The people of Weihai

Surprisingly it didn't take us long to find the foreigners in Weihai... as we were walking down the main strip by the beach.. some guy came out of one of the bars (which really is a bunch of tables on the sidewalk.. and started talking to us... we found out he was from singapore... so English is his first language and he lived in England for like 6 years. He owns the only foreigner owned bar on the strip... so we told him we were going to look around for awhile (it was only like 6:30 at night) and that we would stop back by later. When we went back later there were about 5 other foreigners at the bar... some teachers some not..... and thats were things get interesting in Weihai.

Weihai is about the same size (population wise) as Songyuan (during the summer weihai technically has more people because of the tourests though). But unlike Songyuan, Weihai has a few colleges.... and this makes a HUGE difference. So we meet a group of teachers here....but its not all English teachers, there were a few French teachers, Russian teachers, and even an art teacher. Then we have the students... a few Russian and Korean students that were there learning Chinese in one of the colleges. Weihai does a lot of ship building... so one guy was from Chili (but has spent a few years in Germany as well) and works for a company in Chili that is having ships built in Weihai. There is another guy from Germany doing something similar.

Add all this together... and you have one CRAZY mix.... and to keep up you almost need to speak like 6 languages. With one of the korean girls, and one russian girl... our common language was Chinese... so that was a little different.. but again gave us some more practice. Most of the people spoke English very well.. but many of them have been in China for at least 2 years... so their Chinese is pretty good as well. There were many times that have the group would just start speaking french... or a few would switch to German or Spanish or Russian... and then over to Chinese.. and back to English. It can definitely get a little confusing...but didn't really seem to cause any problems.

The other foreigners here are very nice..... and welcomed us into their group very quickly. By the second day we were hanging out with them, I was able to feel pretty relaxed around them and it actually felt pretty normal... not like these were new people. One night a group of us went to oen guy's house spent like 8 hours playing Xbox games. We had a going away party for one of the French guys one night... kind of like potluck... but we lack a kitchen in our hotel... so we went and used the guys that was throwing the party.... lacked a grill as well.. but we still made some damn tasty hamburgers....... well lamb burgers :) and something that looked like it would be similar to bacon when i saw it in the store... but once i started cooking it i realized it was a bit thicker and much different... but i added some random sauces and spices and they turned into little mini steaks... and everyone seemed to enjoy them.

One of the girls that is leaving soon is from England but she spent most of her life in France... and she reminds me so much of Veronica thats in Thailand its not even funny.

I think this is kind of the way of the expat community... like wherever we travel in Asia... we should be able to find other expats that will introduce us to their town and possibly invite us into their group for the time we are their group.
We also went out to all the good clubs in town.... Weihai is still a small city...so there arn't that many... but i liked the ones we went to. Sadly I only got pictures of one (2046) but it was still a really good club. Music was great and lots of people dancing. I didn't have much room to hoop... but when people got off the very tiny floor I was able to get down there and have some fun with the hoop. At each bar we went to we also met random people there... and unlike songyuan.. most of them seemed to be between like 19-30ish.... where as in Songyuan... they are older business men usually or gangsters. It was a pretty good crowd.

Met this girl at 2046... and she is just so damn cute.... the picture doesn't do her justice at all... and the glasses are fake.... for some reason a lot of people carry around frames with no glass and wear them occasionally. (I have no clue who the hand behind her head is)
We have gotten a lot of email addresses and QQ numbers so that we can keep in touch with some of the people here. Many of them have many contacts with schools here and in other areas... and one of them actually works for a recruiting company.. that helps place people in schools.

Today we start to head back to Songyuan... it will be about a day and a half trip.... but I definitely think it has been a good vacation!

Post that need to be made:
The Rock Show/My first performance in China
My Reach High Students

At Weihai

So we finally got off the boat in Weihai... wondered for a bit.. found store to buy a map of the city and asked random people (mostly waitresses..... it seems I have a nack for talking to them) where they thought the best beach was... and all of them pointed to the same place... so we hopped in a cab and headed there.

