Portion Sizes

So before I came to China I had decided that it was exactly like Mulan. That all the Chinese ate was rice and drank tea in those little tiny tiny cups and that they got full because eating with chopsticks takes so long. Its the next meal before you finish. I was pretty much right about the tea and rice thing. They drink tea everywhere and when we just say we want water they give us boiling hot water (at least its clean). The rice is a staple food that you eat at ever meal but surprisingly we haven't gotten sick of it yet (knock on wood). Their portion sizes, however, are HUGE!! We get down on America for their portion sizes, little did we know the Chinese do the same if not more. Annie usually will have like three plates full of whatever we're eating that day. Then they spit out all of the bones right next to you on the table so it makes you want to eat even more :(. I think their bodies are just made non-fat bodies. Jadie and I went running last night and as we were running along the busy streets people kept stopping on their scooters or cars and would motion that they would give us a ride. They thought that we were in a huge hurry to get somewhere. So pretty much in the next life I hope I get a Chinese body.
Teaching is over for the week and that is very exciting. I'm actually really liking it but it can be really chaotic. Right now I'm mostly trying to keep them under control, while keeping them entertained, while trying to keep them talking, while abiding by the ILP method of teaching. I've never been that good at multi-tasking. I never have a voice by the end of the day and am always sweating profusely (I know you wanted to know that). Sometimes I just want to scream and other times I'm so happy I'm where I am. I guess thats how it will be for awhile. Now its a free weekend but I have to have all my lesson plans for all next week made by tomorrow. So if any of you have any ideas of Arts and Crafts I could use all the help I can get. Thanks for caring whats going on in my life. I'll write more soon. Loves!

First Day

I'm still alive!! This may not seem like an accomplishment but it really was. I think I was nervous more then I should have been, with kids the nice thing is that they really don't care if everything goes according to plan. So there are six of us teachers and we each teach a different shop. The shops consist of: Arts and Crafts, Gym, Games, Kitchen, Drama, and Shop (where you like build things). For this whole month I'm in charge of Arts and Crafts which I'm excited about because that is probably going to be the easiest to get ideas for.
Each of us has a "Home group" of about six or seven kids that we're mostly responisble for. I've got the youngest kids out of the whole group. Our whole Elementary school ranges from about 3-6 in ages so you can imagine the energy they have. I really think that I'll like my group a lot. The kids are really responsive and very smart. It amazes me that kids that young already have picked up on so much. Most have grown up well-disciplined and since most of them were in the program last semester they are already more into the routine of how to do things.
At the beginning of the day the whole school gathered together and all seven of us went up to introduce ourselves and we sang "Princess Pat" for all of them. They loved it! We told Annie that we wanted to teach all of the teachers the song but Annie told us that they couldn't do it because they can't do the facial expressions that we can do. I never really thought that they couldn't do the facial expressions I just thought they didn't. They are a pretty "hard" people in the fact that they just don't show emotions. At the amusement parks they always thought we were so amusing to watch because we would scream. Here are probably the quietest Amusement parks you'll ever find.
After teaching we had lunch provided by the school and it was all the parts of a chicken. Raychel got the head and she about fainted in shock. So who knows what will be eating the rest of the time here.
Anyway so the first teaching day was good. I'm sure I'll have much more to talk about soon! Much love!

Guang Zhou

So we just got back from our trip and it was AMAZING! It was so fun to get out of the city for a couple days and go see the sights a little bit. There is a TON that we ended up doing so I'll mostly just tell you the big parts of it, like what all the pictures I posted are of. I'm going to start from the bottom up because that is the chronological order.
- The first picture is of our group of seven girls in Xiaolan. There is Emily, Raychel, Amy (our head teacher), me, Jadie, Lindsey, and Keegan in the front. I really like these girls, we do everything together and all get along really well.
- The next picture up is the biggest roller coaster in the world! It is called the Dive Coaster and it was completely insane! When we got to the Amusement park it was pretty much empty all day so we walked on every line and that line we rewalked many times. At the end of the day we had gone on it seven times and made really good friends with the worker there, Darrin. He would sneak us back on the ride after we would get off. Pretty much the highlight of my life
- The next picture up was an unexpected but most welcome adventure. The circus!!!! I don't think I've ever been to a circus before and it was the greatest thing I ever saw. The Chinese sure know how to give you a show. They had trapeze artists, dancers, divers, riders, jumpers, acrobats, spinners, TONS of different animals, and so much more! It was funny because during the performance some of the white people would see us while performing and wave at us. We all had an inner bond together now. It is so weird because you really do feel like a celebrity here, people just randomly stop you and ask to take pictures with you.
- The last picture is the best storytelling picture. Our second day in Guang Zhou we mostly just went sight seeing and shopping. We went to three different temples and this was the second one that we ended up going to. Right when we got there we saw this funny looking statue raising up this sword with his cheeks all red and his eyebrows growing into his forehead and thought it would be funny to pose like him. So we did our funny pose with the camera and right when we started to walk away people walked up to the statue putting incense to their head, bowing, and praying. So we pretty much felt like fools the rest of the time until we left. Hopefully they'll recognize that it was a honest mistake.

So that is the main points of the trip. I did also buy a (REAL) pearl and jade ring and DVDs for under two American dollars each which pretty much rocked my world. I had a fun time on the trip but glad to be back to my home away from home. Much love!

Pictures from Guang Zhou

FYI

So we're headed out on vacation tomorrow morning to Guang Zhou for one night and two days and I was just informed by our head teacher that right next to Guang Zhou is the BIGGEST ROLLER COASTER IN THE WORLD!!!! And guess who gets to go on it! Yep thats right! I'll make sure and report all of the thrilling and maybe throw-up details! I love China :)

Internet!

Okay so exciting news... I'm actually writing this from my apartment! No more walking 5 miles to the Bond Office to write on their sticky keyboards :) And that also means that I can get some pictures up... hopefully. We'll give this a try, hopefully I make Kyle proud.

If they show up they are all of Hong Kong (our favorite is the teacup ride one)

Chinese driving

So the driving here is completely insane. You know how we honk when we are mad or ticked off or something? Well here they honk everytime they round a corner or change lanes or anything. I don't even think have blinkers! You have every possible kind of transportation on the road. Bicycles, scooters, and cars. Its funny because as we were walking down the street we heard this really pretty music being played and we thought that it was going to be an ice cream truck but when it got near it was a dump truck. So for some reason their dump trucks here sing.
I've been able to see a couple of pet dogs during my stay here so that makes me happy to know that they are not all being eaten. Some of the marts that we walk past have dead animals just hangin out in the window. If the look of it doesn't get to you then the smell sure does :(
We're getting use to eating a lot of rice. Our Chinese friend that helps take care of us, Annie, came over last night for a lesson on American food. She taught us how to make some Chinese the other night so last night we taught her how to make 90 second cake! We were so excited, especially for her to try frostig. I guess in China they do not like sweet things. Annie had one little taste of the frosting and was done. She explained to us that they didn't like to eat sweet things because "we believe it makes you big". :) I think I have solved the mystery of why Asians are so tiny. We thought the cake was delightful though and after that we introduced Annie to "Spiderman"... She loved it!
So everything else here is going well. We're even getting Chinese rice delievered to us as we sit on this computer, I love this country. Thank you so much for commenting. I miss you all but I'm glad that I have such good friends who care.