杭州 Day 11-14

Friday, September 19, 2008: 杭州 Day 11
中国 Day 11
Asia Day 11

• Not much happened today; I woke up late and stayed in most of the day.

• Today, the handyman came by to fix the minor water leak. I was talking to Michael on the phone and he mentioned something about the tone of my voice being very humorous. I was asking how so and he was chuckling nonstop, talking about how my tone is in between a male and female pitch. He then mentioned the way that Jessica's voice was high-pitched and mine was in between that of a guy and a girl. I was like, "Oh...is that so -_-"...although that fact was also kind of interesting, in a slightly disappointing way.

• At night, I got together with Romain, Patricia, Thomas, and Vanessa. Thomas was walking ahead of everyone, so I jested, "Extreme walking" (since he's an extreme-sports-enthusiast). That cracked my buddies up, so of course I have to blog it. We walked to a restaurant about 15 minutes away from our apartments. We just ordered a bunch of dishes (tofu, what I coined "fungi mix," turkey and veggie soup, more veggies, big bowl of rice, and a few other dishes). Thomas left a bit early, but we had a fun chat (that I have no recall of). Dinner was 32 kuai a person. Afterwards, Romain ditched us (had to meet up with a friend) and we gals walked home. Did naught afterwards...

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Saturday, September 20, 2008: 杭州 Day 12
中国 Day 12
Asia Day 12

• I tried to do homework early in the day, but I didn't really get anything done. I woke up around noon (my usual get-up time) and found a text message from Jason on my cell about Chinese-Mexican salsa tasting at 4pm.

• Around 4:10pm, I brought juice upstairs to share with buddies. Jason made some homemade salsa - it was delicious! Just about everyone, less Jamie and Thomas, was there. Lots of fun conversation was had. Thomas stopped by. The lightning and thunder rumbled, causing paranoia within the small apartment (exaggeration). 'Twas a bit hot as well (air was stagnant - no exaggeration).

• At 5:30pm, the entire group (minus Thomas) met up to get dinner - this was eight people! Because the majority of people had bikes, almost everyone took their bike. Jamie, the Aussie, and I walked and chatted. Dinner was at a hot pot restaurant on Baochu Lu (保琡路). We ordered a two hotpots for the entire huge table, but these pots were split in halves - one half was the spicy soup, while the other was not spicy. We ordered a variety of raw dishes, including lamb, beef, tofu, veggies, mushrooms, and some rice on the side. Dinner was delicious. Some of the guys sitting at the end had tried the spicy soup and from the color of their faces, they couldn't quite handle it. It also started to rain a bit outside; actually, no, it was POURING for perhaps 30+ minutes.

• After we finished dinner, Jamie, Jason, and Vanessa had to leave, so I walked with the remaining few toward another destination. After walking about half a block, the bikers decided I should probably sit on someone's bike's backseat. Zicheng invited me to "hop on"...oy. Both Zicheng and Mom told me a bit later about how people in China mount these dangerous two-wheeled machines - they just hop onto the back while the bike is in motion. I was a bit scared (of mis-aiming and falling on my ass), so I always mounted the bike before it moved.

• Oh, and what a ride it was. (It was scary because my dad told me about how I was sitting on a bike as a young'un and somehow fell off.) I had to grab onto Zicheng's shoulders, but I didn't really manage to death-grip those shoulder blades. I didn't want to constrain his movements. After awhile, it was a bit easier to bum a ride, er, sit on the bike. There was once when I almost fell over backwards (I was supposed to hop off, apparently). However, there were two main problems - if my butt wasn't on the seat correctly, I felt like I would fall off. Otherwise, I also had to twist my body into a stable position and that used some ab muscles and some leg muscles - tiring! Overall, I was amused and scared.

