Ch ch ch CHINA!: November 2011

Well, November has been flying by! I can't believe its almost thanksgiving. I'm sad I won't be home to be with family, but on the plus side, Brady and I get to go to Hong Kong on Friday to get our work visa. We will be there for about 4 days, so I am really excited for that! I am trying to research what we should do there and there is a ton of stuff! Seems like the views are amazing, but it is a very expensive city. Should be fun no matter what!
The last month has consisted of a pretty normal routine. We teach two weeks in a row, and then have a weekend off. This weekend if my weekend off. Yesterday we had a man visit from England and we all went out to lunch. It was fun! There were probably about 12 of us, and we got invited to go to the city of Nimbo (I think) in three weekends for a fun party/bonfire/swimming/hiking weekend. I don't really know why we were invited, but it is through the company that the man from England came with. The women seemed super nice and their English was good, so why not? Another Chinese teacher was invited too, so that will make it more fun too! I hope it actually happens.
Over the past few weekends we have gone to Hangzhou two times. One time was to specifically give a presentation at another school on Eau Claire. The other time was to go on a tour, put on by Jack, and then do English exams for the other school again. We went around West lake, which is absolutely beautiful, and the took us out to huge meals. It was really fun to seem more of China and also be with people who speak English. There was a girl whose english name is Michelle, and she spent the day with us. She is super sweet and great to talk with. We also got to go to the countryside, which was nice because we have been in cities since we got here. Even though we did some work, it was really fun.
Tomorrow we will head to Hangzhou again, but this time with all our staff. There are 10 of us all together and we are doing some "team bonding." I think I will laugh a lot of the time because it is a funny bunch of people. Should be a good time though. It seems like everyone loves Hangzhou.
Recently I have gotten really sick of noodles. I have been cooking my own meals, and it is hard to cook when you can't read any ingredients because everything is in Chinese, so all my meals have been super simple. So, Brady's roommate took me to buy a rice cooker, so that is a lot better! Also, Brady and I have been cooking some meals together because he really enjoys cooking and is good at it, so it is a treat for me!

Well, Happy Thanksgiving!

I apologize for the lack of post-age recently. I don't really have an excuse except that I just didn't really feel like it. These last two weeks have been pretty eventful though!

The beginning of this story starts out on a Wednesday. Brady and I were just sitting in our office doing work, when our boss John comes in and asks us if we want to get paid to dance on TV. I am picturing an event and we are just the token white people in the crowd, so I was like, yeah, that sounds great! Brady said "yeah, we can't lose in this situation!" Which we would later laugh about.

Friday evening comes, I just got back from playing ball games with the students, when John comes and finds me, telling me that we need to go to the directors hotel room to practice our lines. WHAT? WE HAVE LINES? yes we do. It is all about how much we love China and how we want to make our fortune here. We get there, meet the main actor guy, who does not speak ANY english, but is still directing us in when we should speak. Praise the Lord we had voice overs and did not have to learn the actual chinese words. That would have been a huge fail. Brady and I leave that night not exactly sure what is going on, but we were fine with it.

Fast forward: Its sunday night, we are just hanging out doing our own thing, when John tells us that we need to go practice. We go to a theater that has a lot of seats in it to practice coming onto stage. WE ARE IN A CLEAR BOX AND A MAGICIAN WILL GET US OUT. that is so weird. Brady was hidden. At first I was super pumped, thinking that I got the better end of the deal because I didn't have to climb underneath the box and be really uncomfortable. These thoughts were short-lived due to the fact that I needed to be waving furiously at the audience and be the person that everyone is looking at, while I am sitting (seemingly) alone in a clear box. Anyways, we practiced with the magician who was very nice. It was a funny experience though. My knees were pretty bruised the next day.

It is now Wednesday, the day of our performance. We got out of our teaching duties, which was a nice break. We show up at 9 am and we see all the back up dancers and the people that we will be dancing with. No one speaks any english. At all. It was fun. Brady had two guys that he worked closest with, and I was with two girls. They basically led us to do whatever we needed to do. It was fine. Then, we had a lunch break. After the lunch break we had our dress rehearsal. The girls that I was working closest with had on prom dresses. I was in a t-shirt and jeans as desired by the director. Kind of weird. Everyone looked good though! Aside from Brady and I and our typical American attire.

The show started at 7:30 so we had to get there at 5. It was a long time, but it was fun. The people there were really nice. Our boss, John, really wanted to go out front as people were getting here. I innocently thought we were just going for a walk. Little did I know he wanted to do some marketing for our school. So we were out front and journalists came up to us asking questions and wanting pictures. I felt a little weird. At least they spoke english though!

The show started and thankfully we were the second act. We got out of the magic box without a hitch and it went relatively smoothly. People kept telling us we did well, so we thought that it must have been pretty good. Brady found the video online. It is the most embarrassing thing you will ever see. I was crying I was laughing so hard. We look ridiculous. All-in-all though, it was super fun and I am really happy we did it!