Devin In China!

Chinese Clubs

2009-09-18T20:20:00.000-07:00

Okay I had a few more club experiences, and I remember them this time!

Chinese beers are big. We started the night at this really cool BBQ place which sells 3 of these massive beers for 10 RMB... that works out to about 50cents per beer.

Did I mention their huge!?

As Matt and I were drinking at the BBQ we were invited to a table with a bunch of really cool chinese guys. They were incredibly friendly people and shared some of their food with us.

Drinking with Chinese people is pretty extreme because at any point anyone can yell Gombi! and everyone at the table has to down the rest of their drink. Luckily we drink out of small glasses and not out of the bottles themselves so its possible, but the chinese will never let your glass get more than half empty before they fill it up for you!

Good guys.

After that we went to a club called V-Mix. It was pretty packed for a Wednesday night!

At this place there is a huge stage with performers playing songs and dancing around all night, its a cool atmosphere!

Our Austrailian friend and fellow teacher Taryn showed up for some fun!

Silly hats only.

All the bars and clubs I've been to have been set up with this dice game on every table.

Its a great drinking game where you call out how many of each dice you think are in play.

The number must get bigger and bigger as you go around the table, whenever you want you call "Bullshit!" and everyone must show their dice. Either the person who called BS drinks or if he was right everyone else drinks. It's great to play with chinese women as you can use hand signals for the numbers, no Chinese language needed!

The other teacher Matt and I bust a sweet pose for the camera.

Oh yes.

The washrooms in this club are... to put it lightly... a little strange.

You wizz into a long troft... and then as your taking a pee a Chinese staff dude comes from behind you and puts a hot towel on your neck, and starts giving you a back massage.

Ya, im not lieing.

Then he does this crazy thing where he cracks your neck to both sides, its ridiculous.

So... I felt a little violated.... but its all part of the chinese experience... right?.... right!?!?

haha

This V-Mix place has 4 floors in it, and on the 4th floor is a sweet dance floor.

This cool chinese chick Xiao and I went up to dance our faces off for hours.

At one point on the dance floor things got crazy! I was challenged to a dance off by 2 chinese guys!

It was like in a movie and everyone made a circle around us and we took turns busting out crazy dance moves. No ones a loser in a dance off but I mean... if I had to pick, I'd say I dominated :D I mean who can compete with a guy who breaks out the sprinkler?

The rest of the night involed a lot of awesomeness and I had a great time overall.

If I had to rate the experience I'd say its about 8 times more fun than a club in Toronto!

...and the Chinese women at the clubs are great!

Chaos on the streets - update

2009-09-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

So I talked to my friend Angela a couple days later and she saw the event on the news, she was able to clear up a few things.

What happened was as the bus was driving towards the bridge its engine caught on fire. Somehow this fire also disabled the bus's brakes so it was driving out of control. (Think the movie speed)

The nearest police officer to the bus heard about this and then about halfway up the bridge he rammed himself into the from of the bus to stop its motion. Ramming the bus here must have created the fire on the bridge.

The police officer was then sent backwards on the bridge away from the fire and the bus after loosing most of its momentum must have slowly coasted down the small incline to get to the bottom of the bridge.

When this happened the passengers managed to get off the bus safetly before it really went up in flames. No one was killed!

Quite a crazy chain of events!

Chaos on the streets

2009-09-18T19:09:00.000-07:00

With our school we have Monday and Tuesdays off, so Sunday night we usually take the bus down to Foshan to hang out with the whole crew.

Since there was 3 of us together and we were a little tired/lazy from all the teaching we decided we’d take a peaceful hour long taxi ride instead of doing the bus thing. So we were all a little sleepy on the ride, and were just chilling out about to cross a bridge… when chaos broke out in the streets!

First we hit a deadlock traffic jam, then people began getting out of their cars and wandering forward. We looked over the top of the bridge, and saw massive clouds of dark grey smoke bellowing into the air. We took turns guessing what it was, from the amount of smoke I thought a small factory had gone up in flames.

A few emergency vehicles tried to get through but due to the craziness of Chinas traffic it was impossible, there were also a bunch of scooters trying to squeeze past the fire truck as it was trying to make its way through traffic with its sirens blaring… only in china.

