Although my next post was going to be about our trip to Hong Kong, I thought that writing about the Holidays might be a little more relevant. The holiday season can be awful or amazing when you are a foreigner in another country. It’s easy to feel homesick and marginalized when you live in a country where Christmas is important on a superficial level alone, but it helps a lot when you work with awesome people and have good friends to celebrate with. Dave and I were fortunate enough to be part of several events with the great friends we’ve made over the last 4 months. And although our Christmas definitely had some ‘downs’, it was, for the most part, an excellent holiday!
The biggest Christmas tree we’ve seen in China. This is right near Xinghai Square; the metro stop we live near
Some polar bear Christmas decorations outside of a restaurant. They made me feel a little closer to Manitoba
The school held several events around the holidays that definitely helped encourage the Christmas Spirit. In addition to the Lao Wai Holiday supper, there was also a spelling bee the week before Christmas and then on Thursday we had the IGCSE New Year’s Gala. All 3 events were great fun and big successes.
I was asked to present the IG1 and Elite Girls 1 with their awards at the spelling bee. I’m lucky enough to teach in both departments, so it was great being there cheering on these awesome kids I get to teach!!!
The Christmas dinner was both delicious and delightful 🙂 I had a bit of a rough time at the dinner because Poe was in surgury that evening, but it was good to have good friends there to distract me.
My boss, one of the greatet people I’ve met in China, singing his speach. Although he is incredibly humble and wouldn’t brag about it, he does a tonne of charity work here in Suzhou and recently won an award given by the city of Suzhou, for being the city’s most important philanthropist. This is the guy I get to work for. It’s so great having a boss I have so much respect for!
One of the dearest friends I’ve made in Suzhou: Alecia. She teaches Spanish at the school (she’s from Spain).
My favorite of the holiday parties though, was the IGCSE New Year’s Eve gala. IGCSE is the department of the school where I work. Suzhou Foreign Language school is huge and there are actually 3 middle schools within the one larger school. IGCSE is the ‘English’ department because when the students graduate middle school, they receive a bilingual diploma from the University of Cambridge. We have some of the brightest students I’ve met in China in this program and I’m proud to be their teacher 🙂
3 of my best IG1 students. I teach these girls English Writing and they always blow me away with their effort and their participation in class. I couldn’t ask for a better group of 13 year olds!!!
The IG2 (grade 8) clas singing a Taylor Swift Song
Some students did a special dance for ‘Ms. Fang’, the middle school’s main administrator. She’s an incredible teacher and person and the students and teachers all love her to bits. The kids decided to put on a special dance for her (they’re all wearing masks with her face on them) and then they presented her with flowers. It was probably my favorite part of the night
I also got to perform at the gala. My boss, Nathan, plays the Ukulele, so he and I chose a couple of songs and performed them for the kids and parents. It went over really well, and when it was done, one of the IG2 students presented me with a bouquet of roses. It was so sweet!
The roses I received when our performance was done 🙂
One of my students, Ken, took some shots of Nathan and I with his Iphone and edited them. I think he did a pretty nice job!
The school hired a photographer for the event, and she caught this picture of me as I walked in. The reason I look so happy is because when I walked through the door all the IG1 kids got all excited and started shouting “Ms Marie’s here!!!!!” They know how to make me feel loved!!!
We look far more professional than we actually were!
The gala finished with Abba’s ‘Happy New Year’, which I may now never get out of my head! They asked Nathan and I at the last minute if we would sing the first 8 lines of the song solo, so I had to learn it over night. I was so stressed about the whole thing (Abba is WAY out of my range) that I lost my voice! Luckily, I found it the next morning, but it was still a bit of a scare!
Nathan and I with all of the IGCSE students! It’s unfortunate that none of the other IG teachers could make it to the event (they all work in multiple departments and couldn’t get their classes changed). I’m glad I was able to attend, though!
But the school was not the only place where I was able to celebrate the holidays (don’t worry, Dave and I DID see each other!!). We were invited to, and organized, several events with friends. Just like we would back home, we ate FAR too much and spent great time with great people 🙂
Isaac and Adam making friends at Bei Jiang; one of our favorite restaurants in Suzhou
Our new friend Amanda ADORED Hugo. He was pretty happy to curl up with her all evening!
Dave and I, while being told to stop being mushy in front of the others at dinner lol
Our Christmas Eve dinner party 🙂
IG Life 🙂
Me with Ivy and Sherry! I work with these lovely ladies. They are both fantastic teachers and some of my closest Chinese friends.
Christmas Day was a lot of fun as well. Dave and I got dressed up and had dinner at the Kempinski Hotel in Suzhou. We ate far too much (again) and then head out to The Camel (a bar in SIP) to meet some friends that I met in Shanghai.
Presley, Sarah, Zoe and I 🙂
The Kempinski. It was great, but we definitely missed the one in Guiyang.
New Year’s Eve was also a nice evening out, though I didn’t take any pictures. We hung out with my favorite Suzhou-Canadian: Jeff. Whenever I miss home, I hang out with Jeff…he is basically every Canadian stereotype personified!
This is basically Jeff
Of course, I can’t exactly say that our holiday season was everything I had hoped it would be. The pollution from Beijing made its way down to Suzhou and Dave and I both got pretty sick from it. My skin was very irritated by the smog and dust and both of our lungs suffered. We really do love our life in Suzhou, but when we decide to move home, it will probably be because of the smog. Coming from small town Canada has left me with high standards as far as air is concerned, and Suzhou doesn’t cut it.
The first of these pictures was taken over the summer, when the pollution was very low. The second was taken when it was at it’s worst. We base the air quality each day on whether or not we can see the ‘Pants Building from our apartment.
We bought PM2.5 masks on Tao bao , as well as an air purifier for the apartment. Of course, neither arrived until the smog cloud had passed, but atleast we’re prepared for the next attack on oxygen!!
But the smog was the least of our holiday worries. We had Poe scheduled to be spayed on December 23rd, and although she was in heat at the time, we needed to get the surgery done so that she’d be healed in time for our departure for India. We read about it online and everything seemed like it would be fine. The surgery is a little more complicated when a cat is in heat, but vets do the surgery out west all the time. So we went ahead with the surgery.
Our Sweet Poe
A few hours after her surgery was over, we got a call from the vet telling us that she had to go back under because she had internal bleeding. 2 hours later, we found out that the vet had accidentally damaged her spleen during the original surgery (he has apologized profusely for his mistake and has admitted that it was due to his inexperience…inexperience we weren’t actually aware of…). As a result, Poe lost her spleen and we came pretty close to losing her.
They had her on an IV drip. She spent her first day there hiding in the litter box.
She become much more alert when she saw us there
She was so swollen! The stitches look much better now
Now, anyone who is not an animal lover may not understand where I’m coming from here, but Dave and I have really fallen in love with that cat over the last month and a half. She’s such a little ray of sunshine…very affectionate and always purring. She became part of our little family so quickly and we were so terribly worried we’d lose her.
She really is my little sunshine!
The veterinarian did come through for us though, and he saved our little Poe. She spent 3 nights at the hospital and we visited her between our holiday parties whenever we had the chance. The nurse there commented on how much higher her spirits were when we were there, which made us feel like there was SOMETHING we could actually do for her.
Visiting her at the vet
Poe came home on Boxing Day and is still recovering. We try to keep her out of the cone as much as possible so she can get some good rest and feel comfortable, but she’s a cat…so bathing is inevitable. Her spirit is slowly returning and she’s becoming playful again, which is wonderful to see. Hugo rather enjoyed being an ‘only cat’ for the 4 days she was gone, but he’s adjusting to her return. And as much as he tries to pretend he hates that little black ball of fur, he was worried and searching for her the entire time she was gone.
Hugo, unimpressed that the ‘black one’ has returned
Poe, unimpressed that she has been ‘coned’
Poe, trying to block out all the ‘human’ around her.
So I guess our Christmas story had a happy ending. 🙂
The best present I got this Christmas was to have Poe back home safe and sound, but I did score some other shwag as well! The beautiful wallet and book were from Dave (he also got wii controls so we can play on his computer) and the painting is an original from my boss, Nathan, who is quite a talented artist! I also received a lot of chocolate and other goodies from my students. The cat key chain was given to me by Ken…one of the coolest 13 year olds I’ve ever met. My whole class was worried sick about Poe. It was very sweet that they cared so much!
I’ll be back soon with some stories about Hong Kong!
At this point I should probably give up apologizing for the long gaps between my posts. Though my intentions have been good, I’m finding it difficult to make time for the things that were my life-savers last year: blogging, journaling and photography. And, although these difficulties can be partially explained by this blog post, there is another element to our lives in Suzhou that has made it nearly impossible to keep the momentum I had last year. I’m actually happy.
See how happy we are! It’s ridiculous! :p
Last year at this time I was merely trying to find ways to cope. I was trying to make friends with people who didn’t necessarily want to be my friends. I was trying to impress a school that didn’t care what I had to offer and I was trying to force myself to fit into a city that was just very much NOT me. Blogging and journaling was a way for me to stay positive about the things I was going through. This year, I don’t find myself needing the same things.
In Guiyang I sort of felt like a square peg trying to fit in a round hole…
Because Suzhou has been so welcoming and such a good fit for Dave and I, we find ourselves making friends easily and doing things that involve growing a certain amount of roots in this city. In Guiyang, the idea of getting a gym membership seemed too permanent to me. I felt like we could be leaving at any moment (I was honestly afraid of being fired for a long time) so I didn’t think signing a yearlong contract at a gym would be wise. Here, that isn’t an issue.
After receiving countless flyers from several gyms in the area, we decided on the one that had English on the cover
The same thing goes with the newest editions to our home: Hugo and Poe. We ventured down to an animal shelter a few weeks back and found 2 cats that quickly became ours. Now that they are healthy and well-fed, they are quickly becoming family. I would never have dreamed of getting a pet in Guiyang. Moving an animal across the country is stressful and Dave and I both knew that Guiyang was not going to be our last stop in China, so pets were off the table.
Oue sweet boy, Hugo, is missing a leg
My beautiful girl, Poe, who is curled up in one of my arms as i type this (she isn’t exactly making this easy but I’ll forgive her because she’s so darn cute!!!
So I guess what I’m saying is that although blogging is still a project that is very important to me, I find myself being stretched in other ways as well. Improving my health further is high on my ‘to-do’ list this year, so Power House Gym will be getting more of my time. My cats are also high on my priority list. Keeping my apartment clean is essential for my survival (have I mentioned I’m extremely allergic to my cats?). If the fur or dander build up, I can’t breath, so I’m spending a lot more time vacuuming and sweeping than I was last year. And lastly, it’s kind of nice having a social life again! Now that I’m not a depressed, anxious mess anymore, its great going out with some of the teachers from my school. As I’ve mentioned before…I work with some really great people!!
The Jamaican Deviled Eggs that I made for a Thanksgiving get together
My latest food and nutrition dish: Jamaican Pizza
A friend we made on the subway. We were actually on our way to the animal shelter!!
So that sums up the last month. New family members, gym memberships and of course, I’m still keeping very busy at the school (which I still love!!). September and October were their own brands of mayhem that need some explaining. I’ve already written about Beijing, but that’s only 1/3 of our travel in those 2 months. In total, we were on 6 airplanes, 5 high speed trains and slept in 4 different hotels within our first 60 days in China. That may sound like fun, but we also security checks becomes a bore after that many trips…
Trip #1 – Shanghai
2 weeks after arriving in Suzhou, I had to travel to Shanghai for a week to complete a 60 hour TEFL training program for the Chinese government. I had already completed 240 hours of this training over the past few years (through a Canadian company), but still, in an effort to weed out any undesirable teachers, the government requested that I complete their program before I would be granted a fully legal visa. I obliged because the last thing I wanted was to be kicked out of the country after finally finding the right job!
