Get a life Richard's Mom!

Happy One Month-iversary to China and me!!

I can't believe I have been here a month already, but it also feels like soooo long! lol

So, Richard's Mom drama. Last week she was all pissed about the food that they serve at school saying that none of the kids like it and we need to provide better options for them. (they all eat it, no complaint) She also gets to school around 7:30am and school starts around 8:30 am...Richard and her just wait and complain to anyone who will listen about anything and everything! EVERYDAY! Richard's Mom is also not happy with the friends he has made at school, Jojo and Zz. They are super cute, nice and smart, what's not to like? Apparently, Richard has learned to scream and run around from these two, which he never did before. Um sorry Delusional Deborah but Richard is the instigator! Richard's Mom would like him to be friends with Katie, who is "quieter and smarter" than Jojo and Zz. She wants Melody (my coteacher) and me to encourage this friendship and discourage the others. Riiiiiight. Because we can really control that sort of thing. She keeps talking to Katie's Mom about all the problems at the school or how we need more teachers in the classroom, or how she doesn't like the A Yi, IN FRONT OF US! Mind you it's in Chinese so they tell me what she says later but still! Rude.

This week, Richard's Mom talked to the school nurse about how she thinks Richard is losing weight because he doesn't like the food we provide. So the nurse came into class today to weigh him to see how much weight he lost since the beginning of school. HE GAINED WEIGHT. HAH! What are you gonna complain about now?? The nurse did stay during lunch to make sure he ate all of his lunch...oh lord.

Richard's Mom wants to make her own lunches for Richard since ours suck so much apparently. This is obviously because Anthony gets his own lunches, goodness lady get over it! Do whatever you want, it's no skin off our backs. ugh.

Richard's Mom stealing the mic at Mid-Autumn Fest

Anywho, last week was the Mid-Autumn Festival! This is when the moon is the biggest so families all over China get together, eat dinner and have moon cakes in celebration of Chong e. She is part of a famous unrequited romance story here about a man and woman who fell in love. Then the woman died and went to live on the moon. Chong e and the man missed each other very much so people made moon cakes to celebrate the woman and remember her.

We had a performance last week at school in honor of this day in front of the parents. The kids all danced, I had to say a speech about the festival in English (even though I just learned about it a day earlier) and we all ate ice cream moon cakes, delicious! Because of the Mid Autumn Festival, we had Thursday and Friday off, but the Chinese people make up the days they take off...so we had Thursday, Friday and Saturday off and then had to work Sunday, it's a 6 day week! We work next Sunday to make up the other day also! One month we work 9 days straight!!!!! Take a break people. Craziness.

 My school gave me a box of fruit for the Mid-Autumn Festival! So nice!

K3 dancing fools!

Mooncakes galore!

Look at all my cute kiddies!

"You can never cross the Ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore"

The Yangtze is the dirtier one on the right...

Yesterday, we met up with our friend, Yo-Yo and she took us out for lunch. We had traditional Chongqing noodles, which means SPICY. I asked for a little spice and of course I was dying! Dang, I wish I was better!

After we took the metro to an ancient city called Ciqikou! It was a famous port during the Ming and Qing Dynasties as it lies on the Jialing River. Now, it is filled with steep and narrow streets where people sell crafts, porcelain and there are many tea shops and hot pot places lining the streets.

We tried lots of different foods! This was some sort of fruit that was candied and was pretty good actually!

Spices galore!

We made a wish and glued it to this wall! Mine is the bright red one in the middle!

The Jialing River in the distance

After Ciqikou, Yo-Yo took us to where the Yangtze and Jialing Rivers meet. We decided to take a ferry ride around it and see the lights at night!

The brown one on the right is the Yangtze River, while the greenish one on the left is the Jialing River! It was pretty cool to see how distinct the two rivers are and how obvious it is where they meet! There were tons of people swimming in the rivers and washing stuff...it didn't look super clean...

Zach, Anokhi, Yo-Yo and Me!

Tons of people flying kites by the rivers! At night they had little light shows on them!

This is Jiefangbei, the center of Chongqing and 10 years ago was the tallest building in Chongqing! It is most definitely the smallest now!

We were waiting for Yo-Yo to go to the bathroom and some teenagers ran up to us to ask for a picture, which we said yes to, then we had a huge crowd surrounding us all wanting pictures and for us to hold their babies! It was crazy! It was just a mini look into the life of a celebrity and it was so insane! 

Our boat!

The building on the right is the Opera House!

Cruising the Yangtze! is this real life?

A place we visited a couple weeks ago, all lit up and looking pretty! Hong Nga Tong!

