Monday, August 28, 2006
Sorry it has been a while since a post but I've been pretty busy with this teaching thing. The whole thing has gone very well. I've heard only positive things from my advisors and then just some new ideas for other activities to try.
However, I am still very excited that tomorrow is my last day. Crazy isn't it? I've already been gone over a month. This past Friday was a blast! We ended up putting off going to Macau until Saturday because the rest of the class was going to a KTV (a karaoke bar) so we wanted to go with them. Ridiculous amounts of fun. First of all the security was crazy, metal detectors and everything. We had a private room (that's how they do karaoke here) for the 20 of us and sand and played dice games for awhile. A bunch of us pooled our money together and bought bottles of Chivas Scotch. We ended up getting a bottle for free because we bought so many! And the best part is that it wasn't even that much money and it was really good scotch. While trying to find the bathroom we stumbled across the fact that not only was it a kick ass karaoke bar, but also a GIGANTIC dance club. After we got good and tanked we headed out there and it was crazy disco music and lights and everyone watching the foreigners dance funny. Chinese people just kind of sway and call that dancing. They were quite entranced by the Americans and Brits that pushed their way up to the front of the stage and started grinding. It was seriously a two story club of Chinese people just staring at us and then trying to do whatever we did. Fricken awesome. The cops started warning us that people were going to start trying to take our wallets soon so we decided to head back up to the room where I continued to drink scotch until I blacked out. Good thing Michele got me a cab home. Saturday we rolled out of bed and headed to Macau and we were pumped about that.
We finally got there after ridiculous lines and waiting to cross the border and customs even though, oh don't wait, its still officially China. We went to go into the first casino, and we couldn't because Pablo and I wore sandals (even though we had collared shirts on) and that apparently wasn't allowed. So we spent more of the day walking around trying to find cheap shoes. We eventually gave up because we didn't want to spend more on shoes than we had planned spending in the casinos in the first place. It was cool just walking around though because it sort of felt like you were in Europe with some of the architecture but then you would look around and all you could see were Chinese people. Unfortunately we had to teach on Sunday so that made the weekend over. Tomorrow is our last day teaching and then Wednesday night we hop on the 24 hour train that will take us up to Shanghai. We are pretty excited but sad to be leaving Michele and Chi. Sidenote funny story. I was teaching at the middle school for the first time and I walked in and the students kept telling me that I was "fit" and then would flex. Then the a couple of the boys started calling me superman (I was wearing a red polo). At the end of class a couple of the girls came up giggling and asked if they could call me superman also, I said it was ok.
However, I am still very excited that tomorrow is my last day. Crazy isn't it? I've already been gone over a month. This past Friday was a blast! We ended up putting off going to Macau until Saturday because the rest of the class was going to a KTV (a karaoke bar) so we wanted to go with them. Ridiculous amounts of fun. First of all the security was crazy, metal detectors and everything. We had a private room (that's how they do karaoke here) for the 20 of us and sand and played dice games for awhile. A bunch of us pooled our money together and bought bottles of Chivas Scotch. We ended up getting a bottle for free because we bought so many! And the best part is that it wasn't even that much money and it was really good scotch. While trying to find the bathroom we stumbled across the fact that not only was it a kick ass karaoke bar, but also a GIGANTIC dance club. After we got good and tanked we headed out there and it was crazy disco music and lights and everyone watching the foreigners dance funny. Chinese people just kind of sway and call that dancing. They were quite entranced by the Americans and Brits that pushed their way up to the front of the stage and started grinding. It was seriously a two story club of Chinese people just staring at us and then trying to do whatever we did. Fricken awesome. The cops started warning us that people were going to start trying to take our wallets soon so we decided to head back up to the room where I continued to drink scotch until I blacked out. Good thing Michele got me a cab home. Saturday we rolled out of bed and headed to Macau and we were pumped about that.
We finally got there after ridiculous lines and waiting to cross the border and customs even though, oh don't wait, its still officially China. We went to go into the first casino, and we couldn't because Pablo and I wore sandals (even though we had collared shirts on) and that apparently wasn't allowed. So we spent more of the day walking around trying to find cheap shoes. We eventually gave up because we didn't want to spend more on shoes than we had planned spending in the casinos in the first place. It was cool just walking around though because it sort of felt like you were in Europe with some of the architecture but then you would look around and all you could see were Chinese people. Unfortunately we had to teach on Sunday so that made the weekend over. Tomorrow is our last day teaching and then Wednesday night we hop on the 24 hour train that will take us up to Shanghai. We are pretty excited but sad to be leaving Michele and Chi. Sidenote funny story. I was teaching at the middle school for the first time and I walked in and the students kept telling me that I was "fit" and then would flex. Then the a couple of the boys started calling me superman (I was wearing a red polo). At the end of class a couple of the girls came up giggling and asked if they could call me superman also, I said it was ok.# posted by Mike @ 6:15 AM 
