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cz74699

20 Blog Entries
6 Trips
507 Photos

Trips:

Work Trips Abroad
Chongqing, China
haikou, Hainan, China
Ice ice baby
Beijing
Xi'an Chikity China

Shorthand link:

http://blogabond.com/cz74699


I am from Charlotte, North Carolina but I have been living in Chongqing, China since September 2009 and will continue to do so until June 2010. I have had a great time learning about Chinese culture through traveling and teaching English at Chongqing Normal University.

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My fellow americans

Zhongshan, China

My fellow Americans and loyal readers,

Due to the fact that I have been very busy and also frustrated with some things here, I have not really felt the need to write any more blogs. I lost the lovin feelin' as they say. However, I will give u this link to see the mini vacay I had this past weekend...

http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/6789176/1//chinarrr%20carolina?h=68be76


and I will also give u this passage which is from the city I was in.

An incredible love story has come out of China recently and managed to touch the world. It is a story of a man and an older woman who ran off to live and love each other in peace for over half a century.

The 70-year-old Chinese man who hand-carved over 6,000 stairs up a mountain for his 80-year-old wife has passed away in the cave which has been the couple’s home for the last 50 years.

Over 50 years ago, Liu Guojiang a 19 year-old boy, fell in love with a 29 year-old widowed mother named Xu Chaoqin..

In a twist worthy of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, friends and relatives criticized the relationship because of the age difference and the fact that Xu already had children.

At that time, it was unacceptable and immoral for a young man to love an older woman.. To avoid the market gossip and the scorn of their communities, the couple decided to elope and lived in a cave in Jiangjin County in Southern ChongQing Municipality.

In the beginning, life was harsh as they had nothing, no electricity or even food. They had to eat grass and roots they found in the mountain, and Liu made a kerosene lamp that they used to light up their lives.

Xu felt that she had tied Liu down and repeatedly asked him, ‘Are you regretful? Liu always replied, ‘As long as we are industrious, life will improve.’

In the second year of living in the mountain, Liu began and continued for over 50 years, to hand-carve the steps so that his wife could get down the mountain easily.

Half a century later in 2001, a group of adventurers were exploring the forest and were surprised to find the elderly couple and the over 6,000 hand-carved steps. Liu MingSheng, one of their seven children said, ‘My parents loved each other so much, they have lived in seclusion for over 50 years and never been apart a single day. He hand carved more than 6,000 steps over the years for my mother’s convenience, although she doesn’t go down the mountain that much.’

The couple had lived in peace for over 50 years until last week. Liu, now 72 years, returned from his daily farm work and collapsed. Xu sat and prayed with her husband as he passed away in her arms. So in love with Xu, was Liu, that no one was able to release the grip he had on his wife’s hand even after he had passed away.

‘You promised me you’ll take care of me, you’ll always be with me until the day I died, now you left before me, how am I going to live without you?’

Xu spent days softly repeating this sentence and touching her husband’s black coffin with tears rolling down her cheeks.

In 2006, their story became one of the top 10 love stories from China , collected by the Chinese Women Weekly. The local government has decided to preserve the love ladder and the place they lived as a museum, so this love story can live forever.

So with that I bid u adieu and hope u are well friends!


permalink written by  cz74699 on May 6, 2010 from Zhongshan, China
from the travel blog: Chongqing, China
tagged LoveStory
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getting hardcore

Chongqing, China

OK well before I forget I just want to say that my fear of insane taxi drivers, lack of road regulations, and the complete insanity that is traffic in Chongqing is indeed justified. Today I was leaving the gym and I heard some chaos. I looked up and there was an unconscious girl who had been slammed into by a taxi.

Picture this: The poor girl looked limp and lifeless. The taxi driver gets out.The girl's boyfriend is like frantic on his cellphone and the girl continues to be unresponsive for about ten minutes. Meanwhile, there are tons of ppl crowding around and the road is completely blocked. Buses are honking with people hanging out the window, police men circling the area, motorcycles trying to squeeze through,ect. It took the ambulance a really long time to get through because no one was getting out of the way and vehicles just stayed on the road. What a mess. This certainly made me check twice, no X that, at least three or four times before crossing the road!

