Emanuel and Candace

2008-06-02T20:07:00.004+08:00

Hi everybody,

Last Sunday we went to a concert at the National Center for the Performing Arts. It's a really cool building nicknamed "the egg." Unfortunately, we weren't in the main opera hall but in a side concert hall, but it was still impressive. We saw an American trio called Newstead. They were really good but the audience was not. After every song at least 150 people got up and left and maybe 100 came in. There was talking and cell phone use. It pretty much ruined the concert for us. Part of the reason is because the tickets were cheap and anybody could get them. I suppose concert etiquette hasn't quite filtered down through the classes. Here are some pics:

A view from far away over the Forbidden City.

Also includes China's largest pipe organ.

2008-05-04T15:22:00.003+08:00

Some updates:

We had a great time with Candace's sister and brother in law when they visited last week.

We will be arriving back in Ohio on June 24.

The government sends automated telephone calls telling people not to sell their organs on the black market.

Some recent news opinions from the west have been hugely distorted here.

The upcoming Olympics has everything here in a flurry. Construction everywhere.

This definitely has great potential to be the best Olympics ever.

After Chinese mothers give birth, they stay in bed for thirty or forty days straight.

Getting ready to start a Chinese only diet before heading back to America.

Pretty sure Beijing isn't meeting its blue sky quota for the year.

We still welcome anyone who wants to come have a last minute visit.

We volunteered at an awesome orphanage. We highly recommend supporting them. Here's their website. http://www.newdaycreations.com/foster/

We had a great evening with Dr. and Mrs. Dixon and their friends when they were in town.

2008-03-24T11:48:00.004+08:00

We thought this palm three was really cool...

After Koh Chang, we decided to go to another island that was known for it’s scuba diving and snorkeling. We had to head back to Bangkok for one day and then head down towards the southeast of Thailand.

Once we got to Koh Tao we searched for awhile and found a little villa named, “The Simple Life.” That was exactly what we were going for and we moved in right away. Unfortunately, the island was pretty busy so they only had one room for the four of us to share. We had joked the whole trip saying to the other couple, “we really like you guys, but we don’t really need to sleep with you.” …It wasn’t bad, I think we only ended up staying together 3 or 4 nights the entire trip.

The next day we went snorkeling. Neither, Emanuel or I had been before and we loved it! It was a really windy day and on the way out our boat was rocking! A Chinese guy threw up like twenty times and this middle age woman was crying, afraid we would capsize. Since the wind was so strong, we had to skip Shark Island and another cove with sharks. We were sad to miss the sharks but happy we still had a chance to snorkel.

We had a great time, I even saw a shark! It was only about 2 feet long, in which I was glad. The only bad part is that all of us ended up getting sunburned. I think it’s impossible not to get sunburned when snorkeling. Your back is under the water just enough to wash off all the sunscreen but also enough to absorb a lot of sun. What can you do? We stopped at three different coves and then headed back. We were all so tired we took a long nap. That night we walked along the beach looking for new restaurants and saw an incredible sunset.

We only stayed in Koh Tao for a couple days but it was quite enjoyable. The actual island wasn’t as beautiful as Koh Chang but the water was the clearest we’d seen.

2008-03-08T12:04:00.004+08:00

Hello! Well Emanuel handed the reigns over to me to cover the remainder of our trip. Therefore, the delay in posting has been my fault not his. :)

My first post will be about Koh Chang an island we stayed at in Thailand, here's a picture of the beach.

So, after we met up with Katie and Joel, we stayed one night in a guest house and then we split up the next morning. The boys left for Cambodia and we took a bus down to an island named Koh Chang. In case you didn’t hear, Katie had a bad case of food poisoning and actually visited three different hospitals in Laos before getting proper treatment. Anyway, we didn’t think she would fair well on the trip to Siem Reap, given that they are the worst roads in S.E. Asia. Besides, we were ready to hit up the beach! We were approaching three weeks into our trip and still were as white as ghosts.

After a 7 hour drive we arrived and had to take a ferry over to the island. The second we arrived on the island these men were ushering everyone onto these taxi-trucks to head to their various hotels/bungalows. Katie and I seemed to be the only ones who had no reservations and no clue where we were staying. We quickly asked an older lady if she knew anything about the various beaches we had seen signs for and she told us the farther down we travel the cheaper it gets. We ended up going down to the last main beach, which was called Lonely Beach. It was pretty small, the main strip was about 100 yards. Therefore, it was cozy and small and we liked it. We found a cheap place to stay and we headed to find something to eat.

Lonely Beach

There were a ton of monkeys in the trees but this one was obviously confused between trees and power lines!

The next day, we woke up to a cool and cloudy weather and were sorely disappointed. What do you do on an island if you don’t go to the beach? The answer? You rent a motorbike! This made perfect sense, since our husbands would want to rent some later on and they would definitely be taking the wheel (okay, handle bars). Although we were a bit nervous, okay really nervous we decided to rent a bike for 24 hours. Katie drove first and we almost died going up this ridiculously steep hill with a sharp switchback. Then, she made me drive and I did okay until we got into a town with some traffic and a lot of people. I almost ran into a group of guys and then forced Katie to drive again. Although we were a little slow to get going we were pros within a few hours. We explored some of the beaches trying to find the best place to stay when the boys arrived.

That night we met up with two of our girl friends that we teach with in China. We had a nice dinner and spent the evening sharing about our various experiences thus far. This was my amazing pineapple rice!!

We left and started the 40 minute drive back to Lonely beach. About 15 minutes into our ride it started to rain, we were laughing at our bad luck with weather and slowed down. Within the next 10 minutes it was pouring down rain and we were low on gas. We were in between two towns and starting to get a little worried. We finally saw a little restaurant that sold gas. We stopped and the guy was nice enough to pull our bike under the awning and fill it up for us. It was raining so hard we couldn’t drive, not to mention we would still have to get past the difficult switchback and coming from the opposite direction it was now down the side of a major hill. There were only three Thai men in the restaurant and they asked where we were headed, when we replied, “Lonely Beach” they all shook their heads and said we should not even consider it in the current weather. We sat there for about 45 minutes waiting for the rain to slow. We decided that we needed to take a taxi back but we had to leave our bike somewhere. We remembered a nice resort with a gated area in the next town and decided that was our best chance. We crawled along the road until we finally reached the next town and found the resort. We left our bike and headed back to the road to find a taxi. We were soaked, it was about midnight and we just wanted to get back to our guest house, dry off, and sleep. The first taxi we stopped refused to take us to Lonely Beach. We were a little nervous that no one would take us. However, after we begged and pleaded with the second taxi he obliged but looked nervous and said he didn’t really want to take us down the difficult switchback. It was a slow and anxious ride back but we finally made it.

When we finally reached Lonely Beach we found out that the whole area was out of power from the storm. It was pitch black as we headed up to our room and realized the boys had both of the flashlights. We used Katie’s alarm clock to change into dry clothes and we went to bed, thankful to be safe and laughing at how ridiculous the night had been.

The boys were supposed to come the next day and we moved to another beach that had power. It rained again and everyone we talked to said it was incredibly rare since it was the dry season. Either way, Katie and I hadn’t been to the beach yet. We waited that night for the boys to come and were really worried when we waited for two hours (in the rain) and never met up with them. We were really worried but found out late that night that they had missed the last ferry to the island and had to ask a neighborhood boy to use his computer to let us know. We were relieved to hear they were safe and went to bed.

The next day the boys came and brought some sun with them. The next few days we went to the beach, rented bikes, met up with some friends, and ate some amazing food. Koh Chang was one of my favorite places on the trip and the island was just breathtaking to look up at when you were in the warm, blue water. Everyone was really kind and we had a good time relaxing…as you should on vacation. :)

This is one of my favorite pictures...

Here are some pictures… and there’s more to come about the trip!

We met up with some of our friends...

Touring the island on our bikes

These were our little bungalows

2008-02-29T12:51:00.005+08:00

Candace and I arrived in Bangkok and found a place to stay. We walked around for most of the day and had a wonderful dinner at Burger King; a rare treat. We met Katie and Joel the next morning and found a new place to stay. We walked around some more and decided that Bangkok was a dirty city and we didn't like it very much. At this point Joel and I headed to Cambodia while the girls went to the island of Koh Chang.

Cambodia

There is a "scam" on the road from Bangkok to Siem Reap (Angkor Wat). Part of the scam is that they stop before the border and try and get you got pay extra money for you visa so you don't have to wait in line. We refused to do this and promptly got our visa at the border and made it through as quickly as everyone else and paid about half the price. The other part is that the road from the border to Siem Reap is not paved. Apparently the government is being paid by the airlines. So a distance that would normally take around 2-3 hours in a car takes 6-8 hours in a horrible bus. And it was a bad ride. No sleep, no reading, tons of dust. Then, once you're in town late they drop you off at some guest house they do business with hoping you're too tire to search for another. Granted, the one we were dropped off at only cost 5$ a night with a private bathroom.

We decided to see Angkor Wat in one day so we could go back to our wives. We started at 4:00 AM so we could see the sunrise over the main temple. There are several complexes of temples and then some random one scattered about. We hired a tuk-tuk (motorcycle with a trailer) to drive us around for the whole day. We went really fast through all the temples and we didn't get a guide so we didn't quite get all the nuances and historical meanings but it was still amazing. We were exhausted by the end and ate a wonderful mexican meal.

The horrible dirt road we traveled for hours

Sunrise over the biggest temple

"overgrowth"

Our driver asleep when we came out from a temple

2008-02-23T16:30:00.003+08:00

Laos

We decided to take the one hour flight from Hanoi to Luang Prabong, Laos, instead of the thirty-three hour sit-only bus. We found an amazing guest house in Luang Prabong and instantly fell in love with the town. It was sleepy and quiet, and filled the kindest people. We also loved it because it was warm and sunny for the first time on our trip. We relaxed for several days and then took an elephant excursion through the jungle and kayaked down a river for several hours. Then, tragedy struck. We were at an Indian restaurant which might have been a bad choice since I had gotten a stomach ache after kayaking. After eating a little I stood up and almost blacked out and then ran to the restroom but not before I had vomited all over the restaurant and the bathroom. I haven’t had or witnessed such a forced exiting of vomit. Afterwards I felt great and proceeded to eat more only to throw it up later. I had a fever twice but it was mostly gone after twenty-four hours. Unfortunately, as I was getting better Katie and Joel got sick. Katie had to go to the hospital for an IV. After another couple of days we decided we were ready to take an overnight bus to the capital of Vientiane. We were wrong and once we got to the city we had to take Katie straight to the hospital. Candace and I then crossed the border into Thailand to go straight to Bangkok. Our original plan had been to travel through southern Laos, but we thought we might recover better in more modern and temperate Thailand.

Trekking on Elephants

Kayaking down a Mekong tributary

A beautiful sunset from a couple of steps from our guesthouse

A war memorial built with cement donated by the US to build a runway

One of the numerous Buddhist temples

2008-02-22T10:54:00.006+08:00

Vietnam

We began our trip with a 28 hour train ride to the southern city of Nanning. From there we bussed to the border and then on to the capital city of Hanoi. As soon as we entered Vietnam we were witness to three traffic accidents. We found a nice little hotel to stay and we toured the city for a day and got to see several things including the preserved Ho Chi Minh. Hanoi was a crowded city without huge skyline, as in most modern cities. It was very compact and definitely had a French feel because of the architecture and western toilets J. We enjoyed the food especially the pastries.

Halong Bay is a World Heritage Site and is described as the place where a dragon jumped into the sea. You can see from the pictures that it is a bunch of islands rising suddenly out of the water. Unfortunately, it was overcast the whole time so the pictures didn’t turn out so well. We explored several caves and got to go kayaking. We spent the night on the boat and went back to Hanoi the next day.

On our journey from Beijing to Hanoi we traveled around 1500 miles and the entire time it was snowing or raining and overcast. The biggest problem with this was that we were anticipating warmer temperatures and only brought one outfit to suit such climates. As a result, we all wore the same clothes for about six days.

