October 27, 2011
Ni hao friends and family,
As some of you may have seen on Facebook, my Internet proxy account expired so I will no longer be able to get on Facebook, nor blogger. Therefore, my dear mother will be posting these again (which is probably a good thing so she can edit them and get rid of typo’s), so if you feel the need to get in touch with me, my Gmail account is the way to go.
Last Thursday, after writing my blog, I hung out with A Du. We went to Zhongshan Park, and it was awesome. It’s just a regular park, but big and gated. We saw all sorts of fun things, mostly old people. Parks are filled with old people and babies, just hanging out and doing awesome Chinese things. We sat down and watched a badminton game, saw people doing Kung Fu, watched some old men fly kites, enjoyed watching some traditional dancing, and listened to some very traditional Chinese music being played and sung. Old folks gather together in the gazebos throughout the park with their instruments or portable mic/karaoke sets and sing their little hearts out. It’s traditional Chinese singing so it doesn’t sound very pleasant, but it’s still cool to hear.
 |
| Old men flying kites |
 |
| An intense game of badminton! |
 |
| Old folks making music in the park :) |
 |
| Pretty cool! |
 |
| Stray cats in the park. |
 |
| Add Men "exercising" ...by banging themselves against trees? |
 |
| Art museum in the park |
Saturday was quite busy for me. Yo Yo is gone, taking medical leave for her abortion, and she teaches 6 classes on Saturdays. I found myself teaching only one of my regular classes and covering another 4 of Yo Yo’s. All of us had to pick up some slack, but I think I took most of the work, seeing as she mostly teaches Music on Saturdays and I am taking her Music classes. I survived though, and hopefully I’ll survive again this Saturday. Yo Yo is feeling pretty good and will hopefully be back to work soon, but it depends on what the doctor says tomorrow. Hopefully she comes back soon because the parents in her classes are very loyal to her and don’t appreciate her not being there, so her classes are a little difficult to teach.
Fei Fei is the financial person at our office and is the one who takes care of my bills and such. This month she forgot to pay my rent though, so I found a note on my door telling me to call her (my landlord who I’ve never met) and that I need to get it paid. I had no idea what it said (being written in Chinese) so I was worried it was a neighbor leaving a note complaining that I sing too loud in the shower or something. Fei Fei said she would get it paid but didn’t call her so the next evening the landlord showed up at my door. She obviously had never met me so was a little surprised to find a foreigner who speaks no Chinese. I called Fei Fei and she talked to her and got it worked out, so don’t worry, I didn’t get kicked out or anything. The next evening I came home to find stickers and papers taped to my door. I was worried it had something to do with the rent again but then one of the security guards came up to my door to talk to me. She explained (with hand motions) that I couldn’t turn on the stove. She was trying to explain more but I wasn’t getting it so I called Chen Chen (Sara) and she translated for me. She explained to Chen Chen, who then explained to me, that I couldn’t turn on my stove or try to use any hot water as the gas in the whole building was being replaced and it was dangerous. They had been repairing and replacing the systems that day but I was at work all day. They were trying to get all the apartments updated and fixed that weekend, but of course the weekends are busiest for me and I’m never home. We couldn’t find a time that I could be home to let them in to fix my gas until Tuesday evening, but it seemed quite inconvenient to not have hot water or a stove to use for several days. The guard told Chen Chen that if I trusted the guards, I could give them the key, and they could let in the repairmen, but just in case, ought to take my valuables out of the apartment that day. So, I did as she suggested. The next day, being Sunday, I packed a suitcase and packed all my valuables: computer, money, jewelry, visa, passport, etc. as well as my work stuff and church books, and headed to church. Everyone at church and work wondered where I was going so I had to explain several times over that I wasn’t going anywhere, just hauling around a bunch of stuff with me. I was worried that when I got home that things would be rifled through, looking for money or something, but nothing was touched, except for the things they fixed obviously. Thank goodness.
Oh, last blog post I put up a picture of the mini clementines they have here. They are so good! I bought a bag the other day and have eaten them all already. Mmm wish I could bring a bag back with me to the states. They have a lot of cool fruit here, like Chinese grapefruit. I’ve never been a huge fan of grapefruit but Chinese grapefruit is delicious. It’s much larger and white on the inside instead of pink. You peel it like and orange, and then peel the skin off the individual wedges. The fruit inside isn’t very juicy actually, so you just rip off a piece with your fingers, and it’s so good. They also have a fruit here that is bright orange and looks like a tomato. I’m not sure what the name is, as my friends only know the name in Chinese. I have always wanted to try one as they look so good so A Du bought one for me the other day and I was finally able to try it! ...I didn’t like it. Oh well, it was something new at least.
Monday it was raining again and temperatures dropped, and it’s supposed to stay cold. I really don’t like the cold, but it’s not too bad and I’m dealing with it. Oh, on the way to work walking in the rain the traffic was crazy. I took a picture just to show you guys how ridiculous the traffic is here in Shanghai.
