The Chinese language is both extremely difficult and very simple to understand. First, the difficult part. The Chinese write in characters, as I am sure you have seen. These characters are very complex and the slightest wrong stroke changes the word all together. Also, there are many different characters for the same word. I have seen four different characters for the same word within one paragraph! The Chinese do have a method of writing using the English alphabet, called Pinyin, but it is not widely used. Most shops and products you come across will have the characters, and will only have the Pinyin about 30% of the time. This is really interesting, because when the Chinese are learning to write and read, they learn both characters and Pinyin.

Something else interesting is how the Chinese read the characters. If you ask a Chinese person what something says, don’t be surprised if it takes a minute for them to be able to rely the information to you. The Chinese must first decode the characters into Pinyin words in their minds, and then translate them to English. It makes me wonder why they characters are used, since the Pinyin is what they really understand, but who knows why the Chinese do anything!

The simple part of the Chinese language is the grammatical structures. I, me, my, and mine are all the same word. The same with you, yours, etc. This makes saying simple sentences very easy to do. How is my Chinese language learning going along? Well, not very well unfortunately. Even though there are only about 50 foreigners in the city, and the majority of Chinese people in Hohhot can only say “Hello” (which they love to do to us on the streets, and then laugh and feel cool), it is easy enough to complete daily tasks with only the knowledge of a few words. Knowing how to say “This” and “That” and give directions to a taxi driver makes everything a lot easier!

The Chinese calendar is interesting because they have a different one than we use in the Western countries, but they use both. If you look a calendar, it will have both the western date and the Chinese date for each day. Technically, to simplify things, it could be said that the Chinese calendar is about a month behind the one we use. However, it is more complicated than that. The Chinese year aligns more with the phases of the moon. The Chinese New Year varies in date every year, but is always around beginning to mid February. This year it is the first week in February. The few western holidays the Chinese do celebrate are mostly celebrated on the same day we have them, with the exception of Valentines Day (theirs is in August!) and possibly a few others. The translation of the words the Chinese use for their days (instead of Monday, Tuesday, etc) are the equivalent of day 1, day 2, etc. The same is for months- month 1, month 2. It is very hard for Chinese children to learn the days and months with their weird names and confusing orders!

While China has happily adopted some Western holidays (mainly Halloween and Christmas), Thanksgiving is not one they celebrate. A few of my students surprised me by knowing when the holiday was, but they nothing of the history about it (not surprisingly, most American students don’t know the true history either!). Myself and the 3 other American teachers were very eager to celebrate though, thus our one-of-a-kind Thanksgiving dinner in China.
Keep in mind; none of us have ovens, so everything we cooked had to be done in a pot/pan or the microwave. Now, there are lots of recipes out there to help you create a traditional feast, but the process was made even more difficult still thanks to a lack of supplies, or in most cases, the comprehension of what was being sold to you. So, our dinner consisted of dishes of sweet potatoes, corn, and mashed potatoes, yes, but we had to resign to turkey legs, a watery gravy-like substance, and egg tarts for dessert. Our feast also consisted of burritos, much to our delight, but the confusion of the Thanksgiving-newbies. This was many people’s first Thanksgiving dinner, including some Brits and Chinese people. A moment of satisfaction came when, after we finished eating, many people exclaimed “I can’t move, I’m too full!”. This to me was proof of a Thanksgiving well done.

Chinese Money
The Chinese currency is called RMB: Renminbi (which translates to "People's currency"). The more common names are yuan and quai (the second one is the English phonetic spelling of a word I have no idea how to spell haha). Those are the names for the equivalent of our dollars. How we have cents, they have “mao”. Ten mao make one yuan. Got it? Now it gets trickier.. They have 1 mao=10cents, 2 mao=20 cents, etc. There is no 5cents or 15 cents or 37 cents or anything. But at some stores they might something that will cost 10 yuan 55 mao. How does that work? No idea. They do a lot of rounding numbers over here, and we don't argue what they tell us the price is haha. The current rate of exchange is 1 dollar for every 6.7 yuan (about).

Chinese internet and electricity goes off randomly all the time. Since I have been here (3 months) we have lost power at least 3 times (and maybe more while we were sleeping). The internet has this very strange habit of going off a couple days before the end of the month. For example, for this month of October, the electricity went off on the 27^th. We pretty much just have to wait till the 1^st of the next month for it to go back on. I think the phone company uses some sort of “you used up all your internet for the month” excuse, which is bollocks, but there’s nothing we can do about it! So, if you are trying to get a hold of me near the end of a month, and I don’t respond- that’s probably why!

Baijou translates to “White Wine”, though it is nothing like white wine at all! It is the Chinese alcohol of choice, and it is absolutely disgusting! I believe the smell is the worst part about it, the second part being the taste. The Chinese drink whole bottles at lunch, like we might share a bottle of wine at dinner.