Dear lord, please never let me get hit by a car in China.
- yours truly, Carolina


ladiesss

Now on to prior business. We went to the center of the city a while back for Fiona to get a traditional Chinese hand chiseled tattoo. They apparently are supposed to hurt a lot more, but according to Fiona, who has many tats already, it did not hurt more. But it did take two and a half hours for just this small flower.


almost finished..ouch. it is a traditional Chinese flower

setting up the ink

We got so bored at the tattoo studio that we decided to get friendship piercings that we will probably take out in a few months (if we ever get real, big girl jobs haha)


it takes two ppl to chisle away at her skin

Fiona's Traditional hand-done chinese tat

Patricia and Alison got their noses done. I got my tragus done (the funny little part that's really thick in the middle of your ear)


friendship piercing haha

patricia gets nose pierced

good fun.

Afterthought - I ended up going back to the same tattoo parlor and getting a tattoo of my own! (not my first so I wasn't too nervous) However, the traditional style would have taken about six hours, so I opted for just the regular type. Here is what I ended up with.

The back story isn't too exciting, but long story short was that I got my fortune told at this temple with tons of Buddhas and in the middle of the room there was like a queen bee, mother figure with tons of peacock feathers. And there my friends, the idea was born.


My tattoo



Finished!t

When my students have speak out in class to answer a question or such they will end it with "and that's all" so, in the name of my students:

That is all.

permalink written by  cz74699 on April 6, 2010 from Chongqing, China
from the travel blog: Chongqing, China
tagged TraditionalChineseTattoos
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The last piece to the traveling puzzle

Xi'an, China


terracotta warriors

City wall of Xian decorated for spring festival

I went to Xian; home of the terracotta warriors and delicious Muslim food. We spent about 8 days there in total. Because of our carefree lifestyle we would get out of bed around 2 o’clock maybe later and not to go bed until around 4 or 5. It actually started becoming a problem when we started seeing sights because we wanted to get our sleeping schedules back on track, but it was really hard.

Xi'an at night

Xi'an at night

The hostel we were staying at had a really big bar on the bottom floor complete with live music every night. Needless to say, we went there every night, even if it was to pre-game and it was always packed. Xian proved to be a pleasant surprise for Lilly because there were tons of Irish people there! We hung out with them a few nights and I learned some Irish drinking songs and some Irish history.

As per usual, we met some token weirdos. This boisterous group came up to us, clearly already drunk. One guy said hey what are you guys talking about? Can you entertain me? Tell me a story. To which we all just laughed because it caught us off guard and we couldn’t think of anything to tell him. After all, he was a stranger and we didn’t know what the hell kind of story he wanted to hear. So, he didn’t like it and he started getting angry and said well if you want me to go away just say mango mango mango. And, again, what else could we do but laugh? This Canadian girl that was with him came up to Lilly and I and was like shhhhh don’t tell but I just stole a baby solider. She pulled out this weird figurine out of her pocket that she had taken from the hostel bathroom stall.

One of the main points of interest was Market Street where many people sold souvenirs and local delicacies. Right around the corner was Muslim Quarter where I ate some traditional food -- amazing noodles with what I can only describe as tiny chunks of bread.


terracotta warriors

Going to see the terracotta warriors was an adventure; not because of the tourist site itself, but because of the condition Lilly and I were in. We bought tickets and transportation through the hostel and the bus left at 9 am, so the night before we were going we decided we should have a quiet night in. WRONG. We ended up at the bar downstairs. Around 2 am we got kicked out of that bar so we kept drinking upstairs. We got hushed and insulted by a man that looked like a skinny Santa Claus in his 60’s. We went out to a night club around 4 or 5. We bought 20 beers and literally ten min later the workers were like ummm we are closing. OK why would you sell 5 people 20 beers if you are closing in a few minutes? Just doesn’t make any sense.