A fairly good depiction of how Chinese Visa requirements can feel.
The training itself was pretty useless. Because I’d already taken several of these courses (3 of them being in-depth training for specific age levels: adults, adolescents and children), I already knew most of the material. I can definitely see how this training would be valuable for anyone who has never taught before, but for me, it was a waste of time. I showed up, did my best not to lose my temper on our teacher (who insisted with raise both hands in the air any time he wanted us to be quiet…) and made it through the week without losing too much of my sanity.
Me doing my practicum class. We visited a local university which was sort of funMy graduating class. I met some swell people here 🙂
The supposed bright side to all of this was that I got to see Shanghai. The reason I say ‘supposed’ was because I didn’t actually like Shanghai all that much. Most foreigners see Shanghai as a haven from ‘old’ China, and in a lot of ways, they are right. There are countless western brands there where you can find everything from cosmetics, to western food to western clothing. Still, this wasn’t all that impressive, given that I’d been in Canada 3 weeks earlier and I was all stocked up on my ‘western’ stuff.
We didn’t actually eat here…but it just sounded SO American!We DID eat here! We were craving Guiyang food far more than we were craving western food!
But Shanghai is simply not my cup of tea. The city is just too much ‘city’ for this small town girl! With a population of 30,000,000 (yeah…that’s slightly less than all of Canada), the subways are always packed, the pollution is nasty and the noise is unbearable. I hate the crowds and there was nothing worse than the metro station where people routinely push their way onto the trains. Our only refuge from the crowds was our hotel room, which stunk of cigarettes and was nearly as noisy as the outdoors.
Construction that was being done right outside our hotel window…until 2am
A delicious meal that we were VERY overcharged for! All was well until we got our bill and saw a 50rmb fee ($10CDN) for the tea we asked for. Asking for tea in China is like asking for a glass of water in Canada…it’s complimentary! But we are white so…..
Of course, it was impossible to get a picture of this train without someone else in the shot, so I finally caved after waiting several minutes, and took this picture, with this random lady posing…
This was the first time we were ‘Shanghaied in Shanghai’. We were sold this train ticket as a tourist attraction…we understood that it was a scenic tour of the city from the world’s fastest train. It turns out that it was a 1 way ticket to the airport…and it never went much faster than the regular high speed trains we take on a monthly basis….
I’m grateful that Dave was able to join me on that trip (the beauty of being able to work anywhere where there is internet access). We had an OK time in the shopping district, walking around and seeing the sights, and we found ourselves some good restaurants and had a nice time down at The Bund. Mostly, I met some really cool people while taking my class, so that was good.
A view of the Shanghai Skyline from ‘The Bund’, a famous walking path by the water
The glare from the neon sighns was nearly enough to ruin this picture!
For National Day, Mcdonalds changed it’s vanilla ice cream into ‘green tea matcha’ icecream. I did not know this when I orded an Oreo Mcflurry…
When the course was over, I was thrilled to head back to Suzhou and get back in to the swing of things at the school. I still hadn’t really had a chance to get my classes in full swing and I still had plenty of ‘beginning of semester’ projects on the go, so it was important for me to be present at the school as much as possible. But of course, 10 days later, National Week arrived…
Trip #2 – Beijing
Beijing was somewhere I had never been but had always wanted to visit. When the National Day came upon us, we had to make a decision: Stay at home for a week with nothing to do…or head to Beijing for a mini holiday. We chose the latter, mostly because I hate being bored…
This was so much better that sitting at home for a week!
Beijing was somewhere I had never been but had always wanted to visit. When the National Day came upon us, we had to make a decision: Stay at home for a week with nothing to do…or head to Beijing for a mini holiday. We chose the latter, mostly because I hate being bored…
Now, I’ve already written about the Great Wall, so you might be wondering why I’d bring up Beijing at all. After all…how much could we have seen on a 4 day holiday? Well…the answer to that is that we saw enough to know that we are happy that we don’t live in Beijing!
Though, we did meet several nice cats!
As some of you may have seen in the news, the pollution in Beijing is atrocious. You can actually taste the pollution in the air and there’s always a bit of a haze to see through…even when it’s sunny. Out on The Wall, we had clean air, but the two days we spent IN the city made me very glad to live in Suzhou, where the pollution is bad at times (it comes down from nearby Shanghai), but where I don’t feel like I’m actually in danger by being there!
As the weather gets colder, the pollution in northern China becomes so bad that school is actually cancelled. It wasn’t this bad when we were there, but at the moment, it’s worse than it’s ever been. And on an interesting note…filtration system advertisements keep showing up on my facebook feed…
You can read more about Northern China’s pollution woes here
But the pollution isn’t the only part of Beijing to leave a bad taste in my mouth (so to speak). Dave and I felt like targets from the moment we left the airport. Everybody wanted our money. Everybody EXPECTED our money. From the moment you step out of the airplane, you are a target…and I can’t think of a group worse than the taxi drivers of China…
Although there are so many ways to be ripped off when you’re traveling, it’s difficult to choose just one…
In western countries, it is expected that the taxi driver use a meter when taking you anywhere. Taxi drivers will still find other ways to rip you off (taking the long way around, for example), but they are still limited by their meter. In many Chinese cities…that isn’t he case.
What’s worse is that people here are so accustomed to this sort of behavior from drivers, that they don’t even question it. Drivers refuse to use their meters and they will not take you unless you agree with their price. Worst of all, most cabbies work for a small number of companies, so they all agree on a minimum price, so no matter which taxi you go to, you are paying AT LEAST double what a metered ride would cost. This is infuriating…especially when there are really no other options at 11pm when you have luggage and have just gotten off a flight.
Dave trying to stay optimistic, while I get ready to slug a cabbie for being rude to me…
But taxi drivers are not the only once looking to make a buck off the tourists…
This restaurant was so awful I actually ran back over here after I had time to calm down, so that I could take a picture to warn future tourists. Unfortunately, this is what nearly every restaurant in China looks like…
The restaurant business reportedly did well over the National Holiday, and nowhere was that truer than in Beijing. One restaurant was actually handing out 1500rmb bills ($300 Canadian) by charging people ‘per shrimp’ in their food orders. It’s sad that we live in a world where this is common place – tourists all over the world deal with this treatment. It doesn’t only happen in China.
It’s even been known to happen in Antarctica!
Our personal experience was at a restaurant near the Forbidden Kingdom. We wanted to have Beijing Roast Duck while in the city (it’s hardly a treat for Dave and I…we have a fantastic ‘duck place’ in Winnipeg…) so we ventured out to find somewhere that wasn’t going to overcharge us.
This is what Peking Duck is suppose to look like
We saw a sign advertising the dish, so we went into the restaurant. It was a bit of a hole in the wall, but we often seek out those restaurants, as they often have the best food in China. We ordered the duck along with a favorite bean dish of ours, and could hear the staff nervously laughing while watching the ‘crazy lao wai’ from their little desk at the other end of the restaurant.
When they served us this canned, slimy, salty duck on a plate…I almost screamed. That’s when we realized that they weren’t laughing because they were nervous at our ‘whiteness’. They were laughing because we were being taken for a ride…
We ate the little bit we could tolerate before asking for the bill…in Chinese. You see, at this point, we hadn’t been given much opportunity to demonstrate that we weren’t their average tourist. We do, in fact, know the difference between real Beijing Roast Duck and the canned, slimy sludge they’d served us…
The staff actually huddled together to see what they could charge us for the meal. I could HEAR them discussing how much to charge us for the meal (the restaurant DID have menus…and we DID check the prices…). When the waiter came over, our conversation went something like this (done completely in Chinese. I am VERY proud).
Marie: Why is our bill so high? Our duck never arrived.
Waiter: Your duck is right here
Marie: THIS is your duck? This is NOT Beijing Roast Duck! Beijing Roast Duck is delicious. This tastes terrible!
Waiter: Well, this is our Roast Duck.
***Moves uncomfortably, shifting his weight from foot to foot***
Marie: Ok, well, even if this IS your duck, our bill should only be 140rmb…why are you asking for 190rmb?
Waiter: Wait one moment please.
***He runs to the back…to speak to a manager, I imagine.
Waiter: The additional charge is because you used our dishes. There is a 50rmb fee for using our plates.
Marie: I’m sorry, but you are a racist.
Waiter: What!? I am not!?
Marie: So, you’re telling me that you would treat a Chinese person this way?
This is the point where Dave wisely gave the man 150rmb and we walked out of the restaurant. We created quite a scene and several customers had quickly paid for their dishes and left. We’d actually even scared some new customers away from eating at the restaurant. I felt good about myself. I also felt angry, so we walked around for a little while longer and then went back and got a picture of the place. I half-hope they saw me take it.
I should also add that this restaurant had a picture of legitimate Beijing Duck on their sign and that they shouted ‘we have Beijing Duck’ at us when we walked by. So I think it’s safe to say that this is an ongoing scam these people run…
The rest of our time in Beijing was less eventful (thank goodness!). We saw some parks and some old buildings. We really weren’t up for anything overly touristy so we never made it down to the Forbidden City or Summer Palace, but some day we’ll head back down there to see the rest that China’s capital has to offer. Beijing is only 5 hours away by high speed train, so a visit would hardly be difficult to organize.
BeiHai Park is definitely worth the visit if you are in Beijing. The willows and the old architecture make for a nice walk in a fairly quiet space. The park is also home to many ‘wild’ cats (probably to keep insect and rodent populations down). I say ‘wild’ because they are all super friendly and nearly all were happy to be pet.You wouldn’t believe how long it took me to get this shot! It’s nearly impossible to take a picture without tourists in it!I love Chinese architectureDave and I in front of a very impressive carved mural
My love for Suzhou is showing through in other areas of my life. I am now obsessed with archways.
Our last grand adventure in Beijing was to do some Christmas shopping. We braved this night market and found some goodies for our family and friends back home. Now we are faced with the challenge of finding a post office so that we can ship these gifts! The strangest things are struggles in China…
I’ll be back soon with Part 2 of this post. I’ll be writing about our trip to Hong Kong! (Spoiler: It was fabulous!)
Another Starbucks, another city. We are spending the last day of our holiday in Beijing working, as is often the case with Dave and I. It helps that we both love our jobs and don’t usually see these kinds of things as really being ‘work’. Now that I’ve finished my Power Point presentation on writing summaries (riveting stuff…), I can spare some time to blog!
This fine gentleman took a 3 hour nap (I kid you not!) while Dave and I worked today….yes…this is at Starbucks. And no, he did not order anything from Starbucks…
It’s now been 41 day since we left Canada and head back to Eastern home. Suzhou has been welcoming and beautiful and there is so much to tell you all about this new city. So, even though I am itching to write about our trip to the Great Wall, I want to finish writing our time adjusting to life in Suzhou first. Plus, putting off writing about the Great Wall means I have awesome material to look forward to (and hopefully that will entice me to writing again soon!)
Spoiler Alert! The Great Wall is bloody incredible!!!!
After moving into our apartment, the next step to getting settled into Suzhou was to start work. For those of you who are new to my blog, or are foggy on the details, here’s a recap regarding the school….
I originally took the position expecting to teach Drama and English, but that quickly changed (things change a lot in China…you come to expect it). The IGCSE program that is taught at Suzhou Foreign Language School is a pretty big deal. It basically means that students who graduate from our school, graduate with a bilingual diploma, which is a huge help when it comes to applying to western Universities (IGCSE is an ESL program through Cambridge University). So, because this program is so important to the school, they didn’t want a brand new teacher teaching too many of those courses. Some people would have been hurt by the insinuation that they are not ‘good’ enough to teach English, but I saw it as a plus. Any school that wants to put the RIGHT teachers in place for the important classes is alright with me! It showed that they are concerned with the quality of education their students receive, and that is exactly the type of school I want to work for.
