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

Elephant Camp

The second day in Chiang Mai we went about an hour or so out of town to elephant camp. We spent the day learning how to ride, command and bathe our elephants. They gave us these awesome blue outfits to wear, which was good because the bath was more of us swimming in a river of elephant poo. Luckily that was at the end of the day and we could change into our normal clothes quickly after that. We got them all laundered anyway.

Me and Meg on our elephants

super cute baby elephant and his mama

baby elephant looking cute, just moments before whacking Jess in the head with his trunk b/c she wouldn't give him more food

Jess on top of the most giantest elephant ever

me and my mahout (elephant trainer)

Meghan, Jess, me, and Missy

I HEART THAILAND

Bangkok, Day 1

We left Saigon in the morning to head for Bangkok. We just had time for a breakfast of runny eggs and bread, lots and lots of delicious crusty bread. In China, the bread is all sweet so I made it my mission to consume as many rolls of bread as I could while on vacation. I was very successful. yum.

We had only been in Thailand for an hour, when I came to the conclusion that I LOVE THAILAND!! It's warm, the people are very friendly, it's easy to get around, and the food is phenomenal. We got into Bangkok in the early afternoon and checked into our hotel, Villa Cha-Cha, which was pretty cute. It also came with an itemized list of how much everything in the hotel room would cost if we stole it. We were trying to figure out exactly how they thought someone would make it out of there with the chaise lounge, and figured it probably wouldn't be worth it. We stayed in the Khao San District, which is where a lot of the backpacking foreigners stay. We saw lots of them. It was a good spot though.

Since we only had a day there, we pretty much dropped our stuff and headed out. We went first to the Wat Pho, and were truly amazed. Everything is so ornate and beautiful. The coolest thing we saw that day, and in Bangkok altogether, was the Reclining Buddha. It's huge!! It's hard to even describe it without actually seeing it there. There were a lot of tourists, but there were also a lot of people praying as well. I felt like sort of an intruder in their lives, taking a picture and all, like they were some sort of novelty. After spending awhile there, we left to go to the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew. However, it closes at 3:30 and we were about an hour too late. We decided to wake up real early the next morning to see it before we had to catch our plane. We did find that there was an Au Bon Pain across the street, where I was VERY excited to get a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast the next morning. We ended up just walking around the area, shopping and eating. Which is clearly emerging as a theme for my life. The evening was spent in our little neighborhood, eating, drinking and people watching.

The next morning we took a tuk tuk to Wat Phra Kaew and the Grand Palace and tried to see as much as we could in about an hour and a half or so. Again, huge, ornate, and very shiny. Missy forgot to wear sleeves and was given the super sweet standard issue short sleeve button up teal shirt. The hour and a half went very quick, consumed mostly by running around and taking 30,000 pictures. Roughly. We said we would go back to it at the tail end of our trip, but never made it.

From there we picked up our stuff, hopped on the bus, and were off to meet Meghan and Jessica in the Bangkok airport to head north to Chiang Mai.

My Vietnam Vacation

I think the title is fair enough warning of what is about to come. This way if you don't want to scroll through someone else's blog, reading about their adventures while you yourself had been stuck trudging through another, and from what I heard, brutal, Chicago winter, you can go ahead and skip this post altogether. I figured I would finally write a bit about my vacation, since I am now using a computer I can upload photos to.

I suppose I will just pick up from where I left off, I will try to be brief :)

From Hanoi (which now seems like an entire lifetime ago, as I'm watching the snow fall outside my window), we took a short flight to Hoi An. It's a small town with a couple touristy temple like things to see, but it seems its biggest draw are the tailor shops. There are literally over 500 of them. No matter how strong the resolve is to not have something made, it's no match for Hoi An. Missy and I started off slow, but by the end of our stay there we walked away with 3 pairs of pants, 2 coats (matching of course), 2 pillowcases, and a dress. That doesn't include the 4 scarves, 3 tee shirts, 2 ties, and 1 vegetable peeler that we didn't actually have made, but purchased regardless. We were only there 2 days. We spent the rest of our time, eating, taking a cooking class, walking around on the only day of the entire vacation that it sort of not really rained, avoiding the motorbike people who we promised we would rent bikes from and getting our nails done. That pretty much sums it up. It may not sound like much of an endorsement, but we both really liked Hoi An and I would confidently recommend it to anyone who happens to find themselves touring through Vietnam. We also stayed in a super cute room overlooking some paddy fields.

After our two days in Hoi An we got back on a plane and headed to Nha Trang. We were told that Nha Trang is a bit too touristy and that we should go to Mui Ne, which is a "quick" 5hr bus ride. We got to Nha Trang in the early afternoon and didn't book our bus until 8pm or so. Which gave us the whole afternoon lay on the beach, roam around, and eat. This was the first place that was really very warm. We both fried ourselves relatively early and just bummed around for awhile. Not all the interesting. We got on our bus, which was "slepping bus" (seriously - there are so many people speaking English, could that not be corrected??), popped some Dramamine and fell asleep before the bus left the town. We got to Mui Ne around 1am or so and just crashed, on possibly one of the most comfortable beds I've ever had the pleasure of sleeping in.

