The Outer Temple of the Summer Palace

We'll start this post from the very begining, which is a very good place to start because it has to do with breakfast. Cahty Lee and I walked the streets to find a nice woman selling fried dough (not from the same vendor that Andrea got sick off of the other day even though I thought that fried dough was just fine and wasn't anywhere near death like she was). This particular dough came with a bowl of tofu, soy sauce and... other stuff... to be honest we weren't even sure it was tofu, but I digress. After getting said items and a baggie full of tofu stuff to go, we pranced over to Cathy Lee's school, the Petroleum College, only to be met by throngs of sophomores dressed in military fatigues. They were sitting on either side of the main walk way so that we had to walk, very conspicuously through them. There were easily 200 to 300 of these kids staring at us. A few of them clapped... Cathy Lee claimed she felt like some sort of foreign diplomat, while I just felt creepy.
After breakfast and farting around back at my apartment for a while, came lunch. We picked up Andrea who lives only a few doors down and chose a random place off the street that looked heavily patronized, which, we were told, is a good sign because that means that their food isn't so shady. (Only in China, by the way, would you ever question why you were puking all day long after eating something from a wok that looked like it hadn't been cleaned in 10 years... poor Andrea) Ordering at any restaurant tends to go something like this: we sit down, they give us a menu, we scan it for characters that we recognize and find none, we ask for jauzi (dumplings) at which point our waitress today goes to yell our order down to the cook in the basement and then EVERYBODY in the restaurant laughs, we then get the sinking feeling that something special is being put into our dumplings, we eat them anyway because we are so happy to finally get a plate of something we recognize.
Moving on, we caught a cab to one of the outer temples of the Summer Palace. (Quick side note: the Summer Palace is where the old Emperors would vacation in the summer.) After getting our tickets, we enter and I could have sworn I was at EPCOT. It was bigger than the China at EPCOT and looked older and was filled with Chinese people. We have yet to see any other foreigners during our stay in Chengde, but we are meeting up with some tonight so cross your fingers that they're cooler than Andrew. This place was beautiful. The jem of the temples was the 35 ft, copper statue of the Goddess of Mercy that was housed in one of the temples mid-way up the mountain. We unfortunately couldn't take picture of the statue but she was awe striking with 13 sets of arms all with eyes in the center of the palm. Climbing to the topmost temple we ran into a cute little band; a septet of gray old men playing funny little instruments while people individually went up to the altar with insence. Past the topmost temple there was a wooded area where we found a nice mushroom to shade ourselves under. Soon, a gang of 15 native Chinese students around the age of 18 started shouthing "hello" at us. We responded "hello" back. Laughter ensued while they added things like "how are you?", "ni hao ma?", and "hello" again. Acknowlidging their presence ment that we wanted them to come over, apparently. Completely surrounding us, they tried chatting us up for a while, but after realizing that we didn't have much else to say after "ni hao ma?" (how are you) and "mamahuhu" (so-so), they decided pictures would suffice. We thought at first that we were to take their picture but soon realized that we were the center subjects of the photograph. After the group shot, one gentleman had his girlfriend take a picture of himself with the three of us and got much grief from her after putting his arm around me for the pose. Lots and lots of laughter... and they left.
Before I sign out of this post for the day, I would like to share with you the second most coolest things I've seen in China so far... and that is a talking bird that said "ni hao". At first I thought he was saying "hello" (stupid) and then realized that since I was in China, the bird would undoubtedly speak Chinese. Don't worry, Cathy Lee has video proof of this phenomenon and will be showing it to you as soon as possible.
And now, to get ready for our date with the other foreign teachers. We're hoping their not missionaries but if they are, we're playing along and telling them that we're in the Bachelors till the Rapture club.
I say goodday!

Here on Yong An Street

I kind of can't believe I'm here. Sometimes when I look out the window I feel like I'm watching t.v. This is just so amaizing, I'm SO excited!
Our 13 hour flight here went well. That is, after Brandon (who apparently packs like a woman) emptied some things from his bags and put them in Cathy Lee's and my bags. Going over the 70 lbs limit is a bit costly so we helped him out. Now I know the biggest question on everyone's minds is; which way did we fly? Flying direct from Chicago to Beijing did not take us over the Pacific Ocean, not the Atlantic Ocean... over the North Poll! Aw! It was so awesome! All of the sudden I look up from my book and the little cartoon 474 on the screen was making a little dotted line over Santa's house. We opened the shade and there was ice every where, so of course we took pictures.
After landing we showed the Chinese government our visas, got our bags and went through customs easier and faster than buying stamps at the post office. The director of the International Affairs Office at the Chengde Medical College, Laura Wang had my name on a little sign, and Cathy Lee found Mr. Fan (aka Mr. Fantastic) so we were wisked away pretty quickly. Then came the 4 hour drive from Beijing to Chengde. Driving in China is very different from driving in the States. We like to do crazy things like drive in lanes and not run pedestrians off the road. Some of the roads we took didn't even have lines painted on them and good luck figuring out the difference between 1 honk and 3... I think one's "look at me, I'm here" and the other's "hey I'm passing you". I guess on Andrea's trip to Chengde they side swiped an other car on the highway. So we arrived at my apartment and Laura showed me how to work everything. My air conditioner, washing machine and stove are all in Chinese so I took notes. After that Laura and I met up with Andrea (the other Drake student who's teaching here) and went to dinner. My first Chinese meal was delicious. Dammit anyway, so much for hating the food and accidentally losing 20 lbs while I'm here. Sleeping in my apartment wasn't bad considering this is my first time living on my own and I'm in a foreign country. I went to bed when you were all eating lunch and woke up in time for you to eat dinner. The 13 hour time difference is a little weird but I'm not too jet lagged.
This morning I mopped and cleaned my apartment before unpacking (don't fall off your chair Mom, I don't always enjoy living in filth). After that Cathy Lee and an other foreing English teacher from the Petrolium College, Andrew, stopped by and we went to breakfast. Andrew's been here since May so he knows his way around. He's an interesting guy... and by that I mean extremely odd. I won't go into his story but we'll just say the three of us girls won't be hanging out with him much.
That brings me to this afternoon. I just got back from lunch with the President of my school. In attendance were 3 teachers from the English department, Laura Wang, some other guys I wasn't introduced to, Andrea and myself. That was an other huge, delicious meal with lots of pijue (beer). The president liked to toast us and kept saying the Chinese equivilant of "bottoms up". Lunch was a lot of fun... maybe too much fun. Also people keep commenting on the fact that I'm left handed (three in the past two days). One woman from the Enlish department explained that in China people think that if you can use chop sticks with your left hand you are very clever, artisic and romantic. Needless to say she's my favorite teacher now.
In a few hours Andrea and I are getting a tour of campus and seeing our class rooms. I'm a little more excited to teach now that I've found out that their conversational English classes are on about the same level as American health class. Not too serious. I was told by an other teacher on our plane ride over that students really like learning American songs and games. Sounds like head, shoulders, knees and toes and a round of heads up 7-up is in order. MAN I'm loving China.

Six Days

Only a few precious days left in America. Packing is stupid, I hate it. If I could leave for China without having to actually do anything that would be great. In reality though, I think you all know what I'm doing... eating as much cheese as possible before I go to a country where dairy has been scorned by it's people.