As you know, next week I am going to Beijing! Yeah, I’m so stoked! I was going to leave Monday evening after work, but my co-workers helped convince Christine to give me Monday off, even though that’s more days off than are allowed in my contract. She agreed and said it’s because of all my hard work and great team spirit! ... or something like that. I told A Du very excitedly that we could leave late Sunday night after the Halloween festival instead of Monday after work, and he told me the latest we could leave Sunday by train was 8:00pm. I was not very happy to hear this because I thought that we had talked about trying to leave late that night, like around 10:00 or 11:00. Sunday night I have to participate in the Halloween festival for work, there’s no way I can miss it, and it doesn’t end until 8:30. So, we decided to leave early Monday morning. A Du kept looking up train times and kept calling me to disappoint me even more, like that we still could not leave Monday night so getting Monday off of work was a waste. Well, now we have our tickets and will be leaving at 6:00 in the evening so if I do work I’ll have to leave by 4:00, but I can have it all off if I want, to get ready for Beijing and stuff. I still want to go in to work though, at least for part of the day. Niki has turned in her two weeks notice so that she can continue her education and get her Masters degree so next week is her last week and we are sort of celebrating on Monday. We’ll have cake and stuff, so I don’t really want to miss it. She will be gone by the time I get back from Beijing. Niki and I didn’t really get along in the past but we’ve been getting along a lot better lately, so I’m sad she’s leaving.
Tuesday was a fun and full day. I work half-day, and now with Yo Yo’s classes I took over, I teach 3 classes in a row. Last week it was easy, no problem, because it was the third week for that theme (Jazz and Swing) so I was really familiar with the songs and everything and knew how to teach the class with ease. Well, this week it was a new theme, The Beatles. Ugh, I don’t know the Beatles well at all and wasn’t feeling too prepared for classes. They went ok though, not too bad. I had a couple of girls observing my classes, plus it’s voting this week, so I was feeling a bit of pressure, but it was ok. After work, I headed to Pudong. I went to meet up with A Du and William but they were much later than they said they would be. A Du told me they would be there to meet me in 10 minutes, and 25 minutes later I was still standing on a bridge, being very cold, by myself. I was bit upset and annoyed to have to wait so long - and in the cold, so I wasn’t too happy when they arrived.
 |
| Waiting on the bridge for A Du and William |
We headed back to their apartment and William started cooking. I was actually going over to do yoga with them, as they’re all super into yoga and A Du is even a yoga teacher. So A Du and I did some yoga as William cooked, and boy, I do love me some yoga! We did yoga for about and hour, and it was mostly working out back, neck, and shoulders. It was so nice, and so painful, but so nice. William made a lovely meal but I had already told them I wasn’t going to eat with them. Apparently they didn’t understand so William was a little upset when I told him I would try it because it looked delicious, but wouldn’t really be eating much. I has some food, it was delicious, and then I had to head to the Metro to head over to visit teach a woman in my branch, who had actually invited me over for dinner. A Du and William were very sweet and walked me to the Metro, even though they weren’t done eating and I’m sure they’re food was cold by the time they got back. They’re very nice though, and didn’t want me to have to walk alone. So, I headed to Katie Nichol’s. She lives very near to the Bund and right in the middle of the very big and busy part of Shanghai. She doesn’t usually take the Metro so she wasn’t sure on the best way to get there. She gave me some not so correct directions, but I figured it out and got there eventually. I was late, but I got there. She has 3 children they are all so darling! It was really fun to not only chat with her and get to know her better, but play with her kids and actually understand them! Haha, I love the kids I work with, but it’s really nice when you can actually understand what kids are talking to you about. I enjoyed dinner with her and her lovely family and then headed to the church for a Relief Society activity together. Katie and I were going to head over together, but she decided not to go because her husband had just gotten back in town after having been gone for about 3 weeks. So, I headed back to the Metro and arrived a little late to the broadcast of the Women’s conference at the building we meet at for church. I know we’re behind and that was weeks ago, but we never got together to watch it as a Relief Society so we finally did Tuesday. It was a great conference and I got to enjoy some great treats! Mmm! Homemade banana bread and pumpkin pie and cheesecake and snicker doodles! I could hardly contain myself! These things are not so easy to come by in China, folks. Oh, we have a Relief Society email group board so I had posted about wanted to borrow some blankets (as it was getting quite cold out) and so a sister brought some for me to the broadcast for me to take back home. She brought me 3 comforters and a blanket, and boy, were they heavy. I threw the bag on my back and headed back to the Metro, looking like a poor citizen of China (as the poor people often carry huge, heavy bags on their backs all around and through the Metro). I got a lot of strange looks and it was very heavy to haul up so many stairs and back to my apartment, but it was worth it! I am now sitting in bed writing my blog and I am ever so warm! It’s so nice :)
 |
| Me and A Tong Mu! Love this kid! <3 |
Oh, so you might remember me mentioning a boy at work named A Tong Mu. Well, he and his family went away from Shanghai for about a month so I haven’t written anything about him lately, but he’s back now! Oh man, I missed that kid! I just love him! He’s about 20-something months and just darling! We speak about the same amount of Chinese (just a few simple words) and so we communicate pretty well with each other, haha. I just want to play with him all day! His grandpa will just bring him in to hang out at Gymboree, even if he doesn’t have any classes that day. His grandpa will come and sit in our office and talk with the other instructors as I play with A Tong Mu, I just love him. His grandpa jokes about me taking A Tong Mu back to the states with me when I leave, but I seriously want to! I love this kid, he is so stinking cute.