We stayed at the Mui Ne Sailing Club and it was amazing. We didn't always have hot water to shower, but that was only a minor detail. The place was beautiful and the staff were all very nice. We literally did nothing. We started each morning with breakfast on the beach (a Mai Tai for Missy and a Mojito for me) and pretty much settled in until mid afternoon when we toured the one street, stopping for snacks and beverages. It was perfect and relaxing and I would like to spend the rest of my days there. Well, so I thought until I got to Thailand, but that's for later. It seemed that most people did exactly what we did, except for the immense amount of kite boarding. I really wanted to try, but in order to actually get in the water it takes several lessons and a whole bunch of money, so I opted out. Looked cool though. I think there may have been a couple sights to see, but Missy and I couldn't really be bothered. The only negative was trying to mail all the crap we bought home. It involved several wrong post offices, several different cab rides, 1 to the farthest ATM the cabbie could find, and a language barrier. Plus Missy was feeling like total crap at that point. BUT it was a great part of our trip.

From Mui Ne we took another bus to Saigon, this time not a "slepping" bus, and sort of more annoying. We got to Saigon, which is crazy busy, found our hotel and headed out to explore. By this time it was already 9pm or so. Missy was feeling worse so we got some food, not so delicious food, and sought out the Western type foreign hospital. I have now been to hospitals in Korea, China, and Vietnam. They gave her some stuff, and she began feeling better relatively quickly. I was not so lucky on the other hand. I woke up the next morning with some sort of stomach thing and could not really leave the hotel room. At one point I tried, when we went to book our airline tickets for the next day, but barely made it back before more puking ensued. It didn't help that it was about a billion degrees and super humid. Missy took off by herself that day and I stayed in the airconditioned hotel room, watching recaps of the inaugauration and a rerun of Ellen. By the time she got back she was hot and sweaty and slightly crabby. Plus she showed me all her pictures so I pretended like I went along as well. We met her friend Erin for dinner, I was feeling slightly better by this point, and drinks (I stuck with Coke). We were only there one day, but Saigon was not my city.

The next morning we got on a flight to Bangkok, but I will tell those stories another day. This is getting a bit lengthy for one post, and frankly I'm getting a bit tired of writing.

Back to Reality

Well, my reality anyway.

After 11 airplane rides, 10 cities, 9 airports, 3 countries, 2 long bus rides and 0 lost bags, i've returned to China. I got back a couple days ago. My flight was delayed 8 hours in Beijing, so I now am extremely familiar with that airport as well. And when I got back to my apartment I of course had no power and a very moldy fridge. Always an adventure here in China. The power is back on, although it was no small feat, but I still have no internet. Oh well.

Vacation was truly amazing. I had so much fun, saw so many different things, and got to do it all with my best friend. There is nothing I would have changed. Parts of it were exhausting for sure, but I'm glad we got to see so many different parts of the countries.

I will write more about my adventures in my next couple posts. I am on the school computer right now and with the lack of heat it's starting to get a bit chilly.

Vietnam, so far

I'm not sure what I expected from Hanoi, but this certainly wasn't it. This place is crazy! It's like it has been overtaken by gangs of people (every man, woman, and child) on motorbikes. I've never seen anything like it and you can't possibly imagine it without seeing it for yourself. We were told before we came that in order to cross the street in Hanoi, and apparently Saigon as well, you just need to walk. So that's what we do, mostly with our eyes closed. We have learned that we must look out for cars, but the bikes will look out for us. You cannot stop or hesitate as that causes more confusion and the bikes don't know which way to go to get around you. So far things have worked out well for us.

Hanoi is much closer to the China I know than Hong Kong. It's sort of dirty, there are a ton of people in a very small space, the streets are lined with all sorts of different shops selling anything you can imagine and there are tons of places to eat on the street. They even have meat on a stick! However, most people that we have come across here are very nice and they speak English. Definitely a change from Yantai. We spent our first night just wandering around the city. We felt an immense sense of pride that we were able to leave our hotel, wander around the city, eat, and find our way back. That seemed like enough for one evening. Our hotel is really nice and the people here are the most accomodating I think I've ever come across. For $55 a night we have a great room, a great staff and a full breakfast menu. They have helped us book everything we need from entertainment to hotel rooms elsewhere. Awesome.

The past 2 days we left Hanoi and went to Halong Bay, a 3.5 hour drive away. The drive was fine, we passed a lot of of paddies and small towns and "restaurants" specializing in dog (thit cho - which we were sure to memorize in Vietnamese before setting out). Halong Bay is absolutely beautiful. We lounged, ate, drank, kayaked, and saw a cave. We spent the night on the boat and then left there today around noon.

Once back at our hotel, we dropped our stuff and were off to do a little more roaming around the city. Unfortunately, by the time we made in back to the hotel, most of the touristy stuff had closed. And since we are leaving tomorrow morning, we won't get a chance to see it. We did see the One Pillar Pagoda and the outside of the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Good enough. We've decided that since we only have a few days in each city and we're doing so much traveling that we weren't going to pressure ourselves to see everything in the city. We're pretty content just seeing a couple things and moving on. We also saw this water puppet show that was a bit odd and a bit cool.

So far vacation has been amazing - all 4 days of it! Missy is a really easy person to travel with as neither of us has a set itinerary, we're both happy to do whatever or nothing and are both flexible, understanding that not everything goes according to plan, which is sometimes better anyway. After my past few months in Yantai I have learned immense amounts of patience and flexibility.

We leave tomorrow to take a plane to Danang and from there a short(ish) taxi ride to Hoi An which is supposed to be beautiful. Very excited, and right now, very tired.