My boss used the projector to paint a map on the staff room wall….with the flag of each country in that country’s space…he did all of this in a single afternoon….I work for a school where the teachers care so much about the way that our staff room is perceived, that they spend the day making something as awesome as this map. He’s still not quite done…because he’s like the busiest guy in the universe…but I’m still blown away by the effort he and the Chinese staff put into this project
I was able to keep my Drama classes, which I was very happy about, but my English classes were replaced with Food and Nutrition classes; basically I’m teaching Home Economics. The beautiful thing about both these programs is that I can custom make all of my classes. There is a basic syllabus that I need to follow, but really…at the end of the day…it’s up to me to decide what I teach and how I teach it. Once more…some teachers may not be thrilled with this sort of set up, but for me…this is heaven!!
Another fun fact about the school where I work….they teach several languages at the school, including French, German, Spanish, Arabic and Japanese. Their aim is to teach all of the languages of the UN.
My creative side kicked into full gear and I began brainstorming ideas for both my courses while I was still in Guiyang. For Drama, we are starting with a play called “Meet the Ancient Greeks”. It’s set on Mount Olympus and all the Greek gods are fighting over who was the worst of them. While I teach the students about acting (something I’m actually pretty good at myself…who knew???), I also teach them about pronunciation, confidence, voice projection, body language and emphasis. They learn a tonne and it doesn’t even feel like learning to them! Plus, because of my background as an ESL teacher, I use the plays to teach the students lots of new words. And because of my background in Classical history (my minor in University), I’m also teaching them about ancient Greek culture while I’m at it.
So. Much. Fun!!!
My Elite Boys 1 class practicing the first bit of the play. These guys are AWESOME!!! They get SO into the roles!!! They have me in stitches every class!One of my students, Colt, wrote this on the Smart Board before I got to class. Needless to say, it made my day! (and yes…I have Smart Boards in my classrooms!!!)
I decided to take a fresh approach with the Food and Nutrition classes, and have turned it into a bit of a ‘culture course’. I’ve been teaching the students about different countries and then I teach them how to make food from those countries. So far we’ve only been to the kitchen once, but the students were all very pleased with their Mexican taco dip 🙂
This is my middle school class. It’s a mix of boys and girls, which is nice, because most of the classes I teach are gender specific.These are my Grade 7 Elite Girls. The girl who is second from the left is named Hani….she is SUCH a character. I also teach her Drama and when I told her off last week for talking while I was trying to explain something, she went into a big soliloquy about how I am the most beautiful and kind of all the drama teachers in the land. Once more……So. Much. Fun!!!One of the groups’ dip when they were done. My budget didn’t allow for cheese or meat on all of them, so I had to pick and choose which students got what. Not bad for a first try!!!
The teachers and students are all fantastic at SFLS, and although I’ve had a few small issues with the payroll office (that were promptly sorted out), the administration has also been a dream. Last year, I was walking on eggshells at about this time, scared to say anything to anyone for fear of being taken aside for a ‘talk’. This year, I was greeted at the gate by the principal of the school on Teacher’s day, with a box of mango milk and a flower. I also received a small crate of Chinese dates (which are delish!) and countless other flowers and chocolates from my students…who I’d only been teaching for 2 weeks at that point!!!
I’d already received this and I took the picture at 8:30am…..by the end of the day, I had to leave some of it at the school because I just couldn’t bring it all home!! ***Note that the flag in this picture is not on my desk. It is on my neighbor’s. I’ve already received some flack for not representing Canada in the office from some family members…but trust me….I represent in my own way! I get razzed for every ‘eh’, ‘aboot’ and ‘toque’ that I say….
The school is not the only thing that has been great since we got here either! Suzhou, as a whole, is a fantastic city! Unlike Guiyang, where I really disliked the spitting, the littering and the smoking…Suzhou is spotless! Very few people spit, smoking is prohibited in many public areas and people actually put their trash in the trash can! Although the air is a little more polluted that Guiyang (because Suzhou is so close to Shanghai), it’s so much more comfortable of a place to be!
And the gardens!!!….
This is just one of Suzhou’s many gardens. A friend of mine referred to Suzhou as ‘the secret garden’ when I showed her pictures of the city a few years ago (we had been interested in living here for a while). I think she gave it the perfect nickname.
Dave and I arrived back in China just in time for a holiday! This year marked 70 years since the Chinese victory over Japan in the Second World War. It was celebrated across the country and everyone was given a long weekend. Dave and I spent those days familiarizing ourselves with Suzhou. We visited one of the lesser known gardens here (one we’d happened to stumble upon when we were still staying in a hotel).
The circular doorways add such a beautiful touch to the already beautiful greeneryThe pathways are bordered by benches, where you often see the elderly enjoying some time in the relaxing atmosphereI love how the doorways open up to whole new areas of the garden…The girl in the blue dress (on the right side of the picture) crossed over that stone bridge. I waited there for ages to get a picture but when she’d finally finished crossing, she just stood there for a while afterwards, looking at her phone…. So, here she is in my picture; a testament to my inability to wait.
The city outside of these gardens is also very nice. We’ve spent countless hours walking around the different areas of the city, enjoying the scenery along the canals and trying new restaurants. Times Square is one of my favorite places to take a stroll. I love walking near water and there are a lot of really great restaurants in the area.
I love this picture. We both look so happy 🙂There is a ceiling above the boardwalk at Times Square that lights up at night with a show. When we walked by a few weeks ago, it had aliens staring down at us!!Times Square also has a tonne of western brand stores. Papa John’s Pizza, Toys R Us and a Crocs store are just a few!
I think my favorite part of the city (so far) has been ShanTang street. There are countless shops that sell all sorts of souvenirs and traditional Suzhou items. It’s along the canal, and you can even take boat rides around to see the old architecture, which is especially beautiful at night. We never had a chance to go the last time we were there, but this is where I’m planning on doing a lot of my Christmas shopping, so I know there will be other opportunities 🙂
The crowds can be a little overwhelming, but this was nothing compared to the Shanghai metro experiences we had….but I’ll have more on that in future posts!I love, love, LOVE the canals in Suzhou!We bought this print on ShanTang street for only around $15 Canadian. I feel like it was worth more than that (just the frame would cost that much in Canada!). It was the first thing we really bought for the apartment (aside from toilet paper! haha!) and we hung it proudly on the wall by our water cooler as soon as we got home from our shopping adventure
I don’t consider myself a superstitious person and I believe that we are responsible for making our own fate, but still, I can’t help but feel like I’m exactly where I’m suppose to be right now. Suzhou fits like a glove and it became home to us more quickly than I really imagined possible. Maybe I’m still a little shell shocked from everything I went through last year, but I am honestly still overjoyed at how smoothly everything has been going over the last 41 days. Life…in short…is good.
A Roots store in Times SquareCooking a spectacular dinner in our clean and usable kitchen…..what more could I possibly need?
It has been far too long since my last post, and I apologize to all my readers! But, if it’s any consolation…the reason I haven’t been writing is a happy one! I have been far too busy enjoying life to have the time to sit down and write about it! But I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, so I better get to it!!
Saying Goodbye
We left Guiyang on August 3rd and I finished my class at 8pm on August 2nd. I knew it was going to be hard; I’d grown quite attached to my monkeys…but I didn’t realize just HOW hard. It took everything for me not to cry and in the end, it was the apology and the hug from my boss, Huang, that did me in. She thanked me for all my hard work and told me that she had been very wrong about me when she thought I was a bad teacher. That meant more than I can really explain.
Huang and I at the goodbye dinner the school held for us. She and I came a long way…Second last day with my babies. I miss this guys so much! I still get voice notes from many of them on WeChat…China’s bbm. It makes me smile every time I hear their little voices telling me how much they love me and miss me.
My final day at Interlingua was the hardest, because I taught most of my favorite classes on Sundays. My Reading and Writing class was particularly difficult because I loved teaching them so much. The mood in the class was blue, and I ended up bringing in Sylvester…the school’s kitten…to cheer them up. It worked for a little bit, but eventually the bell rang and we had to say goodbye.
The most surprising thing for me was the parents…I expected to feel sad about saying goodbye to my students. They are who I was closest to. But Some of the parents are the ones that made me truly well up.
This is Jason. He started off in my kindergarten class and eventually graduated into the level 1 primary school level. His dad had tried to get him to switch teachers at the beginning of last term, because the other teacher’s time table suited him better. Jason tried it out and then begged his dad to come back to me. This little boy…for whatever reason…thought I was the cat’s meow. I guess his dad started paying attention more after that, because on my last day, Jason’s parents came in, with a speech they’d written me (in English!) to thank me for all the hard work I’d done and how I’d helped Jason so much with his confidence. They said that I was a big part of why he’d won a speaking contest at his school recently and they showed me his performance. Talk about a rewarding job!!! I miss Jason a lot.This is me with Martha’s grandmother. Martha has always been special to me…she started off so sweet and shy…afraid to say a word in English class. But after some time, she blossomed into this funny, quirky, confident kid. Her grandmother feels like it was me who brought her out of her shell, and she broke down and cried a few minutes after this picture was taken. She was more upset that I was leaving that even Martha was….and Martha didn’t take it all that well either…She didn’t cry. She just wrapped her little arms around me and wouldn’t let go until she had to. She sends me messages through her grandmother’s WeChat account every week and I love getting them and responding. She’s such a great kid. I’m so happy she’s in my friend Chris’ class now… Chris is an awesome teacher and I know he’ll keep her out of her shell and keep her confidence up.
After saying goodbye to my wonderful K2 class, Dave and I head down to Trip Smith’s for a few final beers with the staff from the school. Before we knew it, it was 2pm the next day and we were boarding our plane to Hong Kong. From there….we were on our way home…
Our Trip Home to Canada
Goodness it was good to be home! We only had 3 weeks, but WOW did we make the most of it!! We were able to meet up with everyone who put in an effort to meet up with us and got to spend lots of great time with our wonderful families and friends. The only downside to our trip home was the food poisoning I had for the last 5 days of our trip. Other than that, we had a magnificent time and can’t wait to return again next year!!! (For a longer stay!!)
I was so happy to see my grandparents, who drove out from Quebec to visit with the family while we were home! I love those two so much and it was so great to spend that time with them!..Our fantastically wonderful friends Nathan and Dianne. We had such great Friday nights with these two…cooking and playing Charades. I miss them both so much already!The only picture I got of Kathleen, and it doesn’t even have her fabulous hubby, Cory in it! They put in such a huge effort to spend time with us while we were home and it was so great going for Dim Sum with them and seeing them at our bbqMy beautiful siblings and I. Ellie decided to photobomb us! It was my sisters and my brother Josh planned our whole BBQ along with my BFF, Jamie. Although Dave and I showed up 2 hours late (the cost of keeping it a surprise!!! haha!!), we had a wonderful time that afternoon!!!I honestly don’t know if I could have gotten through last year without this girl in my life. My best friend in the world, Jamie, and our boys. Life is good when you have a friend who is always able to help you see the positives…but who knows when to let you rant!! LOVE YOU TO BITS!!!Another dear friend, Veronique. I don’t see her nearly often enough, but when I do, it’s as though we were never apart.Jamie and I with our friend Tiffany, who is about as good of people as you can find! These gals are too fabulous for words!A beautiful shot of my beautiful girls, Ellie and Addyson 🙂I missed this kid more than anyone else over the last year. My gorgeous niece, EllieBeing an Auntie is one of the best parts of my life. I love these kids to bits and I can’t wait to see them all again next year!!!My mum and I at Pepere’s birthday party. I’d love to have a picture of my dad too, but he’s so ‘anti-camera’ that I learned years ago that it’s best not to try…unless he’s not looking. Then all bets are off!!