Since traffic was at a standstill a bunch of people got out of their vehicles to take a closer look, it was really quite the spectacle. Eventually the smoke slowed and the traffic started moving again. Some people had apparently wandered too far from their cars and desperately tried to avoid getting run over as they made it back to them still sitting in their lanes. When we got past the halfway part of the bridge we saw that one lane was on fire a bit, as if a few lines of gasoline had been ignited. It was strange because I didn’t notice any wreckage near it. (At this moment Matt who had the best view of things was fired from being my camera man as he missed a shot of the fire in a panic) about 30 feet further up in another lane was a cop car who had its front smashed in, but we couldn’t see what or who it hit. Later after the end of the bridge maybe 100 meters away from the cop car was the source of the fire. (At this point the thick black smoke was gone and a little white smoke remained)

It was a large bus which appeared to have exploded into a huge fireball. By the time we had got to it the firemen were finally putting out the last of the flames, but the thing was a complete wreck. I didn’t have a chance to check out any news sources in the while following it, so I'm not sure if it exploded in motion killing people or if it broke down then caught on fire. All I know is that I never thought a bus could cause so much smoke or look so destroyed! The following picture does not do it justice!

I'm also still totally confused about the smashed cop car on the bridge so far away, and the fire on the road even further than that.

The three of us were also aware that if we hadn’t of taken a cab this time, we could have very well been on that bus!

First Day Of Class

2009-09-18T19:08:00.002-07:00

I'm officially an English teacher!

Nice.

I had my first classes today, and it was pretty intense, I had 4 classes today (by far my busiest day of the week) and the ages ranged from about 5-13. Each class was a different skill level and I had a different lesson prepared for each. My lessons had a lot of games and were a lot of fun, but I also ran into some snags and learned a lot.

There was a little rumor in my teacher training back in Canada that Asian children are the most nice, well behaved, calm, reserved and obedient children to teach. While that is probably true in the government schools, the after school English only classrooms like mine are a far more casual environment, and the kids go crazy!

It’s hard to blame the kids as they had to be polite and sit through a day of real school before coming to English classes at nights or on weekends, and most of the time we encourage the kids to be up and running around while they are playing the vocabulary games, but when it’s time for them to sit down and chill for a minute it’s hard to get some of them under control. My classes went pretty good considering it was my first ever time teaching, but at one point I had one student hit another and make him cry, had them run past me and get into the toy box, and overall it was just super hard to get them to quiet down between activities. I talked to the other more experienced teachers and got some pointers on ways to keep them in check while still making sure everyone is having an awesome time and learning a lot.

The next day I had 2 more classes and they went much much better. My first class was with slightly older 8-12 year old kids and the lesson went flawlessly and I really saw some progress with the kids in what I was teaching them. My games were also super awesome and the kids loved them. I don’t think it will be long until I have the hang of it with all my classes.

The craziest thing

2009-09-18T19:08:00.001-07:00

If I had to pick the one craziest thing about china, it would absolutely be the driving.

The roads where I am are absolutely insane. It’s complete madness.

I don’t care how long you’ve been driving in Canada, and how many people cut you off, how many close calls you’ve had , how many stupid maneuvers you’ve seen other drivers do, or how reckless people are… I’d be willing to bet that in one day of driving in China I’ve seen more crazyness than the entire cultivation of a lifetime of driving in Canada.

In china driving is all about inches. People come within inches of serious injury every few minutes all the time. It’s really hard to describe the driving because there’s nothing I can relate it to. Imagine 3 lanes of traffic pulling U-Turns into 1 lane of traffic while there are two lanes of cars coming… that’s like completely normal. There’s never enough space for the cars to fit so people just squeeze and slam on their brakes and honk and somehow within inches manage to keep going.

It really seems like when the Chinese drive they only look forward and they do whatever they can to keep from needing to slow down. If there is any opening in the forward direction they will go for it, even if it means pulling into your lane as your driving next to them. When this happens you just honk at them and they stop coming over… it’s almost like… don’t bother looking just change lanes whenever you like then if someone honks at you get back into your lane. I think horn are a complete necessity to get from point A to B safely here. The large number of scooters doesn’t help either as they tend to fill up any small holes that would be left by normal driving.

There’s also no right of way for people on the streets. When you cross the road you have to make SURE there is no cars coming or turning where you’re going to walk. Even a stopped car will start driving as you’re walking in front of it, they just don’t care.

There’s so many accidents here every day, and the people riding the bikes don’t usually fare so well. I’ve heard a few stories about dead bikers that were pretty graphic. I even saw one biker the other day with 5-6 propane tanks strapped to his bike… imagine the explosion if you ran into him!

