They Call Me Teacher

The younger Kindy group. They are definitely harder. 

These are some of my students. Just try to tell me they aren't cute! They all love pictures so anytime a phone is out you can expect to be bombarded! 

These kids have my heart! I love teaching them. I never realized how exhausting teaching is. It is seriously so draining. I come home at the end of my 3 hour teaching day, (only 3 hours!) and I'm ready for bed! They can wear you out! Kudos to the teachers that stay there all day long with those kids. They definitely deserve an award. 

Sometimes I feel like all I do the whole day is speak loudly to the kids to get them to listen or pay attention, By the end of it I've almost lost my voice. My mom told me to try speaking quietly or whispering, but that doesn't really work for some reason. Maybe on kids that speak your own language it would work better. What makes it difficult is that we have two classes that share one room, so not only do you hear your kids but you also hear the other teacher and their kids. So even if my class is being quiet and listening to me it still feels incredibly loud in the room because of the other kids. That can be difficult for the kids as well because they will get distracted by what's going on on the other side of the room. But if I make my lesson more interesting and entertaining they will want to listen to me. Therein lies the challenge! Somehow we make it work. 

Lang Lang, Dora and CiCi

These are a couple of the kids from my older Kindy class. They know so much English. It is definitely easier to teach them because they respond more to what I say and they are generally more interested in listening. I have too many favorites to even say that I have a favorite.

Lang Lang is very smart. He speaks a lot of English pretty well. And he's just so cute! 

Dora is adorable and she knows it! The first little bit she did really well with talking a lot. The past week though she hasn't been talking as much which is weird. Hopefully that will change this coming week. 

CiCi is such a fun girl. She likes to participate and she's very smart. Although the other day I had to correct her a lot and ask her to stop playing with her skirt and pay attention. Man she did not like that. If looks could kill I would be dead right now. That look she gave me that day was the nastiest stink eye I think I've ever received. She was not happy with me. Unfortunately, sometimes you have to be the bad guy. 

Pirate Odin!!!

Our little old man Andy and Cutie pie Linda

I love these kids! I don't think I could say it enough! If I were in to picking favorites Odin would be at the top of my list! He's just so sweet, always nice, participates in lessons and he's just cute! But then there's Adam too. He has the smallest mouth and he has a little lisp to go with it. He's just adorable! He's also at the top of my favorites list. There's just too many! And I love them all! I love watching them grow and learn English. It's so fun when they think you are the funniest person ever. My favorite lessons are when I can get them to laugh. Too cute to handle!

My man Adam! Cuter than words!

Well, I could probably talk a lot more about a lot of my students but I won't bore you. Just know that they are all cute as can be and I'm having a blast teaching them and learning more about myself! 

Until next time.

 Love, Hugs and Smiles!

Enjoy the Ride!

The Beautiful Yangshuo

Sorry I didn't post for a while, our internet has been spotty. But it seems to be fixed and working much better now. 

Two weekends ago my group had the opportunity to go on a 4 day vacation. It was incredible in so many ways! 

If you have never heard of Yangshuo, China you should definitely put it on your bucket list. It is seriously the most amazingly beautiful place! China is definitely not how I pictured it! At least not here in the southern part. It's basically like California but with a lot of humidity and a lot of palm trees. In Yangshuo they have mountains that are referred to as the Dr. Seuss mountains because of how they are formed. This is just a glimpse of the lush beauty!!

This is the Li River. It's murky and brown but the scenery is absolutely stunning.

However, if you get the chance to come here, raft down the Yulong river on a real bamboo raft. I wish we would have done that but our trip down the river was still fun.  

As we were rafting we saw water buffalo along the side of the river. They were so big. Also the 20 Yuan (The Chinese 20 dollar bill) has these same mountains on it. It's really cool! 

We stayed at the No Kidd Inn (a hostel) and they helped us arrange all of our activities that we did. It was very helpful and decently priced. 

The second day we were there we rented bikes and biked out to Gold Water Caves. Driving in China is crazy! Everybody that drives is so aggressive!! I'm amazed there aren't more accidents! They follow really close, cut people off very sharply, block traffic when they try to turn one way or another. It's madness. So imagine riding a bike alongside that! I was afraid for my life! Ok, not really, but I was slightly nervous at times. The Gold Water Caves are so cool! They have different colored lights to light the caves and make it look so pretty. Towards the end of the cave there was a mud pool that we swam in! It was so gross feeling, but cool at the same time. If you sat down in the water and then lifted up your hand and legs you would float there, you're bum not touching the ground and your head staying completely above water. It was so strange and cool! Everyone who did it freaked out about it! It was fun. I would post a picture but my computer is being weird about letting me get pictures from my phone. :/ So that's unfortunate. 