warriors

warriors

So we went to bed around 6 am. Had to get back up about an hour and a half later to get on the bus to go to the terracotta warriors and we were not in a good place. Well, we were still drunk for the most part. Long story short on the ride home a few hours later (when the beer started wearing off) the ride was really bumpy and poor, poor Lilly ended up sneakily throwing up into a small plastic bag on the bus. I wanted to raise my hand and say “we need an adult” but that would have just caused Lilly more embarrassment. Haha, love her.

ghosts


puppets used during the 2008 Beijing olympics


terracotta warriors

creepy puppets that were used in 2008 Beijing olympics

And that my friend is the end of my tale. Traveling was amazing – everything I hoped it would be. I met lots of strange and awesome people from all walks of life, ate interesting food, saw lots of historical places, and had plenty of time to relax and drink a beer or five.

permalink written by  cz74699 on March 30, 2010 from Xi'an, China
from the travel blog: Xi'an Chikity China
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Beijing

Beijing, China


tianamen square on a hazy day

Ummm okay here's the thing. I think that its going to be much easier just to show lots of pics because way too many things happened here (a picture is worth a thousand words anyways, right??) I probably should have kept up with the blog as i went along each week because now it is just an overwhelming amount of information. Yea i kinda suck and I was having too much fun, haha.

friends

forbidden city


soldiers did a show

yumm peking duck

summer palace

summer palace- great view of beijing!


summer palace iced over lake

summer palace


summer palace

forbidden city take 2


norma thing in the redlight district. ice cream/ sex shop one stop shop haha


atm getting money to buy stuff at the pearl market


big OL pants

craig and mat got us gross shots

austrailian matt...one of the many roomates we had in the hostels


olympic stadium

forbidden city


forbidden city


forbidden city take 2

b-e-a-utiful mountains

beginning our trek



sweeping the wall

beer tastes better on the great wall

arggg


nick!

with the lovely marjorie, one of our beijing roomates


salute your shorts

my slashed bag. someone tried to steal my items!

learning how to make dumplings


beijing at night

panda time

at the russian bar

slippery ice on the great wall..tryin not to bust a


at the zoo

riding an elephant

mat got a baby pint


new years night of spring festival

List of things that happened to me that I can remember off the top of my head:
1) a beggar and her child kept coming after us for money after we left a nightclub. After a few minutes of her not going away she started yanking on my purse and then i started running and she ran after me and she was trying to steal my bag. I had to push this crazy lady and almost fight her.
2) If you want to buy electronics the pearl market is the place to do it. However, be advised that you will get attacked! The sales people there are so pushy and so ridiculous that they actually were tugging at Mat's limbs and screaming to get Mat to buy things from them. After Mat was pushed around like the runt of the pack during recess, we all ran away and never went back.
3) Someone slashed my purse during a night out and I didn't notice til the next morning; luckily they were not successful in taking my stuff.
4) we were gonna go see the killers concert but they bailed bc they suck.
5) If you are ever in Beijing and want to go to a sports bar with awesome food, go to a place called The Den. I'll miss that place!!
6) I learned how to play squash.
7) me and Lilly almost got into a physical fight with a Russian man. its a long story but I basically took the liberty of kicking him out of the bar. He made Lilly cry; no one messes with my friends, haha.
8) *** psycho of the century*** We were hanging out watching soccer and tennis at the Den sports bar. A man from New Zealand is sitting alone at the table next to us. He introduces himself; he is drunk as a skunk. He later asked Mat, "hey what are you doing." Mat says "just watching the football match" Well for some reason this set the man OFF. He called Mat and Pete cunts and then went on this spiel about how they were fags and morons, and I quote "This is how you live? You are in fuckin' China you moron. I shit turds bigger than you. Look at this guy (pointing to Pete) he is a vampire. What's the matter with you? you are with two babes!" WOW. whaaaat? vampire? turds? hahhaa needless to say it ruined the night we had to move tables but the mood just wasn't the same.
9) I was the only one who caught this god AWFUL virus that wasted a week of my life. I had a fever, was throwing up, going to the bathroom every ten min, was dizzy, had a terrrrrible headache and couldn't even keep water down for the first two days. I kind of thought I was going to die. The worst part was it made me miss the superbowl =(
10) New years in Beijing was awesome. Fireworks all day and all night! (for a week) The city was completely trashed!!! firecracker papers everywhere. Although for a few days it sounded more like a war than a celebration.

