First Weekend Out...

Well we had our first weekend out in china. Friday night one of the teachers had us over to his apartment for drinks. It seemed as if everyone had their game faces on to get the night going. As our ‘initiation’ into china most of the new teachers had to drink this alcohol called ‘Bajou’ it pretty much smells like pure gasoline. It was awful and made for a very interesting night. I did impress everyone at the party with my super athletic skills with this ab roller we found on the ground, which was hilarious. Apparently that was super unexpected.
We left the apartment and headed out to our first ‘KTV’ (karaoke) experience. It was really fun. It was in like this big hotel like place with a bunch of rooms set up. When you get in the room there’s a massive projector and a bunch of seating, and the older staff had ordered an insane amount of drinks spread all over the room. It got pretty crazy, but I think everyone had a good time. After that was all over and done with we went out for ‘street food.’ The night was crazy and most of us were recovering from it for the next couple days :s.
I didn’t wake up until noon on Saturday…we had to go to the mall to pick up some stuff since we were hosting an anniversary part at our place for one of the couples. Amanda and I were not feeling so hot so we found a hair salon where they could wash and flat iron our hair (since we still need to buy one that works here…it’s killing me!). We were in the salon for at least an hour since they gave us a thorough head massage and shampoo and really took a lot of care into our hair. When we went to pay he said it was 40 yuan…which translates into about $6 Cdn, not too bad. When Amanda went to pay they said I had already paid for her! Haha, so it was like $3 to spend an hour in there which was awesome. We are definitely going to go back at some point. Anywho, We offered up our place since it was just the building next to them and our apartment is a lot bigger. They brought over the piano and played a bunch of music. It was a pretty chill night, as I said, everyone was still exhausted from the night before.
Sunday we went and got pedicures at a place right beside the hair salon. There were six of us, so it was a nice way to spend our last day of ‘holidays’ since we start back up at school today. After our pedicures we went fun shopping and school supplies shopping. I was in the search for shoes…and was able to find many! Hehe. So, in the end I bought 4 pairs of flats for work totaling at 200 yuan…which translates into $30 Cdn…I love China  I also have the perfect size feet to fit everything…so pretty much I’m in heaven. Robyn bought some pirated movies so we watched Toy Story 3 before bed. All in all it was a good weekend.
Today we start our first day of planning (hopefully) so it’s going to be a long day.



-Taryn

All moved in!

So we moved into our new place last night. We got the keys at 4:30pm and we moved out of our old places, cleaned our new place (it was really dirty and gross) and were all unpacked by 8pm. We were pretty impressed with ourselves. The place is really big, three bedroom, one office (which I’ve semi claimed as I have the smallest room of the three, and am going to attempt to do my distance classes through UBC), three bedrooms (which is key with three girls), a huge living and dining room area and a much larger kitchen. This just makes things a lot more comfortable for us. Amanda was also a little lonely on her own so it was nice that she was able to move in with us. It makes buying things for a place a lot cheaper (not that it already isn’t) as we split things three ways now.
Today we had to go and apply for our residency. Took soooo long to get everyone through. They only had one officer checking over everything for all 23 new teachers. So round trip from the school took us 5hrs…not a fun morning. When we got back to the school we went right into our second Pro-D. We talked about cultural differences between Canadian students, and the students that we will be teaching here. Apparently things like sleeping, spitting, nail clipping and excessive cheating are all things we are going to have to deal with on a regular basis, FUN.
Everyone is stressing about planning, but I still haven’t really felt the crunch yet. We still don’t know for sure what we are teaching, so I’m going to wait it out. I’ll plan my first few days with my intro activities, but I think that’s about as far as I’m going to get. It’s just added stress that I don’t need at the moment.
Anywho, it’s our first Friday here, so I think a bunch of us from the school are getting together and going out. Should be an interesting experience
-Taryn

And it begins :)

Today is our first day of work with the school. We had a staff meeting with all of the teachers so we got to meet a lot more people today. Everyone is super friendly and helpful which makes the whole experience a lot easier on us.



