Hummus and Chocolate

Last night, I went out to celebrate my friends Stephanie's and Claire's birthdays. Claire's was actually last month and Stephanie's is today. Claire and Stephanie had both previously worked at my school and have now moved on to the Beijing 5 Center (the one with no bathrooms) so their was an electric mix of Beijing 3 and Beijing 5 teachers and significant others and a few of Stephanie's friends from high school and university. We had dinner at a restaurant called the Turkish Mum and there really were people from Turkey there! It also serves hummus and Turkish coffee, both of which I really like, but I didn't go for the coffee since it was so late! I had a delicious dinner of hummus, falafel and pita along with a tomato and pomengranite salad. I had fun meeting some of the Claire's and Stephanie's friends and hanging out with my regular homeslices. The Beijing 3 teachers gave both the ladies vouchers for massages and flowers and they both seemed pretty excited about it.

Then, we all piled into cabs and went back to Chocolate, the crazy Russian night club that is probably ran by the Russian mafia and I am sure that many of the women who work there as dancers are also prostitutes. I had helped carry some of the birthday presents from the restaurant and the bouncers made us leave them up stairs with them. Stephanie had been given a gigantic stuffed teddy bear and the thought of the bouncers cuddling up with the big bear made us pretty hysterical with laughter.

We eventually made it to the dance floor. The DJ was playing some odd Sweedish techno music, but we were having fun. Marie even found the stuffed tiger that she ended up dancing with when we were there last June. Then, a few bouncer dudes politely asked us to move back to the sides in three different languages in order for the "show." It was quite a show! A bunch of scantily dressed women and a few fully dressed men did the risque version of "All That Jazz" that I have ever seen! Then, the show kept on going with lots of different "dance" numbers. We went back to our table and tried to wait for the dance floor to open again, but it never did! It was kind of a bummer. I had a good time chatting with everyone, but we all had been excited to shake it!

Today, I slept in and talked to Angela on Skype. I met up with my friend Marie and we went to visit the 798 Art District. We went into a few beautiful galleries that I didn't get the chance to see with Annie. The last gallery we went into has left a haunting image. It was titled "The Milky Way." In the studio was a dining car from a train. On the front of the car was a huge plaster salmon's head and then there were the heads of numerous stuffed animals poking out of the salmon's head. On the opposite wall was a video of a man shooting a bow and arrow, and on the other side of the train was a huge warehouse shipment of coke. I read that the artists wanted to display our world in chaos and it is up for us to decide if we are going to save it or not. I was pretty surprised by the structure when I first walked in and actually let out a yelp.

Freedom!

I received my passport back by courier today at school. I opened it up to discover that EF decided that they were kicking me out of the country on May 31st. My last day of work is May 30th. I'm upset that they didn't give me any sort of cushion. It was still a bit of shock to see it written down. Cindy and Miles promised to help shove my crying self back on the plane.

I had two small star classes this evening. The first one was a bit chaotic. It was a life club lesson and the students got to watch the "Singing In the Rain" movie clip, create umbrellas and make their own dance to a song. It didn't go so well... The kids started using their umbrellas as toy guns... It wasn't too pretty. My next class was so easy after that. I only had two little boys and we used blocks to build structure and count the number of blocks they used.

A lot of the teachers had some rough classes this evening. I had a little debrief session with Sabrina, Cindy and Miles who all had some rough moments since they have all started new classes on Mondays recently. Cindy has a student who eats paper. Miles has a rather larger child who enjoys sitting on the other children. Poor Sabrina has a class of all blue small star boys where all she did for the whole class period was removing them from climbing up on the tables in the classroom. Cindy talked about how they must have been trying to find freedom. The thought of a little three year old boy running to the little table and proudly standing on it, pumping his chubby fist in the air and screaming "Freedom" in Chinese just cracked me up. I totally lost it for the rest of the evening!

Caution: Little Fingers Wielding Sharp Objects

I walked into this weekend full of classes pretty unprepared because I didn't work a full week the previous one with Annie in town. I was doing a lot of last minute lesson planning... so it wasn't my greatest teaching weekend, but I still had some fun with my classes.

On Saturday, I was able to teach the Star Trek Life Club I had written almost two months ago for the first time. It turned out pretty well and the students had fun creating their own crew of people from different countries and planets. It's one of the lessons I can see myself taking into future teaching jobs.

