Sunday 6/30

Woke up today and went to a mausoleum with lots of stairs. Dr. Sun Yat-sen is buried here

Roomie pic

From there, we went to a very sad place. It's the site of a mass burial for 100,000 Chinese that were brutally slaughtered and mistreated by the Japanese at the beginning of WW2. All together there were 300,000 victims. And this museum was 100 x bigger than the museum of Tolerance in LA and just as sad, if not sadder - cause there were lots if photos depicting what happened. And lots of first hand accounts from survivors. 

After our touring, Sally showed us the grocery store, fruit store & food street. 

Melissa and I went to get a foot massage. It was an hour long and included a neck and shoulder massage! Super cool! We were in a little room and they served us watermelon and tea. 

Massage with wooden massagers ending (they made a little cadence out of it)

Happy after the spa treatment

Then we went to dinner at a restaurant Sally suggested. It was good. The menu had pictures and descriptions in English, so we picked out some things we liked and it was delicious!! They also had a musical performance. 

First dinner on our own - we did well!!

Then we walked around the lake for an hour. The lake is beautiful!!! I'll take some pics later ... Went to bed so exhausted!!

Monday - 7/1

Today was all about going to the school for the first time. WOW!! It's so much bigger than I expected!!! It's like community college size. The elementary school is on a different campus kind of far away (we bus between them)

Entrance to our school

Entrance to our school

In service

They took us to a room where we met our coordinator in China, Faye. And our middle school director, Maggie. Lewie is a teacher that has done this 5 years already and he gave us a little in-service. We also heard from a 28yr old-ish guy that's from Boston and has been teaching in China for 2 years - BYU grad :). He gave us some pointers on what would feel different to us. All very helpful!

Then we went to get our teaching materials luggage and got set up in our workrooms. We got our teaching assignments. But we'll meet the teachers and see our rooms tomorrow. 

Had dinner at the school. When we got back home, we had a little outing to take the metro for the first time. It's easy only because the station names are written in English, if not, it would be impossible to read the Chinese symbols for me. 

View half a block from our hotel

View one block from our hotel

Westin Hotel - 1 block away

There are only 3 lines. So, that's not confusing. What's confusing, is that the stations are like malls!!! Super high end stores and food places and like the one station we went to had 14 different exits!!!  

Subway

Downtown Nanjing

They showed us how to get to Walmart. I tried to buy a mango smoothie and ended up with mango tea instead :( so I gave it to my roommate. 

Got home pretty tired!

Freaking out a little bit - 7/2

In a half hour we will have our opening ceremony at school to kick off our program. They asked me to do the thank you speech on behalf of the middle school teachers. 

We spent the day meeting our teachers and having time to lesson plan. But I had technological issues and so my day was interrupted a bunch of times for nothing cause we didn't get the issues fixed - so it was frustrating. Everyone was lesson planning and sharing ideas. And I don't know - it wasn't very helpful to have all day this way. 

So right now, I'm tired and frustrated and we still have the ceremony. And meh ... I need to get over it and be my flexible happy self!!

My partner teachers are Sally and Elaine. Elaine didn't really show up to help me with anything or even talk to me. Sally was helping me with connecting the laptop but had nothing to offer for the curriculum planning. So I'm totally on my own here and it's hard to start planning until I meet my kids and see their personality and what they are into. 

I work best last minute and under pressure so I decided to just chill out right now and worry about tomorrow's lesson tonight and tomorrow morning. 

Todd this morning. Reminding us all to not take ourselves so seriously!

Working in the middle school teacher's workroom

The dinner tonight was VIP. I got seated at the table with Sally, who is the lady on charge of us - the principal and two vice principals. They spoke Chinese the whole meal and me and the other Americans just talked about the food (we do this most meals, trying to figure out what is in each dish!)

Then we went to closing ceremonies. I was feeling so tired and frustrated that I just pulled up my Book of Mormon on my phone and read scriptures for 20 minutes - that helped me feel better (always does)!

The ceremony was cute. I survived my speech thing and the students danced, sang, did a skit and dubbed a movie clip. Then they ended with FIREWORKS! How cool is that?!?

Me speaking

Opening ceremony highlights

My 7th grade teaching buddy, Shana

Exhausting, good and bad day!!