The best part about all this crazy driving is that the Chinese drivers are always completely unphased by it all. They seem pretty emotionless, as they drive. I’ve watched drivers slam on the brakes and hit the horn as someone turned in front of us without even as much as a frown. I guess it’s just so normal to them they don’t let it stress them out.

Oh and… to top it off, there’s a stipulation here that people who wear their seatbelts are “Obedient Citizens” that just do what their told. I’ll take the criticism with a smile.

Beggars!

2009-09-18T19:07:00.002-07:00

In my last post I said that no one treats me in a negative way because I'm a foreigner but there’s one exception! The Beggars!

Deeehy Tooouuk Ouurrrr Jeeeooobsss!

The homeless people in Toronto have nothing on the people who ask for change in China. In Toronto the beggars usually sit on the side of the road in a busy place with a cup or a sign and just ask if you can spare some change as people walk by. If not they leave you alone and sometimes even say “god bless you”… how nice. The ones in china are a little more pushy, especially for us foreigners… First of all the don’t wait for people to walk buy them, they actively seek you out. They run around to each person get right up in your face to ask for change. If the other Chinese people say no they usually try to talk them into it for a second but then they move on. But for us foreigners they never ever ever ever give up!

On multiple occasions I’ve had them march up to me and point at their cups and ask for money in Chinese, over and over and over and over. No matter how much you say no to them they just don’t stop, and it sucks cause you also have no idea what they are saying and they go on and on. Then after about 5 minutes of that when you ignore them for long enough they start poking you over and over and try harder and harder to get your attention. They poke and poke and talk and talk and talk and they just don’t stop. It sucks too because they usually get you while you’re waiting for a bus so you can’t just leave either.

I have pretty awesome patience and I'm decent at tuning people out but I hope I learn a way to deal with these homeless Chinese because they are so relentless!

B Movie Status

2009-09-18T19:07:00.001-07:00

One of the most interesting things about living in china is how rare foreigners are.

There’s so few of us that it creates an effect with how the Chinese people perceive us. It’s what I like to call a B-Movie star status. We foreigners are treated like slightly famous people, like if we had been in a slightly well known B movie.

It’s a little weird, every day when I'm out people stare at me, strangers say hello to me with big smiles as I pass by, people go way out of their way to help me, people point and say things to their friends, girls giggle if I wave to them, everyone smiles when I talk to them… I have to admit I think it’s pretty cool, I personally like all the attention and not everyone acts this way either, about 50% of the people don’t seem to care which is good and it seems to be all positive so far too, no one has treated me negatively for being a foreigner yet. It’s all pretty fun.

I know it’s important not to get an ego about it, and to keep in mind it’s just cause I'm just something they aren’t used to, but I just can’t help love all the positive energy coming my way from the locals. I asked my friend who’s been here for about 6 months what he thinks of it and he told me he used to like it but now it really bothers him so it’s quite possible ill write about how sick I am of it in the future.

Who knows what I’ll think later, for now I’ll enjoy the feeling of being slightly famous!

The Crew

2009-09-18T19:06:00.000-07:00

After finishing all the demos we had a couple days off, awesome!

I finally got to meet the whole crew.

The reason I decided to come to this specific school in China is because I knew a few people who taught here. We all took the Teaching English course together and they told me the school was pretty good.

Anyway the crew consists of the people I know and their friends, they’re a tight group of awesome people who know each other very well. They all went to Thailand together and did some of the same things I did which was really cool to relate to. They welcomed me to their group and we hung out for a while on our days off. My friend Will lives in a really big apartment which is a super chill awesome place to hang. It’s got enough beds and couches for us all to crash at.

Taryn and Nick the Australians are guitar players and Will is legendary on the piano so the place is full of music which I loooove (we even have a bongo drum… so awesome).

It’s a little weird to be the new guy in a group of friends that all know each other so well. But they are all very cool and we have a lot of similar interests and attitudes so I’m sure once I’ve been around for a while and we’ve all warmed up to each other it’ll be a really amazing group of friends. The mix of Australians, Canadians and Americans is pretty cool too (I love travelers).