Sorry this took so long to post, it took awhile to sit and write! This post is about the holiday I had from October1st to 6th.

So in China, in October, there is a holiday called.. The Chinese National Holiday.. original name huh? Regardless of what it is called though, you gotta love it ‘cause it gave us a week off work! Rather than spending the week bored in Hohhot, though, a few of us decided to take a little vacay. In the end, we decided to go to Qingdao- home of some of the best beaches in China. Since we wanted to do the trip as cheap as possible, we decided to take the train. Being from Florida, the longest train ride I had ever been on was about an hour in length. Off the bat I was a little nervous, having been told this trip would be 13 hours.

Fast forward to the train station, which is absolute craziness. Hundreds of people everywhere, some who have tickets (like my group, luckily), and some who are trying to finagle them. The trains sell tickets in the following ways: nice sleeper compartments (2 bunk beds high, privacy door), cheap sleeper compartments (3 bunk beds high, open), seats, and standing. Yes standing. People pay to stand for long long train rides. We managed to get sleeper beds all in one area, which turned out to be a real blessing because the original length of the ride I had been told was wrong. No, it wasn’t going to be a 13 hour train ride, it would be a 23 hour train ride. Biiiig difference. We managed to pass the time well though, playing cards and backgammon, eating (the Chinese love to bring huge bags of snacks on trains!), and drinking the dreaded Bijou*. Tons of people wanted to talk to us of course, some which could speak English, and some that could not. The train left at around 12 in the afternoon, and at 10 pm the turn the lights off in the sleeping compartments.

Lights came back on around 5 the next morning, which means getting up and more eating. We arrived in Qingdao a little after 11, and we were so happy to finally be off the train! We decided to take a taxi from the train station to our hostel, and there the battle began. A cab stopped in the middle of the road, and Scott, one of my traveling companions, opened the door and got in, followed by the rest of us. All the sudden, a cop was motioning for the cabbie to pull over. See, you are supposed to stop and pick people up unless you are all the way on the side of the road, which he was not. Well, the cop and the cabbie started arguing, which turned into yelling. We decided that would be a good time to get out and find another taxi, but that action prompted the cabbie to chase after us, and try to force us back into the cab. Luckily we had a Chinese native with us, but unluckily, the cabbie was a little crazy. Needless to say, we spent about 30 minutes going back and forth, trying to get away from this cabbie and him trying to get us to pay the fine the cop slapped on him for picking us up. It all ended with the cabbie actually pushing the cop and continuing to scream at him so much that eventually he was arrested, and we got away safe and sound. The craziest part about it though, was how long the cop let him go on before he actually got in trouble- he would have been arrested in a quarter of the time if it was the US!
But now onto the actual vacation and fun times. We stayed at the Kaiyue Youth Hostel, also known as the Old Church Lounge. It actually was a church long ago that was converted into a hostel, and I recommend this place to anyone who goes to Qingdao! Everyone spoke decent English, the rooms were clean and large, and the food good. After we unloaded all our things, it was time to go travel. Qingdao is further south in CHina that Hohhot, do despite it being the beginning of October, it was still nice and warm. We walked through town, checking out markets selling fried squid and starfish pops and all the knick-knacks a tourist could want. We headed to the Number One beach, to check out a Chinese beach. And no, just because it is named the “Number One” beach doesn’t mean it is the best! Think of hundreds of people sitting on the beach in normal clothes, with less than a hundred people actually in the water. I was quite the spectacle to them, in my American bikini! Women in China wear tankini-type bathing suits with little skirts, men, speedo shorts. Oh yea, I was stared at. We dared to swim for a while, but eventually it was too chilly, and we decided to find some grub.

Qingdao is home to the Tsingtao beer factory, which means of course there is a Beer Street! We headed over there for dinner, enjoying fresh seafood (well, not me, my travel buddies) and just brewed Tsingtao beer. When we headed back to the hostel we realized that right across the street was a “Beer Bar”, which quickly became one of my favorite places thus far in China. A Beer Bar is a one room “bar” with maybe a table inside and one or two outside. Also outside are kegs of beer straight from the Tsingtao factory, and the beers are sold for either 2 yuan** a pint, or 3 yuan a bag. Yes a bag, like a small one you get from the store. Beer in a bag. Brilliant. This place also served a few quickly cooked snacks like shredded spicy potato skins and some sort of sweet boiled peanuts.. yes, we went there every night we were in Qingddao!

On our first full day in Qingdao we got up early and enjoyed a nice western breakfast at the hostel- it had been three months since I had an omelet! First things we did was head out to find the Wal-Mart. Yes, Wal-Mart. And yes, it was I who wanted to go there, and it was awesome. We then split up, myself and Winter (our Chinese travel buddy) went to go do girly shopping, and the boys went to do, well, who knows what. We meet back at the Number One beach later than afternoon to go, wait for it, Scuba Diving!