Staying in Beijing for a month allowed us to explore the city thoroughly. We didn't realize til the last day of our travels that we had been stayin in the red light district of the city aka half naked girls in "massage" places peering out the windows, haha. We had a great time and overall I really enjoyed my time there.

Surprisingly enough, after seeing the capital of China, it made Chongqing seem like a not-so-bad place. Chongqing has taller buildings, the beautiful Yangtze river, plenty of bars and western food. So I'd have to say I had a sense of nostalgia and a much better attitude towards Chongqing. <3

If you need more specific stories on Beijing they are available upon request!



permalink written by  cz74699 on March 14, 2010 from Beijing, China
from the travel blog: Beijing
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The day we won 100 beers

Chongqing, China

The following is a documentation of six people winning 100 beers at a bar -- once again with the good ol' dice game. All I can say is it was one of the funniest nights. ever. We were not quite sure what to do with all the winnings except drink up. I think it was Mat that introduced us to the "dentist chair" and I think it speaks for itself.

before it all began. look what a quiet nice looking group we
are.


and its amazing how many people come try to be your friend when you have baskets and baskets of beer in front of you, ha!

permalink written by  cz74699 on February 28, 2010 from Chongqing, China
from the travel blog: Chongqing, China
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Ice Ice baby Harbin：the good， the cold， and the russian

Harbin, China


harbin ice festival
Words cannot explain the temperature that was Harbin, China. I would compare it only to the tundra. The warmest it was was -5 and the lowest were -20's or so with a wind chill because some days it was so windy. It did not matter how many layers you were wearing, what kind of fur your coat was made of, how warm blooded you are... you would be freezing your ass off. I was wearing - 4 pairs of wool socks,leather boots, fleece lined thermals, thick jeans, two shirts, a flannel, a sweatshirt, a jacket, and another jacket. two scarves -- one for my neck and one to cover up my face, a hat, and two hoods overtop that. Now that you can picture the gravity of the situation we can move on.

me tryin to be like goofy


tom sliding

sooooo cold

harbin

Harbin was b-e-a-utiful! They had ice sculptures and things everywhere. The architecture in the city was different than the other cities I have seen in China. The city has a lot of Russian influence because it is so far north. There so many good places to eat, but one of the best was a quaint but very elegant Russian restaurant.

russian restaurant

russian cuisine


beautiful church


lil mermaid!

We tried some traditional food and it was very hearty and good for the cold weather. The city is also famous for the best dumplings so we had many different kinds at The Dumpling King restaurant. Walking around the city as painful as it was was probably my favorite part. We stumbled upon a nice church and paid a few yuan to go inside. They had photos of the city being constructed and they also had a random chorus performance that we watched some of. Have I mentioned that Chinese (girls in particular) are all very good singers and not shy at all! who knew?


harbin ice festival

harbin ice festival

Now about the ice festival -- best thing and worst thing I've experienced. I literally thought my body was shutting down from the cold. About every 30 min my feet would lose all feeling to the point of panic and you had to pile into one of the small cafes and defrost. However, it is hands down the best winter wonderland EVER! One of the benefits of having ridiculous temperatures is that they can build huge buildings and entire towns made of just ice. It's hard to describe how amazing the sight is and its strange because it doesn't look like its just ice, but it is. The buildings have lights in them, so it is best to see it at night. The first ice town we went to was a disney one. Lots of fun small slides and rides for the kiddies. The boys had their fun attacking eachother with snowballs, but I was nice and safe because I am the photographer. The second and main bit of the ice destival is across a lake that is completely frozen over. You can walk across it if you like, I chose not to because I am already accident prone as it is, I dont need any more variables thrown in. The ice festival had castles and famous buildings made of ice like the empire state building. They also had lots of giant ice slides and tubing. There was also ice skating and this ice bike -- it had a blade on the front and you were like on a lake and it was really hard to peddle, but good fun. About midway through the ice festival my camera either ran out of battery or froze, idk it just stopped working unfortunately sooo I didn't get as many pics as I would have liked.

disney ice festival

snow ball fight

sledding


haha...

jasmine's castle


harbin ice festival

mat on a yak


harin ice festival

harbin snow and ice festival


harbin ice festival

ice festival


USA was not as impressive as other countries with this ice sculpture

china's sculpture

Local problem: UMMM they are really racist against Russians! The Chinese people around Harbin cannot tell the difference between any westerner and a Russian. We could not get a taxi because they would just shake their head at us.We occasionally got dirty looks from people in like restaurants, but as soon as we were like uh, we speak English, we are from England, America, and Ireland they warmed up. It was a pain in the ass really.