Here we are at a traditional house at the Ethnology Museum

These are some fruit sellers in the bay

Vietnam is known for its huge numbers of motorbikes.

This is Halong Bay where the islands rise out of the sea like a dragons back

The architecture of Hanoi is tall and skinny

And here is video of me crossing the street

2008-02-21T14:07:00.002+08:00

Hello all,

We arrived home yesterday from our trip. It was one day shy of five weeks since we left. Hard to believe that we were traveling for one twelfth of the entire year. After enjoying the great climate of southeast Asia, coming back to China was a bit hard. We were pleasantly surprised to find the temperature in Beijing to be very mild. I'm sure you've heard China has had one of it's worst winters in the last half century, but most of it was in the south. As soon as we got back we could hear and see the constant din of left over fire works from the new year celebrations. Over the next few days I'm going to try and blog about our experiences and impressions from each country we visited. Thankfully, we have a few days of rest before we start teaching. It's hard to go back to work after so much time off. Here we are with our traveling companions Katie and Joel.

2008-01-17T10:30:00.001+08:00

Today we head off to southeast Asia for around 4 weeks. And of course we don't want to take any jackets with us so what happens?! It snows last night. Now we are going to freeze on the way to the train station. Here is a pic from out our window. This is only our 2nd snow I think.

We finished teaching yesterday. We both had great semesters and great kids. Here is one of my classes.

I don't know when we'll be able to post next. We'll try to do some during the trip. It's really weird to say we're leaving and won't be back for four weeks. When else in life can you take a trip like that. Anyways, thanks everybody for the gifts and encouragement during the holidays. All the money will go really far on our trip. We love you!

2008-01-06T12:10:00.000+08:00

This last week I played tennis with Roger Federer..................... That is, a student who's English name is Roger Federer. He was actually pretty good even though we were playing on carpet, outside, in 40 degree weather.

Our Christmas was busy and fast but enjoyable. We had a party for all of our Chinese friends. On Christmas day our team cooked a big brunch and then opened presents. I got Kevin a sweet punching bag. Candace got some books and I got some magic tricks.

2007-12-19T16:55:00.000+08:00

Hi all,

Things here are busy as we prepare for parties, celebrations, and general good times.

The other day I was traveling to my tutoring job in a taxi. It was dark and I fell asleep as I often do in cars (when I'm not driving). I think I was only out for a few minutes, but when I woke I did not recognize where we were. The funny thing is that as soon as I woke up, the driver turned off the meter and continued driving for another few minutes to our destination. In the end, the ride cost less than usual. An attempt at swindling gone awry perhaps..................

Last week, as we were grocery shopping the featured CD that was playing throughout the store was the Bee Gees Love Songs.

This past week the doctors whom Andrea and I tutor took us out to dinner for our birthdays since they are in the same week. They took us to a really nice restaurant with a hundred year history and famous for their roast duck. The duck was indeed delicious, but the surprising part was the tastiness of the duck hearts and duck liver. Also, the rare duck blood soup held its own.

Here is our new and bigger Christmas tree.

2007-12-03T16:18:00.000+08:00

Hello friends and family,

Sorry a long hiatus but we have just not been diligent. No good excuses I guess. Our Thanksgiving was wonderful. We had many good dishes and some rotisserie chicken. I ate so much I couldn't move and couldn't even play the first couple of plays in our annual football game which ended up as a tie. Candace had a great long touchdown.

Every week I play in a soccer league with a bunch of other guys. We play Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, French, Celtic, British, African, and other random teams. Just on our team we have people from Canada, US, Syria, France, Spain, Benin, China, Singapore, Philippines, Columbia, and other unremembered places. It has been a good experience and most people get along really well. The one thing I have learned from this and from random students is that English really a global language, especially English curse words. I have heard people who know very little English scream out very articulately a swear word. I don't know how they know but they do. I even hear some of my students whispering them occasionally. No language has transcended barriers as much as American cursing.

Another interesting thing in China is winter heating. I think this must be a leftover communist thing, but all of Beijing turns on its heat on a specific day around November 15. Most of the buildings in Beijing have radiator heat so the boilers start rumbling and the water starts hissing through the pipes. The ironic part is that there is no controlling the temperature in most rooms so it doesn't matter if it's hot or cold, you're getting heat. So far this year our apartment has been very warm. In fact, we've had to leave the windows open for several weeks letting the radiator heat go straight out because it's been so hot. It seems like an effort for efficiency seems to be backfiring. Oh well.

2007-11-19T11:57:00.000+08:00

After going to Suzhou we spent two days in Shanghai. It is very much a western city full of great things like Burger King and Mr. Doughnut. The weather there was great enough to wear shorts and a t-shirt. Unfortunately, the one thing that has left recently was the only Taco Bell in the country. Of course is was more of sit down restaurant here, but still. Here is the empty shell that we met with much disappointment.

We went the Pearl TV tower and got a good view of the city.
Here is Asia's old tallest building being surpassed by Asia's new tallest building.
Here is the world's 3rd best tennis player that we happened to randomly find walking along the street.
Here is Candace enjoying a conversation with a wax man in the Shanghai museum.
Shanghai has an interesting history because of the influence of outside countries. Many of the buildings built in the early 1900s remain and give the city a very different feel than other places in China.

2007-11-14T17:19:00.000+08:00

This last week we did not have to teach because our kids were taking their much more important midterm exams. So, we decided to go on a trip. We spent our first day in the city of Suzhou. It is very near Shanghai and is renowned for its gardens. Parts of the city have a large infrastructure of canals which has developed the name "The Venice of China." It was a beautiful city with an interesting history. You'll see the heavy buddhist influence. Walking throughout the gardens and old parts of the city were very relaxing.

2007-11-05T14:34:00.001+08:00

Last week the foreign teachers held the annual Harvest/Halloween party out on the basketball courts after school. On Tuesday we had juniors and on Wednesday we had seniors. As always it was a lot of work but well worth it. Everybody had fun. The days leading up to the party students came to our office and helped us carve 18 flat Chinese pumpkins. This year Candace and I did our same soccer shoot out game. Other games included cornhole, bowling, 3-legged race, giant tic-tac-toe, get through a giant spider web, several piñatas and face painting. Unfortunately, this year was much colder than last year which I think prevented some students from coming. At the end of the night most students had enough candy to last several days and some lucky ones got to take the pumpkins home.

Loren running Cornhole
Candace with some students
Tim getting ready for the pinata
A student carved pumpkin
Greg the mime running the ping pong ball toss

2007-10-31T22:11:00.001+08:00

Two weekends ago we went with some students to a place called Xiang Shan which means Fragrant Hills. It is in the mountains directly west of Beijing. It is tradition for people to visit during the fall when all the leaves are changing colors. When we went the leaves had just started to change so there were only a few patches of yellow among the sea of green. Even though it was early in the season people had still filled the park to what seemed like capacity. As we were hiking up the mountain we would literally take one step, wait a few seconds, take another step and so on. Here is a picture of people at the top.

These are our students who spend much of there time studying because this is their last year before college.
Even though in the city it had been a relatively clear day, from a view on top of the mountain you can see the layer of brown on the horizon that prevented a clear view of the city.

2007-10-24T21:22:00.000+08:00

This last weekend our team had our annual costume bowling activity. Candace and I went as Bob and Helen Par (aka The Incredibles). Unfortunately, we didn't do so well in bowling. Tim won the best costume award as a Rubik's cube.

2007-10-06T11:48:00.000+08:00

We had this past week off of school because it was China's national day. On Monday and Tuesday we took a camping trip to the great wall. We had a great time with friends while making our legs sore from climbing so many stairs. The Great Wall is mostly just stairs up and down the sides of endless mountains. We had good weather and no rain but the usual China haze. When we went to bed it was warm enough but sometime during the night the wind picked up and started blowing straight into our sleeping bags which prompted me to wrap a t-shirt around my head and then a jacket to seal the hole. The sunrise was beautiful. It was nice to be out of the city for a while.

In the sunrise.
This is our camping spot from a distance.
This was our Chinese entourage that traveled with us for quite a while
before asking horrendously high prices for their goods.

2007-10-02T19:34:00.000+08:00

Once again this year our school has been extremely kind to us and has given us many amenities for gifts on Teacher's Day. This year they overdid themselves and almost gave us too much. Each person received 8 boxes of Kleenex, 20 roles of toilet paper, 3 toothbrushes, 2 tubes of toothpaste, a huge bag of Tide, two bottles of toilet bowl cleaners (I don't think some of our teachers even have toilet bowls) and a box of 30 apples. So Candace and I had double of all this. We are working on giving away the stuff we will never need. We gave away apples but still had some left over so one night we finally sat down and turned the last 25 into two huge vats of applesauce. Then a week later they gave every teacher a big bottle of extra virgin olive oil which is extremely expensive here. The other night we made spaghetti and salad with some friends. Here is Candace working in the crowded kitchen. Notice the sauce has been cooked and taken off so the water can be boiled. Notice the oven preheating to cook the croûtons (can't buy premade here), the spaghetti and then the garlic bread. Then we have to do all those dishes in the small sink! Makes for a long but enjoyable evening.

2007-09-18T17:19:00.001+08:00

This past weekend we were able to go see the China Open tennis tournament. We went on Saturday and watched the semifinal match between Fernando Gonzalez and Ivan Ljubicic ranked 6 and 12 in the world respectively. It was a good three set match with Gonzalez pulling out in the end and then eventually winning the tournament the next day. After getting lunch and watching Amelie Mauresmo practice for the women's tournament this week we went back to the stadium and watched the the American doubles pair of Martin and Lipsky lose in a close match 7-6 7-6. It was fun and we were the only Americans cheering in the whole stadium. The Chinese guys around us were quite amused. Getting tickets was interesting because some Chinese people were getting quite pesky and angry at us. Eventually, we got tickets from 4 different people for around $12 a piece.

2007-09-11T11:03:00.000+08:00

Well, things are now in full swing here. We are teaching a full schedule now but there have been some changes. Our earliest classes are now at 8:00 instead of 7:40! Which means 20 more minutes of sleep. But, because of a curriculum change our classes have been pushed to the earliest and latest classes of the day. This means we teach more earlier classes (I have three 8:00 classes) and that our classes are spread out over the day. On Fridays I teach the first two periods and then the last two periods.

This week has been great getting to know all our Senior 1 students. For many of them we are their first foreign teacher and they are excited and willing to learn. These first weeks are always great before they get beat down by the system.

In other news, we discovered a great Italian restaurant last night that has been under our noses all year. I got a smoked bacon ciabatta that was delicious. Of course bacon here just means pieces of ham.

2007-09-09T12:24:00.000+08:00

Last week Candace and I finished (finally succumbed to peer and student pressure) reading the Harry Potter series. We read six books this summer and the seventh when some teachers brought the seventh over. Overall, they were a good read and well written. Some books were pretty slow and the ending was a bit interesting but hey we were reading instead of watching TV. We did enjoy them and now we can have endless conversations with our students. Though the Chinese have written some of their own versions.

2007-09-02T14:16:00.000+08:00

Hello All! Sorry for the long absence. Since the arrival of all the new teachers and the beginning of the school year we have been really busy. We have been helping the new people acclimate and getting our lessons ready. We start teaching tomorrow. This year I am teaching Sr. 2 biology and Sr. 1 history and Candace is teaching Jr. 2 oral English, Sr. 1 Olympics, and Sr. 2 oral English.

Several weeks ago we moved into our new apartment and have since been trying to make it nice and cozy. It is much bigger than our old one. We should be able to invite more than two people over at at time.

We took our annual trip to the Great Wall with all the new people. Here are some pictures.

2007-08-19T16:20:00.000+08:00

South Korea

Last week for our anniversary we took a surprise trip to South Korea. We stayed in the down town area of Seoul for three days. It was a very nice modern city with fewer people than Beijing so a nice break. Here are some thoughts:

1. Café culture has taken a strong hold. I’ve never seen so many Starbucks in my life.

2. They like American food which was good for us. Interestingly, we saw more Burger Kings than McDonalds.

3. Doughnuts! Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Doughnuts everywhere! For lunch one day all I had were doughnuts.

