Hell (Beijing pt. 1)

Beijing was heavenly. It was surreal to visit the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, and the Ancient Observatory. The streets we wandered and bought food and bartered on were super fun. However getting to Beijing was a horrible, horrible nightmare.

I'll start at the beginning. We had 2 train tickets to get us there. One from Suzhou to Nanjing, leaving after school on Friday, 4:40 PM. Then our train from Nanjing to Beijing left at 9:50 PM that same day.

The problem is, Meagan had to be at the school until 3:50 PM, which gave us just under an hour to make it to the train station.

Normally, driving there takes about half an hour, so we weren't too worried. I guess we forgot to take into account that it was a holiday, (Quingming Festival aka tomb sweeping day aka Chinese memorial day), and traffic would be insane. We did think enough to send Maddie and Abby there ahead of time to pick up our tickets, however.

Once Meagan was done at the school, the rest of us grabbed our bags and BOOKED it to the corner where our DiDi driver was scheduled to meet us (DiDi = Chinese Uber). Then we got a message saying she would be a few minutes late. That worried us, but we still had hope.

She finally arrived, 8 minutes late, and was perhaps the slowest, most timid driver in all of China. In her defense, there was quite a bit of traffic. We spent the whole car ride searching for new train tickets to Nanjing, because we weren't sure we'd make it on time. Then we found one! 5 seats left. But there was 6 of us.
We called Abby with our Chinese phones, told her to give Maddie our passports and jump onto our train by herself. That way, we'd buy those 5 tickets and meet her at the Nanjing train station. Abby shoved our passports into Maddie's hand and ran to find our train, staying on the phone with us as she went. Due to technical difficulties, we weren't able to purchase those tickets. So, we told her to stop right there and wait for us. She was understandably pretty angry, and everyone was really frustrated at the situation, but it only got worse from there.

 Meanwhile, our Didi pulled up to the train station, train leaving in 3 minutes, we RAN to find the other girls, but the driver dropped us off at the wrong side, so we were doomed.

Once we faced the fact that we missed our train, we found Abby and Maddie and decided to order 2 DiDi's to take us to Nanjing, fully knowing it was a 2 hour drive and would be very expensive. But if it meant we could go to Beijing, it would be worth it. As we waited at the corner for our cars to arrive, we were approached by a different driver.
His English wasn't great, so we typed out translations on our phones back and forth.
 "You need a car?"
 "Actually, yes. How much would it cost to take us to Nanjing?"
 "All of you?"
We looked at his car. It was a typical 5-seater small car so we were kinda confused by that.
"...Can you take all of us..?"
"Yeah! Get in!"
He told us the price. I don't remember what it was, but it was almost half the price of 2 DiDi's. So that was nice. We showed him the address we were going to, and he said "ah, yes".

He popped the trunk, we threw our bags in, then Abby and Lindsay crammed into the passenger seat, and Meagan, Maddy, Sami, and I piled into the back seat.
The driver drove for only a couple minutes before pulling to the side of the road. "5 in the back" he typed on his phone.
"what?"
"police man ahead. Need 5 in back, one in front."
So Lindsay got out of the passenger seat she shared with Abby, and into the back seat. So yeah, we stuffed 5 full sized humans on a bench made for 3. Every time we got to a toll booth or passed a police man, our driver would tell us to put our heads down. It was hilarious.

 The GPS said we would make it to the Nanjing station 2.5 hours before our train left to Beijing. Nice! We'd have time to stretch our legs in between our squishy car ride and 12 hour train ride. Then we got stuck in traffic, and time kept counting up. We payed him extra to take us on the side roads, which saved us about 30 minutes.  But in the end, what was supposed to be a 2.5 hour car ride turned into a 5 hour car ride.

5 girls, 1 bench, 5 hours

It was the most uncomfortable 5 hours of my life. I didn't have it as bad as the other girls though. Abby got the comfy front seat, but she had to pee SO BAD. We didn't have time to stop, so when we got stuck in a traffic jam, she was seriously considering jumping out and peeing on the road. One of the other girls who will remain anonymous started her period, and like I said, we didn't have time to stop, so she was dealing with that.