Nanjing - home sweet home

We arrived in Nanjing late Saturday night. Driving to our hotel, I was SHOCKED at how big Nanjing is - its like Chicago!!

We stopped for dinner at a place called Confucius Palace. It's a shopping center ~ china town looking. We had an hour to shop around and then we had Dim Sum (small appetizers - like tapas but Chinese style!) Most of it was yummy - but a lot of it was soups!

Confucius Temple

Confucius Temple

Waiting for dinner

Confucius Temple

Confucius Temple

Confucius Temple

Confucius Temple

Confucius Temple

Dim Sum

Dim Sum

Our hotel is right next to the lake and really close to all kinds of businesses, shops and the metro station. 

I'm gonna love it here. Melissa is a really great roommate. I am so grateful for that!!! Our room is nice and comfy. It has a good shower, comfy bed AND wifi!!! So I'm happy! 

The first night there was construction going on right outside our window all night long. We are both heavy sleepers so it didn't phase us but some of the other teachers were so upset. I guess the hotel complained to the city and they stopped. But I wonder for how long. It seems they work overnight instead of during the day which makes sense cause it's sooo hot here!!

Nanjing buildings (bus shot)

Goodbye to Hangzhou

It's 2pm and we're leaving Hangzhou.  We have a 4 hour bus ride to Nanjing, so I'm gonna take advantage and catch up on my stories. 

This morning we went to the yellow Dragon Temple. It's ALL about destiny ... And so there were lots of fun things we did there. First, at the entrance, there's a crazy display of non tech match.com! All these parents bring a 1 page description of their single son or daughter and "advertise them" by hanging the pages all around. Then there's a mass of people all walking around, reading them and finding what they like. Sometimes the people stand by their page so they'll talk to those interested and show pictures and give more info. Hilarious!! 

Ads posted by parents about their kids

Parents "shopping" for good matches for their children

Lucky baby butts

From there, we went inside to this fountain. It has a receptacle in the middle and 6 stone "stands" - you stand on the stone you want to "wish" about and throw an old Chinese coin in. There was education, promotion, money, love, marriage & children. So I got 10 Chinese coins and threw them into the marriage one ... I missed EIGHT times but made it on the ninth. Then I threw the last coin into children and missed :(. 

Luck fountains

Marriage stone

Cool cave fountain

There was an opera performance, only females perform. (Crazy, opera performances in a temple!)

And from there we went to the main part of the temple. A buddah guy that has a book of destiny. In the book, it lists who is destined to meet who and when. 

So there are 8 cubbies. And in them is a fortune. You choose the category you want, pick a metal fortune thing, trade it for a paper that is in some language. And then these dudes interpret it for you! Mine (I grabbed marriage) said that next year I'd have more than one boyfriend. Many men, and I'll get to choose. The destiny is made bit I have to make it happen. Awesome! Ha ha. 

Buddah guy with the 8 cubbies 

Picking the fortune

The metal fortune thingy

My paper thingy

Interpreting my fortune

Then there was a cave thing that took you to a fountain under the yellow dragon statue. 

And a statue of babies, that if you rub the  butts, it gives you good luck. 

So a whole morning of destiny and fortunes and luck seeking!

Then we went to a tea plantation. It was a gorgeous drive cause it's up in the mountains where it's really lush and green and all the tea is terraced. The tea demo was ok but I felt like I was at a pyramid network marketing presentation cause they tried hard core to get us to buy it! This was dragon well green tea. Green tea has nothing on mate!! :) 

 

Green tea leaves

Green tea with Hawthorne berries and orange peel. 

Lunch and off to Nanjing. 

Evening Walk in Hangzhou

Last night, we got back to the hotel at 8:30 and that's as just too early, so a little group of 4 of us walked to West Lake and walked around for a couple of hours. It is the prettiest lake! Perfectly landscaped. In the water, you have lotus gardens. A couple gazebos, gorgeous with trees, including weeping willows, benches, cute little bridges, gardens. So so cute and romantic and just pretty!

We walked up to this water show 5 min before it started. It was a Bellagio-style water show with music! So awesome and we just randomly walked up at the right time!! They did 2 songs in Chinese and "time to say goodbye" so it totally felt like Bellagio!!

Water show

West Lake at night 

Lotus garden

City skyline behind the lake