Next Day

Wednesday 28^th

Oops.

Guess who woke up with 20 new bug bites?

That’s right, this lucky ginger!

The downside to warm rain all night.  And no, it didn’t occur to either Katie or myself to actually try out our A/C so it was just as hot in our room, just like they liked it when the mosquitoes couldn’t be outside. I know I should feel lucky, but I don’t.

I even have one on my ear. Not the earlobe, no, but on the cartilage right on top. Most of them- as in all but like 4- are below my knees. It’s a little ridiculous and I’m definitely wearing jeans tomorrow.

Oh and I didn’t even start on the two I found on my face, did I? Yeah, not cool.

 

Anyways, today wasn’t too eventful. We went right next door to the hotel’s conference room to spend about 10 hours throughout the day learning and relearning things. Funny enough, I basically already knew everything except for the little bits of Chinese that was shared. But talk to a few people who have taught ESL abroad [that’ll be me in four months, hello!], like I’ve done a TON with Katie, and then read a book about the culture, like I read the fabulous Decoding China. Which is a great book if you consider coming to China, by the way. Definitely covers a ton.

Like: big crowds, and yes they will push. They don’t have the ‘American Politeness’ thing going on.

And spitting in the streets is normal, which Katie loves. I still can’t muster that up, though.

If caught in a REAL tourist spot, like the vendors by the Great Wall- they WILL grab you by the arm to try and sell you things. And yes, if you look American, they will jack up the price about 75%. But don’t worry, you can bargain just about anywhere [as long as there’s no set prices].

And you are considered super lucky to get a “western” toilet that can flush toilet paper. That’s high rate, right there!

You have to buy water. Don’t use the tap water for anything BUT washing your hands. That is IT. Not even brushing your teeth.

Did you know the hotel gives you hangers? And slippers? It’s pretty neat. No wifi, unfortunately, but they usually provide an Ethernet cable. Plus combs, toothbrushes with tiny tubes of paste, a tiny tea set with a water boiler, and a morning wake up call when you need it!

Just that, among so much more!

 

Anyways, back to our day- we definitely dozed off during everything. It couldn’t be helped, I tell you! We had bought fruit yesterday so we could sleep in later… which totally didn’t happen. But it was insane rain all night, and that woke us a bit early. It was more insane than Cedar City in the summer, folks. Twice as awesome overall, though it had mostly stopped by the time we finally had the energy to get up.

For lunch, we had the funky chocolate ice cream bars with the sense of root beer at the end.

More classroom talk: Make rules, be able to adapt to all sorts of situations. There’s hierarchy in schools so answers might take a while, many things are last minute, be very energetic and friendly, not like the strict and overworked teachers they have. Get lost in your city, eat crazy foods while you can, be open minded, respect the culture, and so on!

Finally we had our final group dinner at the restaurant above our place like we’d done on our first day in the city- a perfect close.

The only negative thing was we’re getting used to the food now, so it’s not quite as new or exciting as it was before. Scary, right? It’s only been a week! But don’t worry, we’ll do fine and we don’t hate it or anything.

Especially this one new dish: cooked zucchini with eggs in a flavored oil. It sounds a little odd and normally I don’t really like either… but I really liked them together in this dish! Very tasty. We’re definitely going to have to start looking for recipes to bring back to the states with us.

 

It’s our last night in Beijing, which is crazy. It feels like we’ve been here forever, and at the same time we JUST arrived. It’ll be sad leaving these streets we’re already comfortable wandering through. But we’re excited to get to our own place, where hopefully our shower water won’t stink, where we can start to decorate the place, and more! Especially teaching the kids, of course!

Katie is definitely all prepared for that, having done this in Ukraine just a few years before. She’s a whiz and all raring to go. I’m definitely jealous, and hoping some of all that will rub off onto me so when I walk into my first class of 40ish kids, I’m not scared witless! But hey, we’ll see how it goes.

We leave early tomorrow for a short plane ride down to Guiyang, Ghizhou. It’s going to be great! Yay!