Yesterday, I did my CCF (culture class) on YouTube. The students and I had a good laugh watching random videos and learning about the monster of a website. At the end of class, we made a video and posted it on YouTube. I told them, "my parents and friends really want to see this video, so tell them something about China.." and here is what they said. I swear I didn't put them up to anything! :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHBvhrmLLmU
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
A Few Feet From North Korea!
(The Yalu River between China, left, and North Korea, right.)
This last weekend, I was able to go to take the train for 4 hours to Dandong. Dandong is a smaller city (by China's scale) and is on the Yalu River, which separates China from North Korea. It was a really fun weekend, and by far, the closest I will ever get to go to Pyongyang or anywhere else in NK.
It was really fun to spend some time by water! After living so close to either Tempe Town Lake or the Willamette, I have missed being by water, and running by water. Not to say I went running on vacation this weekend though! :) But, we spent most of our time just walking along the river looking over to North Korea. In true Bates' family tradition, we made up many stories about who was on the other side and what the soldiers were doing.
(Shaun climbing up on the bridge next to one of the bullet holes.)The main highlights of the trip were...
*Taking a boat tour along the river. We found out the hard way that binoculars cost 10kuai a person, but, had a sweet pair of binoculars to see NK even more clearly! Mostly all you could see of NK was smoke stacks, small buildings, many many boats, and lots of soldiers walking around.
*There is a bridge that used to span from the China coast to the NK coast, but the Koreans dismantled their 1/4 of it. This is also the same bridge that the US Air Force bombed in 1950 in the Korean War. We got to walk across the bridge and get as close as we could to North Korea...and the bridge was sweet too! There are still bullet holes, or small pieces of the bridge missing from when the US bombed it.
*The next morning, we found a coffee shop owned by a Canadian man. We had an American breakfast and I very much enjoyed a caramel latte while reading Time magazines! It is the little things like that which make for such a relaxing weekend!
*Spending time walking in the sun and wind (it felt very much like the Oregon coast), and just doing nothing but talking and hanging out.
(Doing a handstand on the bridge between China and North Korea.)One of the great parts about traveling in different countries is traveling by train. I love it. I was able to see a huge part of the Czech Republic this last summer via the train, and it is such a different view traveling with other nationals from the country and getting a pretty sweet view of the countryside. The train ride both ways was during the day, it is always fun to just look out the window the whole way. The ride made me realize how diverse China really is. We passed through mountains and snow, and then ended up in a sunny city...We passed many small towns, where life is definitely a lot different than in Shenyang, saw people pulling carts through water by horses...I love getting a different picture of the country, one that you can't see in the big cities or on airplanes.
I am so glad that I got to go away this weekend, it was definitely a very fun and relaxing getaway and really cool to see a different part of China!
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Pancakes, Field Trips, Pizza and T-shirts..
The internet is out at our house again…so this blog may be long due to the fact that I haven’t been able to post all week, so much to say! Sorry for the lack of emails lately…hopefully this blog will give a quick overview of what’s going on here.
Last Sunday, Shaun and I organized a pancake breakfast as a ‘get to know you better’ breakfast for the American and Chinese teaching staff. There are 9 American English teachers, and 10 Chinese teachers. We thought it would be fun to show a bit of America with a traditional pancake breakfast, pancakes, syrup, eggs, bacon and coffee. And, all the Americans were more than happy to get a taste of home. The maple syrup and coffee were hugely popular with the Americans, not so much with the Chinese…I guess there are some things that are uniquely American! It was really fun, everyone had a good time, and as always, it was an adventure to cook a big breakfast on hot plates!
Tuesday was a great day. During Chinese class, we were all a bit lazy and managed to convince our Chinese teacher, Veronica, to take us on a field trip. Oh, how I love field trips! She took us to the biggest bookstore in Shenyang. We all managed to pick up a few things; I found this sweet world map that has both the Chinese characters and English for all the major countries and cities. At the bookstore, there was Langston advertising…haha! We enjoyed taking pictures and posing next to the advertisement for where we already work!
That night, 4 students took us out to dinner at a pizza buffet place. It was almost like Izzy’s…for those Portlanders out there. It was really fun to hang out with them outside of school and get to talk, laugh and eat together. We had a lot of fun taking ridiculous pictures, and just hanging out together.
The rest of the week was spent planning a vacation! Part of our contract with Langston is that we each get a week of paid vacation. There is a 3 day Chinese holiday in May, so I am taking my vacation the last week in April, and in total, will get 11 days off. It is always so fun and exciting to plan a vacation.
Tonight, Rachel and Emily, two other interns, are hosting a Tacky T-shirt Party! We have seen many t-shirts in China where the English makes no sense, or there are hilarious typos, or the lack of copyright laws is made apparent….so tonight, everyone has to wear a tacky t-shirt that they found here. I can’t give away my t-shirt before the party, but I will say, it has something to do with a panda with a comical life-motto at the bottom. I will post pictures next week and let you take part in our tacky t-shirt party too!
