7/16

Time to say goodbye to Nanjing for real. Melissa and I got up early so we could ride a boat in the lake. On the way there, we ran into Chris and Jovanni on the way and they joined us. 

The Nanjing skyline is super pretty from every angle. I loved our boat ride. Then we had just enough time to go to the hotel by our hotel and ride up the glass elevator with a view from the lake. 

One last shot of my favorite building in Nanjing from the boat

Goodbye to 323, our home for 2 weeks

We reunited with our tour guide, Jay Jay, and said goodbye to Sally. We made a stop at the Yangtze River Bridge!! The one Melissa and I failed to find!! We were actually pretty far away!! It was cool - and it felt good to finally see something that was a failed attempt earlier :)

The Yangtze

After lunch we said goodbye to Melissa. She is going to be hiking Yellow Mountain by herself while we finish up our touring and then she'll meet up with us in Hong Kong to fly home. 

We went to Xi'an by plane. Got in around 10pm. Our hotel was right next to South Gate and right by the bell and drum towers. A little group if us went out to check out the area. 

I was so tired! I hung out till 11 or so and just got all upset cause I wanted an ice cream and couldn't get one at McD's ... They said no to me ... But then the people I was with ordered a sundae and they had told me no on that too. I couldn't believe they didn't call me over or just order one for me (this is how I know I was overtired!) so I said goodbye to the group cause I was grumpy and overtired and kinda sick of people. And on the way home passed a DQ and Baskin Robins and neither one of them was open even though the sign said till midnight :( So I stopped at a 7-11 looking place and got a coke zero and m'n'ms. But all I wanted was an ice cream!!! So I went to bed!! (In my private room ~ now that Melissa is hiking)

South Gate, right by our hotel

Bell Tower (to tell time in the day) ... Also because it was bad luck for the gates to face each other, so the bell tower blocked that direct line from gate to gate. 

Drum Tower

My fake 7-11 for comfort food

7/15

Just got done with the closing ceremony and I'm on the bus for a free rest of the day. We're gonna try to go to the Ling Gu Temple and Pagoda. 

The closing ceremony was kind of a mess ;) I sat up on stage to do the music. I asked someone to video my kids and they didn't. I asked someone to start my music and they didn't. The teacher changed my choreography and messed up the only good thing about it: the Hollywood sign. I was pretty mad about it but whatever. My kids looked OK. They just didn't sing loud. I still love them. 

I was also frustrated about our performance cause they told me my one class would only have 5 kids performing cause they were leaving early and that wasn't true. So when we had rehearsal, all of the sudden I had DOUBLE the kids. 

And today I found out two of my kids were the MCs so they couldn't hold a letter and that's what messed up my Hollywood sign. Oh. Well!!!

... Later ...

Chris, Melissa and I went to the Linggu temple and pagoda! Wowwwww. It is sooo beautiful. I'm surprised they didn't bring us here instead of the mouselium when we first got to Nanjing cause this was way cooler. 

The temple was huge. I bought a prayer ribbon for 10 yuen (a love one) - and hung it on a prayer tree cause it seemed like something fun to do. 

Temple

There were buddahs in rooms. Lots of gold decorations and beautiful ceilings. Carved wood. No pics but wow!!

Pagoda

Then we made our way over to the Pagoda. The stairs were a spiral staircase in the middle all the way up to the top. The floors were less spaced out as you got to the top and what was really cool was that at floor #3 the skyline appeared out of nowhere and with each floor the skyline seemed to get bigger and closer!! And the whole time, you're surrounded by mountain with green, lush trees. 

The view from the very top was lovely. I am in love with the Linggu Pagoda and I think the Nanjing skyline rivals New York, Chicago & Shanhai's!!!  I am so lucky to be here and see all this!!!

After, we took a bus to the metro and went downtown. We went to Pizza Hut ... Ok! There was a wait - for Pizza Hut!!! We get seated and it felt like a CPK or Olive Garden with a menu the size of Cheesecake Factory's!! I got a little personal pepperoni pizza and very smoothie. So yum!!!

The waiting line

My pepperoni baby pizza

Got Melissa an extra battery pack for her trip and headed into Fashion Lady to check out what the hype was about with that ... Ok ... It's like a Vegas mall on Extasy x 1000. And it goes on forever!!! It was super cool and we kept finding poorly written English on all kinds of stuff!!

One of the many hallways

All nails and hair section

YOLO. Ones vs. once. I was dying!!

Ran back to the hotel and met up with a big group that went to the top of that tall building that's my favorite to get drinks at the lounge on the 78th floor. 

Julie, Margarita, Julie, Elsie, Prima & Robin

The view from the top was so pretty. I guess it's the 7th tallest building in the world! I got a mocktail with pineapple, orange, peppermint & sprite. It cost me like 12 bucks!! They had a jazz band playing and it was fun hanging out with everyone. 