Anyway after a day of music, drinking and movies I got my first Chinese club experience. From what I can remember I had a good time hehehe. It was a pretty sweet place, it wasn't all that busy since it was a Sunday night but it had a sweet vibe. The place is set up for a drinking game involving dice, which is an awesome idea. They also have really hot Chinese chicks come in from time to time to dance on the bar. I really don’t remember all that much more than that (don’t blame me Chinese beers are huuuuge and pre drinking is really cheap) but ya… pictures and more info next time!

The Demo

2009-09-18T19:01:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since I’ve written something cause there’s been so much going on!
Since the semester starts soon we are doing loads of promotional activities to get people around Foshan interested in our schools. Recently we’ve been hitting the streets at night and setting up information booths and roaming the streets handing out brochures about the school. It’s a bit of tiredsome work but since its china I had a lot of fun. (The TA’s and my boss Angela who is a super fun spirited person also took us out for deserts after, Awesome!)

The Chinese people react a lot differently to flyers than people in Toronto. It’s partly because we are foreigners handing them out but they also seem way more interested in them, its like they haven’t seen people handing out flyers before. I even had taxi bike drivers honk and me and call me over just to see what it was I was handing out. It was interesting though, with each person id approach I’d get one of 3 different reactions.

1. 70% The would look interested and happy and smile and take one and nod happily.
2. 20% They would put up there hand and shake their head with a smile and politely say no.
3. 10% They would look at me with a slightly disgusted blank stare and make no attempt to take a flyer or give any sign they didn’t want one… they would just stare then eventually one of us would walk away.

The third was always so weird. Some of the older Chinese people just looks like they absolutely hate everything and everyone. ^^

After a couple nights of that the demo was upon us! We did one in each of the three schools. The demos were real kid friendly and got all the potential students energized and having fun. Each teacher also took turned introducing themselves and a few games were incorporated with prizes for the kids.

The real interesting part is that the Nanhai teacher boss decided that the Nanhai teachers (including me since I was temporarily living there) should all do a talent on stage. Oh Joy!
The 2 guy teachers got together and sang Head – Shoulders – Knees and toes then take me out to the ball game, it was pretty good. The 2 girl teachers sang the numa numa song together (it’s the popular one from youtube where the super fat guy is dancing while listening to it on headphones) they did a crazy dance to it which was entertaining.

That left me! I played the Ocean Song on my guitar for everyone. It was extremely nerve wracking to get up in front of about a hundred kids and parents to play the song! I mean a few weeks ago I was nervous to play in front of my friends at a campfire after a couple of beers, and this was a much bigger deal! I think a few years ago when I was a little more shy I would have just died from the pressure on the spot but I managed to play it decently. The best was that the ocean song has many parts where the kids can repeat what I sing. I say Ya Ya Ya Ya Ya then the kids echo me. It was real cool to get all of them singing along. The song went even better at the second demo (in my Shunde school) it’s a smaller school and it was less loud so I didn’t have to yell the song like in the Nanhai school. I explained the singing along part better to the kids this time and everyone got really into it and they seemed to of had a blast with it. Most importantly I was so much more relaxed this time, I have a ridiculous fear of public speaking, I’m one of those people who have a greater fear of public speaking than death. (or public music playing in this case) but I’ve been working on getting over it and being able to sing in front of all these people while staying pretty relaxed was a huge personal victory for me. The mental technique I used really worked! I hope it wasn’t a fluke it would be so nice to be able to have this fear handled once and for all.

Plus this constant exposure to this kind of thing over the past few days, tough has I’m sure been real good for me.

Anytime you’re out of your comfort zone you grow from it!
After the demo all us teachers went out to a little place for some Chinese bbq food. It was super delicious and it was awesome to finally be able to just hang out with the other teachers. So far they all seem like pretty cool people. I'm so glad I’m not stuck in Nanhai anymore!!

My new Place / Busy Days

2009-09-18T19:00:00.000-07:00

So I finally saw my real school and my real apartment in Shunde, and it’s totally awesome!

There is so much more stuff around Shunde, and after being at Nanhai which is very secluded it is a very welcome change. I’m super excited about it, heres some pictures of the Plaza my appartment and school is in!

The entire plaza is snoopy themed! Theres even a half built snoopy theme park 5 minutes away. It's quite weird!

So far I havent seen anyone shopping in the snoopy gift shop.

Things get a little bright at nighttime.

Here's a cool bakery that opened recently, its the first time I've seen a loaf of bread in China!

I bought one and some peanut butter, I might start eating breakfast again!