I went to the gym yesterday after work and got stalked by two little small stars while I was on the treadmill! Gotta love working in the same neighborhood you work in!

Today, I taught the second lesson to my small star blues class. It was a pretty rough class with one little boy screaming his lungs out before even entering the classroom... you know it's bad when other teachers walk by your door and offer sympathetic, but grateful that they are not you right now smiles. I successfully (and hopefully with some tact) was able to convince a grandmother to change her grandson's English name from "Brain" to "Brian." This time, I only had one grandmother and one mother stay in for the class. I hope next weekend I'll be able to get them out the door before the class starts. The little students had to use scissors today and for many of them it was their first time wielding the little tools. The class turned into Scissors 101. I decided to call this lesson a success since their was no blood or any children running with scissors. I have a feeling this class was brought into my life to teach me a bit of patience and the importance of the basics!

Good-Bye Annie and Hello Little Ones

Thursday morning, Annie and I went on an adventure to find a dumpling restaurant that Cindy had recommended. It had dawned on me that night before that Annie hadn't had any dumplings on trip and that has to be a must while visiting China! We actually found the restaurant quite easily and had an awesome lunch. Dumplings are so yummy! I went to work and Annie went to the China Museum of Science and Technology.

After my last class, Annie came to the school so I could show her around and introduce her to some of my friends. We went out to a late dinner at the Korean BBQ place we all like so much down the street. It was a group of Marie and King, Laura, Miles and Annie and I. It was so much fun. I'm really happy that Annie got to meet some of my wonderful friends here.

This morning, we went out to get our nails done and then went out to an early lunch. Annie picked up some more candy for her people at home at the Lotus. As we were leaving the store, we saw a piggy bank. Annie had been searching for a piggy bank for one of her little cousins the whole time she was here. It felt like a sign that the trip was a success!

I walked Annie to the subway to say good-bye. We had run out of time for me to go with her to the airport. I was sad to see her go. It has been so nice to have a really good friend visit and share this fantastic city and some of my community here with her. She worked so hard to save and plan for this trip and I appreciate it immensely! Now at home I'll have someone to remind me that Beijing wasn't all just a long dream... Thanks for being such an awesome friend, Annie!

Tonight, I had two classes. One with with an older elementary class and both students were a bit under the weather, but did such a good job trying to keep their energy up for the class. Then, I taught a brand new small star blue class. Small Star Blues are the first level that EF teaches and they are suppose to be three, but I think a few of them are quite a bit under three! It was a bit of a rough go... First, they are scared to death. A few were just ready to go an have fun with the puppets, one was just unsure and silent, but kept a brave face, and the other two wailed so much that their grandmothers had to stay with them. It was rough, but they are so little and sweet and they melt my heart. I'll be teaching this class on Friday nights and Sunday mornings. Usually a local teacher will teach the students once and week and a foreign teacher will teach the other lesson. My boss said some politics were going on to when this class was being set up and I'm sure I'll learn about them as time goes by...

My other two big pieces of news is that residency visa has been extended so I am legal to stay in China until my last day of work. The second is that even though I am out of vacation days, our school will be remolded in April so our classes are being canceled for about a month. I'll still be working out of other schools, but Laura is going to arrange for me to be able to have my "weekend" on Miles and Ying's wedding weekend! I'm so excited!

Condensed Chinese Opera

It was back to work for me today, but luckily it was pretty painless. We had a program wide training at the Beijing 1 School about Trinity Language Assessment Training. It was nice to see my friends from work. Their school has a special door that leads to this big cafeteria, but first you have to walk through a butcher's area which was fascinating...

Tonight, Annie and I went to see some condensed Chinese Opera. We found a hotel in the Beijinger that gives a taste of traditional Chinese Opera scenes for visitors. We took a taxi to the hotel because I couldn't figure out how to get their using metro, and it took about an hour and a half to get there due to the traffic and the taxi driver not knowing where he was going. We were a little mad because we missed being able to see the actors put on their make-up which was a part of the package.

