The Beach and Other Updates

Monday, August 12 - Sunday, August 17, 2008

This last week was spent in training and more bonding time with the other teachers. We have a great staff to work with. Friday night we all went to the director’s house for pizza.

Our ayi (housemaid/cook) is working out great. She speaks enough English, and we can write Pinyin (Mandarin with English letters) from our dictionary in order to communicate. On Wednesday we told her that we wanted her to cook for 6 people on Thursday. She shops on Monday so she had to be creative with whatever we had in the refrigerator. We had no idea what she was going to fix, but she a great job. We, as well as our guests, were impressed. I am teaching her vocabulary for the kitchen. It is so funny to hear her try to pronounce “refrigerator.” Bin xiang is much easier to say. She is a quick learner and is teaching me the Mandarin words. We have a good time together.

Most of the new teachers went to the beach yesterday (Saturday). Tom chose not to go....he wanted to work on getting his class ready. The beach was actually pretty nice. The school took us on two busses 1 ½ hours away and they paid our way in. We each had to pay for a table with an umbrella and 4 chairs...about $17.00 at our own expense. I shared with another family that has been with QSI in Azerbajan. The water was a nice temperature, and it was not wall to wall people like the internet pictures of some other beaches. There were some unclothed kids up to about age 7, and the water was a little dirty, but tolerable. I walked the beach with 3 other teachers, and that was so nice. The scenery around the beach was gorgeous. They had parasailing there and a zip line. I didn’t do the parasailing because I didn’t bring enough money. It was about $20.00. The restrooms were squat pots and had no doors. I just couldn't do that. But, I had a good time, and it was nice to hang out with all the teachers.

We had breakfast this morning (Sunday) with some returning teachers who are our "transition buddies." They are from Roseville, CA. The hotel one block away has a buffet breakfast for $4.00 per person. It is ½ western style and ½ Chinses style. It was pretty good. (They do need to be taught how to cook scrambled eggs. Tom tried them, and they were very buttery and runny. Have you ever had baked beans for breakfast? Of course that is American, right? On the whole, it was a good buffet. Darcy and Eric Wood have been so helpful to us and will continue to “show us the ropes” with the new curriculum as well as how to get around China and Hong Kong. We cannot go to Hong Kong until we have our 1 year residence visas which we should get some time next week. Because we came early, along with 3 other couples, we were processed sooner than the rest of the teachers. This is a good feeling to be done with all of that.

We had lunch today with some people we met at church that are from San Jose. We went to a really nice restaurant around the corner from our place. I had roasted chicken with a rosemary sauce. Little did I know that what I ordered was a whole chicken! It was delicious, and definitely enough for 2 people. It was the equivalent of about $14.00 (no tax or tip) and well worth it. The atmosphere was really nice too.

Tonight we are having another couple from the school that live on the next floor down over for dinner. My sister had given me a marinade recipe of ½ soy sauce and ½ Coke. Since I could get those 2 ingredients, I am a happy camper knowing that I have a really good marinade for my boneless, skinless chicken breasts that I was able to buy at The Butcher Shop.