It would be impossible to choose just 1 highlight from our trip back home, but if I absolutely had to choose, it might be the day we spent in St. Malo park with our families and a few friends. Even though we were late for our surprise party, it was such a blast and when I think back to our time in Canada, that’s always the memory that sticks out. I grew up in St. Malo and it was so wonderful being back there, at the provincial park, walking the same stone paths that I walked with my dog, Trace, as a teenager. I love my country and when I think of Canada, this is what I think of. This is home to me.
Nothing quite like a sunset over St. Malo lake. Better yet…there was a family of geese hanging out in the water. I walked along the shore with them for a while. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so calm and relaxed.When you grow up with this as your surroundings…it’s hard to get used to life in a city as loud and dirty as Guiyang. The fresh air here did me so much good.
The rest of the scenery we saw in Canada was fantastic as well. I missed the big skies and the open fields that make Manitoba the beautiful province that it is.
There’s nothing quite like a Manitoba sunset!Loved seeing so many sunflowers and adored seeing the fields back home!
Our trip home was finished far too soon and before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye again. Next year we plan to be home for closer to 6 weeks (twice as long) so perhaps we’ll be able to find time for a camping trip at Rushing River. I’m so grateful that so many people took the time to spend their time with us while we were home and I really can’t wait to for July of next year when we can do it all again 🙂
The Trip to our New Home
We arrived in Suzhou on August 27th after a long trip back to China. We got to know the LeQiao area of Suzhou, which is actually a lot like the nicer parts of Guiyang. We quickly found the essentials…a BBQ place, a noodle place and a milk tea place.
Our favorite “Nai Cha” joint from Guiyang is everywhere in Suzhou!We craved these the entire time we were in CanadaI forgot to take a picture of the BBQ place but I did get one of the walk there.
We spent our first day in Suzhou apartment hunting. Eight apartments and three real estate agents later, we found our new home. We are SO thrilled with it!!! The building is gorgeous and secure and the area is quiet and very modern. Just outside our apartment building is a EuroMart, which sells everything from blue cheese to port wine to taco seasoning (all things we’d never seen in China before!).
The first thing you see when you walk into our apartment. Yes…we have 2 floors 🙂This is the upstairs bathroom. Do you notice that there’s no telephone line running through it???We have two bathrooms. The downstairs one has a western style washing machine. Quite the upgrade from our laundry facilities in Guiyang, which basically required us to hand wash all our clothes!!!Our gorgeous, clean and USABLE kitchen!!! We even have hot water in the sink!!Our bedroom. The bed is super comfortable and King Sized 🙂One of my favorite features of the apartment. This is the desk in our bedroom…It opens up!!!Our dining room tables folds out into double this size. And that big thing beside it is a heater/AC. We have 4 of them in our apartment….fantastic! Also…I love the bay windows we have!!!My office/ Yoga Room. It leads out to the balcony, which is nice 🙂My office is also the extra bedroom, so if anyone’s planning on visiting us…………..this whole space can be yours!!!!The daytime view from our balcony. You can see the lake and even one of Suzhou’s many canals from there 🙂Dave discussing the details of our apartment with Jean. Notice the couch? IT’S NOT A WOODEN BENCH!!!!!!!Our gigantic TV 🙂 It’s actually a flat screen! First time in my life I’ve had one!! We have used it a whopping 1 time in the last month lol!!Our upstairs ‘den’ that we turned into an office for Dave. The landlord bought us this desk when Dave wasn’t happy with the size of the one that was originally up there. He also bought a brand new Air conditioner/heater for the room so that Dave would be comfortable working there.
I should also note that both our landlords and our real estate agent are amazing. It was Jean (the agent) that suggested the air conditioner in the upstairs den and the landlady had 2 women come in and clean the place til it was spotless before we moved in. And we moved in the day after we saw the place, so she did that with very little notice.
The view from our balcony at night
The whole process of moving out here has been so easy. Last year, we arrived to find a run down apartment with mold and bug issues and when I asked for some help getting it set up I was called negative and told that I shouldn’t complain so much. This year, I’ve been welcomed to Suzhou with a clean apartment, kind coworkers and wonderful students.
But I’ll have more on that in my next post! And I promise it won’t take me 2 months to write it next time!!!
It’s beautiful and sunny here in Guiyang, and it’s one of the hottest days we’ve had this year. We chose to spend our day off scooting around the city and enjoying the beautiful scenery that Guiyang has to offer. Guizhou’s rugged beauty is something that I know I’ll miss as we move on to the next phase of our travels.
Life here has definitely improved. Part of that is because the worst of culture shock has passed…we’ve become accustomed to some of the things we find difficult in China (the last minuteness of everything…the terrible driving…the lack of customer service) and as a result we are both feeling a little more relaxed than we were back in October and November.
So I suppose it’s true…time heals everything. But I wouldn’t be giving myself due credit if I said that time alone helped my circumstances. After all, with all the problems I was having at the beginning of my contract, there were several routes I could have taken. The way I see it, I had 3 options at the time:
I could have given up and quit/gone home.
I could have given up trying…after all, I didn’t feel that my efforts were appreciated or noticed.
I could power through and continue being the best I could be, in the hope that that would eventually be recognized.
Of course, given my tenacity, I chose the 3rd option. Instead of sulking or giving up, I turned my focus to the classroom. I transformed that bland room into an engaging environment where my students can learn. I also started spending more time on my students themselves…creating customized worksheets to help the ones that were struggling with spelling…learning new songs for the students who love music…looking for new activities and games to ensure everyone is getting the most out of their classes. And it paid off. I’m now considered one of the top teachers at the school, and that means a great deal to me.
My latest art project. This is my cabinet before
My cabinet now!!
I’ve recently been working on several ‘class rules’ posters that are going on this quark board. I’m laminating them so that the school can keep them when they move locations next semester 🙂
I’ve recently been working on several ‘class rules’ posters that are going on this quark board. I’m laminating them so that the school can keep them when they move locations next semester 🙂
So I suppose I’ve been keeping busy. I’ve spent hours on these displays and sometimes I don’t even bother going back to the staff room for breaks, I just tidy up the classroom and add posters to the walls. And while I’ve been been so busy powering through the last six months, life outside the school continued…
We’ve celebrated milestones:
Birthday fun with Interlingua Staff
The gorgeous birthday cake that the school bought for me
On our way to the Kempinski Hotel to celebrate 3 fabulous years of marriage
Undergone transformations:
Back in Zhenyuan last autumn
I’ve lost 15 pounds since then…about 7 of that was in hair!
Dave’s also lost about 15 pounds since we arrived in Guiyang. It would be more if he hadn’t GROWN so much hair!!
Anyone who thinks marriage is lame, by the way, is not married to the right person.
Received countless care packages from home, which always brighten our day (and restock our goodie bin!!
Our latest package: maple themed gifts from my dear friend Veronique
This one meant a lot. It arrived on a day when I was feeling very under-appreciated: A Thank You card from my best friend, Jamie….just saying that she values our friendship
Our Christmas haul from the Reimers!
We’ve made friends…both of the human and furry variety:
My newest friend: Chili. He lives in an apartment in our garden. He’s very friendly and sweet 🙂
We’ve made friends at both the Guiyang Branch of Interlingua and at the Jinyang Branch. I work with some really awesome people 🙂
And, of course, we have tried many new foods 🙂
One of our favorite new restaurants is in the Future Ark area of Guiyang. Dave made a video to show you all what street food in Guiyang is like:
I have experienced so much in the last 6 months. There have been highs and lows, but no matter what has happened, I’ve had a constant positive in my life: my students. They are really the best part of being here. I know I should be exhausted every Sunday night, after back to back 10 hour days…but I always find myself energized at the end of it all. I have no doubt that teaching is my true calling…I have never loved a job as much as I love this one.
How could I ever complain when I’ve got kids as cute as Poppy, who brought me a rose on Saturday…just because 🙂
Sadly, it really hit me this week that I’m going to be leaving soon and that although I’m excited to move on, I don’t know how I’m going to say goodbye to some of these kids…
But I suppose, once more I need to remind myself not to complain. I’d rather have met these kids and have to say goodbye, than have never met them at all. They’ve all taught me so much. Smile (a little boy in one of my kindergarten classes) has shown me how he can be brave, no matter how scary it was for him to be away from his parents when he first began coming to class. Lee taught me that no matter how bratty a child may be, they can ALWAYS turn it around. And Chuck…Chuck taught me that 6 year olds can get brain cancer, and that I should cherish every moment I have with all of my beautiful students.
He was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer 3 months ago. His classmates still ask where he went. I have no idea how to answer…
Well, I can say a lot of things about my life here in China, but one thing I cannot say is that it’s boring! The last 2 days have been a total blur and now that I find myself at our favorite hang out, finally ready to write about ENP, I fear I won’t have the energy to even make it through my intro. In the last 48 hours we have been on: 2 Flights, 2 high speed trains, 7 metro trains and in taxis. I had 2 interviews on Tuesday, April 21st and they were in 2 different cities. I woke up in Suzhou yesterday, Shanghai today and then taught kindergarten in Guiyang this evening! If it weren’t for Shanghai’s INCREDIBLE transportation system and my expert co-navigator, this insane day would have never been possible.
The busy Shanghai Train Station…which also happens to be their airport and a metro station!! So convenient!!The train behind us goes a whopping 268kms an hour, taking us 100kms in just 30 minutes!!The subways are a quick way to get around. Shanghai is so modern and awesome 🙂
But all the nuttiness and rushing around turned out to be very worth the trouble. Because we were able to make it work, I was able to see first hand what my top 2 choices for employment for next term look like up close. I was impressed with both, but I could only take one job, so after a lot of deliberation I decided to accept a position in the beautiful city of Suzhou. The school feels like a good fit and I was offered a job teaching Drama and English Writing in the Middle School at the Suzhou Foreign Language School, which is sort of perfect for me!! It’s a job I’ve been interested in for some time, and I was thrilled when they offered me the position.
Suzhou is in Jiangsu Province…it’s located 100kms from Shanghai, but it only takes 30 minutes to get there by high speed rail 🙂Suzhou is famous for it’s canals and is known as The Venice of the Orient. Gorgeous city!!Nothing is quite like China at night! Lanterns and lit up buildings make for beautiful walks along the canals.Yup…I can handle living here!
The one bad thing about this whole nutty trip is that this happened to be my last weekend before we leave on our holiday in Cambodia. I can hardly believe that I’m going on vacation again before I’ve even finished writing about the LAST vacation!! Talk about living a spoiled life!!
But I better get on with it, before time slips away from me again and I wake up in Cambodia! I’ve saved the best post for last, so I hope you enjoy reading it 🙂
Elephant Nature Park: My New Favorite Place on Earth!!
Elephant Nature Park (or ENP) was founded in the 1990s by a lovely woman named Lek Chailart, whose love for elephants drove her to do something for them. As of March, 2016 the park is home to 69 elephants, 100+ cats, 400+ dogs and around 80 buffalo. Lek has taken all of the animals in and given them a natural home, where they aren’t abused by humans or used in the tourism industry for trekking or other harmful activities.
This is Lek. In case you were wondering, THIS is what a good person looks like!
There are so many reasons why Elephant Nature Park is a ‘must see’ for anyone who visits Thailand. I’ve decided to sum up why I loved ENP so much into a nice compact list. Here are my top 3 reasons why I think EVERYONE should visit ENP (or somewhere like it). We’ll start with #3…
#3- It’s a great place to Escape the hustle and bustle!!