Who wouldnt want to go to a spa endoursed by Clive Owen? I actually checked out the price of a massage here and the equivilent of its cost in Chinese money was about 1 Million Dollars.

I managed to find the arcade inside the mall! Awesome.

I was really excited about it but then I found out its almost all ticket games... Like you win tickets and get the little toys, it was quite dissapointing. I was hoping for some asian street fighter battles.

But they did have dance dance revolution! "Hey You! Dance!! It's a revolution!!"

Hmmm now do I want Optimus Prime or Megatron to clean my pores?

Obviously I want megatron.

These are most likely regular sized back home.

Typical Drink counter... You never quite know what your buying...

Some places are still under construction.... so please... Stay Tunde...

Fresh Fish anyone?

This was just awesome.

My friend Steven Yee would be in heaven here!

Heres what the entrance to my little school looks like:

Heres my classroom!

and the teachers lounge / office (the couches are so comfy)

I mean... not all english schools have good english right?

(dont tell the parents)

I'll post pictures of my appartment in a bit!

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It’s been a busy couple of days. With the new semester starting there’s a bunch to do. For the other new teachers and myself we had to make a demonstration lesson. It’s like a real class but only 20 minutes in length instead of 2 hours and we teach the TA’s and staff instead of students. We chose a topic and made some games and lessons to teach the class.

My topic/vocab was First, Second, Third, Forth, Fifth, Sixth.

After an active warmup, where I got everyone up and energized I had 6 volunteers come up to help me teach the 6 words. With a bit of dramatization I explained each word with reference to a race. With the help of flash cards, I had the “first” student act really fast then showed the first place flashcard and had the students practice saying the word repeatedly. I did the same with each runner getting slower and slower with the sixth place finisher barely crawling across the line.

After that we had some real races! I had the students run back and forth between the walls, when they finished the race they had to say “I finished in _____ place” It was pretty fun.

Next we played another game this time I explained First – Sixth using floors of a building. I split the class into two teams and put a picture of a tall building on the board. Each team had a little cut out man as well. The teams lined up and then played Rock – Paper – Scissors. If their team one the match they would move up two floors and if they lost they would move down 1. After each match they had to say which floor their team was on for extra practice.

That was it for my 20 minute class, I have to say it went pretty well. I think I kept up with all the other new teachers pretty well and they all have real teaching experience so I was happy with myself, I have to bet I was a bit more nervous than they were though! It’s very cool that we are encouraged to teach through fun games, it really makes the job feel more like play than work and the students have a much better time and learn more!

I did the demo class twice, the first I got suggestions on how to make it better and the second time was in front of all the teachers and the people who run each school, they evaluated us on our skills and they seemed to like all of our lessons.

Next we have the real demonstrations for the real students and parents!

Chinese Health Check

2009-08-31T07:02:00.001-07:00

Aaaah Finally caught up to present day.

Today we went for the health check!

It’s an important step in getting your work visa.

I got picked up at 8 am and then we picked up 4 other teachers, it was sweet to finally meet some of the other new teachers!

So the hospital was interesting… none of us were really sure what to expect.

We had to fill out some personal history forms and learned some weird Chinese rules like only black ink pens allowed no blue ones.

So it wasn’t as crazy as I feared and it was pretty sanitary but there were definitely some weird aspects. For example the lady who takes your blood doesn’t change her gloves often enough, she still had someone else’s blood on her hand. The eye test was a joke, the guy just said “Can you see this? Ahh good, 20/20 vision” they also had to ultrasound my liver to see if it was intact, and xray my bones to see if they were all present and accounted for. Overall I seemed to have passed all the health tests, but I also heard that if you have a pulse you’ll make it through no problem.

It’s occurred to me that I’m writing far too many blogs, its acting more like a daily update instead of a weekly one like I wanted, but it’s just cause everything is so new and interesting to me right now, when I finally do get settled into my teaching job things will be less frequent.

Anyway tomorrow I finally get to go to Shunde to see some apartments for the first time. I also heard from one of the long time teachers that Shunde has the very best authentic Chinese bars… sweet!

Shopping In China

2009-08-31T05:40:00.000-07:00

It’s time to shop!

I badly needed a laptop to get back in touch with the world~
The lead teacher dude Allen said he would take me to the best place for a laptop he wanted to buy a new psp also.

We hopped on a couple buses and after about 20 minutes we made it to the subway.