 The fullest moon of the year for the Mid-Autumn Festival!

It was so fun cruising the rivers and where they meet and really fun to see the city all lit up! I am liking this city more and more, the more I see!

"Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful, that's what matters to me." -Steve Jobs

Hot Pot, Orientation Part 2, and Dazu Rock Carvings!

Our first weekend in Chongqing, our HR lady, Gloria, and our VISA coordinator lady, Yo-Yo took us exploring around Chongqing! They took us to the Three Gorges River Museum, which had like 10 museums in it! We learned a lot about our humongous city and got to see a lot of things while driving around. They also took us to a Costco-like store called Metro, where we stalked up on Western food and had a ball doing it! Mmmmm pasta!

They carried the bride in this! So tiny!

Afterwards, they took us to our first Hot Pot experience! Hot Pot is huge in the Sichuan province, along with spicy food, of course. I definitely built up my spice tolerance after Thailand but I am nowhere near  loving spicy food. The Hot Pot was split in half, half spicy, half regular. We tried a lot of interesting things, cow stomach (weird texture), duck blood (like jello), and duck intestine (like chicken). By the end I couldn't feel the bottom half of my face and my lips and mouth were pretty swollen from the spice. But we had so much fun with Gloria and Yo-Yo!

Zach and Melinda, who didn't bat an eyelash as she shoveled down the spicy food down like it was candy!

The damage.

They took us next door to an area called Hong Nga Tong, which was beautiful! They kept giving us more and more things to try and I earned the nickname, "Chi Huo," which means I'll try anything! I'll take it! 

Yo-Yo and I trying something weird!

Dinner on the Yangtze River, crazy!

Zach, Justin, Anokhi and Me! Our little family!

The next weekend was the Chongqing orientation for CIEE. After work on Friday, they put us in a taxi and drove us across town where we were staying in the California Inn, weird right?? 

We got a yummy dinner and then called it a night, ready to meet the rest of the people in our city! 

There were 10 people in our orientation that were all pretty nice! Some of it was pretty redundant since we had already started teaching but it was fun hear about the different teaching situations that other people were in. The other people are all at universities and completely the opposite from us, obviously! Some are out in the mountains and very rural.

After some classes about how to teach the university students (zzzzzz) they took us for a tea ceremony! It was so interesting! We tried green, black and oolong tea! Everything was very formal and organized. They never skip a step and it was fascinating to learn about the theories and reasons behind everything. 

 Justin sitting on an ancient log

tea ceremony

 mahjong! I really wanna learn!

That night, we all went out to a KTV, these are Karaoke clubs that are basically as common as Starbucks are in America! You pay hourly for a private room and then pick whatever songs you want, it was sooooo fun! They love Western songs so we sang the night away and had a great first time at KTV! 

This past weekend we met up with a guy from our orientation, Sean, and some of his friends who were going to the Dazu Rock Carvings! We had absolutely no idea what they were or how we were getting there we just knew we had to meet him at the bus station at 8:30. We made the journey to the metro, about a 20 minute walk, and then took a 30 minute subway ride to the bus station where we met up with Sean and 10 British girls. We bought our tickets and learned that it is a 2 hour bus ride away! Haha Anokhi and I both thought this was going to be a half hour long bus ride and we would be back around 2, maybe see a movie? Oh how wrong we were....Once we arrived in Dazu, we had to take a city bus to catch another bus up to the carvings. It was a huge ordeal. 5 hours later...we made it!

 The rock carvings were super cool though and I loved being surrounded by Buddhism again. The rock carvings were super detailed and big and beautiful!

Anokhi and I on the bus to Dazu!

 Justin modeling with a rock carving

 Rub the belly!

Some of the carvings were created in the 7th century AD! They are based on Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucianist beliefs and all in the hills of Dazu. It was so interesting and intricate!

 Anokhi entering the Temple of Doom!

 Zach and Anokhi!

Justin got to be in a movie! We aren't sure what it's for but it was exciting!

Then we went and prayed in the Buddhist Temple, which was a little different than the Wats in Thailand but still so beautiful and fun to visit! 

While waiting at the bus station we were swarmed by these teens who wanted pics! We definitely feel like celebrities here!

Justin, Sean, Zach and I 

We definitely napped on the rides home and stopped at Pizza Hut (a fancy restaurant  here, btw) before ending our 15 hour day with a movie night with the boys at home! So much for our quick jaunt out to the caves! It was definitely a long and tiring day but it makes me so excited to travel more around here and see the many things around us! 

"If it never rained, nothing would ever grow."

~Oprah