No, I had never been scuba diving before. Neither had the rest of us. Well, that didn’t matter. We only went to about 10 meters, and had an experienced diver going along with us, even breathing off the same tank. All we had to do was kick our feet a little, and look around. The Chinese divers thought it was awesome that I had a camera that worked underwater, and my scuba diver dude was constantly trying to find me things underwater to take pictures of. There really wasn’t much to see under the water at such a shallow level, but it was still really neat. There was lots of seaweed, small fish and big rocks, and a large amount of starfish. I took two up to the surface (one purple and white, and one orange and blue- a Gator starfish!) to get some good pictures, but decided to put them back once they looked all sad on the shore. We dove for about 45 minutes, though it felt like 5. It was an experience that I am so glad I had, and am eager to get some real scuba diving experiences under my belt!

After scuba diving and some hot tea to warm us up we decided to wander back through the city to the hostel. On our meander we found a zoo, a huge park with small roller coasters, and Red Wine Street. That’s right, this city has a Beer Street and a Red Wine Street. How awesome is that?! Dinner that night was a buffet put on by the hostel, 50 yuan for all you can eat, plus two drinks from the bar- quite the bargain! The buffet ended up being more of a race to get the food they put out, because they didn’t think as many people would be coming as actually did, but overall the food was good and I left it full enough. After the buffet was a performance of the bartender juggling flaming bottles of alcohol and the chefs twirling pizza dough. One of them even put on a mask and danced to Michael Jackson’s Beat It while twirling dough- not something I ever expected to see in China! After the show was more cheap beer across the street at the Beer Bar, and then off to bed.

Our second full day in Qingdao started with my waking early to watch the Gator game vs Alabama on the hostel’s computer and a breakfast of French toast. I think I can skip past the game since we all know how that one ended :-/. We headed to check out the zoo we found the day before, and wandered around for awhile checking out the tigers and lions and bears (oh my!). We searched for pandas, but the zoo had none. The closest thing I have seen to a panda since I have been here is a red panda, which is pretty much a red raccoon, and the baby panda, which is a black and white bird! We toyed with the idea of checking out the mini roller coasters in the park, but decided they weren’t worth the price. We then headed to a mall to find some lunch and were blissfully happy to find a Papa Johns and a Subway! We then headed to the Tsingtao beer factory for a tour. It is a really neat tour to take, even if you don’t speak Chinese. The factory is still operational, so you get to see fresh beer being brewed and shipped off around the world. At the end of the tour is something called The Drunk House, which is pretty much a big room where everything is at a diagonal, which gives you the feeling of being drunk. The funniest things about this was the kids that were playing in this! In America, I doubt they would have even been allowed in a beer factory, let alone get to play in an area that makes them think the feeling of being drunk is fun! After that, for the adults, you get to sample a small glass of freshly brewed beer- pretty fantastic! After that we headed back to the mall to go see a movie- Inception! I had seen it in theatres before I left, but the others hadn’t, and since it is hard to find movies in English in Hohhot, we decided to take one in. After the movie, we, again, went to hang out at the Beer Bar. Relaxing at the beer each night helped us meet lots of other foreigners living all over China that were on vacation, and a few of them even worked for the same company I work for! It was a great way to get to meet and make new friends and get new ideas about places to visit around China.

Our third day in Qingdao was the day we were leaving, but our train out was not till that night. We headed to check out the Number Two beach, which was a little farther away than the first one, but I had heard great things about it. It turned out to be cleaner and nicer and less populated than the Number One beach. We laid out and relaxed for awhile enjoying the fact that while people were still staring at us, there were less of them to stare! We soon discovered there was an old castle on the beach, and decided to check it out. It was your basic small castle (much like the one that is on A1A North in St. Augustine) but it gave an amazing view of the city. We then continued to wander around, deciding to take a scenic walk on the rocks of the beach. We found some old torpedoes just sitting outside someone’s house, one had a bike rested up against it! It was pretty funny to us that out in the middle of nowhere on the edge of a major city were some torpedoes.. Oh China! We followed the rocks around a point to head back to where we originally had been on the beach, but after awhile we realized that the rocks kept going and we needed to head back. We decided to cut up through the hill above the rocks, and somehow managed to come out in the middle of military barracks! Nobody actually said anything to us, but we saw many men staring through the windows at us. We didn’t even realize they were barracks until we say gates and guards at the bottom of the hill. Luckily, they didn’t seem to mind that we popped up in the middle of their base, as long as we were heading in the direction of the exit. We finally made it back to the beach we had been at and subsequently to our hostel just in time to go catch our train.