As always, I still can’t believe how fast time is going. This week was 4 months until I am home and back in America, spending time with the parents, Emily and Giles! It will be fun, but again, it seems that there is still so much more to do and see here! I hope everyone is doing well…hopefully we’ll figure out the internet and I will be able to get back on Skype and email more regularly soon.
Last Sunday, Shaun and I organized a pancake breakfast as a ‘get to know you better’ breakfast for the American and Chinese teaching staff. There are 9 American English teachers, and 10 Chinese teachers. We thought it would be fun to show a bit of America with a traditional pancake breakfast, pancakes, syrup, eggs, bacon and coffee. And, all the Americans were more than happy to get a taste of home. The maple syrup and coffee were hugely popular with the Americans, not so much with the Chinese…I guess there are some things that are uniquely American! It was really fun, everyone had a good time, and as always, it was an adventure to cook a big breakfast on hot plates! 
Tuesday was a great day. During Chinese class, we were all a bit lazy and managed to convince our Chinese teacher, Veronica, to take us on a field trip. Oh, how I love field trips! She took us to the biggest bookstore in Shenyang. We all managed to pick up a few things; I found this sweet world map that has both the Chinese characters and English for all the major countries and cities. At the bookstore, there was Langston advertising…haha! We enjoyed taking pictures and posing next to the advertisement for where we already work! 
That night, 4 students took us out to dinner at a pizza buffet place. It was almost like Izzy’s…for those Portlanders out there. It was really fun to hang out with them outside of school and get to talk, laugh and eat together. We had a lot of fun taking ridiculous pictures, and just hanging out together.The rest of the week was spent planning a vacation! Part of our contract with Langston is that we each get a week of paid vacation. There is a 3 day Chinese holiday in May, so I am taking my vacation the last week in April, and in total, will get 11 days off. It is always so fun and exciting to plan a vacation.
Tonight, Rachel and Emily, two other interns, are hosting a Tacky T-shirt Party! We have seen many t-shirts in China where the English makes no sense, or there are hilarious typos, or the lack of copyright laws is made apparent….so tonight, everyone has to wear a tacky t-shirt that they found here. I can’t give away my t-shirt before the party, but I will say, it has something to do with a panda with a comical life-motto at the bottom. I will post pictures next week and let you take part in our tacky t-shirt party too!
As always, I still can’t believe how fast time is going. This week was 4 months until I am home and back in America, spending time with the parents, Emily and Giles! It will be fun, but again, it seems that there is still so much more to do and see here! I hope everyone is doing well…hopefully we’ll figure out the internet and I will be able to get back on Skype and email more regularly soon.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Always an adventure!
For dinner tonight, we though it would be a good change of pace to cook fish instead of chicken or beef. And, as most things are in China, it was an adventure!
To begin, It was a challenge to order the fish. Due to repetition, I have managed to learn how to order beef, ground beef, and chicken breast. But, tonight was a bit of a vocab challenge. We managed to get two small white fish of some kind...the kind is still to be determined.
If you know me well, you know I am a little hesitant to even cut raw chicken, so getting a live fish and watching it be caught and killed, (or walking out of the fish stand while it happened), having Shaun gut it at home, and then finding a way to bake it, was more than I was used to. Haha.
The Chinese are a lot more resourceful and eat all parts of the animal, so there were lots of 'extras' that we didn't need. Once we (by we, I mean Shaun, while Lindsey and I took pictures and watched and gawked) got it home, cleaned it all out and rinsed it...the fish kept moving! What the heck?! Even without a head, too!
After cooking it, the verdict is not too bad. I am not sure that it is necessarily something we will be doing all that often! These adventurous Tuesday nights will always make China memorable!
To begin, It was a challenge to order the fish. Due to repetition, I have managed to learn how to order beef, ground beef, and chicken breast. But, tonight was a bit of a vocab challenge. We managed to get two small white fish of some kind...the kind is still to be determined.If you know me well, you know I am a little hesitant to even cut raw chicken, so getting a live fish and watching it be caught and killed, (or walking out of the fish stand while it happened), having Shaun gut it at home, and then finding a way to bake it, was more than I was used to. Haha.
The Chinese are a lot more resourceful and eat all parts of the animal, so there were lots of 'extras' that we didn't need. Once we (by we, I mean Shaun, while Lindsey and I took pictures and watched and gawked) got it home, cleaned it all out and rinsed it...the fish kept moving! What the heck?! Even without a head, too!
After cooking it, the verdict is not too bad. I am not sure that it is necessarily something we will be doing all that often! These adventurous Tuesday nights will always make China memorable!
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