Yangshuo, Guilin

So i cant upload pictures to blogspot so you can look at pictures at http://s778.photobucket.com/albums/yy61/tamonte8387/China%20Stuff/ Well its been quite a while since I have given a full update. Where do I begin? Our 1st full week of teaching went really well. Shaw teaches just 2nd grade and I teach only 1 class of 2nd grade. Shaw also teaches some babies 3 times a week and he sings songs with the Kindergarten on Fridays. The kindergarten is my favorite because they’re so cute. Their are some twins in the kindergarten named tony and tom. Shaw took a picture with them. Considering they are the worst kids in the class I have a feeling they are nothing like shaw and kemper but it’s still really cute. Not much happened except for Shaw has already taught the kids the basics of picking on each other in English. There is a girl in his class named Susan. She’s really quiet and has glasses. In Shaws activity he decided to make giraffes. As he passed out the googly eyes to all of his kids he placed 1 on his head and said, “look I have 3 eyes.” In the process he points to Susan and says, “how many eyes does susan have?” the class responds with yells and laughter “Susan has 2 eyes.” Of course shaw just can’t leave it at that he says, “2 eyes? No, susan has 4 eyes.” He points to her glasses and counts, “1,2,3,4.” The whole class laughs. I walked in the room to check on the class and shaw says, “alright class, lets show tiffany what we learned. Who has 2 eyes?” The class yells, “ I have 2 eyes.” Then shaw says, “Alright who has 4 eyes?” The entire class points and says, “Susan has 4 eyes.” And when the giggles subside I hear a faint little giggle and a soft voice say, “I have 4 eyes.” There was sweet susan laughing in the corner because she is now Shaws favorite student.
Other than teaching not much happened during the week. It was the weekend that brought the fun. We went to Yangshuo, Guilin this past weekend. It was the most amazing adventure we have had. It began when we got on a sleeper bus. It kind of looks like the busses in Harry Potter or so I hear. It just looks like a bunch of bunk beds in a bus. It’s pretty neat. We drove all through the night on Friday and arrived to Yangshuo at 4:00am. The only downside to this experience was when we stopped for a bathroom break I had to use a squatter. YES, I USED A SQUATTER. For those people who don’t know what a squatter is, its pretty much a hole in the ground. Yep that’s it. I was so scared because there were spiders and no doors. Im just not experienced enough for that. Hahaha Either way I survived. Well we arrived at our Hostel at 4:00am. We woke up early and ventured out on the town. Saturday we rented electric scooters. They were so much fun. We just drove out into the middle of nowhere and wondered on some farming community. It was so cool. We drove on these dirt paths through some rice fields. We watched some water buffalo and we hiked through some random cave. It was one of the most adventurous things I have done. That was our favorite thing to do. Seeing the people of china. You know when you venture into real china when you receive twice as many stares. We watched little kids play in some mud and it was amazing to observe this community work together. And there we were on our scooters. We didn’t do much shopping that day. The extent of our shopping was that Some women approached shaw about a bamboo rafting trip. He managed to bargain this bamboo rafting trip for 16 people from 120RMB to 40RMB per person. It was great! So Sunday that’s what we did. We went rafting down some river to Fuli. That was pretty cool because we saw this old man on this raft with these birds that he trained to go fishing for him and shaw got to hold his birds. It was so neat. We went shopping when we got to Fuli. We bought a bunch of stuff for our families and we got some pretty scrolls for ourselves. Chinese culture is very interesting. There is so much history and when you get to go to these little towns so much of that history comes out. It’s interesting how different it is. Shaw and I were talking to the all these people. It’s pretty much just this 1 family that lives in this community and they have lived there for generations. After our rafting trip we went back and got some dumplings and won tons. YUM! So that’s pretty much the only thing I like to eat. Unfortunately for me I cant find them anywhere in Kaiyin, which is where we live. Anyways, We went to some mud caves later on Sunday. That’s something not very many people get to say that they can do. We walked through these caves and then we went in this big mud bath. It was GROSS! It felt so blah and it was freezing cold. We pretty much just rolled around in mud and threw it at each other. We have pictures that the company took for us because your not aloud to take cameras in with you. So ill have to scan those pictures in later. Then you rinse off in VERY cold water and you hike down to some natural hot springs. That was really nice. There are a bunch of different springs and you just sit where you fit. So shaw and I just cuddled up to each other in the little spring and soaked it all in. It was relaxing especially after our cold mud bath. By the time we returned home it was pretty late. We walked around the shops and I pretty much passed out. We left Monday night so Shaw and I just walked around and ate food off the street the whole day. Well, Shaw ate food off the street. I’m too much of a baby. They sell this sweet steamed bread that’s good and steamed corn. I didn’t eat any corn but I imagine it to be very bland. Other than that not much happened. We did meet some Chinese guy in this shop. He really liked shaw. We were asking him the meaning behind all this stuff so that equated to us going to a secret room with his personal bar. Of course we politely declined but he insisted. We told him we don’t drink but of course he was so nice he wanted us to drink with him. So, I then just told him I was pregnant so we couldn’t drink or smoke with him. He then figured out we were married and then continued talking about Chinese history. It was very eventful. I liked that guy. But I’ll tell you one thing. This trip would suck without Shaw. It’s so much fun being able to go around and talk to the people. Anyways, We returned home in one piece and we begin teaching again on Wednesday. I hope we don’t have an eventful week and we can just relax.