4. Pretzels! Once again, all I ate for dinner one night.

5. The largest subway system I have ever seen. Even went all the way to other cities.

Unfortunately, it rained a fair amount of the time but it was possible to get around to places with out going outside much. One of our goals was to make it to the DMZ but they day we wanted to go turned out to be South Korea’s national day. So instead we got to go to an old palace and the folk museum for free. Then as were walking back we ran into a group of protesters surrounded by riot police and then we saw some very important person come out of a government building surrounded by secret police.

In all it was a great trip and a wonderful anniversary. Hard to believe it’s already been a year.

2007-08-19T16:03:00.000+08:00

Barcelona

While we have not been able to travel to Spain we were privileged to see their world class soccer team from Barcelona play in Beijing several weeks ago. Some would argue this year Barcelona may be the best team in the world seeing as how they have several of the best players in the world including Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry, and Lionel Messi.

The game was a friendly against a Chinese professional league team. Barcelona won 3-0 and Ronaldinho scored on a free kick. Everybody was happy. Probably the best part of the game was watching Ronaldinho juggling during warm-up. He has some crazy skills. It was a fun night out and we even saw some of our students at the game.

2007-08-07T13:54:00.000+08:00

On day 3 of our trip we rented bikes and rode out to a little village at the base of a mountain called Baisha. We met the world famous Dr. Ho. He has been talked about in every guide book written on China and has been featured numerous articles and documentaries. He is famous for his herbal medicines from special plants that are indigenous to the region. He is very animated and was quick to invite us in, tell us all about his exploits, and offer us some good herbal tea.

As we wandered through the rest of the town we came across a little old lady who couldn't speak any English. At first we were just going to brush her off but we decided to follow her. She took us back to her great little house and dressed us up in the traditional attire of the minority group she belonged to. She gave us some peanuts and tea for snacks. A very interesting time, but of course she wanted some money in the end but it was worth it.

2007-08-02T12:06:00.000+08:00

This is the beginning of a brief series on our trip to southern China earlier this summer.

Day 1 and 2

We left only three days after finishing teaching on a Monday morning at 5:30. We had a 6 hour flight to the city of Lijiang located in Yunnan province. The city itself is very interesting and is a big tourist destination for Chinese people. The interesting part is a section of the city that remains as an "old" Chinese town with the classic one and two story architecture and cobblestone streets. Cars are not aloud inside this section and it is filled with little shops and restaurants. In 1996, an earthquake destroyed a lot of the city leaving the old section in tact. So, they started building a lot more of the old city turning into a tourist haven.

We arrived and decided we didn't want to stay at the hotel we had seen online so we searched for another and found a nice little place that was up on a hill and had a great view. After eating at restaurant and having some traditional Tibetan food we found a great little cafe where we spent several evenings reading.

On the second day we found another hotel we liked better. When I say hotel, I mean somebody's house with a few extra rooms. This is how the locals make money.

We assumed the weather would be incredibly hot but because of the altitude and mountains around the climate was amazing staying in mostly the 70's and 80's. It rained a little on two the evenings we were there.

We went to a local park and climbed up a big hill to get a view of a local snow capped mountain but unfortunately is was covered in clouds.

View of the old city from our first hotel
A city street at night
View of old city from a local hill
A city street early in the morning before the shops open

2007-07-30T21:13:00.000+08:00

This past weekend we traveled outside of Beijing to a small town called CuanDi Xia. It was is an old Ming Dynasty town that has been preserved is several hundred years old. We stayed in one of the old courtyard styled houses for the night and the family cooked dinner for us. It was on the base of a mountain surrounded by some beautiful scenery. We went with our friends Todd and Dawn and their two little kids. We had a great time hiking around and playing games.

2007-07-21T20:20:00.000+08:00

We just ended a wonderful week and a half of spending time with my parents both in Beijing and Singapore. A day after they got here we put their physical limits to the test and went to the great wall and now they at least have an appreciation how hard it must of been to build after how hard it was to walk. The next day we showed them around our area and went to the Temple of Heaven and to the famed shopping outlet of Silk Alley. That night we went and saw some amazing acrobats. Thursday morning some of my students gave us a tour of the Summer Palace. Friday, some of Candace's students gave us a tour of the Forbidden City.

Saturday we took off for Singapore. While waiting in Kuala Lumpur we found out our flight had been canceled but we were able to get another flight a few hours later. Our first day in Singapore we went to Sentosa Island which is full of resorts and shows and parks. We saw a dolphin show and a butterfly house and a 3d movie. Beautiful and lots of fun. Monday we went to Little India and then went to the night safari which was pretty cool especially walking in with the bats. Tuesday morning we went to the the Bird park where Candace volunteered and got to hold to a Malay Eagle Owl and a Barn Owl. Later the girls went to the beach and dad and I saw a Chinese exhibit of hell. The next day my parents headed home and we just shopped around and ate at Burger King while it rained all day. On our layover in Kuala Lumpur on the way home I had a whopper for breakfast because I won't get one for another year.

We loved having my parents visit and we would love for any of you (friends and family) to come over. My dad will tell you how good the food is here if you call him.

2007-06-25T15:53:00.000+08:00

Last week I rode my bike to the Westin hotel in the financial district of Beijing. This is a very nice part of town. In fact it might be the nicest with many tall buildings and foreigners. There wasn’t a place for me to lock up my bike at the entrance to the Westin so I parked it across the street and a little bit around the corner, just barely out of site of the lobby entrance.

This place looked like a normal bike parking lot, there were hundreds of bikes and bike racks. There was nothing for me to lock my bike to, so I put it in the middle of a row and locked the back tire. As I was walking across the street I noticed a man standing in his shop watching me and two guards on the opposite side of the street. I figured it should be pretty safe.

After spending less than ten minutes inside the Westin hotel, I came out to find my bike was gone. Of course, it is somewhat expected that being a foreigner and having a nice bike that your bike will be stolen inevitably. What made this even worse was that I was thinking how fortunate I’ve been to go ten months without losing my first bike. I’m not sure what the total number is now but I think at least three have been stolen from the team so far this year.

I first searched through the other bikes to see if someone had moved it but I found nothing. Normally, at bike parking spots there is a uniformed person who watches them and then charges a few cents when you leave. Occasionally, they will move bikes to make more room. At this spot, there was no one watching.

The first thing I did was walk across the street and tried to ask the Westin guard if he saw something. My Chinese is horrible and he didn’t even try to understand. I walked back to the bikes and noticed a group of five or six guards standing close to the building. I walked over and tried to ask them. They mostly laughed at my floundering Chinese. I then went and asked a shop keeper but he pleaded absolute ignorance. Several of the guards were now following me being quite amused.

As I was pondering what to do and thinking I would most likely never see my bike again, a foreign guy and Chinese girl walked past and I asked to see if they could help me. The girl kindly translated for me and asked the guards if they knew anything. They said they hadn’t seen anything. (Somebody HAD to have seen something because my bike was locked so it couldn’t have been ridden away. It HAD to be picked up.) But, the guy she was talking to, the one in charge of all the others said he would try to “help.”

My translator said he was going to make a call. “To who?” I asked. She answered, “A guy he knows who steals bikes around here.” Now this only makes since in China so don’t try and understand it.

After a few minutes on the phone he told me that the guy had my bike but in order to get it back I would have to pay 200 yuan. I told him this was fine because I just wanted my bike back. (The bike originally cost around 900; about $110). After some further discussion he said it might be back here around 3:00 which was about an hour later.

During this whole discussion the translator was telling me I should buy a cheap bike and the famous saying “You’re not a Beijinger if you haven’t had at least two or three bikes stolen.” Of course I had already heard this many times before and it wasn’t really helping me at the moment.

After talking further back and forth and another phone call we found out the guy who stole my bike already resold it. So now I can’t get it back, right? Not so. Apparently, this other guy will sell me the bike for 300 yuan. Of course he will. I agree to it anyways because I just want my bike back. Now the instructions are for me to wait on the opposite side of the building for this guy to come and make the deal. At this point, the people that have graciously helped me translate had to go, so I say goodbye and walk to the other side.

On the other side, I wait for awhile and no one comes. I checked out the bike parking spots on that side to see if perhaps they had just moved it, which I have heard of happening. But I found nothing. After about 15 minutes the head guard who had been making the phone calls comes around and motions me to follow him.

While walking around the front of the building he was chatting with other guards posted all around. They all seemed pretty happy and amused as if they knew what was going on. When we rounded the final corner, there is my bike sitting beside all the other ones. We walked over to it and I acted very happy and thankful. I took off the lock and examined everything to make sure it was okay and everything looked good.

Luckily the guy sent away the other guards in order to make the financial transaction. So I took my book bag off and pretended like I was reaching for money. Then I took the bike and started to leave.

The whole time leading up to this point I had decided that if I could see my bike I was not going to pay for it and I was not going to let it go even if I had to fight for it. So at this time my adrenaline was really pumping.

As I started to leave he grabbed the seat of my bike and gave me a questioning look. But, I was pulling very hard to get my bike out of his grip. As our tug of war started he called to all the other guards posted near us and they began to run our way. I only had one choice before resorting to violence. I yelled help as loud as I could and by the third yell he let go! I jumped on my bike and rode a sizable amount before I looked back.

I was shaking as I rode away because after one more yell I was going to turn around and hit the guy as hard as I could in attempt to make an escape before all the other guards arrived.

Fortunately, it didn’t happen and I got my bike back. Oh, China.

2007-06-25T10:47:00.000+08:00

DAY 2

The second day we took a tour of the TsingTao beer factory. The most famous beer in China. We were able to see how the beer was made (surprisingly complex) and how it was bottled, labeled, and sent off.

A few pictures of the beer factory...

Here's a picture of Qingdao night skyline

Overall, it was a great trip. However, on the train ride back there weren't any sleepers available so we had to sit in hard seats for 9 hours, overnight. We also stopped every hour or so to pick up more people, for which there were no seats available. People laid and stood in the aisles because of the lack of room. It was hot and smelly and overall we DO NOT want to do that again!! Although it was fairly miserable we can add it to our list of adventures!!

Also, the Dolph's are coming in two weeks and we can't wait!!

2007-06-25T10:27:00.000+08:00

Qingdao Trip

A few weeks ago we had the week off because the seniors had the Gao Kao (equivalent of the ACT and SAT). Five of us took the overnight train to Qingdao which is on the east coast. It was one of our favorite Chinese cities. It was modern, clean, and had a lot of German architecture.

The first day the boys climbed one of the famous mountains overlooking the yellow sea and the girls spent the day at the beach.

Here's a few pictures of our beach experience...

There were mainly men at the beach and often in big groups. I guess these guys don't work or perhaps they take their lunch break together at the beach. We didn't feel bad taking pictures of them because unfortunately we were part of about 15 photo shoots that day. People asked to take pictures with us every 10 minutes. The water was only for the brave and although we attempted, our feet were frozen the second they touched the first wave.

The rest of the day we toured the city and found a hotel to sleep in that night. We went cheap with the hotel and the second we returned to our room that night we found a big cockroach crawling across our floor. We immediately called the boys into our room to kill and then complete a thorough inspection. Although I will say it was one of the most comfortable beds I've ever slept in.

2007-06-16T12:12:00.000+08:00

The second day of our wall trip we hiked for about 8 hours and found more difficult spots than we had the previous day. We were forced to get off the wall at several places and make our way around. At one point we had to throw our bags down about twenty feet and rock climb down to where we couldn't see. Along the way we met two guys, one from Malaysia and one from Canada. We had a great discussion about foreigners living in China.

As the day ended we were faced with the tough decision of whether to spend another night on the wall. We could hike down to a small town and try to procure a ride from somebody or we could stay another night and hike an unknown amount of time to the next town which was over a big ridge. Our major concern was that we didn't have enough water. It had been very hot and we were buying water from every person we met.

