So, remember how I was PERFORMING IN CHINA…in case you
missed the last post I went and PERFORMED IN CHINA. I was pretty excited, did
you pick up on that? I PERFORMED IN CHINA. Kind of exciting.
We got picked up in Zhongshan (our school) right after we
were done teaching on Friday. I managed to eat real quick at the cafeteria and
hurried to grab my bag to catch the van driving us. From our school we had Max,
Jace, Laurissa, Ashley, Aly, Katy, Darci and I. We then went to the other
school and picked up Heidi, Karissa, Micah, Justine, Savannah, Ashley, and a
couple other girls. We then took a 40 minute train ride in first class seats,
they were pretty nice. Then we took a 3 hour train ride in regular seats. It
was pretty fun. We arrived in Changsha and they took us to dinner and the food
was SPICY! We didn’t really know what we were eating. I was just trying a
little bit of everything. I ended up eating frog without even realizing…it was
interesting. There was all kinds of fun things to try. We ended up eating there
for all our lunches and dinners while we were there (breakfast was at the
hotel). My favorite food from there were these little sweet potato things that
were super good with these meatball things. I loved it so much. Everyone else
did too. They were gone so fast every time! I also tried duck and pig
feet/knees/legs/something(not exactly sure what). Overall I liked the food.
Saturday morning we went to the place we were performing. It
was a really fancy place with all this nice architecture, fountains and stuff.
They had us walk around outside while these 2 chinese people with nice cameras
took pictures of us. It was so fun. We would just walk around all casual like
trying not to seem like we were posing but totally posing the whole time… and
they would follow us and take our picture. I felt famous! Haha, it was super
fun! Then we went to lunch.
We came back and while we were waiting for it to start we
would play with the kids and stuff. Then the show started. First we did the
cupid shuffle with all the teachers. Then it was our shining moment where we
performed My Heart Will Go On. Even though none of us are ballerinas we all
totally acted like we were legit. We did our rapping in the middle. And when we
lifted Jace in the air they started clapping. It was great! The whole thing was
kinda a joke. But we acted serious the whole time too. And they didn’t laugh.
So basically, we were real ballerinas. It was great! Between acts there was
speeches and games that we helped with. Oh I forgot to mention, these whole
thing was for the opening of a new Bond school (Bond is the school that we
teach at, there are about 7 of them). Max did the Cha Cha with 3 girls from the
other school (Justine, Micah, and Karissa) and that was really fun to watch.
The twins Aly and Katy played a song on my ukulele. The other school did a skit
and a song.
I think they have another performance thing in October and I
really want to go to that one too! But they only let 8 teachers go this time
and there are 15 of us so I wonder if they will let the other teachers go next
time. But…they might not want to…so maybe I could go again!
Saturday night they took us to see some fireworks. We were
suppose to ride taxis but none were coming by so we took a bus. Something you
have to understand about China is that they drive CRAZY! Imagine the craziest
driver ever and then times by 60 then take that number and double it and that’s
about how crazy they are. They’ll drive on the wrong side against traffic so
you feel like you’re playing chicken. People just cross wherever they want
despite the traffic that is going on all around them. It was quite the
experience…I kind of loved it. But anyways back to my story, we were riding the
bus to the fireworks and everyone got off and crossed the street but there were
a couple of us that got off last because we were in the back and right when we
got off a bus pulled in front blocking the way to the sidewalk and the bus
closed the doors and started moving forward so there we were between 2 lanes of
moving traffic being the calm cool Americans that we are we huddled together and
screamed. It was tender. We eventually made it across the street. There we so
many people! We had to keep close to avoid losing each other. The fireworks
were pretty cool. They do them every Saturday. Someone told me that they are
the providence that manufactures fireworks. Plus it’s China! They invented
fireworks!
So our hotel rooms were quite interesting. We think maybe
they were the honeymoon suites or something? You walk in the room and there are
the beds but instead of a wall between the bathroom and the wall there is a
window. So you can see the shower and the bathroom. Kinda awkward. Luckily
there was a shower curtain that you could use to close it off, but still. It
was a little weird.
While we were walking back from dinner the first night we
stopped because our coordinators were getting fruit and some people in our
group were getting ice creams. Laurissa, Ashley, Darci and I started playing
the mirror dancing game where one person does a dance move and everyone else
follows. Usually you just play with 2 people but we were playing with 4 standing
in a circle, it was way fun. One of the times it was my turn I did this dance
move where I jumped and faced the back and come to face to face with some Chinese
person recording us on his phone. It was funny. We noticed some others taking
pictures. I feel kind of famous here. I kind of like it. I think its fun for
here. I wouldn’t want to really be famous. But sometimes it fun to pretend that
you are.
I loved the train rides! It felt like I was going to
Hogwarts! We would just pass lots of trees and on the first train there were 4
seats facing each other 2 on each side, almost like their own little
compartment. Then on the 2nd train the trolley lady passed by
selling food. Laurissa and I lamented that there were no chocolate frogs that
we could buy. The scenery we passed was just absolutely beautiful. But I’m glad
it was a relatively short train ride (we rode a fast train, there are also slow
trains that are cheaper). Our train ride to Beijing will be over 24 hours…that’s
a long time to be on a train. That’s in 2 weeks, super excited!
On the way back while we were waiting for our next train
home I had to pee really bad, bad enough that I was willing to use a squatter. I
have successfully avoided it thus far. But that time of bliss had come to the
end. It was…interesting. I think I want to try a few more to compare. For being
squatters they were pretty modernized. There was flush and there were sinks and soap. But no toilet
paper. You just squat down and pee. Not much to it. Hey, when in China…do as
the Asians.
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