We went to a few hotels asking if they had any rooms available (yaa... we are horrible planners).... and many of them didn't... then we found one right on the beach! And its only 230 a night (like $32). Not only is it on the beach.. but has a window facing the beach! We decided to get just it for 2 nights... not knowing if we want to travel elsewhere.

The next few days were a bit raining.. but no to bad.. we had random hour or so of sunshine each day... but it was usually just cloudy. As we were walking around we were kinda shocked at the number of people that weren't Chinese..... but as we got closer to them we figured out they were all Russian. So the Chinese people that work around here are pretty used to the Russians that don't speak Chinese. So they would automatically try to just show us the price of things on a calculator and stuff like that... but once we started talking to them in Chinese they all became much more friendly and prices started to drop a bit :)

Today was a REALLY pretty day and we spent a lot of it out on the beach..... which is actually pretty clean.. .for the most part.... I was kind of afraid of how a beach in China would be. Littering isn't even thought of as bad here... its just the way of life... finish something.. throw the wrapper on the ground. But this beach is advertised as being very clean... not because the people litter less.. but they just have a hordes of workers going and picking up trash all the time. So the beach itself is really clean.. there is still some random shit floating in the water... but not to bad.

So far very good and successful beach trip!

Next post:
The people of Weihai

Post that need to be made:
The Rock Show/My first performance in China
My Reach High Students

The Bike Adventure with Alice

So the day after I bought my bike... it was a very nice day and I decided I needed to explore the city. One of the RH teacher (Alice) also has a bike and is far more active the most of the teachers at Joy school and Earth Village (not to mention the RH teachers English is FAR better). So she joined me for my biking adventure around the city.

We decided to meet that morning near the stadium about 11am. She was a little awkward on her bike at first because she hadn't used it in like 10 years, and I had ridden mine around for awhile the day before. We were discussing were to go... and the first place we both said was Jiangbei! As we started to bike to the bridge... I found out that even though Alice had grown up in Songyuan... she had only gone to Jiangbei 2 times in her entire life (Jiangbei is just north of the river), so I had actually been there more times then her because I have taught in our EV branch there 3 times.

Crossing the bridge was one of the hardest parts.... Songyuan itself is VERY VERY flat... so biking around is REALLY easy... but the bridge is a bit of an incline for awhile. So by the time we got to the other side (3km bridge) we were a little bit tired and wanted something to drink. We found a random corner store right outside a little village and a big farm. Jiangbei is not as developed as the other side of the river.

Then the great tour of Jiangbei began... we rode all over that part of the city and found a couple of cool parks and other neat carvings and statues. I will definitely have to bike over there and hang out again at some point. It was kinda interesting being the foreigner and being the one that was making sure we weren't lost in the Jiangbei and figuring out which direction we should go to get back... but it wasn't to difficult... Jiangbei is north... Jiangnan is south :)

After awhile we decided it was time for lunch and that we wanted to eat in Jiangnan... so we biked across the other bridge and went to the farthest south part of Jiangnan... meaning we basically had to cross the whole freaking city again... and found a nice little place to eat. This was about 2pm. We sat down and rested for a bit and talked about the random stuff we had seen.

Alice was quite tired and expressed it.. but was a happy tired.... she seemed to really enjoy the bike ride. And she was excited over the amount of exercise she had gotten that day... because she is trying to lose weight... which is pretty crazy. She is about 5 foot tall and about 100 pounds..... so she definitely doesn't need to.

After sitting at the restaurant for awhile we rode past Alice's apt and then I showed her how to get to the place that we would have the Rock Show at on July 30th. By this point it was getting close to 4:30 and I had a classes added to my day off... so I had to teach at 5.... so off I went biking back to the school and Alice headed home.