We followed the wall to the bottom of a valley and met a bunch of Chinese people just spending a couple hours on the wall. Apparently they were not from Beijing because we spent twenty minutes taking pictures with them. Then we met another group and they invited us down to the town to have dinner with them. When they told us they could give us a ride to Beijing our problem seemed to be solved.

We headed down with and ended up at a little motel. There were about 15 people total. They said they had met up through an internet car club and decided to take a little vacation together. For dinner we got to see them kill the chicken and clean the fish. Lots of good foods including sushi and lamb. Our conversation was limited with only two of the girls who could speak enlgish, though the guys got out a kick of our floundering Chinese.

Remarkably, some of them were staying the night at the motel so we were able to ride the 1 and half hours back to Beijing with the others and they even took us right to each of our schools.

Look for the people on the wall here. This part is known as the stairway to heaven.

PS: Congrats to Lindsey on here engagement!

2007-06-03T13:10:00.000+08:00

Great Wall Trip

Over our May holiday, I (Emanuel) took a great wall trip with two other guys, Ben and Joel. We started our hike at a place call MuTianYu. This is a touristy spot that is restored and has some beautiful scenery. We each had a pack and took a subway to a bus station and then a 1 hour bus and then hired a van driver to get to this spot. We had a choice to take a cable car up to the top, but of course we are men and we didn't want pay for it, but after walking the hundreds of stairs just to get to the wall we were already exhausted. Granted, none of us were really in shape. From this spot we headed west hoping to get in a good five hours of hiking before sunset. We climbed to the end of the restored part and met a guy who wouldn't let us continue onto the unrestored part. He said he would lose his pay if he let us go. Of course Chinese people were coming onto the wall from where we wanted to go and they didn't have to pay. Finally, we worked out a fifty quai bribe. Welcome to China foreigners. None of us had done a wall trip before so we were unprepared for the difficult trek ahead. Quickly, we learned how bad the wall had deteriorated in some parts. I'll try to show this in some pictures. Several times throughout the day I became scared for my life. Sometimes we were walking up stairs two feet tall and four inches thick. Other times we did some rock climbing with thirty pounds on our back. You can't just walk around the wall because it drops off drastically. Finally, we decided to stop for the day. We slept on a little peak of the wall totally exposed. It worked out because it was so warm at night I didn't use my sleeping bag. A breeze kept the bugs away. Here are some pics from day one:

we felt tired after this stretch

The guy we had to bribe

We climbed up that and down that

a few of the steep stairs

2007-05-22T17:24:00.000+08:00

Some recent things:

1. China does not practice daylight savings time. Not that we get up early enough for it to really affect us.

2. We now have the national bird of China roosting at our school. Two of them actually. Check out the pics.

3. The other day we were out exploring the city on our bikes when a rare sprinkling came just hard enough to make us miserable. You can see on the picture I don't have a guard on my back tire.

4. Today it has poured rain. I think more than all of the combined since we got here.

2007-05-13T12:04:00.000+08:00

This last week has been difficult getting back into the swing of teaching after having two weeks off. It's really weird to think we have half a semester left when everybody at home is done already.

We often wonder what people will think of China after the olympics. We know very well the problems that China has and the shortcomings of its people. Not that any country doesn't have these but the whole asian mentality is starkly different than that of westerners. Things such as commonly spitting on the streets from both men and women, not standing in lines, and constant littering are normal for everybody. They have been trying to clean things up and have indeed changed much. But, can they really change an entire people in a few years.

Over break we went to the Beijing Zoo and Aquarium. The aquarium was excellent. They had a dolphin and seal show reminiscent of Sea World. They had a great tank that you could walk under and through. There was also a great shark tank. The zoo on the other hand was a little on the weak side. Somewhat depressing even.

Of course, the first place we went was the panda exhibit. They looked and little small and dirty compared to those pristine national geographic pictures. They had many kinds of monkeys and a decent snake exhibit. They had several tigers, panthers, and lions, but most of them were in small indoor cages.

Here is a good picture of us in front of a shark tank.

2007-04-30T15:12:00.000+08:00

And Lastly...

After the desert we headed back to Hohhot. Our driver picked up two hitch hikers on the way back so yeah... that was nice. We got back and decided we could navigate the city ourselves and told our guide he could leave us. We had about 5 hours to tour the city. We went to a huge Mosque, a beautiful park, and looked unsuccessfully for the Inner Mongolian Museum. We headed back to the train station and once in our bunks we were asleep before the lights were out. It was a good adventure for us and definitely helped our Chinese improve.

Overall, good times had by all

2007-04-30T15:10:00.000+08:00

Day 2

The next day of our trip we woke up early and set out for the desert at 7 AM. It was a five hour drive so we wanted an early start. The actual four and half hour drive gave a unique look at rural northern China. Nothing but small villages, livestock randomly placed and an unusual amount of rustic satellite dishes. We arrived at 11:30 to a large tourist complex at the edge of the desert. (This was one of the many smaller deserts of northern China) Strangely, we were the only ones there. Our Chinese guide had to get them to open up the dining room so we could have lunch which turned out to be really good.

Next, they prepared us to go into the dunes by selling us cloth boots to prevent sand from filling our shoes and selling us high priced water. We hopped into a jeep and took off into the sand. We were having a blast until our jeep just stopped working. Our driver had to jump out and run to the top of a dune to call for help. They brought us a new jeep and a new driver. We took off again, but our driver didn't seem to know where he was going. We could see the place where we were trying to go but there was a deep ravine too steep to cross. After several different attempts, reversing multiple times and getting stuck once our driver took us back to the beginning and took the flat easy way to our destination.

Our destination was a camel pen where we began our camel rides. Unfortunately we had a guide hold the reins the whole way. My (Emanuel) camel had a floppy hump. We hypothesized it was the free willy effect. We arrived at a building in the middle of the desert. Inside we discovered about 15 cages full of animals. Each cage was about 6 feet wide, 5 feet tall and about 15 feet deep. They had goats, pheasants, ducks, herons, a turkey, a fox, two types of eagles, and some type of badgers. All of which are not desert animals. There was also a room full of skeletons. The badgers were asleep and we couldn't tell which animal they were so our guide got out a 20 foot pole and proceeded to beat them until they awoke and showed themselves to us. This is China.

After running up and down some dunes we took our ride back. Once back, we walked to the edge of the desert and found ourselves over 100 feet up looking down a very steep decline on farm fields. So, of course we had to take sleds all the way down. It was great. Once Emanuel's sled hit bottom it kept sliding for about 30 feet. Candace's sled hit a hole and came to a complete stop while she kept going. Pretty funny to watch. We took a jeep back and left.

2007-04-30T14:20:00.000+08:00

Riding our camels!! It was my first time but Emanuel had ridden a few times in Israel and Egypt. We both agreed camels are a much more comfortable ride than the horses we rode the day before.
Here are our super cool booties to keep the sand out. It was a beautiful day, Emanuel even got a bit of a sunburn.
This is one of the eagles sitting in it's pathetic cage, oh China.
This is the skeleton of a camel. There was also an ostrich and a few other unidentifiable animals
Emanuel is about to sled down the extremely steep hill. I made him go first because I was nervous. It was really fun, except the part where I fell off my sled.

2007-04-28T17:54:00.000+08:00

Day two of our Inner Mongolia Trip still to come!!!

2007-04-28T17:50:00.000+08:00

Greetings All,

Sorry for the delay but an unplanned trip has set us back a few days. This past week was the first part of our two week May vacation. Everybody has the first week of May off for some sort of holiday similar to our Labor Day. We get lucky because our students have midterms the week before so we don't have to teach. We had been busy before the start of vacation so we had made no plans, and nobody else had either. We decided we didn't want to sit around for two weeks so on a spur of the moment we decided to go to Inner Mongolia, the autonomous province of China that borders Mongolia. The trip had been made by several people in previous years so we had a pretty good idea of what it would be like. So Monday morning we bought one way tickets to the city of Hohhot, the capital city of the province. It was only Candace and I so we knew it would prove to be interesting and a time to expand our Chinese vocabulary.

This trip was full of learning, mistakes, and adventure, but was overall a good trip. We took a 10 hour hard-sleeper overnight to Hohhot and got there about 7 AM. According to everything we had read we thought we should be able to pick up a guide at the train station who would take us to the places we wanted to go. So when we show up and nobody is talking to us or approaching us we get a little scared. We wandered around for a bit until a guy who spoke no English tried to make a deal with us. We decided we wanted to deal in English so we left him, but fortunately he called a girl who could speak and she eventually showed up. She told us she was a guide and she we would take us to the places we wanted to go. After some haggling over the price we finally settled and went and bought our train tickets home for the next night.

Next we got to the driver's "bus" which was really a small van and then our English speaking guide says she has to go to an interview tomorrow and then proceeds to leave us and the guy gets in and we start driving who knows where. This leaves us in an interesting situation but we decide to go with it.

An hour and forty-five minutes later we arrive in the barren grasslands. We drove through several fields before we finally arrived at our Mongolian yurt complex which is really in the middle of nowhere. We were greeted by people in full traditional dress and offered some horrid type of alcohol. Finding out that we are the only people who speak English we decide to go on a three hour horse ride that took us to a "traditional Mongolian house" with a Mongolian family and "traditional Mongolian food." The lone woman and three bowls of good tasting snacks and some milk tea were good enough. Our Mongolian guide was really nice and spoke very slow Chinese so we could have a conversation of some sorts. We exchanged singing a traditional American song for a Mongolian. He never let us get our horses to a gallop, but we would trot occasionally. Unfortunately, the stirrups were way too short for a tall fellow like me. The trip was definitely not the three hours we had paid for but it gave us the experience of being out in the grasslands.

After a traditional Mongolian lunch including singing and dancing we went out to watch a horse race and Mongolian wrestling. It was good entertainment and we met two women who spoke English. We ended up taking a long walk (because really what else is there to do in the middle of no where) that afternoon with our new friends and explored the land. That night we stayed in a yurt, it was spacious enough and even had a nice picture of Gangas Kong for us to bow down to. It was very cold that night and since the yurt is basically like sleeping outside, we turned in early.

2007-04-28T17:34:00.000+08:00

This is our wonderful yurt, simple enough.
Here we are riding the horses, we were with five or six other Chinese men. This was right after we left the Mongolian house which you can see in the background, although our tour was shorter than expected we weren't too upset because we were getting a little sore.
This is right after the show, one of the singers wearing the traditional clothing.
Traditional food, it's better that it looks. We actually liked it a lot, and well, we aren't too picky these days.
The Mongolian wrestling was interesting to watch, a bit like sumo. After they threw each other down they asked for volunteers to wrestle the champion, we politely declined. As you can see, we really were in the middle of nowhere.

2007-04-22T11:10:00.000+08:00

Last night we went out for our friend Alex's Birthday, the big 25! We went to a Korean Barbecue and it was amazing and they even put us in our own private room! We ordered tons of beef and a little lamb and chicken. It comes out raw and you cook your own meat and vegetables in a grill right on the table. When the meat is finished you put it in a cabbage wrap with rice and dip your meat in this amazing sauce ...it's pretty much the best food we've had for awhile (not to knock Chinese food, we love that too)!
Once you finish they bring you out watermelon, ice cream bars and gum. We were all pretty excited about the ice cream bars, if you couldn't tell.

Kc is making a sad face because no one gave him an ice cream bar.
After we finished we headed back to play games. Emanuel and I learned how to play Pit which more or less seems to be a bunch of screaming people but fun anyway and then we played Scum. If you haven't played it's a great card game and you can ask us about it later.

Anyway, we have two weeks off and we started it off right last night, we still can't decide where to travel, we will let you know when we actually get around to being decisive.

