China at last!

Since getting to our school in Kaiyin, Zhongshan, it's been pretty crazy but overall I love it! Kaiyin is a smaller developing town and is about a 20 minute bus ride into the bigger city (which only costs 1 Yuan, so about 15 cents USD). Our apartments are right across from the school and by Chinese standards, they're pretty great. I share a room with one other girl, Kylee. (Picture was taken at the park by our apartment).

Our apartment came furnished and has a kitchen and a bathroom that's pretty high speed becuase there is no separation of toilet and shower space, so while you're showering you can just clean the toilet while you're at it :) The weather here is fantastic, it's usually sunny and about 71-76 degrees, though it is getting hotter and the humidity is killer. There is a supermarket up the street from us and a park around the corner. This picture is the view from the school up the street. The building most left is our apartment building. We are on the fourth floor and there are no elevators, but that just means bigger calves for me, right?

The school feeds us 3 meals a day which you can always count on containing the following: Rice, Vegatables, and usually some kind of meat. The food is pretty good here, they have really good ham and this egg and tomato stuff. They do throw in the occasional surprise though; the other day we had CHICKEN FEET! Despite the face I'm making, they weren't actually bad, it was just like sucking on chicken flavored skin and bones (which it basically was.)

The kids I teach are in 1st grade, so about 5-7 years old. They are sooo adorable! But don't let their sweet little innocent faces fool you, they can be quite naughty sometimes. Since the subject I'm teaching is kitchen, they behave a little better in my class becuase they know if they don't they don't get to eat the treat. This video is from one of my classes. They are so cute! If their mouths are full it's cause the lesson that day was cranberry-blueberry muffins :)

So far in class we've made Peanut Butter and Honey sandwiches, Jello with gummies in it, Raisin Granola bars (thank you pre-made sweet American Chewy Bars), Cran-Bluberry muffins, Apple Carousels, Brownies, Cinnamon Pancakes, Shortcake and Kool-aid with bananas in it. Hahah so... just a word to the wise, when making Kool-aid for a class full of kids, be sure and check the mixture before you give it to them that you really used sugar... and not salt. I acutally didn't try it until after my second class. Hahah poor kids. Problem was, some of them actually liked it, so that's why I didn't think to try it earlier. "Teacha teacha! I want more! More teacha!". *Shrugs* I guess in comparison to chicken feet, salty kool-aid isn't that bad :P

There are lots of things to do in Zhongshan and so far we've had a great time and the cost of things are pretty cheap. A place called walking street is a very popular shopping area (it's kind of like a Chinese Gateway) and there is a pagoda temple thing at the top of it. Most things there are pretty cheap, I bought a pair of tennis shoes for 89 Yuan (about 14 or 15 bucks USD) that would normally have been about 90 bucks in America. The other day when we were there they also had a fire dancer, which was pretty cool, but really weird when he put the fire out by putting it down his pants :S The first picture is of the pagoda and the second is a view down Walking street at night.

Another adventure we've had is climbing a Chinese mountain. A Chinese mountain of stairs that is. It had a little temple thing at the top and at the bottom of it, and the whole way up was stairs, stairs, stairs. It was really worth it though cause it was so pretty! The first picture was on the way up, and the second was only a small PORTION of the stairs we climbed.

This blog is getting quite lenghty, so in short, China is great, I'm doing great, and life is just awesome! Until next time, Zai Chen!