However, we still enjoyed a good show. We sat up in their highest balcony. We watched three performances. The first was a traditional classical piece of music. The second was an opera about a young woman who is sent to live in a nunnery, but is in love with a college student. She goes to the river to find her boy and a local fisherman tells her that she can ride in his boat to find him and the story begins. The showed the lyrics in English on big screens which was really nice! The third scene was the story of the Monkey King defeating the emperor's 18 soldiers. It was both funny and had some great martial arts dancing! It was a fun way to spend the evening. I'm not sure if I'll ever be ready for a traditional 6 hour opera, though!

The Great Wall at Badaling

We made it to the Great Wall at the Badaling site today. Annie got to experience subway rush hour traffic at its finest today at seven AM! We had decided to take a train to the Great Wall. We were amazed that we were able to get tickets so easily by just saying, "Badaling" to the ticket agent. We boarded the train around nine in the morning. The train was really nice and comfortable. It was a bit of a party train because everybody else was going to the Great Wall, too! It only took about an hour to get there. Once we arrived, we just followed the crowd on a ten minute walk to the entrance of the park.

The Great Wall at Badaling is much different than the other portion of the Great Wall that I have visited before. First, it is much more crowded because it is easier to access. However, it is much, much steeper! There were other rough spots on the other portion I have been on, but then it would eventually even out! Badaling doesn't do that... it just gets steeper! We spent about two hours walking on the wall. It was breathtaking. Even though it was louder and there wasn't as much animal and wildlife around, the hills and valleys surrounding the walls are beautiful! The last leg of the most touristed section is called "The Hero's Journey." It was a journey, but I wasn't feeling too heroic because it was tiring! I was so impressed with so many grandmothers clutching at the handrails pulling themselves up the steep steps so determined to reach the end! We reached the end where most of the tourists turn around and called it a day! We spent some time just sitting at the top taking in the view. I made Annie take a Rookie picture of me being triumphant. It took about an hour to walk back to the main part of the park. I shall be feeling the burn tomorrow!

We had lunch at a Subway sandwich restaurant... It feels so odd to be eating "American" food at the Great Wall, but it was a delicious sandwich! We walked back to the train station and caught the 3:30 back with most of our fellow travelers from the first train. I loved staring out the window and the desert scene until I fell asleep! I was one tired girl.

We took a long subway ride to the Sanliturn neighborhood so Annie could buy some more presents for her family and friends at home, and then we picked up some "deli" meals at the grocery store for dinner. It was a fantastic day that I'll never forget!

Back to work tomorrow... It's been so wonderful having so many days off in a row!

The Forbidden City

Well, today didn't start out too well. We were suppose to meet a tour group outside of my school between 7:30-8:00 this morning. We were there on time and waited about an hour and fifteen minutes in 13 mph winds. Not so fun! We went back dejected. We got through to the company and they were pretty jerky and said it was our fault for not seeing them... We are going to try again tomorrow by getting to the Great Wall by the fast train.

We rallied and decided to go to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. I have only visited Tiananmen Square once before, but it was at dusk, so it was pretty awesome to see it so full with people. We took a lot of pictures and asked a lot of people how to get to the Forbidden City! Eventually, we decided to follow the crowd and we made it to the Forbidden City.

I had read a lot about the Forbidden City, but I was still in awe of how vast and grand it all is. You walk up and down over numerous towers that are full of different rooms. My favorite part of the Forbidden City are all the gorgeous and vast gardens. We also went through the Museum of Treasures that took two hours. We went from room to room viewing all the jewels and treasures from the different emperors and their families. My favorite room housed a bunch of drums. On each drum was etched a section of a poem about a group of men that went hunting. One talked about how they left the city, the next talked about how they encountered rain, the next talked about how many animals they hunted, the next talked about their rough journey back and the final one talked about how they celebrated when they returned. It felt like a story told at the pub that was exaggerated over and over again. So funny.

We also got to see the emperor's own Opera House. There is a full blown opera house in the Forbidden City. So crazy... but also beautiful.

It took us about an hour to walk back to the front gate. We watched the military academy practicing their flag ceremony.

Finally, we tried to find the Hard Rock Cafe. I had been past it before on a taxi, but didn't know which exit! We got a bit lost and had to go into a hotel to ask for directions. It was pure happiness when we eventually found it! It felt like I had been transported back to the U.S. They had lots of fun memorabilia including a cool outfit worn by Stevie Nicks and one of Eric Clapton's guitars.