2007-04-17T16:58:00.000+08:00

Hello all,

We've mentioned before how many signs here are badly translated. Recently, the government has been trying to improve this and several other things before the Olympics such as spitting and making people stand in line. Here's an interesting article about it:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/17/asia/web-0417china.php

The weather here has been amazing recently. Very nearly shorts weather. This past weekend I spent grading. I had 125 junior tests, 50 senior 1 tests, and 50 biology homeworks to grade. Now I know how dad feels always at home at the dining room table grading till late. This past weekend we did a mini Easter camp at a migrant school. I'll do a posting as soon I get pictures from different people.

2007-04-12T13:06:00.000+08:00

Easter:

Last Friday morning at 4:45 AM our team awoke to hide easter eggs all over campus for our students. Each one of the 1,400 easter eggs contained a slip of paper saying that if they returned the egg to the foreign teacher's office they would receive candy. One egg was worth 100 yuan, two for 5 yuan and five for 20 yuan. It took about an hour for 15 of us to hide all of them. We hid inside the buildings and outside in everyplace we could imagine. We had them in trees, holes, bushes, taped up in pipes and on phone booths, and in desks.

For all of the cheap plastic things China makes, unfortunately, easter eggs are not one of them. All of our eggs are imported with team members. Because of this, the eggs are a novelty to our students and sometimes they don't want to give them back.

We told the guards not to let any students in before six o'clock and we had people posted at the student dormitories to make sure they wouldn't sneak out like they had done the year before. But this year we hid in the morning instead of the night before. This year we again caught students out at 4 AM but there was nothing for them to find. And we did have students try to sneak in while we were hiding. We enforced egg penalties when they did find eggs. As soon as we opened the gates to the school and dorms there were hundreds of students crawling all over the place. They literally entered in tidal wave fashion with some students being knocked to the ground! As the students were looking we discovered a man, maybe a school worker or parent, who had been inside now looking for eggs with his pockets full of them. Sometimes, the Chinese are unbelievable.

Overall a good experience and opportunity for our kids. And a chance to see Chinese go crazy.

2007-04-06T14:02:00.000+08:00

Last Monday the foreign teachers were challenged to a soccer match by the A-level students (those studying to go to college in Britain). After school at 4:00 we suited up and played against our opponent of unknown strength. We thought we would have the advantage because we're bigger and several of us play every week. We managed a somewhat uniform look with everybody wearing white shirts. The students were, or course, decked out in the French national jerseys complete with the superstar names.

The game turned out to be a good one. Their skill was higher than we expected and we held scoreless till about halfway through the second half until KC being the tallest on the field scored on a header. Shortly after, Joel score off of a nice kick in the box. For a few minutes in the middle, tempers were on edge a little bit after some questionable calls by some student referees. But all worked out and good sportsmanship was had by all.

The story of the game was Candace's dominance in the midfield and her lack of injuries afterward. Though, she was extremely sore for several days. All of her students who came to watch elevated her to hero status. She played very well and had an amazing free kick that nearly scored.

Emanuel on the other hand played ok, but got injured. He rolled his ankle pretty badly and had to stop playing immediately afterward. It is still swollen several days after the fact. Here is a nice picture of it.

2007-03-29T21:11:00.000+08:00

Hello All,

Things in China have been good. We just had a several day spell of wonderful weather including blue skies and 60 degree weather. On Saturday, I had a soccer game and Candace came to watch us win. We're both healthy and enjoying life.

Today, the soccer school our school owns played a Japanese team in a well fought game. We edged them one to nothing in a great treat for our students. Our office hours today were wonderful. I had students from five different classes come to talk. We each had more students than we could handle. Then we went to a little hole in the wall for dinner paying about $1.25 for a filling meal. Now we are grading homework and tests. Can't believe its almost April!

love
Emanuel and Candace

2007-03-18T14:57:00.000+08:00

Many of you wanted to see our apartment. Here it is!!!!

That is the front door. The door to the left is the bathroom and the door to the right is the kitchen. Our bedroom is off to the left and the office is behind us.

This is in the office. This is Emanuel's desk, mine is just to the right.

The door goes out to our balcony.

This is the family room. The couch, bed, t.v. and all the furniture came with the apartment, we just had to decorate!

This is our huge kitchen, ha, that is both the oven and the microwave. Yes, the microwave is bigger than the oven. Chinese people don't really bake. I'm not even sure where they found ovens for us. We are thankful for it though and can't wait to have a dishwasher someday!!!

This is part of bedroom, our king sized bed (!!) and closets. You can also see Emanuel's lego set he got for Christmas. There is another door there that connects to the balcony.

2007-03-18T14:50:00.000+08:00

It looks like this will be a very busy semester but we are excited. When we were home many people asked us what a typical week is like here, so we thought we would give you a quick breakdown of what this semester looks like, thus far.

Sunday - We go to our Sunday place, come home and eat lunch, then usually work on lesson plans for the week. The whole team meets together at 5:00. If the meeting is at the other school we leave at 4ish. We spend the night with the team. We eat together, we sing, someone speaks and we talk to father. We love these times!!

Monday - We have classes in the morning and usually do some grocery shopping and errands on Monday afternoon. I tutor two girls from 4:00-5:30 and then we usually go out with our team for dinner. Monday nights we have a team meeting for our school. Usually we have announcements, someone shares, and we talk to father.

Tuesday - We have the morning off and it's usually a good time to do laundry and clean up around the apartment. We also work on lessons and grading for our classes. We often have students over for lunch or dinner on Tuesdays. Tuesdays are also a day we go to the office to meet with students in the afternoon. Emanuel tutors the doctors and I go with him and visit my friends at the other school (we had Chinese class, now I'm not sure where we will fit this in).

2007-03-18T14:47:00.000+08:00

Wednesday - We have classes in the morning and then every other Wednesday we meet with the entire team but the girls and boys are separate. We have lunch and do a study together. On the off Wednesday's I have a meeting with the other wives and we go through a book. The other Wednesdays we usually have something like wedding showers (everyone is engaged) or other things like that. Wednesday night is usually our free night. We usually cook dinner together and then walk around the city, play games or watch a movie.

Thursday - It is our busiest teaching day. We teach most of the day and then have office hours from 4-6. We usually run to McDonald's to eat fast because two friends come at 6:30 to study the book. We usually talk and then study for about two hours. They usually stay until 10ish. We are pretty tired by then and usually just read and go to bed.

Friday - We have classes in the morning and have the afternoon off. At 4, all the teachers teach electives for an hour and a half. Emanuel teaches history and I teach Olympics. Although it seems like teaching from 4-5:30 on a Friday afternoon would be a bummer, we love it because the students that come to the electives all WANT to be there! They are excited, enthusiastic, usually speak great English and the classes are really fun. We don't give tests, we just teach and do fun activities. Friday nights we go out with most of the team to our favorite restaurant. It is a Friday tradition. Then we come back and play games and hangout with everyone.

Saturday - We get to sleep in!! Emanuel leaves to play soccer at about noon. I will go if it is warm but often stay home and clean the apartment, read, and overall try and be productive! Saturday night we usually hangout with the team or go on double or triple dates with our friends from the other schools.

It is difficult to give a super typical week because we have so many random things all the time. We have school parties for practically every American holiday. We go to the student's dramas, speech contests, Model UN competitions, we are in their movies, play soccer with them, pretty much anything is possible!!!

It is really weird because we are really busy but also have a lot of time. Is that possible? Apparently it is.

2007-03-18T13:35:00.000+08:00

This is the Before and After

Hello everyone, sorry we haven't updated recently, it was a crazy week around here. Our schedule is quickly filling up. This week Emanuel started teaching English to 13 G.I. doctors. They work at one of the best hospitals in China so it should be a good opportunity. He also played in three soccer games on Saturday and won them all! We heard that they started a girls league but the games conflict with our team meetings so I can't play.

In the past couple weeks they have begun to demolish one of the older student dormitories. They have been working 24 hours a day to clean it up. It is not uncommon to wake up at 4 in the morning and hear smashing and the bulldozers. Last week, they were dropping the glass windows out of the second story windows only to shatter a few feet away from the track where students were running.

2007-03-09T20:56:00.000+08:00

Last Sunday was the end of the Chinese New Year and it sounded like World War III outside. Any direction you looked fireworks were lighting up the sky. The whole week leading up to Sunday fireworks could be heard randomly throughout the day and night in the city. It seemed as though a lot of their fireworks were just for the noise. Some people claim that they are actually just sticks of dynamite.

One member of the team had purchased fireworks and we figured we must set them off because it becomes illegal after Sunday. So after some interesting experiences we climaxed with lighting a whole string of m80s outside one of the girls apartment windows and then we blew up a guitar. No injuries to report.

Also, I have been accepted to the University of Toledo and have been granted a deference for one year. Still waiting to hear about Cincinnati.

2007-03-04T12:32:00.000+08:00

We have now been back over a week and everything seems to be going smoothly amid the many changes to our school schedules. We started teaching on Wednesday. Our new classes and schedule have worked out really well. The Chinese have never been accused of having great planning. I learned that the only reason we went to school last week was so they could figure out schedules, classrooms and the like.

Since we've been back we have seen the sun only once because of really bad smog. Even more amazing is that in the last two days we have gotten more precipitation than in the last three months combined. This morning we awoke to a fresh coating of snow, but still no sun.

If you haven't heard yet, Emanuel was accepted to medical school at the University of Toledo and was put on a wait list at Cincinnati. This kind of leaves in the balance a little bit since Cincinnati was our first choice.

We accidentally fried our playstation because we used the wrong converter. We can't find a 125V fuse around here anywhere.

Candace's computer was on the fritz when we got back. We were really worried because it is almost essential to have a computer to teach with. Sharing one would have been really difficult after using two. Fortunately, we were able to get it fixed and are awaiting a new part from Dell. Even though Dell computers tend to break a lot, they have great customer service.

Please keep us in your thoughts as we have to make some decisions about next year in the near future. We miss you!

2007-02-26T11:00:00.000+08:00

Back in Beijing!

Well, we finally made it back to Beijing on Friday night after a longer than anticipated trip. We left my parents house on Wednesday morning at 4:15 only to discover that everything was covered in a fog that prevented us from exceeding 40 mph the whole way to the airport. We did make it in time to check in though technically we were late because we were international fliers. Shortly after going through security we boarded the airplane and were just waiting for paperwork to be signed. Right before we started rolling out, the captain informed us that the fog level had just become too bad. So we exited the plane and began our six hour delay in the terminal, much of which was spent sleeping on the floor because we did not go to sleep the night before. The delay was so long because Detroit had fog as well and had been on a total ground stop.

We arrived in Detroit well after our connecting plane was to leave. And sure enough it had left. But, because of the generosity of one airline representative we were given a hotel and $60 for meals and a ticket for the flight the next day. So, we had a nice relaxing evening Detroit. The ticket we were given for the next day was a business class ticket. This means we flew first class all the way from Detroit to through Tokyo to Beijing. I'm pretty sure we haven't experienced anything that nice before! Seats that fully recline, personal tv monitors, endless snacks, and lots of beverages were a few the wonderful amenities. Needless to say, our flight went very well.

Our trip home was wonderful. We had a great time with all our family and friends. We want to say thank you for all of your generosity and kindness. It meant a lot to us and helped us have a wonderful trip. We love all you guys.

2007-01-23T14:13:00.000+08:00

We finished teaching on the 12th. We decided along with some other people to go to the city of Harbin which is a 12 hour train ride north. It's known as little Moscow and has lots of history between China and Russia. Mostly, it is famous for its ice and snow sculptures. Buildings as high as 5 stories, ice slides, and the like. They are having their annual festival right now so we wanted to go. We bought our train tickets and left at 6 in the morning to leave. There were 7 of us so we had to take two taxis. Our taxi traversed the city and arrived at the train station with 30 minutes to spare. We soon realized that our friends had not arrived and after a phone call realized they had only made it halfway across the city. They were jumping out of the taxi in exchange for the subway. When they arrived it was too late. It was exactly at the departure time but even though the train was there, they wouldn't let us on. But, we were able to decipher the we could either get our money back or exchange our tickets for another train. We went to the ticket office and found out that we could exchange our tickets for a train that left at 10:30. But this train was different. It was an 18 hour ride. It did not have soft sleepers, nor hard sleepers, nor seats. It was a standing only 18 hour train ride! Deciding that this was a bad idea we went to McDonald's for breakfast. This is us being sad. Check out this guys ear warmers.