Yes, another train. This one would only be a 5 hour train, since we were going to Beijing. We were pretty happy it was only 5 hours, because we bought standing tickers- i.e. no seats. And then we got on the train. Nope, not 5 hours. Nine. There are some serious translation issues going on here! Luckily, we managed to grab some seats, and no one ever showed up to claim them! We arrived at Beijing at 5am, our first mission being to get tickets to Hohhot. The next available train was that night, so we had the whole day to explore. We first went to Tiananmen Square, and then the Forbidden Palace. It is amazing how these have been turned into tourist traps! It is also amazing that Chinese people visit Tiananmen Square for the fact that it is a popular square, and have pretty much no knowledge of the historic events that happened there. The Forbidden Palace reminds me of one of those Russian dolls you take apart and find another one inside. You go through massive gates, and are in a large courtyard, with another set of massive gates, and the same thing one more time. The third set of gates leads to the actual “city”, but the price of entry combined with at least a two hour wait in line to get in made us decide not to go in. Instead, we toured the gardens surrounding the city, which were beautiful, and cost 1.5 yuan.

After the Forbidden Palace we decided to do a little shopping. Winter, our Chinese travel companion, has a bigger shopping obsession than anyone I’d ever met before, so she took us to a massive clothes market that supplies smaller markets all over China with clothes. Endless stalls of jeans and sweaters and such on four floors of two buildings. The aisles are packed with people yelling about their deals, and shoppers trying to bargain. The Chinese method of bargaining is this: Ask how much it is. Quote a lower price. If accepted, buy. If not, walk away.

Needless to say, I am not so good at Chinese bargaining, but I did manage to get a few good deals on my trip! After shopping we relaxed in the park, and then headed out to find the mythical “Mexican Restaurant”. Lugo’s Mexican Restaurant provided me with my first nachos and margarita in 3 months, which helped satiate me for the next couple months! We then had to head back to the train station to catch our train. We didn’t manage to get sleeping bunks together for this trip (13 hours- and yes, that’s what it actually was!), so once on the train we attempted to get people to trade. Unfortunately, no one really wanted to, so we had to bypass playing games and talking on that trip and all went to sleep early. We arrived in Hohhot at 6 the next morning, so needless to say we all went home and went back to bed!

Overall, my Chinese National Holiday was awesome, I recommend anyone Qingdao to anyone visiting China- though maybe not a 23 hour train ride!


*See post about Bijou.
**Conversion: 1 yuan=about 15 cents.

Baby Pants

Babies don’t wear diapers. The wear pants with a slit in them for easy use. It can be quite a surprise when all of the sudden you see a bare baby booty, or worse. I am quite interested though, to see what happens with the whole no diaper thing when it starts snowing outside.

Chinese Break dancing

Apparently, they love break dancing here. It is not something I really expected, but if you go to the clubs and bars, you can see em, spinning away. And they are actually quite good! They even have teams, and have dance-offs. I have yet to see one, but I am looking forward to it!

KTV

KTV is Chinese Karaoke. No idea what it stands for, but it is fun! You rent out little rooms by the hour, and just go nuts. The songs are mostly Chinese, but there are some classics and new songs to be found. The Chinese love Lady Gaga and Michael Jackson, so those are easy enough to find!

Tissues

When traveling in China, you should always carry around tissues. Why? Because 8 times out of 10 wherever you are going won’t have toilet paper. I know, ew. But such is life. They sell packs in pretty much every store, so never to fear if you forget yours at home!

Seasonal Snacks

On the streets you can find vendors selling everything from tissues (see above!) to yoghurt to socks. My favorite things to find them selling so far, however, are the seasonal snacks. When I arrived in the summer months, they were selling cooked corn, and ear for 2 yuan (about 30 cents). Now in the autumn, it is cooked sweet potato, anywhere from 2-10 yuan, depending on the size of the tater. Pretty awesome. Can’t wait to see what the other seasons bring!

