Day two

Well apparently I have small nostrils. One girl that I was teaching came up to and pointed at my nose holes and said "smaaaall" haha these kids are so open and will become friends with you in a second! They don't hold back 

This is opening

Betty who is in my home group drew me a picture :)

Today we went and got a few groceries. I got fruit, cereal, milk (that I later found out was already spoiled), and some sort of bread stuff. 

We also climbed onto our roof. It was beautiful up there! 

The day the kids stole my heart

9/1/15

Today was the first day of school for everyone so we had a big opening ceremony with all the students, teachers, and parents. 

The school had us go up on stage and introduce ourselves, it was a little nerve racking, but it went well. 

Today was the first day of teaching! Talk about craziness!! I now understand why my mom who is a kindergarten teacher comes home from work exhausted. And I only taught for two hours! The kids yell a lot and don't quite understand everything yet, but we will train them well! 

When it rains, it poors

For once we weren't drenched in sweat from walking down the street, but we were drenched in water! 

It was pooring down and I loved it! 

We were on our way to go get some dumplings. 

That is a few dumplings with the dipping sauce. I absolutely love them! I just know that when I'm pregnant, this is what I will be making my husband get me at 2 in the morning. Yummmm 

We all had to buy watchs for our first day of school tomorrow! (Which I am scared, excited, nervous, and happy for!) 

When we were waiting to get on the bus these girls asked us where we are from and my roommate Jocelyn asked if we could take a picture with them.

The bus today was completely jammed packed! We all had to stand 

Me and my roommate in front of our school, jucheng

I start teaching tomorrow and there is so much stuff that I am kind of over whelmed but I am beyond excited! 

Oh and I just want to say I really am blessed with the people who are here in china with me. They are great and we get along so well! Their names are Britta, Jocelyn, Miranda, Cynthia, and Amanda.

Meeting the kids

Today we did a lot about learning how to teach. I'm very excited! We also met the kids for like 2.5 seconds and we stood in front of the parents for a little while and said hello. Here are some of the kids. 

This is amber, her Chinese name is xu Ching. She is 27 years old And is really a great person and fun to tease! 

We found out today that this means cute and peaceful. everyone does peace signs in pictures around here. 

We saw our first ginormous cockroach today in our apartment (the pic doesn't do it justice) I caught it!! But there's no way I could squish it... Ew. 

Here's just some pictures of me and my roomies out on the town! 

Out on the town

Today we toured our city a little bit. Holy cow, I have never felt so much like a celebrity in my life! Everyone stares at us and will sometimes say hello, just because we are white! One girl even came up to us and told us we are beautiful. We also get a lot of people who "sneak" pictures of us. 

China doesn't really have crosswalks so j walking is completely legal. People honk on their horns like there's no tomorrow. They honk to say hi to you, they honk to tell you to move, they honk to warn you they are beside you. Honk honk honk! I'm surprised it's not called honk kong! The people are crazy drivers! This is us on the bus that we will be taking often.

We had an incident today where this old shirtless man with long fingernails came and asked us for money. He touched every single one of us and spoke something in Chinese. Pretty soon there was a bunch of people surrounding us. We didn't really know what was going on, but our leader amber did. I still don't really know what was going on. 

So littering is totally legal too! You can just throw your trash on the ground whenever you want. They have people who clean up. I felt bad about littering but it was kinda cool.  Here is our trash after eating some ice cream. 

Americans and Chopsticks

August 30 

It's so hot here, we have a really good ac in each of our bedrooms but we can't use it too much or we have to pay so we try not use it in the day so we can use it at night. 

Today we learned a lot about teaching and our schedule. Amber trained us a little. By trained I mean she read a power point to us that was in English and we could read it better than her Haha. She is so fun though! 

Me and Amanda in the school cafeteria that we eat at every day for freeeeee. 

So the school has ping pong tables out by their play ground.

The school coordinators took us out to dinner. It was so fun! Our food consisted of frog legs, pig feet, fried boiled eggs, sliced potatoes, noodles made from a potato, and some kind of vegetable that looks like spinach. It was pretty good besides the pig feet and frog legs. The frog legs could have been good but I just couldn't get past the fact that I was eating a frog. 

Proof that I ate a frog leg:

This is pretty much gone but it's a desert. It's pretty much a roll dipped in sweetened condensed milk. I don't know how to spell it, but it's called manhoe and it was pretty dang good. Haha

Everyone at dinner!

Americans don't really know how to use chopsticks...

We played cards tonight. You know it's humid when you can do this without tape

I love amber!

So I ate chicken feet yesterday... Gross! They could have been good but I just can't get past the fact that I'm eating chicken feet. 

This is Morgan. I named her after one of my best friends, Morgan Heward. (She didn't feel good) 

Today all the English teachers had a meeting where we just got to know one another a little. 

They are so fun! I love all of their personalities so much :) 

They fed us moon cake, (the moon cake festival is soon) plums, and this sweet soup stuff (it tasted like horchata) 

Today I was talking to amber and asked her why she doesn't have a boyfriend. She said that she didn't have a chance but I told her I would find a boy so I told her to pose like a damsel in distress. Like this: 

This was her pose: 

Haha I love this girl so much!! She has seriously become one of my best friends and I already dread the day I have to leave her

Here are some pics of me teaching today