By the time we got to the train station, we had 15 minutes to find security and get to our train.

The driver dropped us up at the wrong side, so we RAN all over the train station looking for security. But since it was late, only one section was open, so it was like finding a needle in a haystack. As we were sprinting around,  One of us was trying to hide the fact that she started her period and carrying her suitcase. Abby had one backpack on front, one on back, and was about to pee herself. Sami was carrying her suitcase in her arms as well, and I had my huge duffel bag. But the worst part was all of our legs were asleep from our squishy car ride, so we were running like a bunch of idiots. But Lindsay is super fit and runs marathons, so she pushed us to the limit. And we were HUFFING AND PUFFING let me tell you. I don't think I've ever ran that hard in my life. The Chinese people were staring at us. We looked like a bunch of maniacs.

We FINALLY found security with 3 minutes to get through, run down to our platform and board our train. There was no line! We could do this. We handed them our tickets, and they laughed. We were kind of upset and confused by this, so we just told them to hurry up, and they pointed at our tickets and said "Nanjing south station." Our train was for Nanjing station. Our driver had taken us to the wrong station entirely. Even though we showed him the address and our train tickets multiple times and asked if he knew it, and he said he did.

After that, we stepped outside of security and just plopped on the floor to drink water and catch our breath. I had a huge headache and I was devastated because I thought this meant we wouldn't be able to go to Beijing at all.  After we soaked in the defeat, we all went to McDonalds to get WiFi and figure out a plan. I thought the plan would be to spend a nice long weekend in Nanjing. But when we met up, we looked at trains to Beijing for the next afternoon. It was a lot more pricey than the other ones, but we found one!  Then, we found a place to sleep in Nanjing that night and got taxis to take us there. The hostel was super cleanly, and had some yummy candies in a jar. The perfect end to a perfect day!

So yeah, getting to Beijing ended up being way way way more expensive and frustrating than it was supposed to be, and everything that could've possibly gone wrong went wrong. But the next day, we had some time before our new train to Beijing, so we explored Nanjing a bit and went to a cool temple/museum in the rain:

We found a door shaped like a frisbee!

On the steps with Lindsay

Cool

Then we got on our K train and were finally on our way to Beijing!

K trains are pretty gross. People will hock loogies right onto the floor, smoke cigarettes, and they're always very loud. People are constantly yelling angrily on the phone or at each other. Sometimes it can be scary. But we survived the over night train ride without a scratch, and made it to Beijing the next morning! The End. Getting there was chaos, But it was so worth it. You'll see why in my next post :-)

Vacation number 1: Chengdu

Writing about this vacation might be a challenge because it was a long while ago, but I'll try my extra most bestest!🍕 This was our first 4 day vacation, so we didn't really know what we were doing. But it ended up being perfect!
Nisha, Kaylin, Sami, And I left immediately after school on the 14th of April. Our coordinator Helena helped us arrange a car to drive us to the airport, and we flew into Chengdu. Although it was only a 2.5 hour flight, they fed us a giant meal. It wasn't very good. Airplane food, ammirite?

When we arrived that night, we went to our hostel and pretty much planned our trip itinerary. The flip flop hostel is very cute, and the staff was extremely helpful and spoke impeccable English.

The view outside our Hostel

The Mona Lisa,Leonardo Di Vinci, 1503

The next morning, we went to Du Fu's thatched cottage. It's a park in honor of the poet Du Fu. On the journey from the subway station to the park, we saw a man selling a turtle on a stick, got lost in an alleyway we thought might be a shortcut (it wasn't), found noodlepong, and went into a bunch of little gift shops. For lunch I ate some delicious spicy potatoes from a lady's cart. It was only around 75 cents, and so tasty!

Tasty turtle

Alleyway

Tasty noodles

Gift shop filled with pandas

Tasty potatoes

We finally made it to the cottage and as you can see, it was pretty pretty.

Careful!

Kaylin, Nisha, and Du Fu

Waterfall

That night, we explored the big city, then ate at pizza hut. As happy as I was to find a normal pizza place, I was in the mood to be brave, so I  the ordered the durian pizza. Durian is a super stinky fruit, so stinky that it is apparently banned in Singapore's mass transit. But they are very popular in China. The pizza was very sweet and very gross. I would highly recommend not eating it.