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a three day celebration in September, when everything corporate shuts down to participate in the setting off of fireworks and eating of mooncakes (I am no expert, please wikipedia for more info if you want it ☺). It also means that the school takes us on another vacation-yay! That being said, I am afraid the entry on our break will be rather brief, as it was awhile ago and I have been to busy to write.
The trip started with us meeting up at the school bright and early at 7am. Sounds terrible, but it’s not so bad when you get McDonalds provided for breakfast! We set out on the buses for a town in the mountainous region near Beijing, called Longqing Valley. The bus ride as supposed to take about 7 hours, but thanks to the ridiculous and consistent traffic on the highway from Hohhot to Beijing, it took 13. Needless to say, when we arrived we ate dinner, had a few brews, and went to bed. Our hotel very pleasantly pleased us, mostly in that it was a hotel, and not some tent on the side of the road. It even had enclosed showers, the first I have seen since I have been in China! It really is the little things in life that make me happy.
The next morning we were made to get up again, at 7am. It turns out that when you go on a Chinese vacation with a tour guide, you are under that guides command. We first went to the actual Longqing Valley, which was very beautiful, but also pretty touristy. The area surrounding the mountain reminded me of Duloc from Shrek, it was that pristine and orderly. You enter a the lower part of the mountains, and take escalators, enclosed in a plastic, yellow dragon (seriously, check my pics on Facebook) to the top. When you get up there, a large dam creates a beautiful lake in the Valley. We took boats around the lake, surprisingly very cold in the high climate and rainy weather. It was here, in this valley, that I went Bungee Jumping.
Yup, that’s right. In China, where the entirety of my instruction was that I should fall forward, and, no I couldn’t fall backwards, I went Bungee Jumping. Yes, I do know this was a very dangerous place to do such a thing. They actually told us at first that we would not be able to go, because of the rain, but after it dried off a little, they remembered they could make some money of the crazy Westerners, and let us do it. Out of the 30 or so of us on the trip, only 4 us went, and one was actually one of the Chinese staff! It cost 100 yuan, which is the equivalent of $15. What a deal, huh?! At first, I was the only one who was going to do it, but then of course, the men couldn’t let me show them up! The bungee cord was strapped to my ankles, and I was told to walk out on a mini ledge that was about 5 inches long. The guy had me put my arms out, and held me by the belt loop of my pants. The next part happened very quickly, but I do recall the man counting down from 3, and giving me a slight push off the ledge.
Yes, a push. Not a shove or anything, but enough that I couldn’t have stayed on the ledge if I wanted to. I am actually kind of grateful that he did, otherwise I would not have gone off the ledge so easily! The initial fall happened quite quickly, and yes, I screamed the whole way down. After that it was more of just an upside sightseeing trip. It was tons of fun, don’t get me wrong, but man, the blood really rushes to your head! I didn’t feel the jolting of the bungee cord, that part was actually quite smooth. The most interesting thing, though, was how I got out of the bungee cord. We were hoping the wouldn’t just drop us into the water, originally because of the whole cold weather thing, but upon upside-down closer inspection, the realization that there was a layer of rocks under the water, right where we bungee’d. Luckily, the Chinese are quite crafty. They pulled a boat up under me, where I grabbed onto a long stick and was pulled down into the boat.
Later that afternoon, following more boats around the Valley and lunch, we went to a Safari Zoo. It was really neat; we stayed on a bus and drove from to animal enclosure to enclosure. We got to see a variety of animals, lots of lions and tigers and bears (oh my!). We also saw things like domesticated dogs (a cocker spaniel, etc) in cages. Chinese zoos are cool is some aspects, but in others, are quite sad. Unfortunately, there were no Pandas at that zoo.
After the zoo we headed to the Great Wall at Badaling. It is one of the most touristy areas of the wall, which means it is also one of the most well-kept. And let me tell you, it is a Great Wall! Some of the areas have steps, and some ramps. Some areas are almost flat, and some are really steep. One area had steps as long as my femur (a guestimate, obviously, I do not know much about anatomy). We only spent about an hour there, but really, that was enough. It has some amazing views from the higher sections, and it feels great to be surrounded by history, but after about an hour, it is still a big wall. There is an escalator down from one point, and we all decided that a slide would have been way cooler. Only 4 of us really tried to tackle as much of the wall as possible, the others sort of dawdled along. We did get involved in a race with a Chinese man at one point, but that quickly ended.
After that, we headed back to the hotel, had dinner, and after some exciting Chinese television, we went to bed. We had to again get up the next day at 7, so we could make our way back to Hohhot. The ride back only took 7 hours, largely in part to our drivers leaden foot. All in all, the trip was 2 days traveling and one of sightseeing, but we got to do so many cool things on that one day that it was all worth it!

So, obvi-duh, you need a visa to come to China. When I accepted the job here, they told me to just get a tourist visa, and we would get the work visa when I got here.. Translation: Sarah gets a mostly free trip to Hong Kong!
The main reason for this trip was to get my Z Visa*, which took about 3 hours total out of the two days we were there. When I say we, I mean myself and one of the other teachers, Michiel from Holland. Here is a run down of my fabulous trip:

Tuesday: Left Hohhot at 10 pm (had to take the late flight because of classes during the day). Arrived in Beijing about an hour later. Now, when you land in Beijing, they land the plane wayyyy out on the terminal and you have to take a bus to the main airport area (which means you shouldn’t book a flight to quickly after your flight is supposed o land, you won’t make it!). We finally got all our bags and things, and got onto a bus around midnight. Our flight to Hong Kong wasn’t till the next morning, so we decided a little middle of the night tourist time was in order. The bus dropped us off in central Beijing, and we wandered and then found some food (yay for 24-7 KFC!). We then headed to check out the Forbidden City (http://www.travelchinaguide.com/cityguides/beijing/forbidden.htm). It is huge, with guard standing outside the main entrances at all hours. We managed to get a few pictures outside the gates, then gave up on the idea of getting closer due to the glaring of the guards and the communication issues that would ensue. Then, we crosses the street (well, under the street, actually.. the Chinese are all about underground walkways) and attempted to check out Tiananmen Square. This was also difficult, as the minute we walked up to the gate to get a few pictures, a guard shooed us away. There were a group of people in the Square (it was then 230am), so it seems that some special permission must be had to check it out afterhours. We then headed back to the airport to grab a couple hours of sleep before our flight. All in all, the romp through Beijing was short and didn’t really allow us to see much, but still interesting.