At the moment I am teaching two blocks of English 11, 1 block of intro to English 10 and one block of Drama/IT ?! Who knows. When I went to talk to the Principal today about what I was teaching he had no idea that i'm not specialized in English. I told him it would be most ideal if I could teach either Math or Social Studies, so hopefully next semester I can switch it up a little bit and teach something I am a little bit more comfortable with. I had told the vancouver office this information, but apparently this information didn't really transfer over which is slightly unfortunate. Oh well, I'm just glad that I will be teaching full time and not stuck at the pool for yet another year of my life :)


A lot of the kids arrived at the school yesterday which is making this all feel like it's really happening. I know that sounds funny but I was talking with other people and they agree that so far it all feels like we are on a vacation or something along those lines. We're actually starting to do some work now which is going to be great to keep my mind off of missing things at home. I have my moments. I had one this morning while I was running around the track 14 times just so I could do at least 6km. I miss being able to step out of my house and run up to Mundy Park, or running Rocky Point after coaching. I also miss not feeling like I'm going to pass out during my runs :S That's the only big thing that is bothering me. I was able to find some cucumbers and tomatoes at metro (a big cosco like store) which has made my snacking a lot better. I had been snacking on candy all the time which was probably not the best thing for me! I think it was a little bit of a comfort thing as well.


A day later….

I’m starting to just write out a journal in a word document and then post it into the blog for all to see. We’ve made a new close friend, Amanda who is living by herself at the moment and really wanted a roommate. She’s connected with us and we all really wanted to move in together. There are a few three and four bedroom places in the building beside us on campus so we looked at them yesterday. They are so much nicer and way bigger than the place we are in now. The kitchen has so much more room, the couch is comfier, it’s a flat screen TV and I will have an office so that I can do my coursework for my distance classes. We just got the word that they are cleaning it today so hopefully we can be in by the end of the day, or in the afternoon tomorrow after work.

We’ve started to do some planning for the first week of school, considering it is in less than a week :S I’m a little intimidated by teaching English, as I have no background in it whatsoever, but I’m crossing my fingers and diving head first into it. Robyn and Brianne (my desk neighbor) are teaching English 11 as well so they’re giving me pointers and leading me in the right direction. Apparently the first week is going to be a huge learning experience anyways though. Our students are just coming off summer holidays where they haven’t really been practicing their English. So the students are going to range from totally understanding everything you say, to students who are using digital translators for everything that you are saying to them. Judging on the placement exams we had to mark on Monday they were not exaggerating about this.

Anywho, off to my first Pro-D session. I know, sounds like a hoot and you wish you could join in as well.

***Carly, I will send you a personal email soon***
-Taryn

Squatters

I forgot to mention that there isn't really toilets here :S

The staff bathroom and bathroom in our apartment is a western toilet which is great...but everywhere else it's a toilet in the ground and you have to have some pretty good aim and steady flow without any back splash...i know it's graffic, but it's seriously a huge thing that we are all getting used to...if I could ever get used to that.  My greatest fear is that one day I am going to walk out of the bathroom with pee all down my leg :S

Medical Exams

Hello Fwiend,

Well, today we had our medical exams, which was an adventure in itself.  We all had to meet in front of the school at 7am and take a bus to the place we were going.  It was pretty sketchy at first :S  We pull up and we're in front of this old run down building, we all look at each other with a look of panic and then they lead us around the corner to a MUCH nicer building where we would be getting our exams done. 

We had to do things like pictures, height, weight, eyes, blood pressure, x-rays, and some other stuff.  We also had to get our blood taken which freaked out Robyn a lot because she passes out a lot, as well with our friend Amanda who told us that when she had her blood taken before she came to China she passed out and puked all over the nurse in Canada :S  So, we were concerned for them to say the least.  In the end it all worked out and everything was ok.

It was pretty funny since we all had a sheet of stuff to get done.  We would just walk around this building showing the nurses our sheet of paper and they would lead us into another room that we would need to do.  It turned into a fun bingo game in the end, which was kind of fun. 