Christine is...well she’s pretty frustrating at times. A trainer from Home Office came to observe classes this week. Usually trainers come on Tuesdays or Thursdays (Christine’s off-days) but this week they came Tuesday and Wednesday, and were planning on observing one of Christine’s classes. We’ve never seen Christine study lesson plan so hard. Well, Tuesday evening Christine called me and told me that she could not come into work on Wednesday, that she had some training to go to, so I would have to cover music classes while Leona took her Art classes. Ugh, so frustrating. Then, tonight, Christine called my cell to say that she didn’t have time to study the lesson plan for Music. I thought she was going to tell me I needed to cover her classes in the morning (which I couldn’t because I have classes of my own), but instead said she would call back later so that I can tell her over the phone how to give class tomorrow. So, she should be calling in about a half hour and I need to tell her the lesson plan and how to teach class for Music 1 and Music 2. Isn’t that ridiculous? She skipped out on trainers observing her class and didn’t prepare for her own classes so now I have to teach it to her! Wow, and she’s the Head Instructor at our center. I know she called me because there’s no way the other instructors would do that and explain it over the phone, it’s totally her fault she’s not prepared. Ugh. I wouldn’t deal with all that she puts on me, but I know I’m going to get one heck of a letter of recommendation from her, and that’s what is important right now.
Today was a nice off day. Last night, I’m not sure why, but I was soooo exhausted. I got home and crashed, falling asleep around 7:30. My computer was on and open though so around 9:00 mom called me and woke me up. We talked for about 10 minutes and then I went right back to sleep. I slept like a baby, it was so nice. I don’t know why I was so tired, but I definitely needed to sleep. Because I fell asleep so early I naturally woke up around 6:30 am, but decided to sleep in longer anyway. I got up around 8:00 and was able to Skype with my best friend Kimi, which was wonderful. I Skyped with her for a while, then Skyped with mom. After lots of Skyping I was a little more productive by washing dishes, cleaning up, watching conference talks, showering, and doing a little bit of homework, but not as much as I should’ve done. Kimi got back on later and we got to Skype again for a while, but her Internet is really bad right now and the call would drop about every 3 minutes, it was really frustrating. After talking with her again, I headed to People’s Square to meet up with A Du. He had bought the tickets to go to Beijing but we were going to meet up to buy the tickets for the return trip. We went to the booking office and they were totally sold out. Apparently some travel agency bought most of the tickets and there weren’t any that were at the right time for us. We originally wanted a bed train (so I could sleep on the way back before a long day of work right after we arrive early in the morning) but then tried to get a seat ticket, but they were sold out too. The only ones left were standing tickets and they weren’t even at the right time. We would have to leave whole day early because there is no way I could be late for work on Saturday. So, we left with no tickets and I was pretty frustrated. A Du had told me we could get those tickets but he had just assumed and so I was pretty annoyed. He wanted to keep hanging out but I told him to go to another booking office and try to find tickets while I went home to do more homework. I’m not one to put on a pretty face when I’m upset and hide my emotions, so A Du felt pretty bad about the tickets. On the way home I went to the grocery store and to a coat store near my home. I have passed by before but never been inside, but was sure it would be much cheaper than buying a coat at the mall or any brand name store since this place was a tiny hole in the wall. Of course, me being a foreigner, they mostly just ignored me, talked about me (assuming I couldn’t understand anything, but I can understand enough to know that they were talking about me), and when I asked about prices told me some ridiculous amount that I wouldn’t even pay at the brand name store. So ridiculous, charging me way too much. But oh well, they weren’t that nice of quality anyway, so I didn’t even try to barter, I just left. I cooked myself a lovely dinner this evening, enjoyed some more conference talks (finished watching all the sessions, finally – they were wonderful!), and did a little bit more homework. A Du called to tell me that his uncle in Beijing went to the train station there and was able to get us the exact tickets we wanted! Yay! So he bought them for us and we’ll just pay him back when we see him while we’re there. It’s so nice that we don’t have to leave early because we already have so little time to see so much while in Beijing. I’m excited to go and will have a great blog to post when I’m back! It will be very stressful with work as soon as I get back though, with Niki being gone and still having to cover Yo Yo’s classes. Hopefully I’ll survive. I’m still quite behind in homework and need to be better about working on it during the week days and not just my off day, otherwise I am going to be very miserable my last few weeks here trying to get everything done.
Well, once again, I wrote much more than I intended on, but I hope you can get through it. Thanks so much for all the support, and thanks for reading! It’s means a lot. I love you all so much, may God bless you and be with you always.
Love,
Alyssa Nicole Escalante
P.s. I do plan on having my brother Christopher marry my co-worker Sherry because I just adore and love her and want her to be my sister-in-law. Hopefully that works out ;)