Wednesday: Left Beijing about 8am, arrived in Hong Kong at 12. After traveling through customs and such, we hopped on the train to take us to the city. See, the airport is on one island, part of Hong Kong is on the mainland, and part is on another island. Traveling betwixt the mainland and island is quite cheap, and something we did several times. Our first stop when we got into Hong Kong was the visa office (which is on the island). We had to wait in line outside for about an hour before we could go wait in line inside (another hour). We had to get pictures taken and papers needed to be filled out, but when our numbers where finally called, we spent less than five minutes each with the visa agents and then were sent on our ways. After that we headed to Kowloon, which is a part of the city on the mainland. We decided to stay at the Chunking Mansions, which are a couple huge buildings full of different hostels. They were decently cheap and clean, and we had no problems finding a room even though we didn’t book one. You can book rooms on the internet these days, but if you wait until you get there you can barter for a better price. Everything in Hong Kong is about haggling! After we showered and changed and everything (very important after a night in an airport) we headed out into the city. We checked out the Night Market first, which sells anything and everything, and is only open from 4-midnight every day. It was a decent walk away, but the night was nice and gave us a chance to check out to happenings of the city. Of course, I can’t go into a market without buying something, so I walked out with two paintings for my apartment, and a marvelous new (fake) Dolce & Gabbana bag. After that we headed out to Victoria Harbor to check out the light show. It is done every night at 8pm, and different buildings along both side of the harbor participate. The best place to watch it is from the Avenue of Stars, Hong Kong’s version of the Hollywood Star Walk. It only lasts about 15 minutes, and while it isn’t the most amazing thing you have seen, it is worth taking a few minutes out of your night to see it. I managed to convince Michiel that for dinner we needed to check out the Outback Steakhouse, and am so glad we did! It was great to find that slice of home over here, especially since it is my favorite restaurant and I didn’t get a chance to go before I left home. It was a great end to the day, only made better when I found Gatorade (Go Gators!) at the shop by our hotel. Yup, Hong Kong’s got it all.

Thursday: I decided to take full advantage of my one full day in Hong Kong, and am glad I did. I woke up and was out of the hostel by nine. My first stop was Kowloon Park, which is an amazing little sanctuary within the bustling, noisy city. The park has an aviary, Chinese Gardens, Sculpture Garden, even a maze (which I never did manage to find, though I think the joke might have been on me because the whole park was pretty maze like). On the outskirts of the park there is also a soccer field, sports complex, and crystal clear swimming pool- it took everything I had to not jump in it fully clothed (partly because the rabid heat, partly because I miss pools)! I then wandered up to the Jade Market, which is a really neat place to visit. Everything you could want made out of Jade, in all different shades, can be bartered for and purchased there- I took advantage of this and bought loads of Christmas presents! I then headed out to find my western stores I had been waiting for. The main stores I was interested in finding were H&M, which I found with no problems, and Sephora, which I wandered around the city for an hour looking for. I even found the building it was supposed to be in (which is actually harder than it sounds), but no Sephora. Only later did I find out that it had been closed a few months before- broke my heart! I did manage to pick up a couple girly things from the major beauty supply shops in Hong Kong, Sassa and Bonjour. They are no Sephora, but they were better than nothing. After this I headed back across town and onto the island to meet up with Michiel and get our visas. This endeavor took a quarter of the amount of time of the day before, and after picking them up and paying, we were on our way. We then headed to the US Consulate, where I wanted to get some papers notarized.. turns out you need an appointment, and that can only be booked online- important thing to know for anyone who needs to go! Even though that ended up being a fail, we were right by the tram peak so we decided to try it out. It’s been turned into a tourist trap now, with a Madame Tussauds at the top of the peak and everything, but it was still a really cool experience. Going to the peak gives you a great view of the city and surrounding areas. Not to mention there is a Burger King up there, which was a nice little plus! We then decided to head out to one of the local beaches, and got a taxi out there. The town we went to was called Stanly, and it was awesome. It is a small place that is touristy in an off-the-beaten-path sort of way. The views were incredible, and nothing makes me happier than digging my toes in the sand, which that town allowed me to do.We relaxed on the beach for a little while, watching the sun city over the sea, drinking a cold Corona- bliss! Then we headed back to the city, and to an Irish pub for dinner. It was pretty funny having Chinese servers, in a pretty authentic Irish pub, in the middle of Hong Kong! After that we headed out for a little late night shopping (more souvenirs and trinkets), and then back to bed.