After the mud caves we went white water rafting down the Lingjong River! That was by far the greatest thing I have ever done! When I think of rafting I think of Snake River in Wyoming which is huge and you're sitting in a big 10-15 person tube. Well this definitely wasn't that! It was a small two person raft and the river was narrow and probably not extremely deep but deep enough that we were still able to raft. It was so pretty too! Just like everything else in China it was lush and green and jungly! SO amazing! I took the GoPro down the river with me! Definitely a few gems on there! haha. I'm so glad I had that! Thanks for letting me borrow it Merik! I am extremely surprised the raft didn't pop. Those things were very durable because there were some rocks we went over that felt like they should have popped the tube. I would have gladly rafted that river every day we were in Yangshuo! It was SO MUCH FUN!!!! 

Our group before we went down

We were looking very sporty in our awesome life jackets, helmets and "safety shoes". 

I love my group. There are 16 of us and sometimes it can be quite a chore trying to keep us all together but we make it work. 

We're so excited!

My raft buddy Kaitlyn!

L-R: Ian, Ellen, Me, Josie, Tristan

 Going down the river with Kaitlyn was so much fun! She laughs at everything! Multiple times during the ride she said, "We're gonna die!" Haha. We were both screaming a ton and having a blast. Almost every time we went over a drop or a fall we were sideways! It was so scary because it felt like the tube was going to flip!
Still so much fun!

Right before the first drop! 

Loving life!

  Most definitely a high light of my life! 

The next day was a little more relaxed. We rented mopeds and drove around the city. We drove to a place called Moon Hill and hiked up it.

Moon Hill! We made it!

Funny story: As we pulled up to Moon Hill and were parking our mopeds these older Chinese women came up to us and told us they could get us in for 15 Yuan for 2 people, whereas at the gate it's 15 Yuan for one person. So we said okay and decided to follow them. They take us around this back entrance, though we didn't know that at the time, and the lady guiding us tells us to be quiet. Suddenly she runs over to the brick wall and jumps over it expecting us to follow. WHAT!?! So we all followed suit, jumped over the wall and she led us on this unpaved path to the real path. 

She snuck us in to Moon Hill!!! It was so funny! We were all dying because of the situation. 

The view from the top was really pretty! Hiking up there was so humid and hot! Not only that but the incline was pretty steep too, and a lot of stairs. It was kind of ridiculous! Dripping sweat by the time I got up. But the view on top was definitely worth it! 

After Moon Hill we decided to ride around a bit, and then we got caught in a rainstorm. Kaitlyn was driving and this video will show you what happened during this time! haha It was scary in the moment but funny afterwards. Luckily nobody was hurt. (Sorry I didn't/couldn't edit the video before I posted it.) I thought that I had stopped recording after the accident but apparently I didn't. So after the wreck you can stop watching. :)

This is what happened to our Moped

Ok apparently the video doesn't work so you can't watch it. But basically what happened was we were riding our moped on the side of the street and there was nobody in front of  us. Remember how I said driving in China is crazy? Well, suddenly this white car pulls off to the side of the road and just stops! He didn't even pull off all the way. He stopped right in front of us and we couldn't just swerve out into the road, otherwise we would have been hit by other cars. We were able to miss crashing straight into him but we ended up hitting the back corner of his trunk. It left a couple scratches on the trunk but our moped definitely got the worst of it.
They got out of the car to talk to us but we couldn't understand what they were saying and they couldn't understand us so eventually they just waved us away. There was nothing we could do! We didn't have an insurance card or anything, or a number to write down. Plus, we didn't live there!

Oops!

 When we took the Moped back to the lady we rented it from, she didn't notice at first that it was broken and she said, "Thanks, bye!" (In Chinese of course) So I started to kind of walk away but then my conscience got to me and there is no way I could have just walked away without saying anything and let her find it later. That just was not right. I actually started to cry when I thought about doing that. I would have had so much guilt and regret. So I turned around and showed her it was broken, then showed her the video. In the end we only payed 400 Yuan for damages, though she wanted more, I just didn't have it at the time. I felt terrible. Luckily nobody was injured though!

While we were walking around in the park, there was a guy making cotton candy and he made this awesome flower for me.
Well, that's all for now. I know it's a lot and that doesn't even begin to explain or cover the amazing experience I had in Yangshuo. We had delicious Mango smoothies, explored the magnificent walking street, and also got fish pedicures! Definitely a first and last time for everything! haha It was so weird! I screamed and couldn't put my feet in for the longest time!

Until next time! 

 

A cotton candy flower. So cool!

Enjoy the Ride!!

The Past Two Weeks

8.30.15
I don't quite understand how people function here on a normal, daily basis! It is just ridiculously hot! I made a video and I intended to post it on here but apparently the file is too big. So that's unfortunate, because in it you would have seen awesome beads of sweat just dripping down my face. Constantly, that's what happens. I don't think I've ever been more physically uncomfortable in my life! But what can ya do? Eventually I'll get used to it.