This is a picture I found on google images of Durian

Nisha at a fruit stand

*sigh* The city.

The next day was a big day. First, our tour guide picked us up to go see pandas on National Panda day, so that was a dream come true. I have a zillion pictures and videos of them, but here's just a couple. There were red pandas as well as regular pandas, and we got to see so many of them! Every time I thought it would be the last one, we'd turn a corner and bing bing bong, there would be 10 more. We also saw a cool frog on the trail, and some black swans. Then we went to a restaurant where I accidentally shattered a fancy tea cup and we ate eggs.

The View

Red Pandas

Us

Black Swans

Pandas

Cute

Screenshot of frog video

After lunch, we drove 2 hours to see the biggest Buddha in the world. The drive was gorgeous, we got to see a lot of China countryside and rice farms. Then we threw on some super cute orange life vests and took the ferry to get a good look at the Buddha. They aren't kidding when they say it is GIANT. Take a look:

Big bhudda

Watching

Boat ride

When we got home that night, our hostel was having a hot pot party. Everyone staying there came together to eat-hot pot style. (a hot bowl in the middle of the table- add raw food you like- it cooks in the bowl- voila!). We ate with people from France, Japan, Germany, Russia, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, India, England, Taiwan, China (duh), and a few other places. It was so interesting to be in a room full of such different people living such different lives. We went around the room saying why we were in china, and eventually it got to a group of american-looking girls and they said "We're from Utah teaching English with a program called ILP".
What are the chances we'd stay in the same hostel as another ILP group at the same time? Crazy. So we moved to their table and talked for a while. We compared and contrasted our schools and living situations, and concluded that they teach a lot less and their school is a lot more chill about things, but their city isn't as cool as ours. Then we invited them to explore the city and get some real food.

 At the crosswalk by our hostel, there was a guy on the streets waving a puppy in the air and singing. I'd give his voice like a 6, and the dog a perfect 10.

After much deliberation, we decided on a restaurant called Mr. Bear. It had a train track going all over the place, and every seat was occupied by a teddy bear. Super cute. There was a little boy there that kept approaching our table to showcase his English. He'd sing the ABC's or count to 10 or something, then scamper away and hide behind his mom. It was so cute. Then we went back to the hostel, and we never saw him or the other ILP group again.

The next and final day of our vacation, we visited Jingli ancient walking street, and went to the face changing opera.

At Jingli walking street, we purchased lots of cool souvenirs, ate octopus on a stick, got henna tattoos, and had lots of photos taken of us. I don't have any of those pictures, though I do have some pictures that We took.

The opera was neat, that's for sure. Before it started, we went to a tea party where everyone sat at tables and drank tea until it was time to go into the auditorium. There was a man roaming around clinking some freaky looking metal tools together, trying to get people to pay him to clean out their ears. He walked up to me, clinked his tools by my head, and made the noise I imagine a question mark would make if it could talk. I just laughed and said "absolutely no thank you". He moved on to the lady next to me, she said no, but she spoke mandarin, so he kept insisting. They yelled at each other for quite a while, and I can only imagine what they yelled about haha. NO YOU CAN'T CLEAN OUT MY EARS!
The opera itself was quite interesting. The plot was hard to follow, even though there was a monitor  translating what was being sung into English. But I'll be honest: Chinese operas are very whiney and obnoxious in my opinion. I can't comprehend how humans can listen to it and think "wow this is beautiful." Because to me it's worse than nails on a chalkboard.  My favorite lyric from the show was "beautiful girls beautiful girls, 30 percent are beautiful, the rest are dexterous"
Beyond the music, the opera contained a lot of things I liked, like a girl spinning a table on her feet, a guy doing the limbo in a very impressive way with fire on his head, fire breathing, and face changing. I don't know how to post videos, otherwise I would.