We found a nice pub to go to and they had some skanky Russian dancers.

Also at the club they had lasers around the dance floor. Me, being the retard that I am thought it was a rope and walked under one green line and then ducked under another. Right after I had manuevered my body around the "rope" I turned around and a girl was laughing at me so I realized it was a freakin laser. Top five dumbest things I have done.

We found a buffet that is apparently pretty common here in China that is an all you can eat buffet with lots of good food and FREE BEER. I about had a heart attack. That would not fly in any other country.We seemed to be one of the few people drinking the beer. The cost of the buffet which includes: pizza, american food, chinese food, desert ect. and all the beer you can drink was 50 yuan aka like 7 dollars. WOW thats a deal! I had a hay day in there

One day we also went to see the siberian tigers. Again, it was very cold and we got on a bus that took us around to different cages and there were lions and tigers. I dont understand what the lions were doing there? he looked really cold, poor thing. Lions don't belong in the tundra. Anyways I loved the tigers and they were huge! I really wanted to ride one but I guess that will just have to be another day, haha.



toit like a tiger. tom and I

then we got up soo very early to catch a flight out to the big city of Beijing. So ready to leave because it was so cold, but it really was a very cool place. Highly recommend you do it once in your life.

permalink written by  cz74699 on January 27, 2010 from Harbin, China
from the travel blog: Ice ice baby
tagged HarbinIceFestival
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Bob Ross and the bucket challenge on the Island of Hainan

Haikou, China

Where to begin....

always good to know. no smoking, no drugs, no prostitution haha



i am burried and i am also fully clothed underneath

This was a much needed vacation and break from the cold weather. The first day we arrived was bleak and not laying out weather so we mostly walked around and explored Haikou. Because of winter and our location on the island, there were hardly any tourists yayy, and everything was very cheap! (we expected prices to be very high, but so far its the cheapest place I have been to in China) The hostel was in walking distance to the beach, a park, and a small fair-like amusement park.

bumper cars wooo


paddle boat race


beach

The hostel was pretty nice: it had a pool table, ping pong table, and a big screen tv with lots and lots of tv options.

lilly beat pete and needless to say she was stoked

our hostel

One of the signs in our room said no drugs, no smoking, no prostitution. DAMN i was gonna do all three at the same time, I mean they go hand in hand. haha anyways..at this hostel I encountered two ridiculous characters...

First: Bob Ross look alike from Holland. One of the strangest people I've met in my life, seemed out of it and slightly cracked out. He was also hitting on/ propositioning some of the random Chinese girls in the hostel. While he provided much needed entertainment for me, he annoyed Lilly because of stupid comment about Ireland and he struck fear in Tom's heart haha. Tom did not even want to be in the same room with the man. I managed to shmeige a picture with him in it hoorah! Lilly bet me that I wouldnt ask Bob Ross to dance with me, and of course, I can't turn down a dare so I asked. He declined he said," no, I can't dance with out because I don't have my clogs" bummer haha.

look its a baby camera!

Second character: An American man from Missouri.Pictutre this: about 250 lbs all in his belly, slightly choady, tats lots and lots of tats, shaved head. SOOO not your typical backpacking type of guy. The things that came out of his mouth made me ridiculously ashamed to be from the same country as him. At one point we were in the other room and we heard him say," Fucckkkkkkk!!" then a while later he said, "I'm a fighter. I like fighting. I like fighting and sex." This might be attributed to the fact that he sat in the DVD room from breakfast time untill about 4 in the morning chugging beer by himself.hmmm sketchy fellow.