Good luck figuring out the bus schedule

Check out the massive KFC, its super popular in China.

The metro station was big!!

The subways rules are very clearly written….
#1: “No Hullabaloe allowed “

Oh China…

I was surprised that the subway ride there wasn’t too crowded, we even managed to sit down on one of them.

After a while we made it to the main shopping area we hit up about 4 massive stores with hundreds and hundreds of laptops each!
It was like being a kid in a candy factory… and there was so many it was hard to know where to start!

Each laptops price and specs are usually saved on the desktop background, pretty cool. But you also have to negotiate because this price is never the final one! Luckily Allen has been around and knows some good Chinese negotiation tactics.

I actually took a few hours to look through all the laptops and finally find the perfect one I wanted.

The flash makes it looks even sweeter.

I figured out later that I saved about $250 if I had of bought the same laptop from dell’s online store.

It only came with a Chinese version of windows xp, but we went around the corner and bought an English copy for him to install.

Yes you can get your very own copy of Windows XP for 10 Yuan! (about $1.80)
While waiting for windows to be installed on my new machine I sat with some locals and had my first real communication experience with them.

They were super awesome and friendly, and they knew almost no English. Between the 3 of them they would converse trying to find the right English words then they managed to put them together into sentences. Like where I was from, how old I was ect. They were always thrilled when I understood them and could answer back. It was very cool how the simplest conversation could be so fun and bring so much laughter to all of us.

They were very sweet people and at the end we took photos of each other and they told me I was their new friend and they would always remember me (awww how touching ^^)

It’s pretty cool that the locals get such a kick out of meeting foreigners since there’s so few of us.

Later near the PSP store I grabbed a shot of a Wii ultimate action sports kit, yes that’s right, 55 in 1!

They also closed down one of the PSP stores as the cops had rolled in and they didn’t have some sort of license they needed.

The market was like P-Mall on crack in the amount of illegal stuff around. Especially when it came to video games, if you bring them your DS or PSP memory card they will load on like 25 downloaded games for a few bucks.

I also needed a new watch, of course the store we went into had over 3 billion of them to choose from. They got quite mad at me when I took a picture of the store, oops!

Throughout the day I was kinda surprised that out of all the thousands of people I passed in the markets and the streets I only saw like 1 other white person, I guess I figured there would be a few more of us foreigners around.

Later we checked out the 2nd tallest building in China, we didn’t have time to go to the top of it but it’s pretty awesome. Hey look I'm actually in this picture! Now you know I'm not just making this all up :P

We took a the subway halfway back, and this time I got the real chinese experience. There was literally a lady that goes up to the door and yells at you to motivate you to squeeze in, we were packed so tight we couldnt move!

Instead of waiting for a bus to make it home we decided to risk out lives on the back of a scooter!
There was 3 of us on this thing, and in China’s crazy traffic I feared for my life every second of the way!

Allen then had the best idea since arriving in China, he decided to treat me to a massage at the mall sweeeet!
It was perfect after a long day of crazy intense shopping. It was a very classy place.

They give you an epic 30 minute massage, then after that they lay you in that white machine which generates some intense heat for you to sweat all your worries away while they give you a head massage.

The massage completely kicked ass and even topped any massage I had in Thailand by far. Probably the most relaxed I’ve ever been in my life.

We took the scooter back and I wasn’t as terrified this time.

Next I have to go to the hospital for a complete physical and make sure I’m healthy!!

2009-08-30T07:28:00.001-07:00

I met up with my friend Maggie aka Margaret in the morning (she was nice enough to meet me at my hotel) We went out for sweet breakfast of rice and beef. In this restaurant the cutlery is stored in the table… So after you sit down they slide out a drawer and grab your napkins, chopsticks and soup spoon for you… saves time to come from the kitchen!

The food is also served with free tea!

I totally thought I took a picture of my food but I guess not!

After that we went to the bus station and Maggie helped me buy the ticket. They slapped a sticker on me that says where I’m going (very awesome idea to keep foreigners from getting lost during the transfers) and I was on my way.

After about an hour we made it to the Chinese border. They had a special line for foreigners which super long and about 8 lines for everyone else which moved quickly. I’d soon find out this line made me the last guy from my bus to make it through. It also didn’t help that they gave me the wrong arrival card to fill out on the bus so I had to toss that one and fill out a new one when I finally got to the front of the line.