2007-01-20T14:09:00.000+08:00

Dear friends and family,

Sorry for the extreme delay in posting. The earthquake in Taiwan prevented us from accessing the internet at all for almost two weeks. After that we were having trouble getting the blogger page to load. We also did some traveling in that time. So I will try and give you some overviews of our activities in the last couple weeks in the next couple of days.

Back to New Year's:

We had to teach on Saturday but then we got Sunday through Wednesday off. We had a little celebration on Sunday night and watched part of a countdown on Chinese on TV that was not very good. We were able to get some sparklers for a few cents. KC made his famous eggnog. It was good, but quite thick at over 500 calories per little cup.

On Monday night we took a 12 hour train ride to the city of Xian to see the terracotta warriors. We arrived in the morning and took a bus to the site. We hired a Chinese guide for 6 dollars. There are three large pits with over 6000 soldiers all will different faces and dress. All but 1 of the soldiers had been smashed. They have spent years putting them all back together. Apparently, they had forgotten this place existed until 1976 when a farmer was digging a well. The government gave him 50 yuan and kicked him off the land. It was all outside and it was cold. After a couple hours surveying the different buildings we went back into the city. We went to a restaurant and had traditional Pow Muo which is a noodle soup that you pour over large pieces of bread that you have torn up. It was very good. After that we walked around a large Muslim section of town. Apparently, the first Mosque in China is in Xian, but we couldn't find it. Then we went and caught our train back home. 24 hours on a train and 10 hours in the city.

2006-12-28T21:09:00.000+08:00

Hello everyone,

We haven't written in awhile partly due to business, partly due to the earthquake. The earthquake in Taiwan damaged the undersea cable going to America and has greatly diminished internet abilities to all of Asia. So our internet is running super slow until they fix it or reroute it or whatever they will do. It could take a couple of weeks from what I hear.

Our first Christmas together as husband and wife as well as our first in China was a wonderful experience. On Christmas morning, several of the guys made everybody get up by at least 9:00 by pounding on doors. The guys then proceeded to make breakfast for the girls including bacon, pancakes, and eggs. I made all the bacon and it was delicious. We then turned our attention to presents. First we all emptied our stockings. Everybody got something small for everyones stocking that we hung in the hall. We got things like compasses, toothbrushes, candles, and candy. Then we all opened our big presents in order of age. I got to go first because I'm the youngest on the team. Joel was very kind and got me two sets of Bricks which are exactly like Legos. They're completely the same. One was a race car and the other an earthmover. Everybody got something good and was happy.

Next, we hung out for awhile then secluded to our rooms for a few hours. Then we went to the grocery store for some chicken for our evening feast which was great thanks to some willing cooks. We watched the Christmas Story after eating too much. Unfortunately, after this I had to work on my lesson for Tuesday.

This week we got good news and bad news. First, we get Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off for new years. Second, we have to teach on Saturday. That's how it works in China. Also, we are coming home on Jan. 24. We'll be leaving Feb. 21. Hope to see you then!

Emanuel

2006-12-20T11:37:00.000+08:00

China is endless with surprises for westerners. China runs on a system that we call organized chaos. Sometimes I really wonder how anything gets done, but then I remember that they do have over a billion people to do it with. On Monday, senior 1 class 4 (my class) hosted the first English corner of the year. It was after school and several of us foreign teachers were invited to be the experts on subjects from sports to cooking to traditional American games. So we went and stood with our students in the lobby that was around 4 degrees above the outdoor temperature which was about 34. It was cold. They don't heat the lobbies and they leave the doors open. --The reason everybody says it's so cold in China is because they don't heat their buildings as well as in America. The temp outside is the same but there is no instant warming up once inside a building-- Some of our students were walking around with guitars and music players while others were watching NBA videos. I only had one person come talk to me about sports. The only thing I really saw students doing was playing musical chairs and heads up heads down. Last year, they had English corner every week and each teacher would be surrounded with kids for two hours straight. Not sure what changed things.

Yesterday, we were volunteered to go to the Christmas party at Xi Yi ,the branch school of Fu Zhong. This was interesting because none of us teaches there and none of knew where it was. It took a good twenty minutes of going the wrong way to find it. Of course, we were the guests of honor. The acts began with 5 junior girls singing an interesting American Christmas song I had never heard of. The second act was the play "The Lion and the Mouse" and it was the most hilarious thing I have ever seen. Words can't even explain. This was followed by a girl singing a wildly popular Chinese English song that was way too low for her. Then of course it was our turn to perform. KC brought his guitar and we sung a couple of Christmas songs including helping the students act out the 12 days of Christmas. The loved it. Unfortunately, we had to leave early so we could go record our CD that we are giving to the Chinese English teachers. Then we made dinner and went to Chinese class. Then we spent an hour making a craft to go along with the CD. Then I helped Joel with scheduling for next semester till after 12.

Just another couple days in the life.

2006-12-17T16:04:00.000+08:00

Hello All

Sorry for the delay in posting but these weeks leading up to Christmas have been busy. We should have some good stuff to put up in the next few days but here's something to tide you over. By the way, thank you for all of the birthday encouragement including gifts and emails. They have been much appreciated and welcomed in this new type of holiday season.

I stumbled upon a disturbing fact in a newspaper article the other day. The topic was a conference being held to discuss air pollution in Asian cities. There is virtually no regulations on the the thousands of major cities in Asia. India and China have some of the worst as they are the largest developing nations. Here is a quote from the article regarding just how bad the air is:
"The dirtiest of the major cities, ranked by micrograms of particles of pollution dust per cubic meter, was Beijing, at 142. By comparison, Paris averages around 22 micrograms, London 24 and New York 27. The WHO guideline is 20."

This is interesting. People have told me that the Beijing air will take several years off my life, but now I believe them. We did notice that the air was bad when we first got here but now we are used to it. On the bright side of things, from what returning teachers have told us, the air has gotten better in the last couple of years. They say there are many more blue skies so far this year. China has also been planting large quantities of trees and moving factories to try and clean things up before the Olympics.

I got this from an article in the International Herald Tribune which has become my favorite newspaper. They have some great writers with a great international perspectives. It's at IHT.com.

Also, can a country just deny WWII and not be made aware of its mistake?

2006-12-09T15:12:00.000+08:00

Thanksgiving Pictures!!!!!

This is our wonderful Thanksgiving turkey flag that my mom sent us. We put it on our door and everyone loved it! It was the only turkey we saw on Thanksgiving since they don't really eat it around here. However, we had some amazing chicken brought to us by Emanuel and two other boys.

Our first Thanksgiving together...

The apple center pieces. We loved them and they made it feel like home. :)

2006-12-08T00:19:00.000+08:00

Thursday:

My first class was senior 1 class 4 at 11:25. They were pretty good, but got bored with my final edition of the enlightenment lecture. I was able to get a fair amount of students talking with reviewing the quiz and the previous lecture. I then ate lunch in the cafeteria for 5 kuai or 60 cents.

Next, I had junior 2 class 4. This is my devil class. In fact, I think the devil may have forged these children himself. I rearranged their seats this class and told them that if they did not obey me I would take them to their Chinese english teacher. I covered very little of our material.

From 4:00 - 6:00 we had office hours. The first forty-five minutes was pretty dead because many of our students were taking tests after school. The last of the time I spent with a senior 2 student teaching how to write an essay. He is taking the TOEFFL? test this weekend which is very difficult.

Coming this weekend: the Chinese theory of punishment, and why teaching juniors is hard

2006-12-06T20:47:00.000+08:00

Wednesday:

This is my easiest day because I only have one class. I had senior 1, class 3. This is my most ornery senior class. They are quite talkative because several students have very good english while most have poor english. Today, they were in a good mood. So much so that I had to talk quite loudly. They came up with some surprisingly good questions about the enlightenment. I spent the rest of the day catching up and grading and meeting with some people.

Tonight, because we worked so hard, we treated ourselves with McDonald's and an Orange Julius.

One of the struggles of all the foreign teachers is getting all of our students to speak in class. We always say emphasize speaking over teaching content, but that is much easier said than done. Some of the things I do is ask students questions about a previous lecture. Sometimes I have them read things off my power point slides. I still usually fall short of having every student speak individually during class. Hopefully, next semester I'll be able to include more activities that will involve more student interaction and less of me lecturing. Their Chinese english teachers say the in style Chinese curricula says that a teacher should speak for 10 minutes of the class and the students for 30 minutes.

2006-12-05T13:38:00.000+08:00

Tuesday:

Today at 9:25 I had Senior 1, Class 6. My lesson was on the enlightenment and I had only finished it late the night before. I was struggling with it all night. Teaching any type of philosophy to kids who speak english as their second language is difficult. I supplemented todays lesson with a journaling activity and some thoughts about their upcoming group projects. The enlightenment material did not go over well. They looked pretty dead. Overall, this class does have less character than any other of my seniors. So today is good prep and knowledge for next semester.

At 11:25 I had class 5. This class has the most character out of all my classes and probably the best spoken english as well. We always have a fun time. This morning was no exception. I handed back and reviewed their quiz from last week. We reviewed the scientific revolution and delved into the enlightenment. After some tweaks from the morning it went much better and I think they really got the material.

I went to office hours today from 4-6. Only one of my students came. He lives on campus and always comes by. Today we had good conversation for the whole two hours. After a quick dinner Candace and I had chinese class. Then I swam for 45 minutes. Then at 9:30 the team made hot chocolate and handed out cookies to all the students as they were leaving. All the students who live on campus and even some who don't are required to study from 6:30 to 9:30 every night in their classrooms. They always ask what day it is that we are celebrating. We tell them its foreign teachers love students day. We ran out of hot chocolate after 400 hundred cups. We could have gone at least another 200 hundred more. Everybody got cookies though. Good times.

2006-12-05T13:14:00.000+08:00

Here is an attempt to describe my teaching during a normal week.

Monday:

My first class was a 12:40 Junior class. Junior 2 (8th graders) Class 6 specifically. They have been routinely bad and late. Today was especially bad. After about five minutes into the lesson on free time I stopped class and implemented a new seating arrangement. Now they sit 6 people deep with a full row in between each row. This was a great move and I was able to speak only mildly loud which is far better than my normal booming voice. Of course, 3 people forgot their books so they could not participate in the activities. All in all, after the new seating they were better than they ever really had been. Previously in this class, I had to keep several after class and tell them to stop talking as well as not to use "Oh my god" or "sh**". I'm going to meet with their English teacher this week so they can be helped to remember their books and not to talk.

Next, I had a 2:20 Senior history class. Senior 1 (sophomores) class 4 (out of 16) is usually pretty good. Though on Mondays I have them right after their PE class which means they're late because they were outside and they're either hot or cold. This is also a favorite snacking time for them as well. The lesson on the scientific revolution went pretty well. They answered questions, but I always teach it better for my 4th time. They informed me that they had a singing competition after school. Of course they never know what their competitions are for. They just have them all the time. Class ended and I went down to the office.

Amazingly, Candace came to the office as well and we decided to go to the auditorium to see our kids competition. Where is the auditorium you may ask? Where else but on the 4th floor above the cafeteria. We go up and it turns out that all of Senior 1 is performing, all 16 classes, which is our classes. Randomly, some Juniors were there as well. It turns out the competition was for the young communists club I think. Of course all the kids are members. We saw one of my classes sing and another and then headed out when we realized it was going to take another two hours before another of our classes went. All the songs were about the greatness of China.

2006-12-02T13:31:00.000+08:00

Hello everyone! Thanksgiving pictures are coming soon but first I wanted to show you these pictures my sister just sent me. This is my niece and nephew,

they are so cute!!!

