Hangzhou

After leaving SIAS, we went to Hangzhou, Shanghai and Suzhou, spending a day in each city. Of the 3, Hangzhou was definitely our favorite. We didn't even see that much of the city, but the part we did see, was really beautiful and clean. The biggest attraction in Hangzhou is the famed West Lake. It's a very big lake with several islands in the middle. We spent most of the day riding our bikes around the parts we were allowed to, walking in the places we couldn't ride and riding a boat to a couple of the islands. Yes, this first picture is staged, but it still looks cool :-) One problem we had was when the boat did not take us back to where we had parked our bikes. The lady we bought the tickets from told us that it would come back to the point we departed from, but..."sorry, unfortune!" is what we were told on the other side of the lake. So we had to figure out how to get back to the bikes (it would've taken too long to just walk). After some help from a stranger and the use of our map, we finally got back to our bikes. Another problem we had was when our waitress at the restaurant we were eating lunch at tried to tell us we ordered one of the most expensive dishes - which we didn't do. Finally they took it back and didn't make us pay for it, but I don't think we'd be welcomed back again! Despite those two mishaps, we still had a great day in Hangzhou! :-)

Beijing

If you've seen Ruth's and Joseph's blog, then you've seen some pictures from Beijing. Here's a few more shots: This is a shot of Joseph and Ruth in front of the "Bird's Nest" as its called. It is the main Olympic Stadium that will be used this summer. I did a little searching on the internet and found that it cost $500 million!
In English this type of meal is called hot pot. In Chinese, huo guo. To eat hot pot you order some uncooked meat and vegetables (and sometimes noodles) and then drop those items into the boiling soup until it's cooked then eat it when it's ready. I usually enjoy eating this, but I didn't enjoy this type as much because the pot was fashioned in such a way that made it very difficult to retrieve your food once you had put it in the pot to cook. It was still fun though.

Hanging out with Students

The other concern I had about them visiting SIAS, like I said before, was that I would bore them to death by having them meet lots of people they didn't know. Well thankfully that didn't happen :-) We had just enough meals to let them meet my friends - both students and teachers. Here are some pictures from Monday morning with Wang Peng (Frank), Li Peng Peng (Esther), Wang Xia Yi (Abby) and Tian Hua (Nait).
Ruth, Joseph and I being silly in front of an old Chinese plane ;-)
Hmm...come to think of it, maybe it's not such a bright idea to smash the top of a dragon's head and thus drive the teeth further into the arm...whoops, sorry Joseph ;-)Monday night we had supper with Courtney (another foreign teacher), George (one of her students who also happens to be my friend. Neither is pictured here), Yan Li (Lily) and Hu Hua Teng (Jim). After supper, Courtney and George left and the rest of us walked around SIAS for about an hour, talking. Hua Teng was nice enough to treat us to some ice cream! We also ate with several other students who are good friends of mine, but I don't have any pictures from those times. Anyways, it was a neat couple of days :-) More later...but be sure to check out Joseph's and Ruth's blog...they already have some great posts up.

Joseph and Ruth in Class

As excited as I was to hang out with Joseph and Ruth in Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Suzhou the place I was most looking forward to them seeing was where I almost always am...SIAS. I was a little worried about the prospect of boring them to death by having them meet lots of people they don't know and more so by having them sit in several classes (in which I would teach the same lesson each time!). I addressed the latter concern by picking one class I wanted them to sit in on and then, except for one class that they came for the first few minutes of, they did their own thing while I was in class. Choosing which class I wanted them to come to was a very easy choice. Originally they planned on staying for the first hour, but being the warm and friendly group that they are, the class wooed them into staying the whole two hours :-) The majority of the class we played charades...with a twist.

First, I split the class into two teams. Each team then had to think of 15 adverbs and 15 action verbs for the other team to act out. The class really wanted Joseph and Ruth to join teams, so I assigned them a team to work with and they had a great time with their teammates. After the teams were finished one person from a team would come up and try to get his/her teammates to guess the adverb and action verb combo they were acting out. Joseph got a hard one when it was his turn to act: sadly smile! But he did a really good job of coming up with something. Ruth had to nonchalantly kick, which she also did with style :-)

After the lesson was over we had about 10 minutes to kill which the students really wanted to spent with singing. Joseph and I sang a couple verses of "Amazing Grace" together and then Ruth joined us for "Seek Ye First". Then the students returned the favor by singing a Chinese song. Hu Hua Teng capped off the class with a solo, which was great! We all really had a lot of fun, very special as you can imagine :-) Unfortunately at this point I don't have the pictures from this experience to share with you...I have to wait to get them from Ruth, who is currently en route home with Joseph. But when I do get them, I'll be sure to post them.

Sports Day

Last week we had what they call "Sports Day"...even though it actually lasts two days. From what I've heard, each college in China has something similar to it each year. It has the potential to be a really cool event, but I think they ruin it by forcing the freshmen to sit in the hot sun, in dress clothes about 8 hours two days straight (though they didn't have to dress up the 2nd day) watching running races most of them don't want to watch. If it's supposed to be fun, you can't make people watch it! That kind of takes the fun out of it! There are other events besides running, like swimming and some strange games they made up, but the freshmen aren't allowed to go watch them. It frustrates me, but I still am glad that I had the chance to spend some time with them during it. The flag that you see in the pictures is the Business School flag that we were waving in order to cheer the runners on.