A few weekends ago I went to SuZhou and ZhouZhuang with Rick and Sarah. They are both water towns and that area is called "the Venice of the Orient". ZhouZhuang had a sign that said it's China's No. 1 water town so that's pretty exciting right? Both cities were beautiful. We had fun wandering around taking pictures and bargaining. Our train got into SuZhou around noon and we took a bus to ZhouZhuang that day. We spent the afternoon in ZhouZhuang and caught a bus back to SuZhou early evening. Once we were in SuZhou we headed to our hostel where our first problem arose. It's very hard to get a hostel in SuZhou, we'd tried going to SuZhou during the May holiday but all the hostels were booked. We were lucky to get a hostel the weekend that we went. It's a very crowded place. When you book a hostel you have to put what time you will be arriving. Sarah and I booked our rooms on separate computers with separate cards and both used different websites to book the hostel. We were skyping all the information to each other and decided to tell the hostel that we would be there at 8:00 pm. I don't know how many of you knew this already (I didn't until I came to China) but China uses military time. So we show up to the hostel at 7 pm, so we thought we were an hour early and all was well. No, all was not well. Somewhere along the line our check in time changed from 8:00 pm to 18:00 which is 6:00 pm. Then we got the worst news of all: They gave our rooms away. I was really worried because it had been so hard to find a room in SuZhou so chances of us finding one somewhere else was probably slim to none. The lady at the front desk was nice though, after we explained the mistake she made some calls and found us a room in a "quaint" little motel down the street. It wasn't listed online because it was Chinese so no one there spoke any English. I was glad we were only staying one night because it was kind of gross and didn't have hot water.
Sunday we went to Humble Administrator Garden. It was very pretty and green. Then we took a boat ride on the canals throughout the city. Our guide was awesome. He pulled out a map to ask us where we were from. He got really excited when we pointed to America (It took a minute of searching to find America. He had it folded in half and Chinese maps have China at the center so it's not where you first expect it to be). He sang some songs for us while we were boating along. He'd always get our attention then motion for us to be quiet and listen. He was pretty good as well so that was fun.
I got to teach one class on Monday last week and that was it. They had more exams on Wednesday and Thursday. I hate it when the teachers tell me that my classes are cancelled because they always say "Oh, you are so lucky." I want to say "Okay, you take a vacation and I'll teach your classes." I really like teaching and I hate it when they take my classes from me, especially this close to the end. I haven't taught this past week either. Grade 3 (Seniors) has the big college entrance exam this week so grade 2 and grade 1 have had a holiday. The most exciting part of last week was Childrens' Day. I laughed about that one. When I was little I whined to my parents that there was a Father's day and a Mother's day but no Children's day. They always told me everyday was Children's day. Now that I know Children's day does actually exist I feel like my parents cheated my childhood! All the smart and special kids at the primary school (Yes, that is what they are called) get all dressed up and learned a song and dance that they performed. They were all so cute! I had two little kids give me rings that day and on the bus to the cinema I had little kids basically throwing food at me. That was exciting. After we got off the bus a little girl pulled me to some seats and then I had about 3 little kids putting stickers all over my face. Those were not fun to pull off later.
Last weekend Alyssa and I went to HeFei to visit two boys that came with our group. That was a lot of fun. It was about a 2 hour train ride there which wasn't bad at all. We got there Friday evening, had dinner and then chatted the rest of the night. We took a bus to Kevin's apartment and got a kick out of the sign that was on all the buses in HeFei. It said "Seat well and hold steadily". And that's exactly what we did.
The next day we went to the zoo. Zoos in China are so much cooler than zoos in America. They don't have cages like they do in America. Don't misunderstand, the animals aren't running wild throughout the zoo but it's a lot more up close and personal in China. The best part was the panda bear. Pandas are China's national treasure, they are very important to them. The four of us were laughing about this and joking about the Chinese people crowding around pens to see them. Of course when we made it to the panda enclosure we were pushing just as hard as the Chinese to get to the front to see it. It was so adorable just sitting there eating bamboo while everyone was snapping photos of it.
Sunday Alyssa and I looked up train times and found one that would get us back to ZhenJiang with enough time to catch the last bus to our city. Everything was going great, we made it to the train station on time and the lines weren't very long to buy tickets. We made it to the front and that's when our problems arose. We had written down the train number and the stop we wanted and the time it left and everything. We were very prepared. The train that we had picked out did not exist. The lady couldn't find it. The poor lady panicked, white people make them nervous in general to be honest, so she rushed off to find someone who spoke English. We got a train home but we would not be able to make it in time to catch our bus home. So we got on the train not sure what to do because there are no hostels in ZhenJiang for us to stay at. We made a spur of the moment decision to get off the train in NanJing instead because there were lots of people we could stay with there. The Isoms were nice enough to take us in for the night. It was actually pretty fun, Anne made us pancakes and her little girls played magic tricks and puzzles with me. The Isoms have adopted three Chinese girls, each from different places in China. Eventually Alyssa and I did make it back to YangZhong and I was so exhausted and so happy to see my shower.
As I mentioned before I haven't taught this week so nothing super exciting has happened. Wednesday afternoon some of my friends from grade 2 decided to go to KTV and invited me to go with them. That was a lot of fun. They'd pick songs for me to sing and most of them were Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga or Katy Perry. The Chinese love Lady Gaga unfortunately. They even have an expression involving her that I absolutely love! It's "Oh my Lady Gaga!" After KTV we went to hotpot and Scotty ordered a very spicy dish that made me and Doris sniffle a lot. That was all fun except for I accidentally ate a really spicy pepper that made my tongue go numb. That was a very uncomfortable feeling.
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