Almost Vacation Time!!

This will likely be my last entry before I write from my 20 day
vacation! I will try to blog and post pictures as I go along the best
that I can. Here is my itinerary:
Feb 2nd- Leave Guiyang for one night in Hong Kong
Feb 3rd- Fly to Singapore
Feb 6th- Fly to Kuala Lumpur
Feb 10th- Fly to Phillipines! Boracay
Feb 21st- Head home (3 flights later...)

In the meantime, testing went pretty smoothly last week. This week is
a bit stressful because it's open classes, where the parents watch. It
can be good because the kids will at least behave (usually), but I am
so excited for Sunday night, when I will finish the semester.

We've had a couple of sunny days lately and I've been doing a bit of
exploring of around where I live. I realized I just always go to the
same places and don't do enough exploring. For example, there is a
mall nearby where I live. I found that it has lots of great places in
it, but I always just passed it assuming it was just a boring mall.
Also, I'm learning that there are many places that people speak a bit
of English or I can get by with a tiny bit of my Chinese. I discovered
a ripoff of the mango dessert and drink place (Hui Lau Shan), that I
love so much in Hong Kong. My mango drink was pretty good- not as
fresh mangoes but definitely delicious.

I don't really know why I didn't go into coffee shops much before, but
I discovered that Createa is the Starbucks of Guiyang (there's no
Starbucks in Guiyang, fun fact!). It has lots of tea and coffee
drinks. Also, mocha in Chinese is mo ka. And coffee is ka fei. So that
make things pretty easy. In the same mall there is a chain cafe/coffee
place called Rbt with a rabbit logo. I randomly ordered something
called "French toast" off the English menu, guessing it would be
something weird. But it was a big piece of real French toast! So
delicious when you haven't had Western breakfast food in months.

I've decided when I get back I will try to go to some new places and
find some new hangouts for when I'm by myself and looking for food or
drinks. But until then, I'll write again from somewhere tropical and
warm!

Hot Springs

Well, first, before I talk about going to the hot springs, a former
teacher came back to visit on Sunday. Nathan, from Montana, has been
in the US for about 7 months now and is on vacation here. He's a
really fun and friendly guy, and it was sort of nice to see things
from his perspective- he really misses it here, the food and
everything. A big group of our Chinese staff, friends, and foreign
teachers all went out to hot pot together and had a lot of fun. I
teach a lot of Nathan's classes- my students all told me that Nathan
was a really good teacher. And he named some of the students from my
favorite class: Montana, Dale, Ramon. He's doing some trips around the
province and then hopefully can come back to visit some of my classes.

On Tuesday, one of my days off this week, I went with Julian and his
Peace Corps friend Jenine to the hot springs. Jenine did Peace Corps
in Bulgaria for 2 years and then transferred to Guiyang for a year, so
she is interesting. The hot springs aren't too far away- you can take
a city bus there. It's like a resort/spa- very nice but sort of
weirdly not Chinese or Guiyang-ish. It's by these sort of
Mediterranean looking buildings and apartment complexes in the hills.
There are both indoor and outdoor pools, with different themes and
temperatures. It's nice in the very cold weather. Some of the pools
have herbs- sort of like a giant teabag, to make the pool smell like
whatever. There's also one that has these little fish in it that eat
your dead skin. It' s a totally bizarre experience- you have to try to
hold still and it's very ticklish.

It was pretty relaxing and quite beautiful to sit outside in the hot
spring pools. If anyone comes to visit I'll bring you there, it's
nice!

Okay, back to lesson planning now. I have three 12-hour work days in a
row ahead of me....

A Guiyang Christmas-Silly String and Devil Horns

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while- I've been having some
computer/internet problems.

We didn't get Christmas Day off of work, only Christmas Eve- and I
always have Thursdays off. So it wasn't much of a special holiday for
me. I did a lot of Christmas activities in class though- Christmas
vocabulary, coloring, word searches, songs.

On Christmas Eve, I went to a buffet dinner at the Sheraton Hotel. It
was very expensive, but I decided it was my Christmas gift to myself.
And they had all of the hard to find Western foods and lots of
delicacies- turkey, ham, duck, goose, steak, mashed potatoes. It was
delicious. And there was unlimited imported wine. I sat at a table
with Chris from my school, and our friend Julian, who is an English
teacher at another school. The other people at the table were in the
symphony orchestra, and from all over- New Zealand, Austria, Italy,
Bulgaria. It's unusual because it's one of the few privately funded
and run orchestras in China. It was really fun to hang out with the
musicians.

I can only describe Christmas here as bizarre. It's like they want to
celebrate it but don't really get it. Chinese friends kept asking me
if I went to church- apparently it's popular to go to church on
Christmas, which is weird because a lot of the people who go aren't
religious. On Christmas Eve, everyone was out on the streets at night.
They sell fancy-wrapped apples to give as gifts, and lots of light up
stuff to wear. Most popular are the devil-horn headbands that light
up. Then everyone sprays silly string everywhere and on everyone-
especially foreigners.

So at the end of my Christmas Eve night I was covered in silly string,
including having tons in my hair. Definitely a unique Christmas.

New Year's was not too crazy, since I had to work on Friday. I just
went out with my friends from school, and we only barely realized it
was past midnight. No countdown, they're not really into Western New
Year's here.

And now it's January 2010, crazy. This month is going to be crazy- we
got an extended vacation for Spring Festival but we have to make up
the classes. So the next few weeks we will work from 8:20 am- 8:50 pm
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It's going to be exhausting, and require
a lot of extra planning.

But then, I will be on vacation for about 20 days! I will fly from
here to Hong Kong on February 2nd, then fly to Singapore and spend 8
days in Singapore/Malaysia. Then I am meeting Kate and Siggy in
Boracay, Phillipines. It is a white sand beach. I am really excited
for warm, tropical weather- I'm sick of the cold here.

So if I don't update a lot in January, it's because I don't have much
to say besides I am teaching all the time. But expect lots in February
for my big vacation!