Meet the hostel dog. I think his name was Marley and he was only like three months. He was super hyper and kept shmeigling into our rooms and humping Peter. Very funny dog =)

The food here was excellent. My favorite would have to be a seafood place where you walked up to the tanks and chose what you wanted. Me being the baby that I am, could not stand to choose the fish so everyone else chose for me. I just cant look at something alive and then eat it mintutes later...just seems wrong. Not to mention they were flapping around in the bucket after they got caught. Poor fish =( the mussles were sooo very good.


yum yums

at the best seafood restaurant ever


mats signature dance

partay


One of my favorite nights out was with this guy we met at the hostel. We had grilled seafood and grilled veggies (yummm) and then he took us to a club in the center. This guy was a ridiculously good dancer! Never seen anything like it. He showed us a wicked good time and shimmied on stage with all his might. He was a tinny lil man with some sweet moves.Thanks Mark, wherever you are.


funny people


happy people. minus the sunburn

Bucket challenge: There was a KFC across the street from our hostel that we had been frequently visiting. I don't really remember the exact way that it happened but Tom said that a girl would not be able to handle an entire bargain family-sized bucket from KFC. WHOA was he wrong. Lilly and I strategied and she beat Tom at eating the bucket by about 20 min. She also topped off her bucket O chicken with an ice cream sunday. What a girl -- love her! We proved Tom wrong and I've never been more proud of anyone. haha. I would have done it myself but we all know I have the weakest stomach in the history of time.



eating...

struggling a little..but powering through like a champ


done with the KFC family-sized bucket

The beach was pretty nice. The water was amazing and warm with no waves. I wish I could have stayed there for about another week or two. I miss the beach =(

hostel dog that humped everyone


at 5 am in the airport. lilly was too tired

On the last day I got burried in the sand -- not in my bathing suit either, haha, fully clothed. here I am. We reluctantly left the beach at 5 am to catch our flight and headed alllll the way to Harbin, basically the coldest place on Earth.

permalink written by  cz74699 on January 22, 2010 from Haikou, China
from the travel blog: haikou, Hainan, China
tagged Hainan
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new year for me and u

Chongqing, China

First and foremost happy new year!

pretty! on the side of a random building

Now, let me just say that the beginning of 2010 has already been a hot mess for me. I hope the entire year doesn’t follow suit.


pirate ship we found haha it was near starbucks, which is all we really cared about

new years masquerade ball on campus

The issue is this entire week I wasn’t supposed to be teaching classes, I was supposed to be putting grades into the computer and getting ready to leave Thursday night for my trip. But… Mark, one of our many bosses has said that we must teach this week including Thursday and Friday. I was supposed to be drinking margaritas and delicious beer and making sand castles on Friday. Here was our mistake: Mark asked us Saturday night if we could all go Sunday to the crazy town where he took us at the beginning of the year (see blog entry called bad and good day) where they took us to a tiny town to be paraded around and signed 100’s of autographs for middle school kids. Which was all fun and games, but we never wanted to go there ever again. We were all exhausted from being out of town and from new years and just needed to stay at home Sunday to plan lessons. So because we said no he decided he would play the asshole card.

The VP and three of our other bosses said it was okay for us to miss Friday but Mark insists that we can’t and he isn’t the top dog but i guess we needed clearance from everyone. This is causing us to change our flights to Saturday (costing us $$$) and also costing us more $$$ because our hotel rooms were booked for Friday night, but we wont be there. Needless to say, im thoroughly annoyed and he can suck it.

He wont be able to use us again; he is always inviting us yo weird sketchy bars and parties to make himself look cool because he has foreign teachers at his school. For instance, just last Monday Mark called and said he wanted us to meet the CEO of some mining company, so he came and got us. After being in the car for 45 min we were taken to a hotel. Then there was a karaoke bar on the top floor of the hotel and we got introduced to a shitload of random people who looked like they were on drugs. We were all sober and it was bizarre. The men were grinding on what looked like their trophy wives with their shirts off and they kept just bringing boxes of beer to our table. I swear if we wouldn't have been there the Chinese people would have been having a giant orgy. It was amusing, but disgusting.