My mocktail

Brandy 

From there, we went to another bar - Ellen's Bar. Free drinks and free food. They had these "buckets" of drinks. So I got a bucket of coke. Everyone else got drunk off theirs and all the shots they gave them for free at the end. They just love Americans. And they just give us free drinks. I got nachos & shared a burger. And had fun playing the dice game, writing on the tables, and dancing. But the music sucked when they started repeating songs a second and third time. I had to wait for someone to want to go home cause even though we were like 3 blocks from the hotel, I wasn't walking home alone at night!!  By the end, when they were bringing out all the shots, we had everyone in the bar up and dancing and drinking shots with our group. (I guess that's why we get comped!)

My bucket

One of the girls got really drunk and when she started falling over a couple other girls were ready to walk her home ... So me and 3 others also left to make sure the 3 girls were ok. Craziness. But fun!!

Crazy shots

Ha ha

What a great way to say goodbye to Nanjing!! :)

7/12 to 7/14

7-12

All I remember about school today was that it was a good day. The kids had fun in class learning about professions. We did pictionary and the card game and they loved it. For the last hour, they announced we'd be ending early cause the kids were going swimming. So that's always a nice gift when you're given an extra 40 min of prep time!!

Ice cream time!!

Shelley and Etoile playing pictionary

Justin and Kitty playing pictionary

After classes we had our last culture class - Martial arts. We had a Kung Fu master teach us the basic Kung Fu moves. It was good, felt good to stretch and exercise BUT some of those moves were way advanced!! (Aka: impossible!)

Kung Fu-ing

7-13

Today after school we found a super yummy Indian Restaurant for dinner. I had chicken tiki masala and some yummy nan. Always good to have a break from Chinese food and eat with a fork :) 

Julie, Kelly and Melissa with our Indian food 

7-14

Today was (finally) the last day of teaching. I gave the kids their little gift bags and got a few little presents from them. I got a class gift of green tea and Chinese drama masks (one from each class). When Sally saw the tea, she freaked out, saying it was the best quality tea you can get!! The masks are gorgeous. Joy, Recher, Ella and Perry gave me pictures of themselves. Cathy wrote me a little note in a notebook she gave me. Lawrence gave me his kalidescope they made. Bob gave me a NASA rocket ship. Random and so cute!!!

We signed t-shirts. I had them sign my umbrella with sharpies. We took pictures!

I gave my teachers their presents too. Elaine gave me a pearl bracelet. 

It felt good to finish up. All in all, I didn't really teach them that much but I did get them talking everyday and talked to them a lot about life in America. I feel like I got to know them and connected with them the way I was supposed to. I would love to have been better prepared with materials and have planned a more organized and meaningful curriculum ... But this was my first time and I had no clue what to expect. I keep feeling like I need to know if I want to do this again next year!

After teaching we met up with the elementary school teachers and went for our closing dinner. It was at a hotel restaurant and the food was delicious. They served ribs and they gave us plastic gloves to put on to eat them!

Rib was yum

Then all of the sudden, after people had some wine in their system, it got really fun. Each table tried out doing each other being loud in some sort of way (we will rock you stomp / YMCA) then ... We got music on and everyone started dancing, making conga lines and having so much fun. We had Sally doing wiggles, Lewie up and dancing, everyone doing Gangnam Style ... Just FUN. what a great way to end a tough two weeks of working really hard!

7/11

Not home to get my free slurpee from 7-11 today ...

I'm on my way to school on the bus. It's been hard to keep up with daily writing. But I'll try my best to fill in. I only have 4 more teaching days and the last day is just a closing ceremony. 

As of right now, I really like the kids. They are almost 7th graders and they have a tendency to space out or not listen cause they get distracted with each other and I just don't enjoy that age and dealing with those things as much as I enjoy high school - but that's really the only negative. I have a feel for what works and what doesn't. I like what I've done with then and I think they've learned things and have felt comfortable and have had a lot of fun learning with me - so I like that. 

I also feel like I accomplished a lot as far as them learning about America and life in school there compared to here. That was my most magical moment. Their questions and comparisons were cool!

I'll be sad saying goodbye but I'm not in work-mode ... I really want to get back to touring and seeing amazing China!!

... After school ...

School was good and there was nothing scheduled for after so we headed home and Melissa and I wanted to see the Yanze River Bridge. So we ask the receptionist for a note to explain that to the taxi and we get in a taxi and he starts complaining. But of course we have NO CLUE what he's saying. He was clearly pissed off. But he took us. So we drive and drive and the sun is going down and I start thinking we don't really know where this is or if it's a good area or if we might not find a taxi back from there. And just as I'm feeling like maybe we should just bail and catch a taxi back we hit heavy traffic and he starts complaining loudly again and kicks us out of the taxi! So I guess he knew there would be traffic and that's why he was complaining at the beginning. 

So Melissa has an activated for China iPhone so we get on maps and see we are still too far to walk. Like it'll be dark by the time we walk there. So we find a pretty park with a river walk and follow it along the city wall. It was full of people and it felt safe. Then we came upon a big hotel, so we figured it would be safe to eat there and easy to get a taxi. 

