s always a necessity. It was cloudy, but that doesn’t matter. So we walked around and they talked about their past adventures- finding random gardens, exploring their building, and discovering new places and information around our street.

 Many nights, people will crowd out and make these large sand boxes but we think it’s more like flax seed than actual sand. They also do lots of dancing, which we’re excited to try and sort out.

By the way, Katie found some ladies performing Tai Chi early this morning, and we watched them from our room for a decent while, so we’re hoping to go out and soon join them! It’ll take a while to make sense of it, but I love that form of meditation and I think we’ll enjoy it.

We ended up stopping by our place to see if there was anything exciting on the roof- there wasn’t, it was kind of lame. Then we came to our room to talk for a minute, show them the tour books that were left in our apartment, and then we headed over to their place to see their scale [apparently I’ve lost about 6 lbs] and random gardens below.

After that, it was time to meet Magi and Nicole! Okay, so Nicole had texted us saying we can wear whatever we want, and we would be hiking Qian Ling Mountain- and then to dinner and shopping and a show after. It took us forever to decide what to wear, finally wearing jeans [rolling them up at first because it was a little warm], and nice tops. And sturdy shoes. Nicole shows up in flats and a lovely flowing skirt! Absolutely beautiful and definitely put us to shame- and leaving us a little confused since we were told we were hiking!

 

Anyways, we took two different taxis, Katie and I with Nicole. We got to the Mountain first because the other car had to turn back for a few things. We looked around the cute little shops, took a few pictures, and even talked a minute with a girl who knew a little English- her father was pushing her to us which was a little weird, but she was sweet and spoke pretty well.

So we eventually stepped inside to the park- and after that it was just beautiful. A lush, green Asian forest- imagine one, and there you have it. Right out of a folk tale, a fairy tale, a dream. I really don’t think we took enough pictures of its beauty- which can’t really justify the perfection either, so basically you can’t really know how pretty was until you literally go there for yourself, okay?

We loved it. We found more old stairs which of course Katie needed lots of pictures of, and after that came the wild monkeys! They were everywhere. The tiny ones were cute, the larger ones a bit intimidating. It scared Nicole enough that she pulled her water bottle out of her bag to give it to them- another tugged on a lady’s coat who took it off and was basically willing to leave it there [luckily she had a guy friend there who, the moment the monkey let go and turned away, grabbed it, and they left]. I mean, wild monkeys just wandering around obviously in their home and then we’re the tall intruders- it’s kind of weird and yet very fascinating.

We saw a bit of their zoo as well- deer, elk, parrots, vultures and two white tigers covered most of it. But you really don’t want to be there if you care about animal rights- unless that’s where you want to start, which is perfect but I don’t know how well you’ll be able to convince the Chinese to change their ways.

After the zoo, we eventually came upon the temple there. You could smell it before  you saw it, from the burning incense. It smelled amazing, by the way, we loved it. You’re not allowed to take pictures inside, unfortunately, because it is still a place of worship. On the way, though, people tied short red ribbons as wishes to the trees, and there were more inside- you could buy them, along with the incense. We wandered around to the different Buddha figures and statues before finally heading out.

Oh, we came upon some British ESL teachers, teaching at the Uni here. They’d been here about a week or so and were just checking things out. It was fun talking to them for a minute, but unfortunately we didn’t talk very long or make very good friends for the future or anything, which might have been some fun.

Still, we were having a grand time- except for on the stairs, which were tricky for me. Katie had the job of keeping me upright all the way down, and paying attention as Magi taught us some words in Chinese. The word for stairs sounds a bit like the gilloutine, the word for tree sounds like shoe, and other cool beans like so.

We came down wandered around a little more, and eventually had to head out. It took us a while, but we eventually caught a bus- a double decker and YES we went to ride on the top! And eventually we found our dinner place. Super nice hidden between some buildings down an alley. Sounds suspicious, but it really was a nice place.

Our first hot pot! Super funky, but it was good. Too many beans though. And for those that know me, I gag on them. But I got served them in my bowl [you put your food in your bowl usually, and then pick out what you don’t like and leave it on the plate], so I managed to swallow a few down with rice and meat. I don’t think I can do it again, though, just saying.

Katie also tricked Abby and I into eating part of this… sort of hard boiled egg… but it looked rotten, like green-black. Definitely looked gross, basically. Katie had the tiniest sliver, said it was interesting, and told us to try it- and gave us pieces three times the size of hers.

Avacado, jelly, and hard-boiled egg: three things it tasted like and three textures I cannot stand. Abby nearly puked- literally, she gagged and choked for a good minute- and I may or may not have made a face or two. Katie bust out laughing and no, I refuse to forgive her on the matter. Hopefully I can trick her into eating fish at one point on this trip- it’s basically the only goal I have here.