After all was done there we went to a restaurant which is owned by one of our secretaries husbands.  It was the biggest chinese restaurant I have ever been in. The main dining hall was like the entrance of a huge fancy hotel.  We ended up having like a 15 course lunch :s  Some of the stuff I had never eaten, but I was able to help identify what things were, making me feel a little bit more chinese than everyone :)  Haha.  I'll put up some pictures on the FB showing some of the crazy dishes that we had. 

I tried to run yesterday :S  It was pretty much like trying to run in a sauna.  I immediately regretted my decision :S  I'll have to get up even earlier and do it, which I will just have to get used to. 

That is all for now, we should try and figure out dinner soon :)

-Taryn

My First couple days in Wuhan

Hello Friend!

It has been a crazy culture shock here and I find myself just stepping back and trying to take it all in, but it's pretty overwhelming.

Our first day out was to a big store called Carrefour.  It was pretty much like a giant T&T/Walmart where you could buy anything imaginable.  We bought a bunch of stuff for our apartment, along with some food and snacks.  That was our first encounter with the language barrier.  When we went up to the till to pay, she kept pointing at all of our fresh produce and we had no idea what she was trying to say.  In the end we figured out that you needed to get a sticker put on all of your produce before you got up to the till so that it had a UPC code.  it was extremely frustrating, but in the end we know for next time what to do.

Yesterday was extremely crazy!  We took a taxi about 45min away from our campus....the taxi ride in itself was an adventure.  They do not follow lines or make signals or anything here.  It seems as if it's a free for all and people just honk if they are going to pass you so that they know you are behind them.  I found myself letting out tiny screams every few minutes as I thought we might hit, or be hit by another car. 

When we got to our destination, it was a crazy street market like I have never even imagined.  It was probably the size of a small city.  There was like two blocks designated to everything that you can imagine.  I took a few pictures of it, i'm going to try and post some on my facebook soon, maybe later on today.  Thank goodness we had two people with us who were able to speak mandarin so we were able to get along alright and barter for some stuff.  I bought some sweet chinese bunny slippers to wear around our apartment which i'm super pumped about for less than $3 Cdn.  Everything is so cheap, it's crazy.  When we went to Carrefour we were able to buy pretty much everything we need for our apartment, pots, pans, plates, bowls, garbage cans, lamps, hair dryer, cleaning supplies, food, etc for about $180 Cdn. 

I'm excited to go and do some fun shopping though.  We need to get paid first though to go do that since a lot of the new teachers here don't seem to have a lot of money yet. 

I still can't believe that I've done this.  The first night I just layed on my bed and thought to myself, WTF!  Haha, but I know in the end this will be an awesome experience, as it's only been three days and i've had some crazy adventures. 

Hope to hear from you soon, miss you lots
-Taryn

China - August 19th 2010

1 year. That's not that long right? It's only 1. But when you break it down, it's one Fall, one Winter, one Spring, and one Summer. 12 months. (Well i guess 10.. Youre coming back in June right!?) BOTH our Birthdays. A whole bunch of Holidays, INCLUDING Christmas. Ugly Christmas Sweater Party!?!? .....don't even get me started!

It's going to seem like a freaking long time. It's going to be hard, especially for you! So in trying to keep in touch, without having to make Skype dates (even though we will still do that), organize and PAY for long distance telephone calls, and stalk each other on Facebook - I've made this blog! I thought it could be a way we could talk about our adventures (well yours will be way better than mine), post funny pics, say sweet nothings - and all be something we can look back to after.

I originally thought of doing this in a journal and then sending it to you in China, then you send back to me, and I send back etc etc. But then I looked up how much it cost to mail things to China! Holy eff bomb! I love you, but not that much :P

Well know that I am so proud of you. Not to mention how excited I am that you get to experience so much of the world! I mean... Japan Disney? How worldly of you! Take lots of pics. Be safe. Teach those kids like you've never taught before. But most importantly, don't forget about me. And don't forget to write on our blog.

Love you lots!
Can't wait for you to respond :)

-CAR