• We five (me, Zicheng, Jessica, Patricia, and Romain) went into a bar. Inside, it was smoky and loud. What struck me most was that...they played Backstreet Boys music (the more popular hits). I was laughing in my head. There was also a live band that played - they were actually pretty good. They played "Creep" by Radiohead, as well as some other songs I didn't really know. Everyone drank a little bit of alcohol that night - I only got a Carlsberg on draft - I guess I could taste the watery-ness of it. (Yes, friends in China were talking about how beer in China is watery, like flavored water - "you can't get drunk off of this stuff.")
• So...one of the guys got a lot of game that night. Well, why not say both of the guys and one of the girls? It's true. By the way, that girl wasn't me, or else I would mention it. However, I started to talk to the smoker gal next to me. Turns out she went to Hangzhou Dianzi University and graduated in January. We clinked glasses and exchanged numbers. She wanted an English buddy and offered to teach me Chinese. Hah, I made a "friend." My first "Chinese friend" in China, lol, named Michelle. We'll see how that goes.

• Finally, to end a fun night, we went to West Lake. It was my second time going. We got there around midnight. We took a nice, moonlit stroll on a peninsula part of West Lake (or was it a concrete pier?). Some of my friends were a little bit hyper that night - quite funny. We left West Lake after walking around for maybe 30-40 minutes. Oh, and Baba called to say that he made it back to China safely.

• Rode back on Zicheng's bike's backseat. Poor guy was so tired from taxi-ing me everywhere. Or, should I say rickshawing me? In any case...I need to hop on the bandwagon (more like rickshaw, in the context of China) and get a freakin' bike.

• At home, I realized two not-so-great-things (that didn't mean the end of the world was near):
1) My nostrils did not work, since I breathed in too much smoke.
2) My homework was due on Saturday...so I was behind on homework/had to turn it in late.

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Sunday, September 21, 2008: 杭州 Day 13
中国 Day 13
Asia Day 13

What'd I do today? NADA. Did homework all day and ate a bunch of junk :(. However, the highlight of my day was that I had a really delicious, juicy peach. The only thing that saddened me today was the fact that I had so much homework I had to do (which I turned in late) and the fact that 1 of my 3 peaches got moldy :(...sigh.

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Monday, September 22, 2008: 杭州 Day 14 (Teaching Day 3)
中国 Day 14
Asia Day 14

• My first class was at 8:05am. I got to the building around 7:59am, only to find that another student had already checked in and opened the door/gotten the mic. I used the same lesson plan from last week, but unbeknownst to me, I was supposed to be catching up the Monday classes because we had a holiday last week. I did change a few activities to make it more speaking-centered.

• There were some decent speakers in the morning class, though there were also some smart-asses. When I asked students to use two words to describe their personality/themselves, one male student said, "I am Chinese." In reply, while the other students were giggling, I retorted, "Aren't we all?" (However, I'm pretty sure the students don't understand sarcasm, as it is an advanced cultural/language technique, stemming from hundreds of years of history/literacy.) Anyway, I found it strange that the morning class was divided by GENDER. Literally the left half of the class comprised of females, while the right half of the class comprised of males.
• In every class, I noticed that there's a group of four males who are best friends and are somewhat smart-alecky. They have long-winded, smarty-pants answers that entertain the entire class. The teacher part of me wants to put a stop to the ostentatiousness of these fellows, but the Jingy part of me wants the class to enjoy what they want to say. *Shrug.*

• One of the female students came up to me after class and said she wants to study abroad. She then asked if I had taken any exams, but I wasn't really clear on what she wanted to ask, so I mentioned "TOEFL," which is an English test for foreigners. She nodded her head and explained that she'd like if I could help her with her TOEFLs and I said I could, if she emailed me.
• Up to this point, no one has satisfied my desire for power and called me professor, except for Michael (see Thursday, September 18, 2008 entry)!

• After classes, I met up with Romain and Jason to take a taxi to a foreign center; we three met up with Michael, signed contracts, and ran some errands. I took a look at my medical check - everything looked good. I also got the foreign expert license and applied for a one-year residency. After these errands, I headed home to rest for a bit before my next class.

