drag racing and a sleeper bus

Today has already been an adventure and it's only 2 p.m. Mr. Li told us a taxi was going to pick us up right at 10 o'clock sharp so we could catch our sleeper bus at 11. Well, we got outside and there was no taxi. We called Mr. Li and he said that we had to wait until 12 to catch the bus at 12:30.

We decided to all go inside and watch a movie, go to lunch, then meet the taxi driver. At about 11:15 Mr. Li calls saying the taxi driver is there so we had to go outside NOW. (It sucks trying to figure things out when people speak little or no English). 

Emily and I went to our apartment to grab our stuff and come walking outside to a very small car. Were they thinking they could shove all 8 of us in it?! We both started dying of laughter because it had to be a joke. Out of nowhere a small truck comes whipping around the corner, so we were laughing even harder We split up and crawled into the two small cars. I was in the truck with Hannah, Emily and Kelli. He was flying down the hill and we thought we were gonna die in the first 2 minutes. He pulled up to the school and told us to get into another car instead of the piece of crap truck.

What do you know, we are flying down the road!! We were going about 60 mph on a 35 mph road. I almost peed my pants from laughing so hard. We were all flying around! Wearing our seatbelts of course. We made it to a main road that I'm pretty sure you are only supposed to go like 60 mph. Nope, our driver chose to go 95 instead. Chinese people literally are the craziest drivers ever!! They don't use blinkers, and just honk at everyone to get out of the way. I felt like we were racing because he was weaving in and out of cars like it was nobody's business.

Five minutes later we made it to the bus stop. Okay maybe 20 minutes but it felt like 5. After waiting for 15 minutes this huge bus comes rolling up. They are shoving us on the bus, as they're yelling at us to take our shoes off! This bus is crazy cool! No seats, just beds everywhere! We all are on top bunks and people were taking pictures when we got on. I'm guessing it's entertaining for them to watch us look so stupid and confused.

After a few hours we finally made our first stop. Everybody and their dog needed to freaking smoke. And of course I had to pee with no bathroom around. We had to show our bus driver our Mandarin translation to find the toilet. Remember though that they don't have real bathrooms here. Stupid squatters that are nasty. And smell really bad. 

It took us a grand total of 16 hours to get here! I wanted to die. The beds weren't long enough for me to lay normally in so it was just awkward! I took some NyQuil to help me sleep because I have this stinkin cold, but nope. Didn't work very well! I was in and out of it alllll night and it was no bueno. I woke up at about 3 and the bus was parked at a gas station. I thought to myself that we stopped for gas. Nope. 3 hours we were there! I guess the bus driver wanted to take a little nap. 

I was so out of it while driving in Yangshuo but this place is gorgeous!! The mountains are so cool looking!

Today we are going on some kind of adventure so I'm looking forward to that.

loves.

jacky.

I have this little boy in my home room and his name is Jacky. Yes, I thought it should have been a girls name, but oh well!! He is so freaking cute and speaks English really well.

Yesterday after school some of us walked down to the market. When we were coming back parents were still picking up their kids from school. All of a sudden I hear this tiny voice yell, "Annie!!!" I look over and cute little Jacky is standing there with his parents waving at me. He comes running over and gives me the biggest hug ever! I told him to have a good vacation and he says, "okay" while running back to his mom. I look and she has the biggest smile on her face.

I love the moments like that when the parents get to see how we interact with their children and how much we love them. It makes teaching them that much better.

loves.

love.

Today had more adventures for us!! We walked down to this park and there's a hidden little food place. Super cheap!! I ordered a Chinese pizza and fries. Oh. My. Goodness. That pizza thing was incredible!!! It tasted more like a breakfast burrito though. There was a tortilla for the "crust", ham, eggs, and ketchup. I guess that's their version of pizza, but it was delicious!!

Next to the food place, there's this giant statue of the word LOVE. Of course we had to take pictures of it! As usual, lots of Asians walk up and start taking pictures of us too. It's gonna suck coming back to the US and not getting all this attention;)

After dinner we walked over to where the market is and there's a lake next to it. Pictures don't so it justice though! I want you all to be here to see it. Especially at night. It's such a gorgeous place with the lights and it's so peaceful. Whenever I'm having a bad day, I know exactly where I'll end up. We walked around the entire lake and across this bridge that sits completely on top of the water. GAH I wish you guys could see it!!! I can't even begin to describe it. 

Once we made it all the way across the lake, we heard some music. Walk over to this little amphitheater and you better believe we started having a dance party:) Then out of nowhere a bunch of old ladies show up, and they have choreographed moves to the songs! It was like Zumba, but a lot more weird hahaha. We didn't dance for very long then just came home and had a chill night. Which was much needed after walking around so much!

Another little tid bit... After teaching English corner some of the students were following us to lunch. This kid was creepily following behind me looking at my butt. I kept thinking the little pervert!!! Then my friend realized he was wanted my phone out of my pocket. Hahahah We were dying laughing! This kids can be  crazy sometimes.