View from the big hotel

We get to the restaurant and of course, the menu is all Chinese. So Melissa has a little book with helpful translations with basic food items. I ordered fried rice and eggplant, but no eggplant. So I order asparagus and he shows me in the menu that it's like $10 (which is very expensive for here) ... My fried rice comes out. My asparagus comes out ... And Melissa never got her shrimp. So mine was gooooooood. And Melissa ate half but she never got her shrimp. I think she didn't order it right. :(

So on our way out, we stopped at the bathroom & I was sooooo excited it was a sit down toilet .... But I set my camera on the counter thingy behind it ... And LEFT IT THERE. 

We get back to our hotel around 9:30 and I REALIZE I LEFT MY CAMERA there. Ahhhhhh. So I go see Sally so we can maybe look up the phone of the hotel, cannot find it. I asked her to write a note saying I left my camera in the hotel bathroom. 

Melissa, who was sooooo nice and willing to go back with me, pulled up the iPhone map so we can show a taxi where we need to go. 

We got the taxi at a nice hotel by our hotel so the bellboy could ask the taxi to wait for us while I ran in to look. And we went back. 

Melissa stayed with the taxi so that he would wait and i ran into the hotel. The receptionist read the note and sent a guy up to look. I suddenly got a feeling they wouldn't know where to look so I drew the restaurant and drew which bathroom, which stall and where on the toilet I left it. She laughed and called the guy so I'm glad I did that because I think he needed the extra directions. 

I WAS SOOOOOO GRATEFUL!!! I ran to the taxi and he brought us home. I wanted to hug every person I saw. I was so lucky to get my camera back!!!!

What we had to show the taxi

Infinite View Hotel flyer

Week Two - 7/10

Back to school after a day off ... I was ms  forgetful!! I had to run back to the workroom twice for things I forgot. All that hiking wore me out!! Ha! 

Good day with the kids. I read a book with them about valentines day and then they wrote valentines for parents, siblings, teacher (none of them wrote to their teacher) or friend. A couple wrote to girl/boyfriends and a couple to an undisclosed "love". They were so cute and some had some funky English :) They love making things so it was a great activity - but here is what I loved the MOST: I have two-three boys that just don't know a lot of English and sometimes don't want to participate (even though I end up forcing them to) and for whatever reason, they SHINED with this project. They did such a good job on their cards and were so happy to do them!!! It just made my day and reinforced to me the importance of always varying my teaching methods to reach ALL types of learners and interest - specially the ones that don't fit in with the majority. I LOVE IT!!

This is from one of the kids who never wants to do anything

This one melted my heart

I hope you become younger and younger, ha!!

On their day off the kids went shopping, to the movies, played on the computer - they all seemed genuinely grateful for a day off and used it!

After class we had our culture lesson: Chinese character paper cutting. We learned the character for happiness and cut out double-happiness characters. I love making these crafty things as part of our learning about China!!

This girl, Melissa, also has an Argentine mom

Back at the hotel, we went for a little walk around the lake and randomly saw fireworks!! So random. 

Then I went to the Westin Hotel to check out their pool and get a good tourist map to maximize the rest of our free time. That place is NICE!

Day 6 ~ 7/8

Today was a great day with good questions. They really wanted to know a lot of things about school in America. It made for a great class discussion and that was with BOTH classes. 

We also made Harlem Shake Videos. I had this kid, Kobe, dress up for his part! 

Kobe!

The kids' favorite food - noodles. It's like a giant dish of soup in a cup. They add veggies and spicy sauce. 

Daisy, Shelley, Recher & David drawing a typical American teenager

Our lunch everyday is similar to this. Jennifer and Shana posing

Afternoon class drawing

We got back to the hotel and frantically made plans to celebrate: we finished day 6 ... Half way done ... And day off tomorrow. 

I had a free hour before we had to meet so I went to our lake and took some sunset pics. 

Lady statue. 

After, we met up with a big group of us and headed to a fun area called 1912. It's about a 6 street span 3 streets deep of restaurants and clubs. 

1912!

Funny seats

There we had dinner - I got a STEAK WITH FRENCH FRIES!!! So yummy - I am so meat deprived here because almost all the meat dishes are pork. And they gross me out. 

Funny thing. We all ordered and they brought us the bill. I guess at bars, you have to pre-pay. What he was charging us and what we had calculated didn't match up so we started itemizing everything and in the process discovered that they had left things out and sometimes they were out of something! Took about 15 minutes to figure out!  

While we were waiting we learned to play a dice game they play at bars here. 

Some people bailed after dinner. I stayed with the clubbing group and after checking out 3 clubs, we stayed at the third one. My friends got free drinks all night. The music was good and the dancing was fun. 

Some fun things about clubbing. They have little tables everywhere and no dance floor. People just kind of dance by their table. They bring out awesome and elaborate fruit platters to the tables. At the bar, they had Jenga games to play with!

At our bar, they had dancers in costume for one song and a singer for 2-3 others. The music was current EDM. Very fun and cool. At 12:30 there was a group leaving and a group staying. I had to decide .... I wanted to stay but I didn't want to get stuck in a situation where I wanted to leave and would have to do so alone in the dark ... So I left. I was SO GLAD cause the group who stayed got back to the hotel at 5 am!!!  And while it was fun, it would've killed my plans to go hiking on my day off!!