2006-11-30T10:08:00.000+08:00

Sorry everybody for the delay in posting. Thanksgiving among other duties have taken up a lot of time. Speaking of thanksgiving, we had a fantastic one here at Fu Zhong. Everybody from the team gathered together, 31 in all, bringing all kinds of great traditional foods. In fact, the only food missing was turkey and cranberry sauce. In place of the turkey we got 9 rotisserie chickens from the local grocery store that were amazingly good. The meal was delicious and I ate past my pain threshold so that I literally had to go lay down. Soon after the meal we had a 12 on 12 football game out on our field. Of course, the Fu Zhong team won! Then we all came inside and watched Home Alone. Celebrating thanksgiving in China is definitely an experience that will not be forgotten. We had a slideshow of pictures playing during the meal to which everybody had contributed. They were mostly of family, but a few were of things like Taco Bell. Everybody was a little homesick, but happy nonetheless to be with their China family. Pictures to come...

2006-11-22T22:21:00.000+08:00

Today has been an interesting day. My students asked me during class today to come watch some girls perform a dance routine. Since today is the coldest day of the year at 41 degrees, I said I would. So after class, I followed them out to the tennis courts wearing only my long sleeve shirt. There were only three classes competing in this competition during normal exercise time, but it was important enough to be filmed by the school photographer. Unfortunately, the sound system consisted of only a small boom box. I could barely here the words of the American boybands they were dancing to. This led me to think that since I have been in China, I have heard more American boyband songs than I ever thought existed. Everywhere you go, grocery store, market, bus, McDonald's, you are bound to hear it. If you go to a music store, you will find numerous CDs under the heading China Male Bands and American Male Bands. The girls ended up doing very well and I was able to go unfreeze my hands. Nobody is ever sure why they have these competitions, not even the girls. They are somewhat reminiscent of middle school cheerleading routines. The rest of the day was spent getting ready for Thanksgiving and buying scarves for the homeless.

2006-11-21T10:27:00.000+08:00

Emanuel automatically goes into Cheesy smile if I take more than two pictures of him.

His hair ...it's getting long. Sometimes when it lays just right, it looks like he has a huge uni-brow.

It was the first day he busted out the nice dress pants, shirt, and tie, so I thought I would capture it on film.

Random story, so our Chinese teacher gave us an assignment to write her an e-mail using all characters and to make sure it had more than 50. We had to download a program into Word, so that when you type the sounds of the words (the pinyin, if you know what that is) then the characters pop up. Since we don't know characters and there are a million words for one sound, we had no idea if we translated it correctly. Later, I found a program that translates Chinese characters back to English and we found out the Emanuel called our teacher a duckweed. I hope that isn't a big insult here!

2006-11-20T23:05:00.000+08:00

SUCCESS!

We were able to watch the Ohio State game all the way through without hearing the results. Great game. This last week our school was watering the grass. This led me to muse upon Chinese lawn care methods. The Chinese have little lawn to take care so their experience is limited. The grass that does exist is usually watered by a large tanker truck with a firehose. Most of the time its overwatered. Sprinklers are extremely rare, though our school does have one and apperently they felt the need to use it last week when it was in the lower 50s and mid Novermber. Cutting the grass is also somewhat odd. They usually wait until the grass is a good 6 or 7 inches long. They have a self-propelled push mower with a bag, so they have to empty it after every two swaths. Also, because grass is so rare, you are never aloud to stand on it. Which to me, defeats the purpose.

2006-11-13T16:18:00.000+08:00

Today, I divided my students into groups and gave them 25 minutes to come up with their own olympic sport. It had to have a name, equipment, how to play/rules, number of players, and of course how to win. Last, they had to present their newly created sport to the class. These were a few of the sports they came up with....

Snakehunter - Six people (three on each team) get guns and tons of snakes are released (snakes without teeth, they were sure to tell me, without teeth) and whoever can kill the most snakes wins.

Jalem (the first letter of each group member's name) You take a soccer field and dig several holes in the field and then try and kick the ball into the holes. The least amount of attempts the better the score - so a soccer and golf combo - sounds fun!

One game the players all rode in Jeeps and you had to try and get through a confined area without getting hit by the oxen. ....and yes, they went with oxen.

Another group I couldn't quite understand the entire concept but I know is contained a boat, a bull, and a bow and arrow. Let your mind take off with that one!

Anyway, they're pretty creative!

2006-11-13T11:37:00.000+08:00

Emanuel forgot to tell you about the picture of us (just below) with the two trees in the background. They are called the "lover trees" because they were grafted together a cypress tree and a pine tree to become one strong tree. The lady who took the picture cut off the top of the tree so you can't really see it. After the picture, I went on the explain to Emanuel how it was symbolic of our relationship, I have deep roots and am strong like a cypress tree and he well, well, he's poky like a pine. hahaha ...One of the reasons we are so perfect together is because we are both corny as can be. :)

2006-11-12T13:19:00.000+08:00

This past week was something of an adventure. We were supposed to teach on Monday and Tuesday and then have Wednesday through Friday off for the students' midterms. As it turned out, the Chinese teachers took over our classes and we didn't have to teach at all this week. The Chinese teachers aren't technically allowed to take our classes, but they always want more teaching time before exams, so it happens. With our time off we went to several places.
First, we went to the Temple of Heaven. It's a large park with trees and a giant temple with surrounding buildings. This is most likely the building you would see on advertisements and pictures talking about China. It is very beautiful, especially because they just finished repainting it all in preparation for the olympics. The emperor would visit the temple once a year and pray to the god of heaven and ask forgiveness for his people and for a "bumper" crop in the coming year. There is also a large platform from which the emperor could yell directly into heaven.

Second, we visited the Forbidden City. The city has over 800 buildings and over 8000 rooms. So it takes awhile to walk through. It includes 17 different palaces where different emperors, emperoresses, and concubines lived. Unfortunately, work was being done on several of the main buildings in preparations for the olympics. We had little earpiece devices that would inform us of the history of each section. Almost too much history to digest in one setting.

Third, we visited the famed pearl market. While we were there we visited the pearl shop that Bill Clinton, Condi Rice, and Colin Powell shop at. We picked out a nice string of pearls, not too big, that were listed at 423,000 yuan. The saleslady said she would give them to us for 10,500 US dollars. We left this floor and went to the floor below where you can get them much cheaper.
Lastly, we did some shopping and got Candace a winter coat, scarf, and gloves. I got a hat.
Here are some pics:

Two Trees Grown Together

Forbidden City

Temple of Heaven with KC and Megan

Entrance to Temple of Heaven

2006-11-02T19:13:00.000+08:00

This week in Beijing is the China-Africa Summitt. Lots of African diplomats have flown in along with many Chinese government officials from all over the country. Like everything in China, it has become a big deal. In recent years China has spent billions of dollars in Africa mostly in the oil business. Because of the event, our school day has been cut two periods short for Thursday, Friday, and Monday. The reason: traffic. Beijing hopes that by sending all the students home early they can alleviate the major traffic jams and make the city look very nice for the Africans. Our schedules have been changed ridiculously already because of midterms and they seem to be in a continual state of change. It is common to have teachers ask for our class periods so they can have more time to study for upcoming tests or for special events to cancel our classes all together. Finding out when the changes will happen is the adventure. Usually, we can believe the opposite of what our main school contact says, about half of what the teachers say, and about three quarters of what our students say. So remains the long standing rule of China, "be flexible."

2006-11-01T12:01:00.000+08:00

Last week was our Halloween party for our students. On Tuesday, we had a party for all of the senior students and Thursday for the junior students. Everybody was required to come up with a game so the kids could win candy. We had a soccer shooting contest where the kids would shoot at a big target we had taped on a fence. Other games included paper airplane throwing, ping pong ball toss, soccer bowling, face painting, a cookie walk, and a pinata. It was a lot of fun and we got to hand out a lot of candy. We also carved pumpkins with help of some students. They absolutely loved it. The pumpkins here are not as good; they are flatter and not as orange. We had a couple hundred senior students and probably at least four hundred junior students. Good times were had by all, though it made for a very busy week. Here are some of our students and the pumkin Emanuel and KC carved.

2006-10-25T15:32:00.000+08:00

Last saturday was our team activity. So to celebrate the upcoming holiday we all went costume bowling. True to form, I bowled horribly and Candace beat me. The high score of the night went to Katie who bowled a 209. Of course, she had only bowled a couple of times in her life. Much fun was had, probably due to the homemade apple cider and pumpkin shaped cookies. Candace even won "best costume" for the girls. Fall is probably one of the things we miss most about home. We don't get to see the changing colors of the trees, there are no bonfires, marshmallows, or football games. Anyways here are some pics:

Candace as a gangsta
Gangsta with David Beckham
The whole team

2006-10-19T15:05:00.000+08:00

"Traditional" fast food in China

Fast food in China is overall subpar because of one reason; Taco Bell does not exist. I have heard rumor that there is one in Shanghai. It might be worth trip... Outside of this, things are pretty good. KFC is very popular can be found regularly. It is on the expensive side of Chinese food, especially for the amount that you get. The chicken isn't quite as good as in the states but the coleslaw isn't bad. Pizzahut is a nice sit down restaurant here. It is the closest to American pizza we have found. But, it would be no less than 80 yuan ($10) so it is very expensive. The cheese and pepperoni aren't quite the same. McDonald's is pretty true to form. We often see people order fries and a cup of corn. But one of the greatest things in China is that a double cheeseburger meal costs 16 yuan ($2.00). Whenever you feel down and miss home, Micky D's only a five minute walk.

The biggest difference between America and China...................NO MOUNTAIN DEW! A select few import stores claim to have it but everytime we have been they are sold out. AHHH

2006-10-19T14:34:00.000+08:00

Our trip ended at the Three Gorges Dam which is now damming the world's third longest river. This is the biggest dam in the world surpassing number two by a factor of double the concrete. The generators in this dam, once fully functional, will produce the power equivalent to 15-18 nuclear powerplants. The dam will also prevent the disasterous flooding that occurs on the Yanghtze river every year. While this dam might seem like a brilliant idea there are several downsides. Thus far, over 1.6 million people have been displaced from their homes that are now underwater. Several species of fish are expected to go extinct such as the Yanghtze sturgeon and the Yanghtze fresh water dolphin. Also, the sedimentation build up in 4oo mile long resevoir could become a problem as well as the fact that it is built on a fault line. There is lots of discussion to be had.

Unfortunately, it was rainy on the day we visited. But, we could still grasp the immense structure that it is. Here are some pics:

2006-10-13T09:33:00.000+08:00

Traveling in the three smaller gorges was my favorite part of the trip. We got out of the big boat and moved into the small wooden boats. We had a guide who sang to us and apparently was really funny because all the Chinese tourists were laughing the whole time. It was so beautiful and the water was a lot cleaner. Okay maybe not cleaner, but at least greener.

2006-10-13T09:19:00.000+08:00

The three gorges were beautiful. All along the river there were signs showing how high the water still had to rise. The Yangtze river will rise 170 meters by the time the greatest dam in the world is built. The rise in water will completely submerge many homes and little islands like the one in the picture. On the other hand, the dam will give electricty to half of China.

2006-10-13T09:05:00.000+08:00

This a picture of the tower we climbed up. This is what we ate almost the entire week (PB and J of some form) , see how excited we are about that? Last, is the entrance to the odd and halfway sadistic ghost city.

2006-10-13T08:47:00.000+08:00

These are a few pictures from our trip...This is in Chongqing on the first day of our trip. I jumped into a carriage for a quick picture, not expecting 20 Chinese tourists to grab their camera and take pictures of me.
This was a beautiful pagoda and waterfall in the middle of the city. We would never have found it if we didn't have our two Chinese friends take us around. (...and by Chinese friends, I mean two locals saw us wandering around aimlessly and asked if they could show us around)
At the beginning of the day we were told at the travel agency that we just had to go to this tower and it was the tallest in the city and that it was incredible. The taxi dropped us off and we saw this tiny tower surrounded by skyscrapers. We were fairly unimpressed with the tower but the area was kinda like timesquare of Chongqing so it was fun to explore anyway.