After the opera, we ran into this guy who spoke amazing English, without even a hint of an accent. In fact, he talked kind of like one of those gangsta rapper dudes. We told him we wanted noodles and he was like "Nahhhh noodles? I cook noodles so spicy it will make your mouth numb. we could go back to my place and jam to some music and enjoy the numb flavvvaaaaas".
 As inviting as that offer sounded, Sami doesn't like spicy food, so we had to decline :( We talked to him a while longer, then he lead us to a noodle place around the corner and all was well. He got Sami's wechat and left her some funny voice messages.
Then we went to bed, woke up, got on a plane, ate the airplane food, got home, and that was the end of that!

Ketchup: Daily life (long post)

Before I talk about vacations and weekend trips and funny stories, I thought it might be good to explain the regular days. So if you want to read something interesting, this post isn't for you. This is a long, boring blog post about my schedule and everyday life. Mostly for myself to look back on, and for my parents (Hi guys) in case they're wondering what I'm doing.

Breakfast is from 6:45-7:30.  There are cafeteria workers that stand behind a window who don't speak any English. There's always a few things to choose from. Most of it is bread.

The school where we teach is located right across the street from our apartments. Well, not across the street, really. More like across the sidewalk. There's a map somewhere in this post.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I walk over to the school at around 8:00 AM to mentally and physically prepare myself to teach the second graders at 8:30. I love them so much, but I'll make a post about that later.

The teachers rotate between which subjects we teach. I teach 4 of them. Gym and games, Arts and crafts, Kitchen, and Drama.

In gym and games, I've done things like 4 square, obstacle courses, minute to win it, and bowling. The kids get really into all of the games, its so cute but can get pretty chaotic.

In arts and crafts, we've made rain clouds, fans, and a bunch of other little crafts. Its so fun to let the kids get creative with it and express their personalities, so I have a lot of fun teaching it. It's challenging to keep it language-based instead of just working on the crafts, however.

Clouds!

Pirate Ships!

In drama, we play things like peter pan, where I sprinkle pixie dust (glitter) on them and we fly around, get in sword fights, act like pirates, and go for treasure hunts. This is a picture of Cindy, who kept asking me to sprinkle more and more glitter on her, and refused to let me wash it off when class ended. In drama, our story never stays very close to the actual story line and we just have to go with the flow. It's probably the hardest subject for me to teach.

You can't tell, but her face was covered in green pixie dust

 In kitchen we cook cute little snacks. Its tricky because you have to buy all your own ingredients to feed the kids, so it gets pretty expensive. You also only have about 25 minutes to help the kids make the snack. But its probably my favorite thing to teach. Some of the treats we've made includes: twinkie cars (you can't find twinkies in china- but you can find "yellow finger flavor cakes"). We've also made buttered green noodles, french toast, and chocolate dipped fruit kabobs. Side note: the fruit in china is SO yummy and SO cheap. I'm going to miss that for sure.

Yellow finger flavor cake car!

There are 27 second graders, and they're split into 5 small classes. We all start the day with an opening activity, then split into our classes. Every 30 minutes, the students rotate, and after we've taught all 5 rotations, we gather back together for "closing ceremonies".

If the pollution isn't horrendous that day, they go out to the soccer field for "exercise" in between the second and third rotation. We never know if there will be exercise that day, until about 20 minutes before they have to go. They just blast music and do a choreographed exercise/ dance routine which is sometimes accompanied by a chant.  Its very weird but so cute. Then, they come back for the rest of ILP.

Second Grade ends at 11:20, then it's lunch time. Its similar to breakfast, you point to 3 things you want to eat with your rice heap, and the people behind the window plop it onto your tray. There's different things to choose from every day. At first I thought the food was gross, but now I genuinely enjoy it. Lots of over-boiled, oily, sweet vegetables and mystery meat is pretty much the most accurate way to describe it. If nothing looks good, they have a little cafe thing with yogurts and milk tea and sometimes sandwiches and stuff.

A typical lunch

After lunch, I usually go back and chill in my apartment (I'll typically clean up, lesson plan, or organize something) until I have to go back to school to teach grade 3 from 12:50 to 2:20. These students are SO MUCH CRAZIER than the second graders. Its super fun, but sometimes they drive me BONKERS. But again, I'll save that fun stuff for another post.

