Dang. Well, as I was writing the first post, my computer froze mid sentence and never thawed. A restart later, I was staring at the file logo on a gray background with a ? symbol flashing. Attempting to fix it now with the help of the computer guru Tim our Teacher; more to come when its fixed. China fail #1.
Yesterday was my first class attempt. We are teaching these adorable high school students (a few college kids) who age from 13 to 20 and their abilities vary just as much. I don't know who learned more, them or me in an hour's time. But once the dust settled and they left class, I realized that teaching is pretty fun and mighty rewarding. This isn't going to be so bad after all! I teach again on Tuesday next week and until then, all I have to do is explore and work on my Mandarin!
I think we are living on the outskirts of Shanghai in a hotel next to a university. I say think because you can't tell where Shanghai ends, only where it begins—the ocean. The train ride into downtown was astounding. High rises everywhere, sometimes clusters of them dotting the horizon, for an hour on the train before we got to downtown. There are so many people here, it blows your mind. You can't even think about it too much or poof! There goes your brain. If there isn't a high rise or a building in use, there is something being grown there and the sight of rice paddies within throwing distance of a high rise is a new one for me. Rains catch us off guard sometimes and leave as abruptly, but what really strikes me is the color of the sky when the clouds part. It isn't that blue! Its a light, pastel blue that barely contrasts with the white of the clouds. I remember then looking up at night and wondering why the moon is orange overhead, or the sun not that bright when its rarely peeking through the clouds—pollution. It doesn't smell bad and is otherwise unnoticeable, but these things remind me that we are living with 20 some million others in this place, not without its consequences. I'm looking forward to going west to the mountains.
What this place doesn't lack, however, is food. Wow. The last 6 days have been an absolute whirlwind tour of chinese food and it has been great. My stomach has held up like chain mail, as has almost everybody's, and it is really fun. I just ate at a muslim restaurant (this tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant on a side street) in which you walk through the door and past the noodle guy, who throughout the entire meal is hand shaping noodles by the pound. You order, the waiter yells at the guy, and he makes your noodles. I don't understand what he did, but he banged, spun, twisted, pulled, and floured this chunk of dough until 2 minutes later, he was dropping about a pound of noodles into the pot of boiling water outside. Add tiny chunks of lamb, bunch of veggies, and red oil broth, and I was eating a few minutes later. For about 10 yuan, which is about 1.5 USD. CRAZY, huh?
This part of life here has been really fun. Delicious food for almost nothing of a price compared to what I am used to. Luke and I have our morning tradition set now of walking down "food row" road and buying breakfast from street vendors. Every day we get the "breakfast burrito" (we've so dubbed), which is a huge crape (or close relative) with an egg cracked over it with green onions, something, something else, folded over and then smeared with some sauce , then rolled up with some crispy thing in the middle. 3 yuan = 50 US cents. Then today I discovered the "breakfast burrito", an egg and a pinch of sausage in the middle of a fried dough ball. BOMB. Breakfast runs 6 yuan usually, at the hefty conversion of 1 USD. So, life is good.
Off to the circus tonight in downtown. Luke said that it has great ratings and will be very entertaining. So far I've learned that any adventure in China is very entertaining. Love the group of teachers I'm with—they all come from different walks of life and are really fun to explore the city with. After all, when you don't know the language and no one else knows yours, you can't expect to get too much your way or when you want it. An open mind and an open heart is serving me well. More to come when I have a computer again!
Yesterday was my first class attempt. We are teaching these adorable high school students (a few college kids) who age from 13 to 20 and their abilities vary just as much. I don't know who learned more, them or me in an hour's time. But once the dust settled and they left class, I realized that teaching is pretty fun and mighty rewarding. This isn't going to be so bad after all! I teach again on Tuesday next week and until then, all I have to do is explore and work on my Mandarin!
I think we are living on the outskirts of Shanghai in a hotel next to a university. I say think because you can't tell where Shanghai ends, only where it begins—the ocean. The train ride into downtown was astounding. High rises everywhere, sometimes clusters of them dotting the horizon, for an hour on the train before we got to downtown. There are so many people here, it blows your mind. You can't even think about it too much or poof! There goes your brain. If there isn't a high rise or a building in use, there is something being grown there and the sight of rice paddies within throwing distance of a high rise is a new one for me. Rains catch us off guard sometimes and leave as abruptly, but what really strikes me is the color of the sky when the clouds part. It isn't that blue! Its a light, pastel blue that barely contrasts with the white of the clouds. I remember then looking up at night and wondering why the moon is orange overhead, or the sun not that bright when its rarely peeking through the clouds—pollution. It doesn't smell bad and is otherwise unnoticeable, but these things remind me that we are living with 20 some million others in this place, not without its consequences. I'm looking forward to going west to the mountains.
What this place doesn't lack, however, is food. Wow. The last 6 days have been an absolute whirlwind tour of chinese food and it has been great. My stomach has held up like chain mail, as has almost everybody's, and it is really fun. I just ate at a muslim restaurant (this tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant on a side street) in which you walk through the door and past the noodle guy, who throughout the entire meal is hand shaping noodles by the pound. You order, the waiter yells at the guy, and he makes your noodles. I don't understand what he did, but he banged, spun, twisted, pulled, and floured this chunk of dough until 2 minutes later, he was dropping about a pound of noodles into the pot of boiling water outside. Add tiny chunks of lamb, bunch of veggies, and red oil broth, and I was eating a few minutes later. For about 10 yuan, which is about 1.5 USD. CRAZY, huh?
This part of life here has been really fun. Delicious food for almost nothing of a price compared to what I am used to. Luke and I have our morning tradition set now of walking down "food row" road and buying breakfast from street vendors. Every day we get the "breakfast burrito" (we've so dubbed), which is a huge crape (or close relative) with an egg cracked over it with green onions, something, something else, folded over and then smeared with some sauce , then rolled up with some crispy thing in the middle. 3 yuan = 50 US cents. Then today I discovered the "breakfast burrito", an egg and a pinch of sausage in the middle of a fried dough ball. BOMB. Breakfast runs 6 yuan usually, at the hefty conversion of 1 USD. So, life is good.
Off to the circus tonight in downtown. Luke said that it has great ratings and will be very entertaining. So far I've learned that any adventure in China is very entertaining. Love the group of teachers I'm with—they all come from different walks of life and are really fun to explore the city with. After all, when you don't know the language and no one else knows yours, you can't expect to get too much your way or when you want it. An open mind and an open heart is serving me well. More to come when I have a computer again!