Friday: We planned lots of things for Friday, but didn’t end up doing anything, sadly. I wanted to go back to the Consulate, but they didn’t have any appointments early enough. Michiel wanted to buy some electronics, but none of the shops he was planning on going to that early in the morning were open. We headed out sort-of early, planning on going to Big Buddha on the island that the airport is on, but that again, didn’t work out. Instead, we relaxed in the airport, awaiting our trip back home. We finally got back to Hohhot about 11 pm that night, and I got back to my apartment at midnight. Overall the trip was a lot of fun, but I could definitely go back to do tons of things I didn’t get a chance to do the first time!

1) It can be spelled lots of different ways.

Hohhot. Huhhot. Haohuhate ( or something). These are all spellings you can expect to see for my city. All are correct. All are used. Weird, huh?

2) Not everyone in China is against the whole facebook-blocking thing,

I actually talked to one student who made a good argument for it! He told me that in China, a lot of people are not very well educated. This means that they will believe whatever people tell them. So, some people use sites like Facebook to push their ideals that are against the government, and they will probably be able to garner some backing because of the uneducated. How sad L

3) Pencils in china don’t have erasers.

Like, none of the pencils. You never really appreciate the ease of having your eraser attached to your writing instrument until it is not anymore. Maybe they realize they can make more money by selling the erasers separately, and making them look like Disney characters? Who knows? I do know, however, that not having an eraser on the pencil leads to the kids sharpening both ends of the pencil and little broken bits or eraser all over my classroom floor.

1) Do drink a lot of water!

It is verrrry dry here, something a girl from the good ‘ole humid Florida knows little about. Within a couple days I had lost my voice. Most people here buy humidifiers they turn on while they sleep. I have actually yet to get one, and am ok thus far (other than that first couple days). But with or without the humidifier, water is a necessity here.

2) Do check out one of the roadside Barbecues.

When the weather is decent, many of the restaurants take over the cities sidewalks with plastic chairs and open grills. I have yet to go to one of these without someone who speaks Chinese and English, so I do not know how difficult it might be without one. I do know, however, that the food is pretty good, and the experience is awesome. Food is brought out in the order it is cooked, so you could get thing brought out at random times (this happens a lot in China). If you indicate that you want mushrooms, for example, (at the barbecue we went to it was a form you filled in, like a sushi menu), they will come out, roasted, on a skewer. Best thing we had there? The bread, which had been slathered in honey then roasted over an open flame. Yum.

3) Do take time to check out all the little shops on the streets.

Unless you can read Chinese, the little street shops can be very daunting. From afar, they all look the same, and the people sometimes standing outside them don't make the places look to welcoming. But if you have the time (and possibly another foreigner, you will be bothered less if there are more of you) you can find plenty of diamonds in the rough! Most are little restaurants or mini stores selling Bijo (chinese alcohol of choice) and soda. We have found some awesome toy stores, dvd stores, and florists though, too! As long as you are aware that someone might follow you around the store, and speak to you as if you understand them, you can have quite an enjoyable shopping adventure-there's nothing like finding a shop that sells shirts for 30 yuan- about $4!

1) Don’t drink the water.
Even the locals do not drink it without boiling it. As someone who loves tap water back home, this is rather irksome to me. But upon some evaluation, I can see why it does not bother the Chinese to have to boil their water. Tea. They love tea, and drink it all the time. Not iced tea, boiling hot tea. So, they would be boiling the water for the tea anyway, so no time wasted for them! To make it easier for us crazy cold-water drinkers, though, most places have water coolers. “But you have to pay for that water! Water should be free!” you might say. Yes, I agree, but when one 18.9 Liter container of water costs the equivalent of $1.50, it is not too bad…

So today, after a quite vehement argument with one of the other teachers on the causes of 9/11 (don’t ask), some calming yoga, and a large glass of wine, I have come to a realization. Even though I am loving living over on the other side of the world, and am eager to travel everywhere I can, I want to spend the majority of my life in the good ‘ol US of A. I’d always thought about the possibility of roaming the world as a nomad, moving from country to country, staying no more than a couple years in each place (and then maybe coming back to Florida in my old age). I’ve realized now, though, that while I do want to travel as many places as possible, rather than visiting for years I want to do it for days or weeks or (maybe) months. I want to live and work in the US for the majority of my life. This new perception of my plans came through the awareness of how much my country, as well as my state, city, and school, means to me. There are wonderful things all around this world, including a good many in America. I began to get a real appreciation for this when my friend Megan and I went on our road trip across country. In just one week, I saw so many different cultures and beautiful things in my own home country. I want to be able to say I spent my life taking pleasure in all this world has to offer. I also want to have lived the most enjoyable and gratifying life I could. Looking back all the amazing times I have had this far in my life, I see that it is not only the place that makes your life thus, but also the people you surround yourself with. I have been blessed with the most loving and supporting family and friends anyone could ever have. For me to have the best life I can, I want them always to be in my life (and not just through the internet!). So, while for a couple years I might travel and teach around the world, within a few years, I will be back in Florida.