Bangkok and Phuket were awesome…there was always plenty to see and plenty to do, but with everything being so crazy, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. I was very happy our stay at ENP was towards the end of our trip, because it gave us an opportunity to wind down from all of that. There is so much natural beauty here and it’s really set up to help you relax 🙂
Our cabin for the nightA balcony facing the Elephant pen, where they sleep at night. We could hear them snoring from our bed 🙂A comfortable mosquito netted bed 🙂 We found a cat curled up in our bed the following day when we stopped in to get some bug repellant. She’d crawled in through the window and seemed quite pleased with herself. We couldn’t bare to kick her out…The beautiful dirt road that lead to our cabin. It may not seem like anything special if you’re sitting back in North America, but after living in China for 6 months, it was nice to breath clean air and listen to the birds chirp 🙂
And if the lodging wasn’t quaint enough, the grounds where the elephants live are also gorgeous…
The landscape is gorgeous. These elephants have a forested mountain as their backdropThe hills in northern Thailand are really quite niceElephants LOVE water so having a creek run through ENP was a MUST.This old girl is living out the rest of her life in a beautiful and natural habitat.
And if natural beauty isn’t enough for you, the Park’s Pets add yet another layer of serenity to the place 🙂
ENP has more than 400 rescued dogs on the grounds. This was one of the friendlier ones. Sadly, not all were so calm…we were snapped at by a few dogs, who had clearly learned to mistrust humans at some point in their lives.There is a whole area reserved for Cat Kingdom, where over 100 rescued felines spend their day being lazy and awesomeWe spent a lot of time in Cat Kingdom…I could have done a whole post on just our time there haha!!What a ham!!
The atmosphere at ENP was definitely one of the perks for me. The beautiful scenery, abundant furry friends and rustic lodging were such a nice change from the rest of our trip!
#2 – High Entertainment Value
Right from our first moments at ENP, the elephants were making us laugh. You’re first introduced to the elephants at the feeding platform, and when it’s feeding time, things can get a little nutty!! THOSE TRUNKS!!!
I felt trunks tap my bum or bump up against my hand more than once walking along that platform!
If you’ve never seen an elephant trying to maneuver itself in water, then you have not properly seen an elephant. These typically graceful creatures become carefree and goofy once in the water. We probably could have spent a day just sitting there watching these guys play!
Baby elephants are especially playful! They have no idea how big they are, so this can sometimes be problematic for the Mahouts, who try very hard to train the elephants not to push around people. As the elephants get bigger, it becomes dangerous if they decide to push aside one of us tiny tourists, so we aren’t allowed to touch the babies…for their safety and for ours!!
This adorable little girl loves to slowly walk over to tourists and then charge them at the last second. Fun for elephants!!Here she is again, trying to get her Mahout to play with her! haha!!This is baby Navann peeking onto the feeding platform. A few moments later, one of the dogs came over and started harassing him. Did Navann run away? NOPE!! He grabbed a shovel and started swinging it at the dog!!! Brilliant little boy!!!
The following is one of my favorite videos of our trip. It’s of an elephant named Dokmai (she’s actually a girl, though in the video I thought she was a boy). She just LOVES playing with fire hoses!!
But not all of our entertainment was presented in a comedic fashion. At one point, our group was actually chased down by a group of irritated elephants, who were tired of the dogs nipping at their trunks (a favorite pass-time for ENP’s dogs) We were standing by the river and all of a sudden, 4 or 5 elephants were charging toward us. I didn’t get any pictures of the event (I was too busy running), but I can tell you, it was an exhilarating experience!! Our guide, Apple, got us to run behind a fence, where she thought we’d be safe from trampling, but one of the elephants decided to follow us into the fenced area. She got pretty close to us but then lost interest and went in the other direction. Apple told us later that that particular elephant LOVES to chase people. And that although she often does this, she has never hurt anyone…she always stops when she gets close to her target and then goes on her way in the other direction. Maybe it’s her revenge for the years she spent working for humans in the tourism industry??
#1 – ENP is an extremely educational experience!!!
Elephant Nature Park isn’t just about laughter, relaxation and being chased by elephants. The staff here are very knowledgeable about everything Elephant. Some of the most interesting facts we learned:
That trunk has over 40,000 muscles in it! It is the elephants most diverse tool and can be used for a wide variety of things, like transferring food into the elephant’s mouth, sounding out a trumpet to show predators that they mean business and even for showing affection to family members. A trunk can be soft and flexible (as shown in this picture) or it can be stiff and used to slap the ground to intimidate predators (trunk slapping is very cool…it sounds like a rubber tire being dropped on the ground).
An elephant’s nose is also very well adapted for smelling. Their sense of smell is actually better than that of a dog!! Many elephants go blind in their lifetimes, because their environments usually involve a lot of dust, which gets into their eyes eventually causing blindness. We met many blind elephants at the park (I developed a soft spot for them…) but they manage to survive (and would in the wild as well!) due to their incredible sense of smell!
This beautiful old girl was covered in mud. I sort of lucked out and got to see her on my own while everyone else was resting. The park’s photographer saw me taking pictures from the feeding deck and called me over 🙂
I’m sure you’ve heard that elephants are very fond of their families…this couldn’t be truer! In fact, they have a similar mentality about family as i do…blood doesn’t have to be all there is to having children or siblings. All of the babies at ENP have several ‘nannies’ who are FIERCELY protective of them. When one of the dogs snapped at Dok Mai, the entire family began trunk slapping and circled around her for protection. I should add that none of these elephants are related by blood…family is just so important to them that they create a family if they are taken away from their original one.
The heard protecting their precious baby from the mean ol’ dogs
This is why animal advocates are so against zoos that keep elephants alone. I was happy to see that Calgary zoo had found new homes for their elephants, because they were moved to a place where there were more elephants for them to interact with. These are truly social creatures and having them in a pen by themselves is a form of solitary confinement. They go crazy…as I know I would as well.
Love 🙂
I think more than anything else though, what surprised me about the elephants were the sounds they can make! You’ve heard the stereotypical ‘trumpet’ that they make. It’s a terrifying sound if it’s made in your direction, I can assure you of that! But they make so many more sounds than just their trumpeting. They grumble and squeak and sometimes almost sound like they’re purring. I LOVED falling asleep to the sound of that grumbling coming from the elephant pen at night. I fought sleep harder than I have since I was a little kid because I didn’t want to miss any of those nice sounds…
I also got a really cool video that sums up a lot of those sounds! One of the elephants got left behind by her herd when they’d gone across the river to eat some greenery. We watched her find them (and them find her) and it was quite the thing to see (and hear!!).
The grumbling you can hear is going back and forth between them. Elephants can communicate this way with one another when they are up to 10kms away from one another! They have very sensitive feet and can feel vibrations in the ground when another elephant is calling to them this way. Pretty cool! I should also add that this is the herd that chased us about 5 minutes after I took this video…they were an ornery group…
Doesn’t that 70 pound chair look comfortable for that beautiful animal!!??
But unfortunately, not all of the facts we learned about elephants were pleasant. We learned a lot about the tourism industry while we met different elephants and were told their stories. We met several elephants with broken backs, who were all injured at trekking camps, where they are loaded up with tourists for hours every day, often carrying over 300 pounds on their backs at once (the chair alone weights 70 pounds) Although you’d think an elephant’s back is strong, given its size, it’s actually an elephant’s neck that is powerful and not its back, so many elephants end up with injuries. The chairs used in trekking camps are also terrible for the elephants’ lungs, which are squeezed by the strap that holds the chair onto the elephant. Add in the fact that they are overworked in terrible heat, and maybe you can understand why I refused to go elephant riding while in Thailand…
Add in the fact that the Elephant knows that it’ll be stabbed in the head with that hook if it misbehaves, and then you get better image of what elephant trekking is like for the elephant
I know many people who have ridden elephants while in Thailand, or even in North America at circuses or zoos. I have heard many defenses over these types of rides, including things like ‘well THESE elephants were treated well!’ and ‘I rode on the elephant’s neck and not on a chair’. And while those may seem like valid arguments, if you do a little research you discover that every single elephant in captivity has gone through a hellish experience known as ‘crushing’ and that by riding an elephant (even on its neck) you are supporting that industry. Allow me to explain further…
This is what the Elephant Crush looks like. This is how Elephants are taught to be ridden. This is also how they’re taught to paint pictures, be used in water fights and be used for begging…it all boils down to THIS practice, people!!
Elephants are highly intelligent and very strong willed. To break an elephant requires a lot of work, and most people don’t believe an elephant can be trained without the use of violence. So when an elephant reaches the age of about 4 (which is VERY young for an elephant…at that age they are still quite dependent on their mothers in the wild) they are put into a wooden cage that completely restricts movement, and are stabbed with sticks (that often have nails tied into the end of them so that the elephants’ tough skin can be broken) and they are kept in that ‘crush’ for anywhere from 5-8 days. They are hit, stabbed with sticks and nails, screamed at and sleep deprived until they have lost the will to fight back. THIS HAPPENS TO EVERY SINGLE ELEPHANT THAT IS BEING USED IN THE TOURISM INDUSTRY.
I’m sorry if this image bothers you. If it does, please don’t be mad that I posted it…be mad that it happens!!!
So even if you ‘ride on their neck’ and even if the mahouts seem ‘really really nice’, these elephants are being tortured for human entertainment, and I know that’s not fun to hear, but it needs to be said. I know that a couple of years ago, I may not have done the research I did this time. Up until I did that research, ‘riding an elephant in Thailand’ was on my bucket list. I changed it to ‘meet an elephant in Thailand’ because I can’t bring myself to support this industry knowing what I know. And that’s why I’m sharing all of this with you. Because now YOU know, and you can do something about it too! Educate people! Encourage people not to support this industry because you now know what happens behind the scenes. It’s the only way any of this will stop, and after meeting all these incredible pachyderms, I had to write something about it. I had to be part of the solution.
I’ve just returned from a gorgeous stroll around Zhong Tian Hua Yuan. My heart rate is still elevated, and my cheeks are still a little flush, and I feel like a million bucks! Over the past month, Dave and I have been upping the ante in maintaining a healthier lifestyle. This has, of course, been partially in anticipation for the inevitable bathing suits that we will wear in Thailand, but it’s also more than that. For the past 3 years of my life, I’ve been terribly unhealthy. I’ve picked up some nasty habits (both nutritionally and physically) that have resulted in gained weight, a weakened immune system and overall sentiments of discontent. My health fell low in my list of priorities while I juggled my university degree, a demanding job, home renovations and a variety of other factors. It was unfortunate, certainly, but as any university student can tell you…some times all you have time to eat (or can afford to eat!) is a burger!
I fell victim to McDonald’s Dollar menu more times than I’d like to admit. Seeing as how I was relying on their coffee a great deal to get through the long days at school, it was just so easy to pick up a burger with my Lg double double.
But since I finished my exams in April, I’ve bumped health back up to the top of my priority list, and I couldn’t be happier about that decision. In the last 8 months, I’ve lost 30 pounds and I’ve lost 4 inches around both my chest and my hips. But more than that, I have more confidence than I’ve had in ages. Not only because I’m looking better, but also because 30 pounds is a HUGE accomplishment. I feel like I can do anything!! It’s such a great feeling!
So far, I’ve lost as much weight as this cat weighs!! 30 pounds is also the weight of 240 eggs, a human head, or a flat tire!!
And in addition to all the fantastic endorphins my body releases while I take these long walks, I’m seeing more of Zhong Tian, and Guiyang is feeling more like home, as I explore the gardens here and begin recognizing the owners of the shops I pass by each night.
The view from our bedroom window. I’m looking forward to springtime when I can journal from inside that pagoda 🙂The night market where we go for bbq. I often go by this alley when I go for walks at nightThis was the view from the bedroom of our old apartment. The dome is Zhong Tian’s pool and the courtyard in front of the dome is where the neighbors excercise in the morning, dance at night and practice gong fu daily
If you’d like to see more of Zhong Tian Hua Yuan, please check out the video we made this week! We gave a mini tour of our garden and a bit of the community park. We’ll be posting many more like it and I’ll be sure to update you as I blog!