I'm looking forward to next week when we take our vacation! That will be more interesting to read about;)

loves.

eyes, butts, and english.

Today was an interesting day! I don't understand these kids and their behaviors sometimes.

This morning Emily and I taught English to a class of 2nd graders. Holy crap they love poking our butts!! We try and get mad but we just die laughing because we know that we have big butts. And the women here don't have curves at all. We are probably the worst teachers ever but we are constantly laughing because of the butt poking!

Also, in that class there were some hilarious things! Background first.. You know back home when people pull their eyes to make them look Chinese? Well, some kids were looking at Emily while I was up reading sentences, and the would pull their top eyelid and bottom eyelid really wide because apparently that's what we look like! There was a group of them and they wouldn't stop doing it or laughing! I had no idea what was going on but Em and I got a kick out of it:)

Today we started something new! It's called English corner. They picked certain kids throughout each grade that can speak English really well, or hardly at all. And for 45 minutes we go and just hang out with them! It's nice because we don't have to make up a lesson or anything, we go and play games, sing, or just talk. There are some funny kids in there so I know I'm really going to enjoy that this semester.

xiamen.

Today we were able to take a short vacation and went to Xiamen (pronounced sha-men). We wanted to go there because apparently there is this absolutely gorgeous beach there! Long story very short, we didn't make it to the beach. 

We first got off the bus because one girl wasn't feeling too hot and saw a Walmart!!!! Best. Day. Ever. There are none around us so it made us all so pumped to see one. Embarrassing I know! Haha All I could think of was a giant bag of Peanut M&Ms. I searched that dang store until I finally found them! I was the happiest person ever:) My favorite candy of all time.

After going to Walmart we got some lunch at McDonald's and got ice cream cones. Can I just tell you that they have the best ice cream cones ever?! They are only 4 Yuan, which means they are $0.65 in the U.S. 

It was really a super chill day of a lot of walking! It helps so I hopefully won't get rice cheeks and gain weight while I'm here. That would be the greatest. We saw this gorgeous temple through a little crack of trees and decided to go check it out. It was really cool to see that place and watch people walk by and say a little prayer. Cool experience for sure.

Funny story.. They have these buses that run all day long and are really cheap to ride. Only annoying thing is that they shove as many people as they can into one! There's no such thing as personal space here. And you have to push your way through people to make sure you are getting on and off! Like a have said before, the drivers are awful!!! Even when there are a million people shoved onto a tiny bus. We were being thrown around everywhere and it was the funniest thing! People look at us like we are absolutely crazy, but clearly we don't care.

loves.

ally.

Mom I found the sweetest little girl and I'm bringing her home with me!!! Her name is Ally and she's the youngest in the entire first grade. She's only 5 years old and weighs as much as my pinky finger.

I'll be honest though, when I first met her, I thought she was a boy. So the first day we met all the kids we were able to give them English names and I tried giving her a boy name. My bad!!! Then Mr. Li told me she was a girl, and the name Ally just stuck out to me. Once I said it, her eyes lit up and she really liked it!

The first few days of classes she bawled her eyes out because she missed her mom so much! I wanted to cry with her because it was so sad. She actually never cried in any of my individual classes though. When I saw her I told myself that I was going to get her to like me. After a little bit she began opening up a lot in my classes and has the softest voice ever. Whenever I see her, or when she talks she always melts my heart!!

Today I just had to take a picture with her because she was so happy to see me and totally made my week!! Hopefully more pictures to come with this munchkin:)

what my days are like.

I've had some people what my days are like here in China so I'll give you the low down...

On Mondays and Wednesdays Emily and I teach 40 minutes of English to some second grade classes. We just have to give them sentences and repeat them over and over again. It's actually rather boring and not my most favorite thing..

The days we aren't teaching English sentences, we kind of just hang out and finish up our lessons. We don't teach our ILP students until 2:30 and we only have them for 3 hours. We have a 15 minute opening where we say the rules, the calendar, talk about the weather, and sing songs. After that we break up into our smaller classes that have 8 students each. (Total we have over 40 students that we see!) Each week we are assigned something to teach them about. For example: this week I have kitchen so we are just making small snacks. We only have them for 25 minutes then we rotate classes. 

The kids have gym, arts and crafts, games, drama, kitchen, and shop. But they are able to see each class everyday all week. Then at 5:00 we count their tokens and they leave! We give them tokens based on how much English they are speaking during class. Then at the end of the week, we add up all the tokens and they get prizes. We want them to only speak English in our classes so they can earn tokens. It sounds kind of odd, but it works and the kids love it!

Most nights we all eat dinner together and then just hang out! We usually just sit around and talk and watch movies, or we go to the market a lot. We love that place!! On the weekends we are usually busy on vacation, meetings, or hanging out! We have a LOT of downtime, but that's when we have the most fun:)

If anyone ever has any questions they want me to answer then feel free to ask away!

loves.