So what am I going to do after this year in China? No idea. But rest assured, my readers, I will come back to you one day soon.

So some people seem to be confused as to where I am haha. I am in Hohhot (or Huhhot, or Huhaote, etc..), which is the capital of the province of Inner Mongolia, China. It is definitely a Chinese city, but with lots of Mongolian influences. Most things around are written in Chinese, but there are Mongolian and English translations in some places ( the English is usually not correct!). You can tell the people walking around that are Mongolian, because they usually have longer hair and a less "city-like" appearance. Even the foods are different- while the Chinese eat lots of rice, the Mongolian are more about noodles (and onions-yuck!). Chinese food is about soups and such, while the Mongolians like to bake things into pancake-type breads. Both types are food are quite yummy though! From everything I have heard from native Chinese people, Hohhot is a very different city from the rest of China, and I am looking forward to experiencing more areas!

#1: Everyone in China wants to as white as possible.

Ok so on top of the classes and the VIPs, EF also offers something called Life Club for the adults (16 and up). Some Life Clubs are for students in the lower ability levels, some for higher. I get the privilege of teaching one that is for all adults, all levels. Joy.

Ok so it's time to explain the company I work for..

So not only do many Chinese names sound similar and look similar, but often people have the exact same name. Thus, every student at our school has an English name. Some are given one by their parents (Like one boy whose mother called him Baby when he was younger, so now he goes by Bob because it sounds similar), some pick it for themselves (i.e. a girl named herself Sarah after reading The Little Princess- smart girl!), and some leave themselves at the mercy of the crazy foreign teachers at EF. Below are some such examples of names that are, well, different, here at EF...

That's right.. there is no tipping in China! Or at least, there isn't in Hohhot (the bigger cities are more westernized, so there might be there.. haven't been there yet, so I am not sure). This means no tips at the restaurants, bars, taxis, etc! Apparently, if you try to tip them, they will refuse it and it could turn into some huge ordeal. Now, many of you might be thinking, "Does this mean the service is slow and rude?" No, not necessarily. The service is about the same as any place in the US (other than those people who are realllly good). And if you need something from the waiter, and they aren't paying attention? Well, simply yell across the restaurant of course!

*This title comes from a conversation I was part of my first night here:

Ok so you might notice there are some ads popping up on my blog (or if they haven't yet, they will soon).. Well, ignore them. Or better yet, click on them. Yes, they are there on purpose. "Why, Sarah, why would you support the atrocities that are brightly colored trickeries that attempt to get people to get spend money?" Because they pay me, thats why. Yup, that's right, Google has figured out the way to get people to accept annoying ads- pay the people! So again, I am sorry if they bother you, but yea.. If you love me, ignore them :-)

So when researching this city, it seemed that when I arrived, mid-July, it would be in the 80's (for use Fahrenheitians of America). It turns out, this year brought on quite a surprise heatwave, providing us with temperatures in the upper 90's, and none of the normal summer rain! Think Florida, but much, much more dry. Everyone who is used to the humidity of Florida is thinking "Dry, that's nice"... No. Not when it is so dry that every morning you wake up without a voice and with a hacking cough. This should soon be remedied, however, when I acquire a humidifier from the Spar*.

Hey everyone!

From El Paso, we decided to head to Phoenix, Arizona. I have a friend who lives there, so we were looking forward to a night not spent in a hotel! We decided that rather than continue on I-10, we wanted to check out a Gold mine/ Ghost town we looked up. The route there took us up through New Mexico, then across Arizona. We were unsure how the drive would be, after the extremely long trek across Texas. It ended up being absolutely amazing! The drive took us on the Apache Trail, which is an extremely scenic route through mountains and small towns with names like "Top-Of-The-World". I definitely suggest it to anyone going in that area!

We began driving from New Orleans to San Antonio at about 11 am. We downloaded a book to listen to on my iPod, which proved a very smart decision as we drove through Texas. Our first day of driving through Texas was mostly small towns, that coupled with the audiobook made the drive pretty decent. We got into San Antonio around 7 pm, and again, were very pleased with the hotel that we got using the Priceline Name Your Own Bid.

I got wrapped up in the road trip, so all my posts about the trip are a little late- sorry!

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