Cute third graders

On MWF I teach the third graders spelling, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I teach them math. In spelling I make my own spelling lists, since the ones ILP gives us are way too easy for these kids. They're so smart. We usually play spelling games like jeopardy, or pass a ball around shouting out letters, or spelling Jenga. Occasionally I'll do a spelling test.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I teach them math. Geometry, story problems, angles, graphing, telling time, and things like that are things we've been covering. It's not my favorite subject to teach because I basically just wing it, and I have no idea if I'm teaching them what they need to learn. But I try my best to make it fun for me by making it fun for them, haha.

I also have to create homework each day for the third graders. They don't have printers we can use, but they do have copy machines! So I just scribble something out on a half sheet of lined paper, and go to the copy center to make 28 of them. Maybe one day I'll post a picture of their homework.

So that's my teaching schedule. Then, I have meetings and classes throughout the week.

I have a "Chinese Class" on Wednesdays between lunch and grade 3, however our Chinese teacher, Echo, says teaching Chinese is boring. So instead, she tells us about random streets in Suzhou. I don't really like it, and I wish our Chinese teacher would teach us some Chinese. But instead I learn all about where I can buy wedding dresses and hot dogs!

We go to a Taiji class on Tuesdays between lunch and Grade 3. Its kind of like yoga, kind of like dancing, mostly like yoga. None of us know the Taiji teachers name, but it's definitely too late to ask. Whats-her-name teaches us the routine we will be preforming in front of the whole school at the end of the semester, so it's pretty important that we attend. But it's really hard to remember, and she keeps adding on more and more, so I'm getting a wee bit nervous. It's interesting being taught a routine by someone who knows very little English. She'll demonstrate what to do, and if we do it right she says "ah, yes" and if we do it wrong, shell grab us and move us the way she wants. This class is really relaxing and I actually love it a lot.

We have a group meeting with all 11 teachers from 6-7:30

On Wednesdays after teaching 3rd grade, the third grade teachers meet. It's just Sami, Lindsay, and I. We usually plan things for the end of year performance, and talk about what each person needs to work on to prepare for that.

End of year performance:
 The school asked each grade to do a primary program-esque presentation where everyone says a line into the microphone, but then they requested the third graders do a skit instead.
At first the instructions we received were basically "Write us a skit, make it about differences between cultures. make it really creative and interesting for an audience that doesn't speak any English, while still showing off their English skills. We don't want it to have a plot, because that might be too hard to follow. we also don't want it to be a musical" So we started working on a skit following those guidelines. Then, the school changed their mind and was like "actually you can just do a 15 minute skit of Moana, but there can be no main characters, and all 28 kids need an even amount of stage time" so we had to practically re-write the movie to fit 28 kids. Because of these changes, we are WAY behind schedule. It's okay though, we still have a month to get it down.

That's pretty much my schedule. I'll talk about other regular things in my life now.

First, I'll talk about my apartment. All 11 of us live on the third floor, in the same hallway. Sami and I occupy room 307.

We have our own bathroom, microwave, and minifridge. It also has an air conditioner/ heater which is really nice. Our school doesn't have that luxury, and when we first got here it was freezing, so both the teachers and the students were bundled up.

Our beds are essentially box springs topped with a half inch thick foam pad given to us to put on top. I thought I'd be miserable, but I'm sleeping better than ever.

On the second floor, there is a room with a water filter, which is the only water we can drink, so Sami and I have a pitcher we fill up and keep in our room. I like to carry it on my head when I'm bringing it back upstairs because I think that's funny.

On the fourth (and final) floor, there are 2 small washing machines. They aren't the best, but they (sort of) get the job done. The dryer is broken, so we hang dry our clothes.

There is also a kitchen area upstairs that has a hot plate and a bajillion toaster ovens. Like. There are so many toaster ovens. No regular ovens, though. We've had a surprise birthday party for Nisha up there, where we all pitched in to get her a little bamboo gift and some treats. We've also had a couple of "family dinners" there. On the fourth floor there is also access to the roof. I really like to go out there and soak up the sun and wind while I work on lesson plans.

