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