But otherwise, the food was pretty food. There was some tasty flavored rice, and our dessert was mini sweet potatoes draped in some kind of sauce? Very odd, but kind of sweet. I managed to eat two since they’re half the size of my thumb, but I don’t think I could have eaten another.

So, dinner was quite the experience, and we finally headed off in our final taxi ride off to the show [no more time for shopping], which was INCREDIBLE. First we met the head honcho and second in command outside the theatre. Unfortunately they don’t speak English and we don’t exactly speak Chinese [much], so we couldn’t really talk to them, which kind of sucked.

They had some of the dressed up dancers there that you could take pictures of/with, which I thought was sort of weird but kinda cool. We all had a picture taken, and then we had this older Chinese man run into the picture with us, which was pretty funny. Then his wife needed a turn, of course, and after that we headed to our seats.

Very nice seats, by the way- Nicole said the tickets were decently pricy, about 200 RMB I think? I know, and the school was paying for the whole evening- it was incredible, and I love our school. We probably got the best one yet!

At first they had a TV screen playing music videos of the certain minorities of Ghizhou. Which the show was about, by the way. Mainly Guiyang but also the places lying around, and the people that were there once [remember, most are Han now, but they used to be Dejia, and more]. Then the talk show host came out, speaking Chinese which was pretty odd to us, but we survived.

Also behind the seats they put little hand clappers- since we clap so much, they made it so we don’t have to! It was super silly but turned out to be very useful! They rolled up the screen to the stage, and the show began!

It. Was. Incredible.

They started off with boys in blue tulle dress things dancing as the waterfall, which cut through to girls on stage in traditional garb playing the water. That piece was just incredible and so fascinating! I loved that one so much. They have video pieces on several sides playing to go along with the dance and music, and it was spectacular. I don’t even know how to explain it! Fluid arm motions, up and down, twirling…

Then they had this crazy guy. He contortioned for us- put his larger muscled body through a smaller ring and NO he should NOT have been able to fit, I think it’s a trick one and it stretched for him because there was no way he should have been able to do that. And then he walked up these step things on sharp knives, and then did a handstand thing on the top one. I don’t believe those, either- it’s impossible. That fruit had to have been already cut somehow, and yeah…

More dances! It was so cool, I loved it. There was one with all these girls and they changed the colors of their dress twice into three different colors- literally switching up their costume somehow to switch from blue to red to yellow while twirling around on stage! So fascinating, really, I loved that one.

Then these boys with guns danced and one of them got to fly on strings, which was very cool, of course, and there was just some magic that drew us all in, watching them dance in sync. It was incredible! They looked like little jungle boys and could do all sorts of moves together.

Oh at one point they invited men to come up and we got Greg to go! They had these huge shorts and shirt and hat to put on the men, and then they sort of learned a dance move and then we all voted who was vest- of course, it was Greg! And then the show host was cracking all these jokes Nicole was trying to translate for us- he called him Obama, he cracked a joke about winning money when he just won a few trinkets and all- I don’t remember what else, but it was very funny!

Towards the end they brought a lot together to show the uniqueness of different marriage dances and strategies- in one, if a boy puts black paint on a girls cheek, he wants to marry her. If he wants to marry her somewhere else, he will buy her sheep. There was one about getting beaten on his marriage day, polygamy, and other things.

At another point they paused to sing Cool Guiyang which is one of Katie’s and my new favorite song! It’s obviously about Guiyang, it’s very catchy, and we like it. Magi said she’d try to find it somewhere for us, so we’re excited for that! And then at the end there was the love song of Ghizhou, I think they said it was. It was very nice, very beautiful- and very very high. Bollywood style, too, it seemed, like some of their music. That was intriguing to notice the similarities.

OH OH OH so there was one part where everyone dances in the middle, but first they ran into the audience to grab a ton of us- someone wanted Abby to go who would only go if we would, so Katie, Nicole and I followed after, and ran up on stage to down around in circles for a few good minutes before returning down! But yeah, we liked it, and it was pretty fun! Then there were bows and we were out- everyone leaves in a big rush here, which is weird. The curtain hadn’t even shut when everyone was standing and heading out.

We ended up taking the school car back with us, which was pretty fun since it’s only supposed to fit seven but we put nine in there anyways. We made lots of plans to do KTV [karaoke], go bike riding in the fall, have a tradition Thanksgiving Meal, and more fun activities!

By then it was eleven. So crazy! We got dropped off at our place, but we were completely out of water and Katie’s had a bit of a head cold so we headed back out to look for water. Of course, by then everything was closing if not already closed. Luckily, an alcohol shop didn’t quite have its doors shut, and since they didn’t have bigger ones we ended up buying six bottles. Only one was for me.

And that was our awesome day!