Our school is similar to a campus. Except there's only one way out, and its a gate guarded by security guards. But they pretty much let anyone in or out without questioning them, so I'm not sure what their purpose is. We just say "Nihao", they open the gate, and we say "Shi Shi".

In the center of campus is a soccer field with a track around it, and its surrounded by buildings. The ILP classrooms are on the second floor of our building, and we found out there are doors to the first floor on the other side. Behind those doors, there's like a zoo with a bunch of lizards and cats and sometimes there's a horse down there. Its usually locked but it's so random.

There's also a little convenience store that you can buy snacks at,  which reminds me of a gas station. They have some pretty yummy things.

Red circle= Gate. Green Circle= My apartment. Purple circle= school. Orange circle= cafeteria/ convenience store. Blue circle= gym where we do Taiji. Yellow circle= copy room and chinese class are inside.

Every night the frogs sing us to sleep.

There are always mosquitoes in our room.

City Life:

We ride the buses and subway everywhere. We all got special bus/subway cards that you can use instead of coins, which makes me feel like a real local! Mine says "Merry Christmas" on it, even though I got it in spring. I've discovered its always Christmas in china. Anyways, we've gotten pretty good at the public transportation thing.
The driving here is insane, and being a pedestrian is, too. They say that bus drivers are insured for 3 deaths per year. So yeah. When you cross a street, you kind of just have to go for it like the grandma with the lucky cricket in Mulan.

Speaking of lucky crickets, you can buy them in cute little cages on the streets here. You can also buy tiny pet turtles at any grocery store. They keep them in small plastic boxes with no water and its super sad. You can also buy slightly larger turtles to cook and eat at any grocery store. The meat sections are pretty gnarly. Lots of whole chickens (heads, shoulders, knees, and toes) and crazy looking fish. Here are some pictures:

Cricket cages

Giant Cucumber! Jk, no idea what these are.

The whole chicken

or just the yummy part

There are 3 grocery stores that are each about a 25 minute walk away. Everything comes in really small quantities, so I don't know how anyone feeds their families. Then again, they're only allowed to have 2 kids, so I guess it makes sense. There's also a park that's constantly full of old ladies doing taiji, even at night.

Mopeds are everywhere, and it great quantities. There's a separate mini road on the side of every regular road specifically built for them.  They also all have weird alarm security systems. I swear they start blaring sirens if you so much as give them a dirty look. I hope I'll get to ride one before I get back!

I've gotten used to the honking. At first we'd be like "CALM DOWN" whenever we were honked at, but now we hardly notice.

I've gotten so used to being a celebrity. Jk, but people are constantly sneaking not-so-sneaky pictures of us with their selfie sticks, or asking us to take pictures with them, or with their child. They love white people here. I don't really like it but such is life.

There are oodles of stray cats and dogs on the streets. They are all so cute and friendly, but they just do their own thing and don't bother anyone. I love each and every one of them, especially the dogs.

China is also full of bubbles. There are bubbles floating around everywhere you go, and its pretty magical.

I'll finish off this post with something fun: The squatters. When we arrived, I took my first opportunity to use a squatter, because I was really excited to try it. I'm actually really good at it, and honestly prefer it now, at least for pee. Pooping is hard because there's not enough water in them, so you have to aim it perfectly or else it won't flush. Which is why public restrooms smell so bad. Not everyone aims perfectly, so there's poop everywhere. Our apartments have western toilets, but basically everywhere else is squatters. There's occasionally  a handicap stall with a western toilet, but watch out: Sometimes, you'll have to pee so bad, you won't even look at the toilet seat. You'll just plop yourself down, and end up covered in pee because Chinese people don't know how to use western toilets. But it's not like that has ever happened to me or anything!

This is one of the cleanest and fanciest squatters I have found. Come with rushing, leave with flushing!

More bathroom talk: There is no toilet paper in public restrooms, so you have to remember to take toilet paper or tissues wherever you go.

There is usually no soap in public bathrooms. Hand sanitizer save live

In China the pipes are really small, so you can't flush toilet paper at all,ever, not even in our apartments. It backs the pipes up pretty bad. So at first I was really freaked out by it, but I'm completely accustomed to throwing away toilet paper instead of flushing it. So that's a gross habit I'll have to kick when I get back.