2006-10-10T20:36:00.000+08:00

This past week was October first holiday (Chinese National Day) and had the week off. Eight of us, Mark, Kevin, Joel, Katie, Megan, KC, Candace and I flew down south to the city of Chongqing hoping to find a way down the Yangtze river. This is the largest city in China with over 30 million people. We left monday evening and arrived at the airport and after some bargaining we were able to procure a boat on which to take our trip. We were able to score a free van with the company to our hotel that had been previously arranged. The hotel was three stars and fairly nice for a very good price - about eight dollars apiece.

We spent most of Tuesday exploring Chongqing. A nice young girl and her father acted as our tour guides for awhile. We saw some temples and a famous cave. About six o'clock we headed for our boat. The boat was seaworthy enough, a river boat that carried around three hundred people. Our third class rooms each had six bunks, a small tv, and a bathroom with a squatty potty with a showerhead directly over it. Our rooms did have a distinct odor.

We left Tuesday night headed down the Yellow river, and it was yellow. We finally got to sleep after we realized that the floorboard above us was broken and not just 10 kids jumping up and down as hard as they could. We awoke Wednesday morning at 6:30 and got off the boat to exlpore the Ghost City of Fengdu. The temple on the mountain was very nice and we climbed to the top of a seven story tower. The otherside of the city was very disturbing. They had an exhibit that was supposed to be a type of hell. It was all models of naked women being sawn in two, having their tongues pulled out, our being tortured in other ways. There was also a giant buddha built into the ground. We got back on the boat around nine and took a nap.

2006-10-01T14:29:00.000+08:00

Our marching uniforms!

Opening ceremonies for sports day

The whole band

2006-10-01T10:17:00.000+08:00

This is China:

Yesterday we went to a party at another school that our school owns. We thought it would just be some food, music, and maybe some entertainment. Of course we knew we were wrong when we got on the bus with the dance team. The school is a school for jocks. All the boys are soccer players and several of them are on the junior olympic team. One of our teammates teaches there twice a week. He says their school is much more lax than ours. They only thing they care about is soccer. Amongst the hundreds of boys at this school are eight girls who are there because they are chess players.

We arrived at the school and were ushered to a very nice buffet of all sorts of good food. After eating we wondered outside and found our seats for what was turning out to be a show. We soon found out that we were supposed to perform in the show and that we were number five of fourteen acts. Joel told them that we didn't have anything, seeing as they had just told us now. But, they then they became persistent. Luckily, Mark was in the performing mood so he got up and sang Build Me Up Buttercup -- all the verses -- accappella, with a key change. That was interesting and went over well enough. The other acts included boys singing pop songs and dancers and Beijing opera, which sounds like dying cats. After the acts were completed, it turned into a large dance party with nobody really dancing. Then they started the lighting of some very precarious looking fireworks. It was an experience and yet another one of those events we were invited to because Chinese think that a party isn't complete without some foreigners. So let me warn you if you come to China and are asked to go to any kind of event, you will be asked to perform on the spot.

The day before this we performed in the opening ceremonies of our school's sports day. The administration told us to surprise them which is code for make the foreign teachers do something funny so we can laugh at them. So true to order we all dressed up wearing flags from all over the world and created our own drum line of sorts. Several of us had water jugs, others had pots and pans and others trash cans. We actually marched around the track playing a cadence. The kids enjoyed it at least.

2006-09-24T09:31:00.000+08:00

Exercises - Every morning at 10:05 the students go out on the soccer field to do their morning exercises. It's a 10-15 minute routine on a pre-recorded tape with this music that we are starting to get down pretty well by this point. The routine isn't very physically demanding but it is hard to remember. It doesn't just repeat itself, it has new motions almost the entire time. The new students have to practice on the basketball courts and after school for a month. When they get it down then they can go over to the soccer field with everyone else.
It's pretty fun to watch 4,000 students perform these exercises together and stay in perfectly straight lines.

2006-09-24T09:05:00.000+08:00

Holding Hands

Everyone here holds each other's hands... Everyone! This includes kids and adults, males and females. The teachers walk around everywhere holding hands. The junior high girls and boys hold hands all the time, never boy and girl (that's not allowed of course) but girls and girls and boys and boys, you definitely wouldn't see that in the States. The other day I saw a high school boy holding his father's hand crossing the intersection. It was great.

2006-09-21T22:29:00.000+08:00

For two days all of the students were outside selling books, posters, and magazines. At first we thought they were just selling their own books to make some extra money but we found out later on that each class was raising money to give to an orphanage and for kids who don't have enough money to go to school.

The kids are born saleman, they brought signs, hung their posters anywhere they could find

room, and waived their books and yelled to get the attention of any buyer within a 40 yard radius. They are so good that somehow we ended up buying two books that are in all Chinese, a poster of some basketball player I don't even know, and several other random things.

These are some of the boys in my class, they were waving their books wildly. I bought one book that is in all Chinese just because one of my students, (which know's hardly a word of English and has trouble keeping up) stepped out in front of me and yelled, "TEACHER, BOOK!!!" It was the most English I had heard him use yet, so I bought it!

They lay out all the books on the street on old newspaper and stand behind them and try to bargain with you. One boy told me, if I bought his book, I would get a free poster! They are so funny.

This is Chi Wenz Flower Golden Dream Really, we call her Chi Wenz for short. She knew every foreign teacher's name within the first few days we were here. She comes into the office everyday to talk with us. She also is the one who started many of the students calling us, "Mr. and Mrs. Dolphin." I would say about half my students call me that. It is easier for them to remember, so we just went with it. Chi Wenz is very intense/energetic. In this picture she is telling us "buy book or your life!" Later, she shortened it to, "buy or die!" Unfortunately, by the time we saw her, Emanuel and I were both out of money. Needless to say, she wasn't very happy.

2006-09-20T23:01:00.000+08:00

Oddities of China:

Our school (Ren Da Fu Zhong) considers itself to be a worldclass high school. They are always having important people visit and are always giving tours. In fact, for the last two weeks a group of German students have been here attending classes. They can't speak Chinese and their English is poor yet they go to both types of classes. While our school is one of the best schools in China we unfortunately have to tell the students that we had never heard of it in the states. Going to this world class school does have its perks though. They are very kind to their teachers. In the past couple of weeks we have received, each person, 12 rolls of toilet paper, 3 boxes of tissues, 4 liters of walnut juice, both sweetened and unsweetened, and 4 liters of ultra pasteurized whole milk guaranteed to last at least six months. These things come randomly and when they do they tell us to go to a room on the back side of a building that it is full of all kinds of mysteries. But, some of the real perks are getting to teach some of the smartest kids in all of China whom we have come to love very much.

2006-09-13T15:59:00.000+08:00

This is a picture taken out of our hall window. It has been a beautiful week here, blue sky everyday! The returners say that it is extremely rare to see blue sky twice in one week, so we are counting our blessings! We even saw a few stars the other night.

2006-09-13T15:43:00.000+08:00

We began our first full week of classes this week and it has been crazy! The first class we share about ourselves, our families, where we are from, etc. Then we pass out notecards and ask them to fill them out. In the first and second blanks we ask the students to write their Chinese name and then their English name. They get to pick their own English name, these are a few of our students...

Hero Tony
Your Majesty
Chi Wenz Flower Golden Dream Really
Falcon
Clarvoyance
Echo
Windows XP
Watermelon
Stone
Queen Bee
Superman
Your Highness
Zero

There are also about 10 Tom's in each class. We just call them Tom 1, Tom 2, Tom 3......
I was putting together a seating chart and my goal was to sit them boy, girl, boy, girl, to keep the talking to a minimum, I thought I did a good job until I got to class and had a Kim and a Kate who were both boys!!!! About half of Emanuel's boys are named after the Manchester United soccer team. It has been an interesting week to say the least but we love the students and are excited to get to know them better!

2006-09-09T15:39:00.000+08:00

Some more observations:

1. Food- two days ago in the cafeteria i selected a dish that looked like meat and potatos. After eating several of the potatos and some odd meat stuff, I realized that it was various parts of a whole chicken including the head, a leg with the bone, intestine, and liver I think. Crunchy peanut butter here has crisped rice for the crunchy instead of peanuts. Snickers are 30 cents.

2. The grocery store - Grocery stores employ 9,000 people at one time. There is literally at least one employee on every aisle doing nothing. They also have people who yell at you. Dairy products, coffee, and items on sale are made known by people who yell at you and everybody else. Sometimes they have people yelling for competing brands. Unfortunately, I can't understand what they are saying, fortunately I can tell them I don't want it. The last time we were at the grocery store in the meat section which is interesting in itself, a girl let one of the crabs go and it was scampering all over the store. She was trying to hold it down with a pen and grab it, but she was too afraid of getting pinched by its claw. Comical to say the least.

3. Our team- We have a great team of people and we love them greatly. There are definitely some quirky and dorky elements so I guess we fit in well.

4. Teaching - Teaching junior high students for 4 periods straight is very tiring. This is especially so since we teach the worst of the class which means their english is poor. Sometimes it's really hard to keep control when they have no idea what you are saying. But, generally the kids are good and happy to be there. Chinese junior highers are the same as American junior highers, playful, arrogent and roudy. We are looking forward to getting our senior high students this week.

5. Weather has been fantastic. 70's - 80's with lots of clear days. We had a rare lightning storm a couple of nights ago. Apparently it only happens a couple times a year if that. It did get cool today.

2006-09-03T16:30:00.000+08:00

Some observations of Beijing:

1. It is very smoggy and overcast most of the time. We measure the days by the number of towers we can see. Grey skies are the norm. They spray silver nitrate into the clouds to cause rain. It often looks like rain but never really happens.

2. We rode the subway and bus for the first time yesterday. Sardines would be an accurate discription for the rides. They have a much smaller personal space. This is obviously due to the fact that people are everywhere. Lots of them.

3. It is not wrong to stare, so they do stare at us a lot. It is not that bad in Beijing, but once outside of the city people are asking to take pictures with you.

4. The food is extremely good. All sorts of different types from around the country. We can eat good food in our cafeteria and for a meal that will more than fill me up with a coke costs 1.25 american.

2006-08-30T18:31:00.000+08:00

Greetings!

We have been experiencing China for the past week in many different ways. We will have much to talk about soon. Today, however, was our trip to the Great Wall. There are over 4,000 miles including all the branches old and new. Much of it is up and down steep mountains. At the place we got on, we climbed to the highest tower which took over an hour up many, many, many steps. We were completely soaked with sweat by the top, though we did make it up before anyone else! But, we still decided not to run the Great Wall Marathon. Here are some pictures...

2006-08-26T09:27:00.000+08:00

We loved our honeymoon, we got back late Thursday night and we were leaving for China on Monday morning. It was crazy busy the second we got back. We are now in China, the flight was 13 hours long. It has been an amazing week here. So.... China pictures are coming soon!!!!

2006-08-26T09:17:00.000+08:00

Emanuel and I love to go putt-putting. I won on one of our first dates so I always think I can beat him again, however, he has beat me the 14 million times since then. Here's his cheesy smile after he won again. I'm blaming it on the 100 degree weather and that he can handle heat better than I can :)

2006-08-26T09:10:00.000+08:00

The skycoaster, it was ridiculously high. It's basically a gigantic swing that you fall three hundred feet in like 4 seconds and then swing back and forth. It was amazing! I screamed my head off, while Emanuel was yelling that he had to go skydiving afterwards! Needless to say we live to tell about it!

2006-08-26T08:55:00.000+08:00

Disney World!!! We loved this barber shop quartet so we stayed and listened to them for awhile. Here we are in front of the castle, they shoot off fireworks every night. We just got the camera so we don't have many pictures because we aren't used to using it!

2006-08-26T08:48:00.000+08:00

August 12, 2006
We got married!! Can you tell we are happy??

2006-08-26T08:43:00.000+08:00

Family!!!

We are so blessed to have such wonderful families, we love you all!!

2006-08-26T08:36:00.000+08:00

FAMILY!!!!

Here are some pictures with our moms and then all the girls chatting away