Forbidden City

We finally made it to the Forbidden City and we picked a very cold windy day to go. Haha

We would walk through one open area and through the building to find another open area. I lost track of how many we went through. But it was interesting because you could look into the buildings to see the bed, or the chairs that the emperors had sat in.

There was this small building:

 and it has the most beautiful ceiling 

When walked from one end of the Forbidden City to the other and when we got to the exit we saw

So we decided to climb up and see what it was....see next blog post!

Two Weeks Left!

Two weeks from now I will be on a plane heading back to Canada!! (This might not be true by the time this is posted because of the time change and since my sister posts this for me) but two weeks from right now while I am writing this post I will be on a plane!!

It is crazy to think that this whole experience will soon be over!  I can’t believe that I have been here for almost 4 month..can you!?

For those of you who didn’t know I have switched my flight. I was suppose to come home later but we changed it a little while ago. I am looking forward to my comfy bed for a good night sleep and getting hugs from friends and family and having some nicely cooked meals!

I know that when everyone home is sleeping I will want to be awake and vice versa so if you get a call from me at about midnight ..it’s just me calling to see if you want to go for lunch ;)

Family Fun Night

This past week the school put on a night for the students and their parents. It was called Family Fun Night. Kim and I were in charge of the limbo station. There were lots of different activities in place for the students to play and win prizes. There was a fishing pond, musical chairs, an art wall, pin the tail on the donkey and so on. The students had a lot of fun and it made me smile to see my students come up and be so happy to see me!


It was also very entertaining to watch the student’s limbo. Some were just great at it and others really struggled to understand how to limbo. haha


Then at the end of the night all the teachers go into the gym and the Macarena plays and all the teachers line up at the front of the gym and dance while the parents and students take pictures of them. Oh and I forgot to mention that the teacher dress up in really wacky outfits, like wigs and hats and bright clothes. It was a really fun night and the teachers had just as much fun as the students did. At the end of the night one of the students in my class was crying because she was so sad that the night was over. And I’m not talking about a few tears, she was really crying. 

Summer Palace

This place was really beautiful. We only had a few hours to spend here because we were meeting up with another teacher because she was going to show us an Art Market. A couple hours was definitely not long enough to walk through this park. There was so much to see because it was so big.

Here are a few pictures.

The view was so nice we were just in awe when we walked into the park.

We walked into one part of the park

And then we heard some music playing and looked up to see some girls dancing up on the stage

We stayed to watch for a little while but we didn’t have a lot of time so we kept on walking. We are hoping to go back to walk around more here if we have some time.

Side story: While I was enjoying the show and watching the girls dance I was snapping a few pictures and then I turn to see a guy holding a video camera up, not at the girls dancing but at me. Haha I kind of half smiled and then walked away..it was a little bit awkward.

Random Signs

Here are a few pictures of different street signs that are around here.

This is one of the signs that is outside a lot of the parks around here. We enjoyed looking at this and trying to figure out what they meant for each one because some are hard to figure out.

This is one of the signs as you walk up the stairs off of the subway. I know it is a little fuzzy but I like the translation.

Advertisements

I took a few pictures of the different advertisements that are inside the subway or that are outside by the bus stops.

Halloween in China

Halloween isn’t really celebrated in China but since it is a little westernized here there were some Halloween decorations up and things for sale. And of course we celebrated it at school.
The students all looked so adorable dressed up. There were a lot of witches and princesses and most students just had on a witch hat and a cape. Their costumes didn’t seem to be as elaborate or different like the costumes people have back home but I think they view Halloween a bit differently here. There aren’t big boxes of candy or chips here that you can buy either. (Which was probably a good thing haha)

We had an assembly and different classrooms put in little songs or poems or dances. My class did the 5 little pumpkins. It was very cute! Kim’s classroom did the Thriller dance and they did an awesome job! Then we had a little party and some of the kids brought treats for the rest of the class.

On Saturday night to celebrate Halloween the residents had a floor crawl. Three of the floors in our building had a theme. One floor was a CSI theme and that group all dressed up like that and decorated the common room for that theme. The next floor has an Alice and Wonderland theme and the costumes were great. The last floor was a casino style from back in the day. Kim and I didn’t end up joining a floor so we decided to come up with our own theme “Jersey Shore”. She went as Snookie and I went as J-wow. For those of you who don’t know, the Jersey shore is a TV show. The people on it are very tanned and they poof their hair up hhaha

Kim did my hair all straight and made a nice poof in it for me. I wasn’t sure how we were going to make our faces so tanned but I put on some make up that I had and we looked pretty awesome haha

Check out how long my hair is getting too!

Interesting Observation

Children don’t sit in car seats here. They also don’t wear seat belts, or even sit in a seat. While we have been driving in cabs while we have been here I have noticed that children are sitting on their parents' laps or climbing around in the cars. I was pretty surprised.

Television Heartbreak

We only have a few channels to watch in English over here. I really like HBO and StarWorld. They are the two  that I watch most of the time. HBO plays the same movies pretty much all week long and then of course StarWorld plays the same shows a lot too but it’s all we have.

But then last week a horrible thing happened...StarWorld disappeared...it was so sad. I didn’t  know what to watch and Kim and I ended up watching movies or box sets we have instead. I know your thinking Jess that's not that horrible, there is more to do in China then watch TV haha and I agree but at night when I am doing homework it’s nice to have it on or in the morning while I’m eating my breakfast.

All the staff here were pretty upset that we had lost the channel that it was even addressed in our staff meeting this past week ahah. Sadly it was something to do with StarWorld and the cable company and there was nothing that could be done but wait to see if it would come back.

So then yesterday after school there was nothing on any of the other channels so I decided to just check the StarWorld channel andddddd guess whatttt it was back!! Yes I know you are all just as excited as I was to find this out. I jumped off the couch and ran to Kim's room to share the news I was so excited haha.

And to think that out at the other school where Mark and Aaron are they have one English channel. So everyone back home you are living in luxury that you get to choose what you watch haha.