So day one, we did practically nothing all day long. It was weird how it turned out because we were supposed to be doing all sorts of stuff but then we didn't. Idk. I woke up around 8 or so maybe and then we were going to go the supermarket at 10 but it took us forever to get going. We have native coordinators here that help us out a lot. They came and inspected our apartments to make sure we had everything we were supposed to. That took a while. So we got a late start getting to the market. The second you walk through those doors though, actually, before you even make it to the doors of the market you can smell the most pungent stench. It made one of my friends from my group cough a ton. It was pretty bad. Now I've kind of gotten over it. It still smells bad but at least I can prepare myself for it!

The next day we went into town to a place called Walking Street. It is a pretty neat place! There are tons of shops and stores to go in to and lots of people out on the streets selling their crafts. Some of the stuff is really neat! They have these really cool bikes made out of colored wires that were really fascinating. I think I'll go back and get a couple as souvenirs. While we were out at walking street we also went to a KTV place. For those of you who don't know (like I didn't) it's a karaoke place! They call it KTV. We went in and it's not just a big room with a mic in the front that everyone goes into. We got our own private room for our group with a big tv on the wall to project the song/music video. Basically all of us just screamed the songs together so it wasn't really karaoke but it kinda was. Two people had mics and they got up to sing but everyone else sang along. It was a lot of fun!

Also, while we were walking around Walking Street we got caught in a downpour! It's so interesting, when it rains here it dumps for maybe 20 minutes and then it's over. It might sprinkle again or it could dump again but it's usually pretty spread out. It's nice because then we can still walk around and just wait it out if it's bad. We found a really gorgeous place on one of the side streets. There are these stairs that lead up into what looks like a jungle, (which is all of China actually. It's SOOO green here!) Once you get to the first landing there's more steps leading straight or you can go to the left up a few smaller steps. We went to the left and saw the most gorgeous view of the city from an overlook. There was a circular archway that led to the overlook that was very unique to China. It really made me feel like I was somewhere foreign...which I am.

9.10.15
I've now spent two weeks here in China and it still blows my mind that I am here. It almost doesn't phase me since I have my big group that I'm with and we all speak English to each other. And when we teach we teach in English. I'm pretty much used to seeing only Chinese people now. When I see Americans or white people that aren't in our group it's an oddity and it makes my heart leap a little. I just want to talk to them and see how their experience in China is! It's funny. I haven't felt homesick or anything which is great, except when it comes to food...but we'll get to that later.

Clockwise: Lang, Dora and CiCi

We have started teaching and the kids are so adorable. Sometimes while I'm teaching I don't think that because they can be little terrors and behave badly, but for the most part they are just so stinking cute! They call me Teacher Alyssa. :) It makes my heart melt! Especially when I see them outside of class and they get so excited to see me and they call out my name! It's adorable and heartwarming!
Pic on the right clockwise: Lang(pronounced long), Dora and CiCi
Pic below: Odin,
Easily 4 of my favorite kids!

Pirate Odin! 

Teaching is interesting because I really just feel like I'm yelling all day. Well, all morning. We only teach for 2 and a half-ish hours each day, from 8:40-11:20. I'm teaching Kindergarten, the 4-6 year olds. We call it Kindy for short. Each class has 7-8 students in it. We don't have separate classrooms for each class, we just use one big room for 3 classes and sit on opposite sides of it. It makes it difficult for some of the lessons because the kids in one group will get distracted by the kids in the other group. And if the other group is being loud it makes it hard for you to hear your students and it all just feels loud all the time! I'm almost hoarse by the end of each day. But it's ok. The kids are cute and we make it work. When they smile and laugh and think you're the greatest thing since sliced bread, it makes everything else ok! It especially makes the awful cafeteria food worth it!

Now, back to the food. Oh there's so much I could say about our cafeteria food. Pretty sure my insides are all sorts of messed up because my body can't process all the freaking rice and oils I'm eating!!! AH! The rice really isn't the worst thing. It's actually the only real staple I have....in every meal. I am seriously lacking on the protein though. Anytime they have meat you're lucky if you get enough of it that doesn't have bones. They just cook everything, bones and all! Then you get to play "find the meat". Or it simply all looks sketchy so you'd rather not try. Or it's dark meat and we all know I'm just not a fan of that. They serve shrimp that still looks like real shrimp and you have to peel it, vein and all. I don't like seafood anyway but if I did and I had to peel all that off I don't think I could do it. The side dishes they have are all drenched in oils. It's as if they don't know how to steam a vegetable! That's all I want is just a steamed veggie. Not an oil drenched, soupy veggie. With all that being said, I am grateful I at least have food. I could go out to eat every night for dinner but that's just a poor choice for the wallet. Even if the american dollar is equivalent to 6 Yuan, it still goes fast. On the plus side, I'm really good with chopsticks now! :) I thought it would be hard to eat with them, and it can be depending on the food, but for the most part I can eat almost anything with them. Even slippery noodles. PRO!!

Sorry this is a long post, I just haven't updated in a while. There will be another lengthy post soon about our 4 day trip to Yangshuo last weekend! It was so amazing! Definitely a MUST SEE place!

Until then! Love, hugs and smiles! :)

Oh, also, I'm learning Kung Fu! :)

EnjoyTheRide