It has been a BUSY few days!

My first day in China would be a busy one. Wendy, my manager (great name, eh?), and I first went to the school. It was a short 7-10 minute walk from my apartment, but it was an interesting one. My apartment is in the center of the city, right across from the “Times Square” (actually named the “Peoples Square”) of Xianyang, so there are a lot of people to see along my walk to school. Along this simple short walk, we saw people stop, stare, and turn around to keep watching us walk past. One guy even rushed over to wake his sleeping friend so he could see us as well! I saw some old men playing a board game similar to Chess, but it had pieces that looked like they were from Checkers. I couldn’t really follow why they moved the way they did, but, it was interesting. I will try to film it sometime.

We arrived to the school to see many parents signing their children up for classes. I met most of the Chinese teachers at this time. They were very nice, all but one female, and all had given western names like Julie, Mable, Jean, Maggie, etc. I enjoyed talking with them, and seeing who could actually speak the English they were teaching (not all could speak very well).

After about an hour, we decided to go and get me a cell phone and look for a power transformer for my electronics (My camera and laptop were already out of charge and I couldn’t recharge them without the right plugs). We took along one of the teachers, Maggie, to help us with these purchases. We went into a few stores by the same company, China Mobile, that were located within two blocks of each other. Each time we went in the store, it felt like an old western where everyone stopped for a second once we walked in. There were probably more workers in each small store than are in an entire Best Buy! Help was everywhere, and they were selling so many off-brands of phones even my head was spinning! I decided to only buy brands I knew of. In China, you buy a phone, and then you buy a sim card separately. There are no contracts just minutes on the sim card. It is essentially a prepaid system (This is how many things are bought here, even electricity.) for cell service. I ended up choosing a nice Nokia 5200 that was both all that I need and within the budget I had set for my phone. It cost me 850 Yuan, which is around $125 US dollars. Then we went onto the street and found about 10 vendors selling the sim cards. They all sod them for the same price, so we just picked one and paid for 100 yuan’s worth and activated my phone then. Simple as that, and I am up and running with cell service in China.

We went into a few stores looking for a transformer or power converter, but the stores had no idea what we were talking about, so, we gave up on that for the day. Instead, we decided to go eat. Maggie had already eaten, so she went back to the school. Wendy knew enough Chinese to get us some food, so we were off to find a decent place for dumplings. A staple and what I wanted for my first meal in China. Again, I saw a neat part of China that isn’t really available in the U.S., the little side street marketplace. We walked down a very busy and crowded alley with shops and street vendors selling all sorts of things. One store had an apple as their logo colored red, white, and blue where they sold “American” clothes (really just clothes with English writing on them). We soon found what seemed to be a nice restaurant, with regular seating, so we entered and sat down. Wendy ordered 30 pork dumplings and some vegetables, which sounds like a lot, but the dumplings are very small (like a small wonton, but not fried). THEY WERE SOOOO GOOD!!!! I couldn’t believe the flavors. If they sold those in the states, they would sell like crazy, I’m sure. The vegetables consisted of broccoli, asparagus, cucumber, and lotus root. They were all flavorful, but the lotus root was very good. I had a Sprite with my lunch (there is Sprite and Coke everywhere here!), and it tasted just like the Sprite back home. One more thing about eating here, most foods are served family style. The portions are very large and not really meant to be eaten alone, although there are some dishes that you can. The price for food here is sick. The lunch above cost only about 5 dollars total, and we were stuffed! One more thing, there are NO FORKS here! It is chopsticks or nothing. So, eating rice has been kinda fun, but you just pack it together so it sticks, and off you go.

We next decided to walk to the park that was nearby. By this point, from looking on the internet, I already have a good idea of where we are within the city and can pretty much get to where I need without a map, so when I told Wendy where the park was, she wasn’t quite sure (she has been here only one day more than I have), but she followed me anyway. Along our way we say many people playing cards on the sidewalks. The cards were very skinny and long, had interesting symbols, and a weird numbering system. We stopped to look at some of the games, and the players looked up, most smiled, some said “hallo”, some spoke to the others and laughed, but they all went on playing. We also saw some REAL Mahjong. The pieces were very detailed and beautiful. It was fun to watch them play. We arrived at the park, but it was too hot to hang around long, so we decided to get back to the apartment and take a nap before our trip to Xi’an later on for two days of training.