At this point I had rehearsed my answers to the custom questions a bunch because I was entering on a Tourist Visa so I had to pretend my trip had nothing to do with working. I was a little worried because a lot of countries hate letting you in without a return flight, and I had no hotel booked and I was also carrying a guitar (not many people would bring a guitar for a short vacation) To get into America they make you answer like 15 questions and they try to get a backstory on your entire life, I figured China would be even worse because of how strict the government was, but to my surprise the questions I got were.

“So how long are you going to stay?

And you’re just on vacation right?

Okay go ahead. “

No problem, nice.

After taking so long in the foreigners line by the time I made it through there was a Chinese dude running around checking everyone’s stickers when he saw my sticker he let out a big laugh and a sigh of relief then called someone on the walkie talkie said something in Chinese and laughed some more he then got me to follow him to the bus which looked like it was about to leave without me lol. I think they were saying something like ‘of course the white guy is the last guy to make it hahaha’ well I was the only foreigner on the bus ><

After another 2.5 hours I arrived in Foshan the main district all the LingDong English schools are in. I met up with Ken my Chinese contact dude and he took me on a tour of different schools, we also got my photo taken and he started the long process of getting me a work visa, and also a foreign registration card. Eventually he took me to the Nanhai school… Nanhai is not where I’ll be teaching but I’m going to be living there for a few days cause the people who will help me get my apartment in Shunde are on vacation for a bit.

I’m glad I’m not going to be staying in Nanhai cause it kinda sucks, it’s like out in this cut off industrial area with nothing around it. Shunde is going to be a much nicer area.

Here’s a poster of our school.

And the main slogan on the wall…

Yes that’s right… The Insight is our Proud... suck it.

That would worry me but all the other English in the school is correct haha. I checked out some of the books on the teaching philosophy and the methods and it’s really impressive, they really know how to teach English as a second language.

My temporary room here totally sucks too, it’s got nothing in it and the bed is literally as hard as a board that I put a couple of sheets over… but I can’t help love it since its mine. I’ve never lived on my own before its fun!

It’s also really creepy… my room is decorated with a bunch of Mickey Mouse posters with motivational sayings under them! Weird… I mean I love Disney… but at least get some Lion King in here!

One hard thing about Nanhai is finding food… there’s a couple little street restaurants… umm not really restaurants, more like a tent over top of some road with a guy who cooks stuff. They’re about 10 minutes away, the only thing is without knowing Chinese is pretty impossible to order, the foods not precooked so you can’t just point at what you want and they don’t have menus, your just supposed to ask for stuff.

Luckily the schools have Teachers Assistances a group of Chinese girls who speak pretty good English, if you need help with anything (including ordering food) they’ll go out of their way to help you. My first meal in mainland china… noodles with… stuff…

For dinner I found out you can get the TA’s to order food from you over the phone and people will deliver it to the school (awesome) she warned me though that its really expensive. But really expensive in china is only $2 Canadian! This pork was pretty delicious.

Despite that Nanhai kinda sucks, I seem to be in a permanent good mood. I think being in a new place where everything is different and interesting does that to me.

Anyway since there’s nothing at all to do in Nanhai me and the head teacher of Nanhai Allen are going into the super busy area of town tomorrow to experience Chinese shopping!

1 Night In Hong Kong

2009-08-30T06:30:00.000-07:00

Ahhh and then there I was in Hong Kong.

It’s a really weird thing when you step off a plane, at least with me, I never feel like I really went anywhere. Its like you’re in Canada, you step into a box, watch a movie of clouds going by then you step out. The fact that you travelled literally half way around the world doesn’t seem real.

After wandering cluelessly around the airport for a bit I managed to find the right counter and took a sweet shuttle bus to my hotel. It was a pretty cool drive, Hong Kong is intense, the buildings are huge and there’s kajillions of them, its like they have a Toronto sized skyline of skyscrapers around every corner. There was also a lot of sweet mountainous areas closer to the airport.

I tried to get pictures but my cameras not too friendly when your in motion, they all came out super blurry.

Anyway I was told to find a hotel in Hong Kong for only $70 a night meant I was in trouble, I’d have to sleep with my clothes on, under the bed, fight off the cockroaches, barricade the door and I’d still probably get my organs stolen in the middle of the night. Luckily that wasn’t the case! My hotel was awesome!

They even have a coffee maker, and a sweet robe for you to wear.