On a different note, new years in Chongqing was a great time. We all went to the city center and there were fireworks, and people everywhere celebrating even though it wasn’t Chinese new years. We all went outside and stood by this monument where there were lots of fireworks, and then we continued bar hopping. I of course broke my camera (for the millionth time) by spilling water into my purse. So the pictures kind of just stop and I wasn't able to capture all of the fun.


typical pose


attempted pic of the crowd and everyone had balloons they let go of at 12

ballooons before the big release at midnight


looks like theres a glow stick comin out of phill's nose

We came back Friday afternoon from the city only to discover that coincidentally Alison and I had both left our keys in the apartment. Normally, being locked out isn’t an issue because our boss lives in the same building and she has a spare, but she was out of town. Next best answer was to break in. Problem with that is all the windows have bars. Somehow some way, Tom, who is Mat and Peter’s friend that’s visiting from England was able to use a knife to derail the sliding doors on my balcony and break the lock. Thank god…I really wasn’t looking forward to being homeless the whole weekend.


kathryn and her zack morris cellphone

me and the brits


tom and i

haha morning after. kathryn stole this hat off some lady's head then bolted

Well friends, hopefully I’ll be shipping off this week…late, but better than never. So, new interesting photos hopefully coming this way soon.
Ive never been on vacation for nearly two months before!!

Peace and love you all,

CZ


permalink written by  cz74699 on January 4, 2010 from Chongqing, China
from the travel blog: Chongqing, China
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Celebrating Lilly's arrival into the world and Jolly good fun

Hechuan, China

We wish you a Merry Christmas;
We wish you a Merry Christmas;
We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Good tidings we bring to you and your kin;
Good tidings for Christmas and a Happy New Year.

my main squeeze -- please notice the brittish flag made of tinsel in the back haha

I finished up the second week of exams OMG it was grueling. Hearing the same speech about hobbies over and over again and hearing about the same hometowns starting getting painful. I stopped listening and was literally thinking about hmm… I wonder if this girl knows she has a lot of upper lip hair and geez this guy has a really big head. Sounds terrible, but after 300 and something speeches, what do you expect? The good news is just one more week of exams. The bad news is THERES STILL one more week of exams ughhh!


my lover giving me a lap dance

me and the birthday girl!

A student of mine today sent me a text that said: Christmas is coming; I want to give u a manual Christmas present. Sounds dirty or sketchy haha we shall see in time what the hell that means.

our friend will. he loves bananas

Also getting online banking in china is the most difficult process you could ever imagine. We needed to get a card so that we could book airline tickets for our vacations but it literally took about ten trips to the bank, hours of frustration trying to set it up, about five Chinese people on the case – even heated arguments with bank managers. All in all could be summed up as ridiculous and very time consuming.

leany x mas tree and drunk lilly

should be a christmas card

So it was Lilly’s birthday yesterday and we threw her a small birthday bash with a few Chinese friends and students. Mat got Lilly a very nice birthday cake ( the cakes in china are really pretty and elaborate) but they also look better than they taste. We went out for some karaoke and dancing at the bars.


present giving time

jolly good fun


Mat got cake all over his face and it just so happened that the chocolate is right in the middle of his lip and it made him look like he had a Hitler mustache. We had a good laugh.


hitler school boy

yayy

Oh yea and the theme for Lilly’s birthday was school uniforms. Peter and I were the principles and everyone else was just students. I tried really hard to find suspenders but they don’t exist around here. I went to about 20 different stores.



Best part of the night was me being a dumbass. I actually walked into a glass door. Best part about it was a lady was opening it...I have no idea how I didn’t see the lady on the other side. It was like a cartoon; I feel straight back after bouncing off the door and the Chinese lady looked reallyyy confused. She probly thought who is this dumbass foreigner? Everyone was in tears laughing at me so at least I provided everyone with some entertainment.

surprise! cake

I’ve also starting teaching one night class on Wednesday nights for some extra mula. It will come in handy during my two month travels. There are only 8 people in the class so its pretty easy -- just sit there for an hour and a half and chat about whatever topic I choose.

