1001 Nights Restaurant

The other night we went out to eat at this restaurant called 1001 Nights. It was so pretty inside and the food was yummy. Some of it was a little but spicy so I stuck with the good non spicy food.

Here is a picture of the ceiling.

There were also some belly dancers that would come out on stage every half hour or so. It was pretty cool to see. We were sitting kind of far from the table so I didn’t get any good pictures though.

Different Foods

For one of the lessons in my class we were talking about traditions. Last week we spent the class time talking about food traditions and what are the students favourite foods from their countries were. One of the days we were having a lesson and the students were allowed to bring in food to share with the class from their country. Sadly I was in another classroom for the afternoon and missed the lesson but the teacher saved some of the food for me. I didn’t get a chance to get pictures of the food I tried but I found pictures on the Internet.

I got to try samosa, these were delicious!!  They were filled with meat.

German cheesecake This was very yummy and tasted lemony.

Seafood Dumplings again very yummy!!

Another dessert from Saudi Arabia but the student couldn’t remember what it was called.

Short Story

The other day in class one of the little kids raises his hand and calls me over. I walk over and I ask him what he needs. He is holding his arm and says that it hurts. I asked him if he hurt it during lunch time (they had just come in from their lunch break). He told me that he didn’t. Then he proceeds to tell me that it is laughing. I was confused at first and just looked at him to try and figure out what he meant. Then I clued in and asked him if he hit his funny bone and he smiled and said yes. I thought it was so cute that he said his bone was laughing! hahaha

More Info

I asked the Teacher Assistant in my class, who is from China, about the paintings on the ground. (In one of my other posts I put up a picture of a guy who was painting with water on the ground at the park). I asked her what he was painting and she said that people usually paint famous poems. The writing that they use is the old Chinese writing so it is very hard to learn and she said that she doesn’t know how to write it. She said that people do this as an exercise. They usually hold the paint brush in a different way than a pencil so it is like an exercise especially with it being bigger then a pencil.

I also asked her about the singing. (In one of my older posts I put a video of a group of people singing). She told me that they sing about their times and the things that happened when they were younger. She also said that people do this because sometime they get asked to be on television. She said people do this all the time and it is like their exercise. They do it a lot in the morning time.

She also told me that at night there are bands that play and people dance. The girls use fans as well. She told me it looks very pretty and that I should try and see it!

The things I miss

Some days when we are out walking or just sitting around talking we try and think of the things that we miss the most from back home, or the things we will miss the most while we are back in Canada.

Some of the things that I think about that I miss the most from back home are the obvious main one friends and family. I also miss my comfy bed and being able to cook. I never thought I would miss it so much. Or even the fact that I haven’t had toast in months. haha I also miss the nice fresh air we have back home. It is frustrating sometimes when it is smoggy and we feel like we should stay inside so we don’t have to breathe in the pollution.

One of the other things that I miss the most and struggle with the most while being here is the language barrier. I don’t like not being able to talk to people, like my cab driver, or the waitress or the guard who lets us into the school grounds every day. I also don’t like the fact that people could be talking about me right in front of me and I would have no idea. We get stared at a lot while we are out walking and I can hear them say things and I am always curious what they are saying.

Some of the things that I am going to miss from China are how inexpensive a lot of things are. Getting food delivered to our rooms is great. We don’t have to pay for delivery and the food can be decently cheap. Although I feel bad because I think that they go through more trouble to get us our food than people back home. They ride a bike in the freezing cold to deliver our food. Shopping for food is also inexpensive, especially the fruits and vegetables. Also the cab rides, it is shocking how cheap it is to get around.  I will also miss the city life, living so close to such exciting spots and places with such nice scenery. I will also miss the Chinese food here. There is one restaurant we go to that is soo delicious!!

I think I will also be a shock when we get back home and realize how small everything looks. When we are out driving around in our cabs there are always such tall buildings everywhere around us. I think when I get home it will be very different seeing houses everywhere.

BeiHai Park

Since the day was very cold it was hard to enjoy walking through this park especially because it was right near the water so the breeze was very chilly. But we did stop and take some pictures.

One part that I really liked in this park was there was a guy who was painting with water on the ground. It was cool to watch but it was too bad that we didn’t understand what he was writing.

Jingshan Park

 

We ended up finding out that it is called Jingshan Park. We had to climb up all these stairs but when we got to the top the view was awesome! It was so pretty.

This is the view looking over the Forbidden City.

This is the view looking over the rest of the park.

FYI: The reason the pictures with me in them ...well the reason my hair looks wild and everything is because it was sooo windy and soo cold. Haha

After we couldn’t stand the wind any more we decided to walk down the other side of the hill.
Here is a picture of all the stairs that we walked down:

Once we got down to the other side we could hear music and singing. We decided to go and check out where it was coming from and we found groups of people singing. There were some people playing the keyboard or violin and people would just walk up and join in on the singing. It was so pretty and we stood and watched for a while. All throughout the park there were all these different groups of people singing. I wish I knew what songs they were singing though haha

Here is a video I took of one group of people singing.