At around 5pm (17:00 here) we headed to the bus station, which is just about across the street, to leave for Xi’an. I was in for an adventure here as driving is quite a ballet and there were plenty of near misses along the way with other cars, buses, and people! We took two buses for the length of the trip and it cost less than $1. If we drove a car to Xi’an ourselves, it would take less than 40 minutes, but on the buses, it took nearly 2 hours. Along the way, I saw some very historic sites. The Drum Tower, Bell Tower, and the Xi’an city wall (one of the oldest standing city walls in the world!) were all very cool, and I look forward to visiting them in the future.

Wendy had to go do some manager stuff, so she brought me to my hotel, which was in the same building as the Aston school we were training from, and went on her way. She later asked if I wanted to go to dinner, but I was tired and felt like sleeping, so I slept, instead. The next morning was the beginning of training. I arrived and met two guys from Ghana, two Canadians, three from the UK. That made me the only American, which was weird, but no biggie. The teacher was from Hungary, and has lived in China for 7 years, teaching English the whole time. After a few hours of training, we went to lunch as a group to a fancy restaurant up the street (Xi’an is MUCH larger than Xianyang with about 8 million people, so think of being in the middle of Chicago). We had rice, Sweet and sour pork (!!), real good asparagus, roast duck, and some noodles. It was a good lunch. Most around the table had beer while I had Sprite (again). After lunch, we had more training, then, I went back to my apartment for a rest. At around 7:30, we all gathered in front of the school and went to eat. This was a fun experience as I saw and ate things I wasn’t used to. Some in the group weren’t in our training, but had been in Xi’an for some time and knew where and what to eat. We followed them obviously into a small, cramped restaurant grouping (three or four different restaurants serving out of the same dining area.) where we had a side room to ourselves (there were about 11 of us). Quickly food began to get ordered and served. In China, food get served when it is ready, and not necessarily in any order. We ate meat on a stick, noodles, some good flatbread, rice (of course), some veggies (no clue what they were), spicy chicken wings (!!), and I drank sprite, while the rest had beer. The private room we were in was well lit, had a fish tank on one side (for fish to eat, not for decoration), AND AN OPEN ELECTRICAL BOX (great). While eating, the fish tank was drained, with the fish still in the tank, then refilled with equally dirty looking water. After dinner we went outside and were determining what to do or where to go next, when I spotted something interesting. Some guys were cleaning a gun in plain sight! It looked like a mean gun too. A few of us were surprised, but one of the guys who had been here said they used the guns to shoot things to eat usually, not people. Anyway, we decided to go to a bar up the street to hang out for a while longer. It was a nice bar with a live singer (he was pretty good) and a bunch of dice, and sunflower seeds on every table. We sat down and played some dice games, drank (again, I had a Sprite), and had fun for an hour or two. While going back to my room for the night, I spied a group of guy’s playing cards (this time with regular looking cards) and I stood around and watched the money fly. The game was interesting. I couldn’t figure anything out. 5 cards were dealt, with the top card on the deck up. Then everyone turned over their cards and either gave money away, or took it in. No skill at all. Anyway, that was the end of my day. Wait, it wasn’t….. When I arrived at my hotel room (at around midnight) a call came on my room phone. I picked it up and the lady asked if I wanted a Massage, and that they even offered a “special services” massage, if I wanted! I declined and hung up the phone. I found out the next day in training, as I relayed the story, that this is a common practice in China. Crazy, huh?!

The next day, we had more training, but for lunch, we went to a noodle restaurant and had some very, very good noodles and Szechwan style beef (my favorite back in the states). Then, we went to…. WAL-MART!!!! Yup, Xi’an has a Wal-Mart! It looks like any usual Wal-Mart, other than the Chinese writing and the different products. Very funny. I purchased my Power converter there, which was cheap, then, we went back to training.

After training, I rode the bus home. On the bus ride home, I met some people who wanted to practice their English, so I also was able to practice my Chinese. That was nice.

It has been two days since the above, and not much has happened since then. I should start teaching Friday now. It looks like my schedule will be a 3 hour preschool class on Wednesday and Friday mornings and 5-6 hours on Saturday and Sundays, and that is it. I signed up for a gym here. I bought a 50 entry pass for about 90 dollars, which should last me 5 to 6 months. It was funny, one of the selling points was that there were pretty girls that worked out there… That helped, I guess… hehe…

Well, I’m going to play some Playstation for the next little while then go out and explore the city a little more. I should be getting the internet running by tomorrow, so look for this to show up about a day after it was finished being written.

I am really liking it here in China, even if I’m currently feeling a bit alone since I’m the only foreign teacher currently in town.. There will eventually be 5 of us and most should arrive in the next few days, so it will be fun to show them around.