For Christmas this week we are doing secret Santa. We are teaching Monday through Thursday morning. Thursday day we are going into the city to eat cheeseburgers and salad haha and to see a movie. I haven’t been able to go to a movie since I’ve been here because there are no theatres.
I hope everyone has a wonderful and very merry Christmas!! I miss all of you and I miss America very much, especially this time of year when I usually am baking chocolate chip cookies and eating them with a nice glass of cold milk. ( I have neither of these)


permalink written by  cz74699 on December 20, 2009 from Hechuan, China
from the travel blog: Chongqing, China
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To the things in life that are colorful, delicious, convenient and lovely…

Hechuan, China


sevenup christmas tree

The title for my blog this time is dedicated to my Chinese students who use these words to describe anything and everything. Here are very common examples of sentences they say:

“I love my parents they make my life very colorful” or “my campus life is very colorful”

“having Chinese new year is very convenient” or “ having a lovely brother is very convenient”

No one speaks like this but I don’t want to burst their bubbles. Also, even students that speak very good English have an AWFUL time with distinguishing the sexes he/she, him/her ect. I don’t understand why it’s so difficult but they always say things like my brother, she is very interesting.


students and I at dinner

I am beginning my second week of exams and it has been interesting of course. Their exams were simply that each one had to prepare a 3 min presentation on a certain topic and then I would ask them questions for another 3 min.

I have had terrible speeches and ones that were very detailed here are a few of the surprises I encountered:

Some students were super personal when talked about their families and I was about to start crying during their presentation. One student talked about how her sister died a year ago and how her father was having a very hard time coping with the situation and it was driving her mother crazy and she was scared for her family’s mental health.
Another student told me that her father died early on in her childhood but her father’s parents, her grandparents, thought it was their fault so they shunned her and then her mom had a really hard time taking care of her. Then another student told me that her father and mother divorced and her father got custody but then a year later threw her out of the house and she had to hunt down where her mother was and ask to live with her. Her mother accepted but died soon thereafter, and then she had to live with her grandparents. Yet another student told me her mother had cancer.
Another student was telling me about she was forced to start school when she was only 3 and is now in college at the age of 16 and she has no friends b/c she is so young. Most of the students are about 19 as freshman. =( GOD BLESS! All I could do was nod and try to cry listening to all these terrible stories, especially because I expected the usual speeches on their favorite hobbies or what basketball players they liked.

On a more upbeat note… One student was like I like American movies. My favorite is Pretty Woman and I like the actress whose name was Vivian and I know she’s a hooker but I chose Vivian as my English name after her, haha.



me and my ghotst pal

This weekend I spent a lot of time with the students. We went out for Chongqing’s traditional dish of Hot Pot, which is kind of like fondu… a giant soup out and u put food in and wait for it to took and u do it yourself.



students and I at traditional hot pot dinner

lily was growing at me for some reason

On Sunday we also were invited to sing karaoke but for some reason they wanted to do it at 1:30 pm. Because no one sings sober, they got us some beer and thank goodness they did because we were there for 4 freakin hours. I like karaoke but seriously 4 straight hours was a pain in the ass especially because all the Chinese songs started sounding the same after the first half hour.


christmas tree made of seven-up bottles

Also, it has been brought to my attention the words that the British dudes say differently us Americans.

Example 1 – Fillet we say it like the French people do as in , fillet mignon. Well, they say it the way it is written fil-let. Makes them sound ignorant haha

Example 2- Parmesan we say it like parmejawn because it is once again a foreign word. The English dum dums say parme-sand

Example 3- Oregano they say it like or-i-gone-o its bizarre

Example 4 – they say piano the same way but not pianist; the way they say it sounds like penis with a t on the end. Pean-ist

I’m sure there are many more but these are the ones that have come up and me and Alison who is also American get into fights with the British on how to pronounce them

I’ll leave this entry on that note. It’s too long as it is and I need your full attention.

Sayonara suckers and


at dinner

  • *** Happy holidays! ****




    • permalink written by  cz74699 on December 14, 2009 from Hechuan, China
    from the travel blog: Chongqing, China
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