Our total trip was about 30 km that day.. most of that between 11 and 2. So about 18 miles... not a bad run. Me and Chris want to take a bike ride out to Chagan lake, which is about 50km away... it would have to be a two or three day trip... first day travel.. stay there for the night.. possibly another day.. and then last day to come home. I think its very doable. Granted we could just take the bus and be there in about an hour and a half (its stops in a lot of small towns on the way)

Alice is a very very expressive/emotional person.... I know some of the teachers exaggerate a lot what they say because they arn't quite sure how to express themselves in English...... but I think Alice just wears all over her emotions very strongly out there for everyone to see. When she is happy and having a good time.. like this day... you can definitely tell. When things go a little bit wrong.... she cries for quite some time..... and whens he is bored and pissed off... she stands somewhere angerly drawing circles on a piece of paper. I think I was all three of these activities in one day at work.... it was pretty crazy. With all the crazy mood swings and emotionalness.. she is still one of the cooler teachers at our school... and usually pretty fun to hang out with.. so yay we made more friends.




Next post:
At Weihai

Post that need to be made:
The Rock Show/My first performance in China
My Reach High Students

Vacation Beach Trip part 1

Chris and I started our summer holiday on August second. The first day was just getting shit done and kinda relaxing after the month of doing a lot of over time classes, we also spent some time trying to figure out where we were actually going to go for vacation. We new we wanted to go to a beach.. and the original idea was to go to Dalian... but right now it is very polluted because of and oil spill and fire. So we decided on Weihai... which is on a peninsula a few hours south of Dailian.

China is kinda retarded in how it does its holidays.... right now... EVERYONE is on vacation... they have two sets of vacation in the year.. winter right after spring festival.. and then summer at the beginning or end of August. So... all forms of transportation are pretty crowded and buying tickets can be tough sometimes... so i got Alice from ReachHigh to go with me to get the train tickets.... and of course they were all sold out until the 12th.... so we changed routes a bit...

Tuesday morning at 7:30.... Train .... Songyuan to Changchun. 2.5 hours.
Tuesday night at 10:20..... Sleeper train... Changchun to Dalian. 8.5 hours.

These were the tickets Aliced helped me get... not bad.. it got us to Dalian... and then from Dalian we can take an 8 hour boat ride to Weihai.... the only problem.. gotta buy the tickets when we get to Dalian.... but I actually was able to handle that part pretty well. Also when we got to Dalian we bought our return tickets home from Dalian to Songyuan for the 13th.

Sleeper Train.

Not really that much to say about the sleeper train. We made sure to get bottom bunk... so that we can actPost Optionsually sit down when not wanting to sleep... middle and top bunk don't have enough room to sit in the bunk. We got on the train found our bunk.. asked a random person what time we would get to Dalian... then pretty much passed out... it had been a pretty long day of wondering around Changchun with our bags.

The Boat


When we got to Dalian at about 7 in the morning we took a taxi to the boat station and bought tickets to Weihai.... for a boat that left at 8:30 that same morning... grabbed some quick breakfast and a few snacks and were on the boat. We bought 4th class tickets... but the boat wasn't very crowded... so it seemed like they moved everyone into 2nd and 3rd class.. and had 4th and 5th class closed off... we got "seats" when we got on the boat... we ended up in a room with 4 old ladies... which wasn't to bad.. they slept pretty much the whole time (so did chris)(each room had 6 beds)... and i spent most of my time outside watching the water.... I love being on boats...... the boat ride was pretty nice and a lot of fun.

While I was sitting outside one of the workers came up and sat next to me for awhile.... he was like a manager or something... he we pretty good at keeping the conversation decently simple... he introduced me to another one of the workers that was standing near kinda trying to listen but she was pretty shy... he getting her to introduce herself... it was pretty funny. The guy went back inside at one point.. but obviously not far...because she was facing inside I think talking to him... when I heard my name... I turned around and looked at her and she looked at me and ran inside. So for the next like 2 hours while I was wondering around the boat.... I would randomly here her call my name... and then she would disappear into some random part of the boat..... it was weird.

By about 1pm.... all the people that worked on the boat (even the person that was selling snacks behind the counter) were gone.... just disappeared.... I guess it was rest time. Then when we got close to land... they all showed back up again and helped everyone get off the boat and stuff. It was a really nice boat ride... and I got to read a lot.

Next post:
At Weihai

Post that need to be made:
The Bike Adventure with Alice
The Rock Show/My first performance in China
My Reach High Students