• My second class was at 1:45pm. In general, there were smart kids in the class, but this class also had a huge concentration of shy ones.
• Minor note: when individually called, the students stand up to talk. It's the "Chinese way."
• We were playing a personality game - people had to define a word without using the word or its dictionary definition in their personal definition. Then, students had to guess the word that was described. Students were amused that I sat in their seats as I waited to hear their answers.
• One student said, "Oh...I'm going to tell a story." I replied, "Oooh, I love stories." The students laughed. The student told a story about where a guy like a girl in class and his face turned red. The students guessed, "Shy," whilst I replied, "Ay?? This isn't in the vocabulary...use the vocabulary words."
• A male student got the ball in his hand, when his friends told him to "sing, sing," and I said, "Yes, sing!"
• One student whom I asked about the personality/traits of Chinese culture had GREAT command of the English language. He said, "Chinese culture is ancient as it is profound..." WOW.
• There was a guy who was easily-startled by the ball. When a student threw a ball at him, he screeched, jumped a few feet, and hit the desk. He was wincing and just moving around in pain after that. He picked up the mic and started to giggle. I thought he needed time to relax, so I had others go before him. OMG...I've never seen anyone this embarrassed before. This is really bad to think as a teacher, but IT. WAS. HILARIOUS. He got the ball a bit later, so he was just laughing (nervously, I presume) and said something quickly before he handed the mic to the next person.
• There was also a student who stood up and said, "My English is very poor." He didn't say much else, but I said I'd come back to him later. However, after class, he came up to me, greeted me ("hi teacher" -_-...not "hi professor"), and asked if I could speak Chinese. I said maybe. Then, he said, "actually, in fact, my English is good. However, my oral English is poor." I replied, "yeah, my oral Chinese is poor, too..." Isn't that endearing?

• I came home from class and chilled for a bit. Finished laundry and lesson plans.

• Later, Patricia called to say that she and others were going bowling. I joined in. This time, I rode on Thomas' bike's backseat. I was pretty scared because the bike went somewhat fast (and was quite wobbly). Again, I worried that my big ass would fall off of the seat. I held onto his shoulders, but his backpack was in the way, so again, I didn't grip hard. He must have biked like 6+ blocks from the campus. Haha, I felt kind of bad, but I knew he could handle it.

• Zicheng rode next to us and asked, "Who gives better rides?" LMAO.

• Whilst we stopped at a traffic light, there was a guy next to us who warned us to the effect of, "Hey, get off the bike, those traffic police will punish you." I heeded this good warning, because all of us saw a huge throng, not thong, of policemen patrolling the area. There was also a video camera recording something, probably for public works. The policeman stopped me when I tried to cross the street by walking; he told me to take the 'sky bridge' or whatever it's called in English. I walked over the sky bridge and I thought everyone else would wonder where I was. Thomas actually came back for me!! LOL.

• Well, we was rough ridin' it for awhiles.
• We finally found the approximate location and parked. We walked around the area until we found the bowling place. It was kind of in a hideaway type of area. 'Twasn't that great, but it was functional. We bowled for about an hour (got two games in, whee). My game wasn't really on tonight - bowled maybe 2-3 spares. Also, everyone's hands got super-dirty from touching those dirty balls. Those heavy, dirty balls.

• We went outside and everyone unlocked their bikes. Patricia was getting her bike. It was lined up with other people's bikes and motorbikes. She suddenly pushed over her bike and there was a domino effect. She knocked over her bike and five others. That was the highlight of my evening :D. I told her that she made my day, to which she replied, "If you hung out with me everyday, I'd make your day everyday." The audience that watched us included a few older folk who were doing some tai chi and a policeman who was just standing around. He said with a stern face, "Any of those your bikes? You're not supposed to park here..."

• So then I got on Thomas' bike's backseat again and we stopped at a noodle shop. We all ordered different yumminesses. Rice or noodles. Mine was good, but it wasn't stupendous. It was a tomato-soup with noodles and pieces of beef with fat -_-. Lol. More like a Chinese pho. Thomas had to go early, so we just finished our meals without him.

• Zicheng, the connoisseur of everything, said (about the meat in his soup), "Yeah, I usually like tongue, but this isn't good tongue." I replied, "You're into tongue, huh." He retorted, "Yeah, you didn't know I was into that type of thing, did you?" LMAO.

• When we headed back, I rode on Zicheng's bike again. I think I got better at hopping off. Whilst he was riding, we passed by a guy wearing a helmet. Then, Zicheng said, "Once, I saw a guy wearing a helmet, but the straps weren't even fastened. It was like he was making some sort of fashion statement or something." Yes, we all got home safely.