But living in Zhong Tian isn’t always a walk in the park. As I mentioned in my last post, our apartment does leave some things to be desired. The cockroaches and grease drenched walls definitely made me want to cry, but still…there are more things that have made me laugh (and shake my head) in Zhong Tian than have reduced me to tears.
See previous post for more information on how we broke these pipes by cleaning them!
Take, for example, our walls when we first move in. For us, it was a no-brainer to paint them, but clearly the apartment’s previous tenants hadn’t thought that way. Instead of patching holes in the walls, they stuffed Kleenex into the holes and then covered them in tape (that they covered with white out so that the colour sort of matched the rest of the wall). Another popular technique to hide stains and holes in the walls at our apartment was to cover them up with posters and calendars. We had several big bulky calendars in our living room (some of them for the wrong year) and many old, faded posters. When we took them down, it was easy to see why they’d been placed there, but we still didn’t want to put the smelly paper back onto the walls (the previous owners smoked so everything smelled). The worst thing about this form of ‘covering up’ issues though, wasn’t the posters themselves. It’s that all of these ‘quick fixes’ had been stuck onto the walls with scotch tape, which couldn’t actually be removed from the walls.
Our bedroom door. We took the red poster off, but the tape remains… Our whole living room and dining room looked like this prior to our painting…
We discovered soon that a wide variety of things here are remedied with tape (and I’m not talking about duct tape…it’s usually packing tape, scotch tape or two sided tape…). For example…we had water coming into our kitchen from an upstairs neighbor. The repair guy showed up to fix it, and decided that cutting a hole in our ceiling was the best way to figure out what was going on.
He did replace the missing chunk of ceiling though! Any guesses how??Yup…he taped it right back up there…
Unfortunately, not everything in our apartment is so easily fixed….before we moved in, the school had our fridge and our toilet replaced because they were in such bad shape. Those were two major things for Huang to replace for us, so we’ve let other things go unrepaired because there’s no point in trying to fix everything when we’re only living here for a year. Some examples…
The light above our dining room table is frustratingly non-functional. At first, we thought that it just needed a new light bulb, which was the case in nearly every other light socket in the apartment, but a new bulb didn’t do anything. Luckily, as we replaced the bulbs in the adjacent living room, the dining room also got brighter.The A/C is still a bit of a sore spot for us. Most apartments in Guiyang don’t have them, so when we found out this one did, we were thrilled and willing to overlook the cleaning we’d have to do as a trade off. We confirmed with the land lord that it worked (he said it did) but we never thought to check it ourselves. We did ask the landlord to fix it, but property owners in Zhong Tian don’t seem to like to invest money into fixing anything in their buildings…
My favorite ‘unfixable’ problem in our apartment though, is in the kitchen. We only discovered this particular issue after living in the apartment for 2 months. It took us so long to discover the problem because that particular light socket is an odd shape and it took ages to find a light bulb that would fit it. Even when we did find this odd light bulb (Naveed informed us that they are actually quite popular in England…), we could only find one that was far too long for the light fixture, so we had to leave it off.
The light bulb only comes in size ‘ridiculous’
The easiest way for me to explain what’s wrong with the lights in our kitchen is to show you, so we’ve made another video 🙂 I’m going to learn how to embed videos right into my blog soon, but as some of you know from my FB page, this week has been a little frustrating for me as I learn how to set up my blog in a more visually appealing way. So for now, just follow this link to see the silly way our lights act in the kitchen:
But it the entertainment (and headaches) our apartment provides for us doesn’t end with quick fixes and the unfixable. China hasn’t yet implemented much in the way of ‘safety standards’, and as a result, we have a phone line that runs through our shower, electrical sockets hanging out of the walls and flooring that has absolutely no texture, so if you are wearing socks, or are coming out of the shower, the likelihood of slipping is astronomical. Slippers or shoes are nearly always worn indoors.
I’m pretty clumsy as it is, so the fact that Dave hasn’t put these up around the apartment everywhere to remind me to be careful is a little surprising!
We have definitely refrained from complaining about all these small things to the school, because we know that this is just what life is like in China. Landlords don’t HAVE to fix things…your lights don’t ALL have to work…leaky ceilings are only a big deal if they’re causing damage in your apartment…things are just a little different here. But in spite of our attempts to complain as little as possible, the school’s accountant grew very tired of us in the weeks after we moved into the new place (she is in charge of fixing problems in the teachers’ apartments). The final straw was when I told her the washing machine didn’t work. Now, in all fairness, that’s sort of a big one…..without a washing machine, I can’t come to work in clean clothes. I’ve yet to see a laundrymat in Guiyang so it wasn’t something we could just live without. But, as it turns out, our washing machine wasn’t actually broken; we simply had no idea how it worked.
In our defense, everything is in Chinese, so we didn’t know that the middle dial needed to be turned all the way to the left for the machine to work…
We soon discovered that it would have been better if our washing machine actually WAS broken, because now that it works, we have to take the following 14 steps to doing our laundry every week. For your enjoyment, we photo-documented the process 🙂
Step 1: Face the beast…you will be dealing with her for the next hour or so….Step 2: Begin boiling water, because although our hot water tank is directly above the washing machine, it does not provide hot water FOR the washing machine. We can take water from the shower, but only if neither of us plan on showing for the evening…the tank isn’t big enough to do both laundry, and shower…Step 3: Remove the lid for the washing side (because it doesn’t stay upright on its own). The blue circle at the bottom of the washing machine is what does the work, by the way. It spins both clockwise and counterclockwise to clean your clothes…Step 4 : Round up your clothes and throw them in the washing machine. Make sure that the amount of clothing is exactly right because if there’s too much, the blue circle doesn’t spin, but if there isn’t enough, the spin section of the washing machine doesn’t work (yup…spin cycle is in a different part of the machine. We’ll get to that…Step 5: Add your first 2 kettles full of boiling water (make sure the drain valve is closed first…). Refill your kettles (yeah, we have 2) and get them boiling again.Step 6: Add some cold water (by hand, with a hose, because the hose kinks up and sprays water all over the kitchen if you don’t hold it just right…)Step 7: Roughly 20 minutes later, you have warm water to wash your clothes in. Turn the far left valve all the way counter clockwise and let the machine do it’s thing for 35 minutesStep 8: After 35 minutes (25 of which are spent just allowing the clothes to soak between clockwise or counterclockwise spins), your clothes have been ‘cleaned’. This is what the water looks like. China is very dusty by the way…Step 9: Get more hot water boiling and turn the middle valve all the way to the right, to let the dirty water drain out.Step 10: once the water is drained, turn the middle valve back to the left and fill the machine with cold water. Turn the far left dial about 1/3 around so that you get about 10 minutes of swishing to rinse the clothes.Step 11: This is what the water looks like after the first rinse. We rinse it a second time (using hot water) because I’m pretty sure the clothes still aren’t actually clean at this point.Step 12: Let the water drain out one final time. I should also mention that when the water drains, it goes down a pink plastic tube that leads into a drain in the floor of our kitchen. This pink tube has been knocked out of the drain before….it got messy…Step 13: The clothes are now ready to be moved over to the other side of the washing machine, where they are spin dried.I do have to admit that this feature works quite well, and probably saves us a day or two of drying time. Oh yeah…did I mention that they don’t have clothes dryers here? You hang dry it all… Oh…and the plastic piece you put on top of the clothes…it’s there so they don’t fly out while they spin!Step 14: Hang up your clothes to dry. We are lucky enough to have inherited a couple of dehumidifiers that speed up the process.The key is to spread out everything as far as you can. In winter, it can take 2-3 days for everything to dry, so you also do laundry with that in mind.
So that’s what it’s like living in a Chinese apartment. As I mentioned in my last post, we live in the poorest province in China, so it’s definitely different elsewhere in the country. The laundry was a pain at first, but once you get into a routine, it gets much easier. The worst is when Dave throws the clothes in the wash, because he hardly ever checks to make sure I have a pair of pants to wear while the clean ones dry. I came to China with 5 pairs but I now only have 2 that properly fit me (and they’re already pretty loose), so that’s always a bit of a struggle. He’s pretty happy though, because I’ve forbidden him to do this part of the laundry routine again….you’ve lucked out this time, Reimer…
We are only 20 days away from Thailand now, and we’re both getting VERY excited about the trip! Between now and then I hope to be writing some posts regarding what it’s like to be a teacher here. It’s the end of the semester, so as I do my progress reports and correct tests, I’m beaming with pride as I see how much my students have learned in the last 5 months. I think it’s a good time to write about the wonderful experience teaching can be!
Well, another weekend is coming to an end and I must say we spent it well. A good portion of our time was spent in coffee shops, where I was either working on my blog, organizing pictures or finishing up some test corrections. This may not sound very adventurous, on the surface, but it was all about the location this weekend! We’d been hearing about a cafe that had several cat occupants for a while now, so we decided to go hunt it down on Monday. As an animal nut, I’ve gotta say I was pretty stoked to spend my day off surrounded by purring and fur 🙂
Favorite shot of the day. This sweet girl became our bestie when I gave her some kitty treats 🙂She has the softest fur and the bluest eyes!!This little man came over for a visit shortly before we left.
Although it is great going on adventures and discovering new things, it’s also just so fantastic to sit down and relax like we did this weekend. The whole time I was finishing my degree, we worked like mad so that we could get our butts to China and slow down. I feel like this is one of the only weekends where we’ve actually done that…slow down….since we got here. It was well deserved and very appreciated! And best of all, it was relaxing but still productive! I had time to go through several hundred photos and figure out exactly what I wanted to show you about our apartments in Guiyang. It turned out there is A LOT I want to show you, so this is probably going to turn into two posts. I’ll make sure that they are posted closely together though, so that you don’t have to wait 3 weeks before the comedy portion of my story (SPOILER: this post is the tragedy portion ;))
First off, I need to give a bit of back story for those of you who don’t already know about our first apartment in Guiyang. We moved in our second day here (after spending our first night at a hotel) to find the place moldy, damp and spider infested. It was a beautiful apartment, and had so much potential if the land lord had been willing to maintain the place, but unfortunately, that hadn’t been the case.
The upstairs bathroom was particularly bad. There was mold everywhere and the entire room smelled of sour yogurt and rotten fish. We spent a great deal of time trying to pinpoint what exactly we were smelling…the same counter after an hour of scrubbing, done by yours truly.
We tried to make the best of it, and did our best to clean the place up. The apartment did have some wonderful features, including a balcony and a rooftop terrace (SO BEAUTIFUL!!). It looked like it was all going to work out in that big apartment. We had to climb 10 flights of stairs to get to our bedroom, but the exercise was doing us some good. The spiders were terrible but were improving as we cleaned the place up. We spent hours cleaning up the terrace and bringing the plants up there back to life… I actually started to like the place…
But then it started raining…
And the rain started coming in…. It didn’t take long for us to realize why half the lights in the place didn’t work…And the ceiling started to crumble…And then it got worse….
As a result of our ceiling starting to fall apart, our land lord decided to increase his efforts in selling the place. He’d spent a small fortune trying to fix the apartment’s many problems already, and he wasn’t willing to spend anything more. So he started showing the apartment 4-5 times a day, several days a week. He was really friendly with us, so we put up with it for a while…
Then the mold started coming back…
That was my final straw. I broke down and told the school how awful the place was and asked them to move us to a more suitable apartment. We were fine with a smaller space and we were perfectly ok giving up the rooftop terrace. After all…what good is a rooftop terrace, if you’re battling fungal pneumonia?? (2 of the teachers who’d lived in this apartment in the past couple of years had developed lung problems as a result of that mold…)
My boss felt awful about the whole mess, and began searching for a new apartment for us right away. After several days of searching, she found us something that had 2 bedrooms (a requirement so that Dave could work from home) and that was in the school’s price range. And that’s how we ended up where we are now!
