Teacher Sport Day

the soccer cheering squad

On Tuesday April 29, after the students finished their halfday of midterms the teachers had a sports day. We played volleyball, kickball, soccer and ran some relay races. It was a beautiful day and a great way to burn off some excess energy. Some people participated, some people just watched, but most everyone had a good time.

The first place team won bamboo salt toothpaste while the second place team was consoled with some soap. This was the prize for the MVP:

We were divided into 2 teams: the Blue Dragons and the White Tigers. I was a Blue Dragon. Our team won all the events except for kickball. However, kickball was such a disaster that I don't think it really counted. No one actually knew the rules, we played with a soccer ball and there were 20 people on the field at the same time. It was a mess. People were running when they were supposed to be standing, the ball was getting thrown all over the field with no regard to where people actually were and don't even get me started on the fly ball rule. If I wasn't actually playing it would have been funny.


All and all it was a good day of messing around and enjoying the emerging spring weather.



Oh, and a picture of the recipient of the sweet sweet MVP prize...

It is finally starting to warm up around here so I thought I would take advantage of the nice weather this weekend and head to one of Yantai's pars. On Saturday I didn't feel like going all the way downtown so decided that Sunday was the day. I should have known better when I woke up Saturday morning to a beautifully warm sunshiney day that Sunday would end up being rainy and cold, which it was. It didn't stop me though. We went down to the park and managed to get through just as the rain started coming down.

It's a very small park, but it is also very beautiful. I love finding places like this in the middle of a congested city. It was nice and quiet and rather peaceful. Perhaps because it was raining and there weren't very many people there. Either way it was a nice way to spend an afternoon. I thought the coolest part was the temple that housed all 12 of the animals of the zodiac that represent the years in Chinese. Right now we're in the year of the Ox.

Labels - Round 2

I had the most annoying day yesterday. I woke up with no electricity (although it turned out to just be a warning that I need to buy more), I had to sit through a meeting entirely in Korean - giant waste of time, and I had Newspaper Club in the afternoon. I would like newspaper if any of the students in the club would actually write anything. One of them doesn't even speak English. I think the goal is going to be to motivate them to do something and then work on putting together a newspaper.

However, the most annoying part of my day was in the morning. I come into work and my boss hands me a file of my lesson plans and tell me to fix them. Apparently I had forgotten to put dates on some of them. Fine. I fix them and put them on her desk. She was extremely busy so I just put them on the pile with everyone else's lesson plans. Little did I know this was going to cause big issues. I then spent the rest of the day getting lectured about how rude I am and how we are not friends and that in Korean culture you have to be extremely respectful of your elders and I should have said, 'excuse me ann, here are the lesson plans you asked me to do, can I do anything else.' I have no problem being that polite if I had known that it was necessary but an entire morning of lectures about it??? Reminds me of the week at DB I was lectured about labels. Yes, labels.

Winter?Spring?

Yesterday it started snowing and this morning the ground is covered with a lovely layer of snow and ice. I swear someone said it was Spring. Liars.

Good

So I have started Chinese lessons again, this time with the old elementary teacher from my school. She decided to quit working at the school and just tutor privately. It seems to be working out well for her.

She is not only teaching me how to speak, but how to write as well. It's really hard!! She is great though, teaching me like a child, which is totally what I feel like. Yesterday I learned the characters for "hao", which means good. There are 2 characters that are combined to make one word - the character for woman and the character for son. I thought that was interesting. Chinese, among other cultures of course, believe that it is good to have a son. So therefore, if the woman has a son, it's good - hao.

The Last Days

Ok, so finally this is my last vacation post, even I'm getting tired of looking at the pictures. Ok, well that's a lie because I like to look and transport myself back there. Not that I'm complaining about China, but who wouldn't rather be on a beach sipping cocktails, tanning, while someone else is cleaning the room and doing the laundry? You see my point.

We left Chiang Mai and headed to the paradise that is Koh Samui. We stayed in a fabulous hotel sort of at the end of the "strip" which was nice since we weren't exactly looking for a crazy party scene. We spent our last days of vacation just bumming around the island, doing as little as possible. We did a lot of shopping, eating, tanning, and just basically relaxing. We rented a jeep there one day, which only Missy could drive since the rest of us are manual driving impaired. She did an amazing job driving on the wrong side of the rode, a much better job driving than we did navigating. Who can get lost on an island the size of my grandparent's backyard you ask? I plead the 5th. our first 10 minutes in Koh Samui, waiting for beverages
"our" beach Koh Samui

me, being very happy, on our beach

Meghan on our trek to find a waterfall that we are sure never existed

the view while we waited to for our food to come

Missy posing so we would all remember her sweet driving ability
chillin'

the sunset during our road trip around the island

Jessica and the Buddha

Me, Meghan, and Missy drank 2 bottles of Prosecco waiting for the BEST massage I've ever or will ever have in my life

We flew to Bangkok in the morning and spent the day there, before we all left the next morning. My plane was the first to take off, leaving at 1am and the others all left around 6am. This didn't leave too much time for Bangkok, but it was so hot that we didn't really feel like doing much anyway. Missy and I sort of roamed around the historical museum but it was so hot and my toes were swelling into little sausages so we decided to forego sightseeing for beer drinking. We separated from Meghan and Jess since they wanted to see the stuff we saw already. On our way back to the hotel we saw them sitting at a table, doing the exact same thing we had just finished. Apparently it was a little too hot for all of us. I can't even imagine what summer is like there! We went back, showered, and then had a lovely last dinner at the Oriental Mandarin (or is the other way around?) hotel. It was a great way to end the vacation, if such a vacation needed to end.

my chubby face, and my super cute friends, on the way to dinner, our last night on vacation

Wat Arun, which I didn't actually make it to, but could see from our hotel

In the Beijing airport waiting to go home to Yantai, being very very sad

More elephants and stuff

The next day in Chiang Mai was Jessica's 29th birthday (my friends are SO old!) and we spent it drinking beers on top of elephants, hiking and white water rafting. Which was really more like wavy water sitting, as we pretty much did nothing while our guides paddled through the semi wavy water. As a group of 4 girls we were prime targets and our boats were often flipped over. According to them, if it's not wet it's not fun. They were hysterical and while it wasn't quite white water rafting, it was a blast. We then shopped for awhile at the night market and the found our way to watch some muay thai boxing. We were the only, um, "respectable" women there. We spent most of our time taking pictures of the inappropriateness surrounding us and then laughing to ourselves. We don't think that we were appreciated, but we had a good time and Jessica had a memorable 29th birthday.

jess and I having birthday drinks on top of our elephant

the view while elephant riding

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just some more pretty stuff we saw while hiking

us with our white water rafting guides