That's all I can think of to say.

Ketchup- First Impressions

I have been in china for 74 days now, and haven't made a single blog post, so I have an insane amount of things I could write about. Like the strange people we sit next to on trains, or how china always smells weird, or our crazy vacation stories. Anyways. I have a lot to say, and I'm going to attempt to write as much of it as I can. But before I start spouting out a million stories and random details about china, I'd like to address that this blog is going to be more like a journal than a blog for others to read. So if you're reading this, I hope you're not expecting to be entertained! Post number one is dedicated to first impressions.

It's difficult to remember all the details of what happened the first week, but I do remember some of my thoughts. I remember looking out of the plane window as we descended towards Shanghai, and just seeing SMOG and thinking "Oh my gosh. I'm going to die here." It was seriously so bad. Then, I remember walking outside of the airport and thinking: "What is that smell?! I hope China doesn't always smell this weird." It does. But I love it! China is such a strange place, so it's only fitting that its overflowing with such strange smells. (There's a popular dish they call "stinky tofu" which may be the most disgusting smell on the face of the planet.) Finally, I remember (parts of) the bus ride to Suzhou. It was late at night, but I wanted to look out the window to see China for the first time. the first thing I noticed was how there are so many skyscrapers. But because skyscrapers here are mainly apartments, and it was past everyone's bedtimes, all of their lights were off. For some reason it felt really eerie to have a bunch of abandoned-looking skyscraper silhouettes looming over me. That's basically the last thing I remember before passing out and sleeping like a rock until we arrived at the school.

After that is where it gets hard to remember anything but bits and pieces. So here they are, all the bits and all the pieces:
-The driver took us to the wrong school. I was so tired and had no idea what was happening, I just remember thinking "we're here!", hearing angry Chinese voices (turns out that's just how Chinese people talk), then turning the bus around and getting to sleep a while longer.
-We got our room/roommate assignments (my roommates name is Sami, I'll talk more about her and everyone else in my group later.)
- Sami and I got a room with a very dirty bathroom and a weird musty smell, but we've since cleaned it up and made it feel like home.
- We found out we would start teaching almost right away, so we immediately started working on the first of many lesson plans
-The schools principal and a few assistant principals took us out to dinner. It was a traditional chinese meal, which means it was a circular table with a large rotating disc in the middle to pass the food around. It's Basically like a family buffet, where they bring out dishes and you share with everyone. But you have to pay attention, because if whatever you want to eat spins past you, you have to wait until it comes around again and pray that its not gone my then, haha. Anyways, this meal included roasted duck (the whole duck on a plate. Head and all), a sweet and sour fish that is supposedly only found in Suzhou (Same thing. Head and all). I decided to stick to the lotus roots (my favorite) and tofu since I hadn't had meat for 8 months, and didn't want to start off by eating my favorite animal. My favorite/ least favorite dish at the dinner was the warm corn juice.
Them: "Have you ever tried warm corn juice?"
Us (struggling a bit to understand their accents) "Warm orange juice?"
Them "Yes!"
Us: "No, we have never tried warm orange juice..?"
They seemed so shocked and surprised, They brought out a pulpy orange liquid and poured us a glass, but it did not smell like orange juice. It smelt so familiar though.
We took a sip, and Elin goes "Its CORN!"
Then Elin and I laughed so hard. I don't know why we thought this was so funny. Maybe you had to be there. Anyways, those are my first impressions of china. I might make it sound like China is an awful place in this post. I just think my favorite things about china are the things that freak me out, so that's what I choose to write about. But I LOVE CHINA! Not despite all the weird gross things, but because of them. Its also insanely gorgeous, the people are extremely kind, and the culture is so interesting. That's all for this post. More to come.

Suzhou is known as the Venice of China. It's true, there are canals EVERYWHERE

A Koi pond outside of that restaurant

Went ATM to get some RNB. Got very lost, but found a guy that spoke a tiny bit of English and could point us in the right direction. Exchange rate is currently about 6.3 Yuan for every USD. it makes us feel pretty rich