I have to admit…it wasn’t love at first sight. The stairwell left a lot to be desired, but I’d already learned in Xiamen that stairwells hardly ever reflect the individual apartments that they lead to. So as I climbed the 3 flights (only 3 flights!!) to my new apartment, I kept that in mind.
The stairs leading up to our apartmentApartment 302. The outside of our door also has lots of red banners on it, presumably for good luck.
Step 1: Remove Current Inhabitants…
The place was much smaller than the 3 story ‘rooftop-terrace’ space that we’d been occupying for nearly 2 months, but it was mold-free and had a lot of potential. My first task was originally to wash the walls, because the previous tenants had been smokers, and the walls were all stained yellow…
Yum…right?? They had about 20 posters and banners up all over the apartment and this is what the wall looked like behind each of them…
Of course, my priorities quickly changed upon our first night-time visit to drop off some of our things (when you are moving everything down 10 flights of stairs…you do it bit by bit!). We opened the door and turned on the lights, only to see about 10 cockroaches scurry under the furniture and into nooks and crannies. I’d gotten used to cockroaches in Xiamen (they were EVERYWHERE there!), but in Guiyang we’d only seen a handful in 2 months, so this came as a surprise. When we witnessed the same thing the following evening, we knew that the apartment we’d agreed to move into was far dirtier than we’d originally thought.
At this point, I definitely just wanted to curl up into a ball and cry…but I’m a ‘doer’, so instead of giving up, we found some heavy duty cockroach killer and got rid of the little monsters…
There are many ways to kill a cockroach, but the quickest and most effective way is to smoke ’em out. You buy this stuff that sort of looks and acts like incense: you light the end, wait til the thing actually catches, and then blow it out. The smoke does the rest! It’s very important to get out of the apartment quickly after lighting the sticks, because they can seriously damage your lungs, but they work amazingly well at killing the roaches. You basically let the stuff work for a few hours, come home, open the windows and sweep up the carcasses…yummy…I know….
Step 2: Declutter!!!!
Now, I realize that there is value in keeping things and fixing them when you can…but the Chinese take that to a new level. When we moved in, there was so much stuff left over from the previous tenants, that we filled between 5 and 6 big black garbage bags with trash. Among the things we found are:
A stack of broken plastic stools
Teddy bears and children’s pillows that were stained with cigarette smoke (I should also add that no children actually LIVED in this apartment)
Large buckets with stagnant water sitting in them.
Old ceramic pots that had (at some point) held plants. They were still filled with dirt…
A total of 4 desks (2 of which are broken)
Mounds of old Chinese magazines and books
Several broken dishes
Drawers full of fish food, newspaper clippings burnt out extension cords
Several broken lamps
soooo much more….
This was how the spare bedroom was originally set up. There were several desks , and many many broken stools in the room.It’s still a little cluttered now, but it’s all neat and actually clean. The water dispenser you see was left here by the previous tenants. It’s listed as one of the items that are covered by our damage deposit, so we can’t throw it out…The other side of the room, which Dave uses as an office. I really like the way we set up this room. It looks so much better!
We also swept up a garbage bag worth of dust, hair and dirt from behind and under all the furniture and spent hours wiping everything in the house down, because pretty much everything was covered in a layer of dust (and in some rooms, everything was covered in a layer of grease AND a layer of dust). I don’t know if the people who lived here before us had ever cleaned anything…ever…
Our very cluttered bedroom. It started off with teddy bears, pillows and a tonne of old books (that were missing pages and covers…). We also found a gigantic hanger in this room…shoved behind the armoir. Not sure why they didn’t just throw it away….Oh…and btw…that’s Timore 🙂 She is the Chinese Staff Manager.I never got a before picture of this side of the bedroom, but this is how it looks now. Pretty standard as far as bedrooms go…except of course that we’ve bought like 4 different pads for the bed so that it doesn’t feel like we’re sleeping on a piece of plywood. Chinese beds suck!!Our very cluttered kitchen. To be fair, it looked like this because we’d moved one of the broken desks into here as well as the water cooler…we were a little tight on space until we got the place organized!Our kitchen now. Once more, there are certain things we couldn’t throw out because of the damage deposit. We needed counter space anyway, so one of our broken desks became just that 🙂 Of course there is more to our kitchen’s new look than simple decluttering…but I’ll get to that in a moment….
Step 3: Paint! (Because washing the walls just wasn’t an option!!)
After killing all the cockroaches, and getting the dust and dirt out of the place, our next mission was to wash the walls. The light switches were all filthy and the walls all had tape stuck to them and stains everywhere. Of course, when we started to wipe down the walls, we quickly realized that our apartment had never actually been painted. Instead of paint, a thin layer of plaster covered the concrete walls, and as we wiped away the dirt, we also wiped away the plaster. This why we had to paint…it was honestly not in our original plans….
The light switch outside our ‘sink room’ before I cleaned it…The same light switch after approximately 30 seconds of work…
On top of the damage we did to the place while trying to WASH it…the previous tenants had stuck posters and banners on the wall with scotch tape, and as we tried to remove all these ugly posters, a lot of plaster came off with them… It’s probably for the best that we painted the place. I don’t know if we would have gotten our damage deposit back if we hadn’t…
The living room wall before we painted…The same wall after we paintedThe other side of the living room. I love how much warmer this place got with a bit of paint, and some replaced light bulbs…only 1/5 of the light bulbs in the living room worked when we moved in…
4.) Scrub…Scrub….Scrub…..
So, I’ve already mentioned that there were a lot of cockroaches here when we moved in, and I also mentioned that cockroaches aren’t a huge problem in Guiyang so their presence indicated a problem with the cleanliness of the apartment, right? Well…step 4 was the most unpleasant of all the steps we took to making this place livable. Yes…it was worse than the cockroach carcasses and even more gross than finding old, moldy underwear hiding in a closet (that actually happened at the first apartment, but still…). I’ll let the pictures do the talking…
Dave, wiping the mold and grime off of the bathroom ceiling…Our bathroom before….(we actually had them replace the toilet because there was NO WAY I was sitting on that thing!!)Our bathroom now. Notice that there is no shower in the room. That’s normal in China. Instead, they just have a shower head in the middle of the bathroom. We added the shower curtain so that our toilet paper would stop getting wet…The ‘sink room’ that’s right outside the bathroom. We put up a shower curtain here as well…mostly to hide the ugly, rusty pipes that we simply couldn’t get clean….
After spending an entire day scrubbing these two rooms so that they were useable, we decided to wait a while before tackling the kitchen. Eating at restaurants is cheap here anyway, and we weren’t in a hurry to cook yet. Of course, we did eventually have to open that door and deal with the grease and filth. Once more, I will let the pictures do the talking….
What our kitchen originally looked like. Notice the grease stains on the far left wall? Yeah…that was basically everywhere…Some wonderful ‘mid way through’ pictures. Notice the wall in the right part of the picture has been wiped down. I still hadn’t gotten to the left side yet…though it made for a good visual….It took us several weeks to get the kitchen completely clean. We had to stop and take a picture as we finished up on the first day. And yes…this is all just grease. What bothered us both the most is how easy it was to clean all this…All it really took was some degreaser and some hot water, and most of it just wiped off. Apparently the previous tenants weren’t up to that task though, so they’d just let the filth build up instead. I don’t even understand how they cooked in there…
And some of my favorite pictures….
Our hot water tank, before we cleaned it…And after….The hood to our range before (at this point I actually thought that the glass was frosted…)And after…well…kind of in between…I just took a picture at this point because I couldn’t believe that the glass had just been that dirty!!!The ceiling above the range…Annnd after…You can feel free to be grateful for the way damage deposits work in Canada now…
Step 5:Fix what you broke while you were cleaning!!!
In addition to the grease and dust and cockroach poop (yup…lots of it…in the kitchen…..Bleach anyone!?!?!?), we also had a lot of lime build up that needed to be cleaned off the pipes. Of course, we didn’t realize that the only thing keeping these old pipes from leaking was that very build up. So after a day of scrubbing, we had to laugh when the pipes started leaking, making a mess in the kitchen. Luckily the school fixed it quickly, but I never thought that cleaning a kitchen could actually MAKE a mess!!!
The pipes above our kitchen sink. They carry the water from the hot water tank to the bathroom.The pipe closest to the wall began to leak at the joint when we had the audacity to… GASP…clean it!! lol!!!
In total, we spent nearly 3 months making this place home. It was a lot of work, but it was all worth it in the end because now this place is ours.
As I finish this post, I want to leave you with 3 thoughts:
1.) China is a crazy place. Their cleanliness standards aren’t the same as they are in the west, but this apartment is not the norm for foreigners living in this incredible country. I happen to live in a poor part of the country and our boss was trying to get us out of an even worse apartment, that could have made us sick if we’d stayed there much longer. So PLEASE don’t think that Chinese people are all this filthy, or that schools here don’t care where they put their foreign teachers. We just had some bad luck…
2.) I’m not writing about this all to gross you out, or to make you never want to come see us…I’m writing it to show you that the things you take for granted in Canada just aren’t ‘a given’ here. When you move out of an apartment in China, you don’t lose your damage deposit if the place isn’t clean. That means that you sometimes have a massive mess to clean up when you move into a new place.
and 3.)
I wrote this to show you what you are capable of (and to remind myself what I’M capable of), with a bit of determination. A lot of people I know would have refused to live in this apartment, but we worked with what we were given. This whole “China Experience” is about confronting all the difficulties of living in a foreign culture after all…it can’t all be trips to Guilin and walks along ancient walls!!!
So that concludes the ‘drama’ part of my Apartment Post. Stay tuned for my next post, which will show you all the nutty ‘quick fixes’ that are common place in China! This apartment sure has character!!!
I had hoped to write more often during the month of December, but I also knew it would be difficult. Between Holiday parties, the school Christmas event and New Years, life has been pretty hectic in Guiyang city!! But I’m back here now and that’s what matters most, I think! Also, it is my goal for 2015 to write 50 blog posts, which means I need to be very dedicated all year long…or I’ll end up having 35 posts to write next December!!!
Dave and I are currently sitting in a small cafe on You Yi Lu, because the internet is down at our apartment again. It happens a lot but it’s been pretty frustrating lately, because it’s been happening at such inconvenient times. On Boxing day, the internet went down just as Ellie was opening her Christmas gifts from us. I’ve never been so upset to have a Skype call drop!! But tonight we refused to let the lack of internet change our plans, so after enjoying some fantastic Fish Hot Pot for supper, we headed on down to Meet Cafe where the wifi works and where I can enjoy some delicious Nai Cha (milk tea…my favorite drink here)
Fish Hot Pot! We go here at least once a week 🙂The only this restaurant lacks is proper tables and chairs. As is the case in many restaurants in Guiyang…the furniture is designed for children…This is basically soy sauce with chilis in it. You dip the fish in when it’s done boiling in the hot pot, and it adds such a great flavor to the meat!!
Our holiday festivities began the Monday before Christmas, at the Kempinkski Hotel in downtown Guiyang. They have a huge western food (and wine!) buffet there, so we got dressed up and met our friends from the school for a night of wining and dining. I am fairly certain I ate my own weight in Sushi while we were there (omg…I missed Sashimi!!!!!!) and our wine glasses were probably refilled more often than was necessary (or wise), but I think we all had a magnificent time!