In the washrooms they have complimentary toothbrushes, combs, cotton balls, and shower cap… (little weird I know) Oh and 2 free water bottles which came in really handy.

And even in china hotels come with a trusty copy of the holy bible… china edition of course.

With perfect timing my toenail finally decided to come off. Actually I had to bend it forward a bit then peel it off… it was gooey…. (queue cringes)

Curse you June Yang!!! I shall have my revenge!!!

…kidding luv you!

If there was someone going to steal my organs during the night, this is the door he’d come through… I put the table in front of it just incase.

After cleaning myself up (I smelt alarmingly bad after the flights) I decided to hit the streets to see what was around.

I had no idea Hong Kong was so bright and animated.

There was so much crazyness everywhere it was… crazy!

I wandered into this once place called Game Palace (I thought it might have been an arcade) but it was way more like a chucky cheese kind of place, everyone was going crazy trying to win tickets!

In the back was a huuuuge room with probably hundreds of people around 16-20 and there was a whole bunch of asian style photo booths. There photo booths each with a different theme like a certain cartoon and style and you go in and take pictures of yourself and friends and the pictures get decked out with a bunch of crazy graphics and effects. There was also huge circles of teenagers all going crazy on their cell phones, eveeeryone had a tricked out cell phone in Hong Kong, it all seemed extremely Japanese.

Hong Kong was intense to say the least!

I’ll have to go back when I have more than a couple hours to spare and see a lot more of it!

Next I go to mainland china!

Touchdown in Hong Kong!

2009-08-29T22:23:00.000-07:00

So there it was 4:45am on August 25th and my alarm went off, telling me it was time to wake up... to go to China... for a year!

A big "WTF am I doing?" went through my head and I thought about how crazy this whole tripped seemed for a minute but then I managed to shake it off and reminded myself it was going to be super awesome, and this trip was totally what I wanted!

After grabbing everything I needed (except my watch which I left next to my alarm haha) I made it down stairs and grabbed all my stuff and after some sad goodbyes to Mom we left for the airport.

Things went real smoothly there, didn't have any problems with my guitar or my one way ticket said another goodbye to Dad and off I was to my stop over in Vancouver.

It was a pretty nice 5 hour flight (I love airplane rides) tried to sleep for a bit then watched the new Star Trek (awesome movie)

Anyway I had a 5 hour layover in Vancouver and thanks to Aunt Julie's advice I took the sky train into town.

The skytrain is a new train built for the 2010 olympics its kind of like a subway except way newer and cooler, for half the trip into town it goes overtop of everything on high rails, then once it hits the city it goes underground like a subway, its a super smooth and pretty fast ride.

Here's some shots I took from the window.

Once in town I had a couple hours to check out a few sites around. Due to my atrocious sense of direction I decided not to stray too far from the station but it was cool to see the city.

Vancouver has some cool art around

Yep theres a deer way up on that streetlight

The countdown to the olympics!

I decided to grab some lunch in the nearby mall... hmm what to eat for my last meal in Canada?

Yep, went for the burrito taco combo, figured they would be pretty impossible to find in China, and they were mighty delicious!

Anyway back to the airport!

I had a few minutes before my flight so I figured I'd get a drink.

In good canadian spirit I made sure the last thing I consumed while in Canada had to come from Tim Hortons.

Well done Devin.

Listening to what I made my theme song for the day (The song gets awesome around 2:22) I took a few shots from the plane.

My favourite thing about flying is looking at the clouds from above, I think its amazing.

And when you think of all the thousands of years throughout history before people could fly in planes, it really makes you appreciate the incredible sight.

There was some cool mountainous terrain below along the way too.

Anyway after a 13 hour flight I had finally made it to China!

... you know your in China when there's dragons on the airplanes ;)

up next, my one night in HK~

Welcome to my blog!

2009-08-29T21:55:00.000-07:00

Yes I've gone to China!

and thanks to my Dad buying me a camera before I left I've decided to make a blog!

sweet.

So here it is!

I'll try to update it weekly assuming I've got something interesting to talk about, but I'm sure I will... this is China after all!

This blog will chronicle my daily adventures teaching english in Shunde, Guangdong, China and will show interesting/unique things about life in China. From time to time will also most likely also contain some deeper thoughts about life since this is a bit of a personal development experience for me as well!

oh and... im sure it will also have plenty of drunken pictures (which we can hide from Grandma =D)

Stay tuned!