Maggie, Jumoke and ILater on in the evening…you can walk around with open liquor here…it’s the funniest thing!!David (left) and Andrew (right). I don’t see it, but these two are mistaken for one another constantly at the school! David is crazy tall (6’7 I think) so I’m not sure how he can be confused for anyone…ever lol! Also…Andrew was being a goof. He usually doesn’t look like that :pMaggie (from the JinYang branch) and I. She was my sous chef during the cooking event in November and it was so great that she joined us for the evening at the Kempinski!
After a day off to recuperate, the Interlingua staff were back into the Holiday Spirit at our school Christmas party. Of course this time, the party was more ‘fun focused’ and less ‘wine focused’, which was probably for the best! Dave and I were in charge of face painting, which turned out to be a total blast! We were also told that our face painting skills were the best the school had seen in several years, which was pretty awesome 🙂 After the activities and games, Santa and Mrs Clause (David and Lexie) handed gifts out to all the students, which was very exciting for them! I was really stoked that so many of my students were there. Watching each of their faces light up as they saw me was so awesome! Teaching HAS to be the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done!! (Aside from being an Aunty, of course!)
David and Lexie as Mr. and Mrs. Clause. If you’re wondering what exactly David is using as a beard, it was formerly a rabbit puppet. We realized at the last second that Santa was beardless, so Mauricio…the doer that he is…grabbed his Swiss Army knife, gutted the puppet, beheaded the puppet and tied it to David’s face. Yup…that’s how we roll at Interlingua!!Steven and I. This kid is so sweet…One of my youngest students, Smile. I especially love Ouyang’s unintentional photobomb lol!Me and one of my students at the party. Barbie is one of the first students I met here and we’ve been besties ever since!
Our Christmas day was a little uneventful, other than some Skype calls to family back home. We did treat ourselves to some Starbucks though, and spent the day walking around downtown, which always interesting! For supper, we went to Romeo’s (we’ve now named our favorite hot pot place after the cat who lives there) and enjoyed Doache. Sweet little Romeo came and hung out in our table, which was a wonderful Christmas gift in of itself! It’s so nice being around an animal that loves me as much as I love him! Most pets here are afraid of people so having him jump up into my lap for pets puts me through the moon mood-wise!
Here he is under our table! Hot pot tables usually have two layers so that you can keep food down there if your table is full. We leave that level empty so Romeo can chill with us
Our next Holiday adventure took place in our very own apartment. After a lot of hard work, Dave and I managed to clean the grease and dust out of our kitchen to a point where we could actually cook in there. We scoured Tao Bao and Carrefour for all the necessary ingredients (cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy etc…) and put together a Christmas feast for all of my colleagues and friends at Interlingua. Nearly the entire Guiyang staff were there and a good portion of Jinyang’s staff, and I think everyone enjoyed the food. David’s girlfriend, Yolanda, even entertained us with her lute. She had an exam the following day so it was a good opportunity for her to practice, and we all enjoyed the live entertainment (she’s REALLY good!!!). It was great eating western food, and introducing mashed potatoes to our Chinese friends. I was thrilled when Ouyang went back for seconds as soon as he was done his first plate! My boss, Huang, even came and loved my honey dill carrots 🙂 She even said she was going to have the cook make them at work she liked them so much! The dinner was a lot of work but I’m so glad we held it for everyone. It was a lot of fun to prepare and even more fun to eat it all!
My deviled eggs ‘a la Guiyang’. I switched the paprika my mom uses for La Jia. They went over very well!Jumoke made sure nobody else would drink out of his cup. It was an effective method!Yolanda, playing her luteManny in his snuggy-type Christmas gift. He was thrilled to receive it, because he’d wanted to buy one for himself anyway! haha!When dinner was done, most of the guests went off to do their own thing, but a small group of us head down to Trip Smith, a local Brittish-style pub. Among us were the Jin Yang crew (who I couldn’t get a proper picture of due to lighting) and the four of us from Guiyuang: (from left, Me, my dear friend Lumi, Lexie and Ouyang)
Once Christmas was over, and our classes were back in full swing, it was easy to forget that there was another day to celebrate on its way. New Year’s Eve arrived before we knew it and it was time to plan another evening out in Guiyang. Other than Naveed and his wife, Sherry, I don’t quite fit in with the Interlingua staff. I’m quite a bit older than the rest of them (I’m 28 while my coworkers are mostly 22 or 23). They are all single and living up life in Guiyang city, so we weren’t really involved in their New Year’s Eve plans. But when Naveed sent me a We Chat message at 11 oclock, asking why we weren’t at the Paullaner bar yet, I was pretty excited to go out. We hopped on the scooter and arrived about a half hour before midnight. I got to spend my last moments of 2014 with good people and listening to good music.
Naveed, Sherry and I at Paullauner Bar. Nav was pretty stoked to hear some Metal (Enter Sandman….we don’t get a lot of rock out here!)New Year Selfie!! I love this picture…mostly because it looks like my head is just floating there 😛 hahaha!
On our way out of the bar, we shared an elevator with a European man who had lived in Guiyang for 8 years. The number of Lao Wai we saw New Year’s Eve was probably the highlight of the evening. As much as I love being here, I miss striking up random conversations in elevators that aren’t just about ‘where I’m from’. Also, the people you meet while traveling are like minded. They are adventurers and they are interested in culture and new experiences. It was great meeting so many people that night.
This picture was taken once we got onto our scooter to go home (don’t worry…we’d each only had 1 drink in the hour we were there!). The man we met in the elevator made our day when he said “You drive a scooter!? You’re basically locals!!”
So that’s what the holidays are like in China. Both Christmas and New Years are celebrated here, but only in a superficial way. Still, there are things you can do to make yourself feel less ‘far away’ from everything normal during the holiday season. The biggest thing for me was cooking that dinner for my coworkers. I know that not everyone may have enjoyed it like I did, and I know that not everyone appreciated the work it takes to put something like that together, but I do know that Christmas can’t be Christmas without mashed potatoes.
I’ll be writing again in the next few days about our little Chinese apartment and all the ways we’ve turned it from a cockroach infested dump, to the cute little place we now call home 🙂
First off, I must apologize for my 2 week WordPress hiatus. I hoped I’d never go so long between posts, but between trips to northern Guizhou with the school and terrible flues and colds, I haven’t had much time to sit in front of a computer. But it would appear that I’m back into the swing of things today! We have all but finished cleaning our (terrifying) kitchen, and our Christmas tree is up and glowing 🙂 We even made time to visit Grandma’s kitchen today, where we enjoyed some fantastic western food. It’s been a good weekend 🙂
Dave’s Super Burger from Grandma’s tonight. It’s fully loaded with ham, bacon and an entire fried egg…Meitian is too small to be included on a map like this, but it’s right above Zunyi. Guiyang, where we live, is right in the center of the province
So I suppose I’ll start this post on the more positive topic: our trip to Meitan, Guizhou province. Meitan itself is a tiny town that is famous for its red tea production. After spending a year in Xiamen, where Oolong and Green tea are most popular, I was eager to learn about the red tea of Guizhou province.
We made several stops in the area, viewing gigantic tea pots and statues built to honor the tea making traditions of Guizhou province. We were especially happy to get out of the school bus that transported us 4 hours north of Guiyang. Although the bus meant a free trip to the hot springs, it is designed to transport 8 year olds and even the shortest of us (myself included) couldn’t sit with our knees facing forward. It was a bit of an uncomfortable ride!!
This is the same school bus that greeted us at the airport in August 🙂The whole foreign Interlingua crew (minus Naveed, who couldn’t be there)The lady who answers the phones at Interlingua. She doesn’t speak any English but she always laughs at my jokes when I try to make them in Chinese.One of many gigantic tea pots around town. One of them is actually a hotel!
Our bus driver must have been a tour guide in another life-time, because he knew all the best places to stop. After having some lunch in downtown Meitan, we headed for the tea fields, which I hadn’t seen since my time in Fujian.
Turned to get a shot of this field and saw Jumoke way out in the distance haha! His eccentricities are what make him a good teacher. His students adore him 🙂Of course, he did need to find his way back afterward, and he didn’t want to damage the tea leaves, so he sort of flipped over each line until he made it back
This was a natural point for us to stop and try some of Guizhou’s finest tea. Manny, the recruitment guy for all 3 Interlingua Branches, knows how much I love tea, so he made sure to let me know we’d be doing it all traditional style. I was pretty excited, not only because I love tea, but also because a lot of the Mandarin I know is useful in a tea shop. I spent a lot of time in them in Xiamen, and being in them now always makes me feel so fluent! I don’t think anyone there noticed that I knew what she was saying (other than the poor saps who were stuck sitting beside me, listening to me yammer excitedly…Sorry Dave and Lexie!).
Our lovely tea demonstrator 🙂Lexie and I….notice the look of giddiness on my face….that’s what I refer to as my ‘caffeine face’ lol!The boys, waiting patiently for their tea 🙂 (From front to back we have Jumoke, Andrew, Daid and Mauricio. I even got Ouyang in the shot, although he isn’t paying a whole lot of attention!
After making some purchases at the tea shop, we head out to our hotel, which was located quite remotely, but was clean and quite nice. It even had indoor heating, which didn’t work in everyone’s rooms, but still! It worked in some!!!
Meitan International Spring Hotel
After the all you can eat buffet (where Ouyang had us try some fermented tofu…which tasted like you might think rotten tofu should taste…), we got into our bathing suits and headed down to the lobby for the main reason for this trip: Hot Springs!!! Unfortunately I couldn’t get many pictures because the steam didn’t allow for much, but I did get a few of the entertainment. Not only were there girls waving their arms (aka:dancers) to watch, but there was even a male performer who came up and serenaded unwilling females. And of course, he came over and welcomed the lao wai to the hotel!
Lexie, Lumi and I enjoying the heat 🙂Tried to get a pic of the boys but Dave’s hotness was steaming up the picture 😛One of several performers that entertained us while we soakedThe most entertaining of them all
Things were going well for the Interlingua clan at this point. We were all relaxed and enjoying the steamy baths. It felt good to unwind in the ‘wine pool’ (that smelled like sulfur and alcohol) and the ‘rose pool’ (which sounded like sulfur and flowers). But then David’s stomach started to go south…(not my David…Brittish David). By the following morning, 3 of the crew had been throwing up (including MY David) and several more of us felt under the weather. It was a long 6 hour bus ride back to Guiyang, including the hour we stopped for lunch (when Huang took the opportunity to have Ouyang find stomach meds for her ailing teachers). Of course, Chinese medicine is a tad different from ours. Dave was told to quickly drink this little vile of liquid and that it would help his nausea.
They also told him that it would taste like crap. Seeing as he couldn’t even keep things that tasted GOOD in his stomach, the meds never stood a chance…
Several days later, Dave was feeling better, but then of course my time came to be sick. After a trip to the doctor to get a sick note (my first sick day in nearly 3 years…) and a trip to the pharmacy to get something to help with the vomiting, I came home and realized that I had no idea what I was even ingesting. My best guess is that one of them was ground up ginger. Other than that, all I knew was what Naveed though to ask (how many does she take?). I’ve gotta say that I’m extremely glad he was with me, because I never would have thought to ask myself!! haha!!
One of the nausea meds we purchasedHere’s a different type. How much of this do you understand? Yeah…we understand about the same amount!!
Being sick sucks…but being sick in another country is a completely different experience. My hope is that I don’t have to deal with anything as awful as that flu again while I live in the Orient, but in case I do, I’m sure glad my mom already has Gravol on the way!! You never know what you’re going to miss from back home until you have it!!!!
And that sums up my last week!! Nothing particularly exhilarating but they were experiences I won’t be soon forgetting nonetheless.
Thanks for checking in! I’ll be back with a post about what it’s like living in a Chinese apartment soon! (A request from my nephew 🙂 Super pumped to know people are interested in even the mundane stuff here!)
