Wonders of China: Week 18

Dear friends and family whom I love and miss dearly,

Sorry for not writing for the past couple weeks! I have been so busy and time has slipped through my fingers. I’ve felt as though time has been going by way too fast, and yet at the same time, the last two weeks have been so long. It’s hard to explain I guess. It’s been a good two weeks, just a little crazy. So here we go!

As I mentioned in my last blog, Jillian Newell came to Shanghai and it was so awesome to see her! For those of you who don’t know her, I have been dear friends with her and her whole family since the age of four. We’re basically sisters and I love her dearly! So it was way fun to see her out here in China. I got to hang out with her and her ILP group twice while she was here, enjoying couple dinners, catching up, bao zi, and The Bund.

It was sad saying goodbye on the Metro, but I hope she has a most wonderful stay the rest of the time she is here in China and I know she was happy to return to Weihai, although she did love Shanghai. She said she didn’t want to leave, and even though I do like Shanghai, after coming back from Hangzhou, I wasn’t sure why she didn’t want to leave this dirty and overcrowded city. It can be pretty exciting though.

The week back to work wasn’t that great. I hadn’t prepared for classes very well the week before and Yo Yo was still on vacation so I was also covering her classes. The first day back was really rough, but after that it started to smooth out a little bit. I learned my lesson though, and I’ll definitely be a little more prepared before I leave for Beijing in a few weeks.

That next Monday was a fun day. We really had nothing to do all day and only worked half day. We studied lesson plans, but mostly chatted and some of the girls did exercises in the office, it was funny to watch.

Exercising!

We worked until about noon and then headed out for lunch and the day. Christine somehow convinced Jenny to have a “Center Team Building” – basically where everyone in the center goes out and has fun doing some activity so it can build our team spirit, haha.

Waiting in the lobby at KTV.

More waiting...

We had ordered some vans to come pick us up so we loaded up and headed out to KTV after lunch. The KTV we went to wasn’t all that nice, compared to most KTV’s at least. It smelled funny and didn’t have a huge choice of songs, but it was still fun. It was a weird feeling though, because even though it was supposed to be a “Team Building” thing, everyone still sat within their own departments and just chatted amongst themselves. Everyone was looking at us instructors like we were weirdoes for actually have a fun time and getting into it and singing all out. Ah, oh well. We also got involved in lots of arm wrestling...not sure why. I think I may have disappointed/offended one of my co-workers that night who is lesbian and I think has a crush on me. She didn’t talk to me much for the next couple days, but I think all is well again which is good because she’s awesome and a great friend to me.

Niki getting bored at KTV and trying to
balance and maraca on her finger tip.

After KTV we headed to dinner and met up with the few co-workers that had stayed at the center during the rest of the work hours and didn’t get to come to KTV, including Jenny. We went to a Hot Pot restaurant which is quite famous in China for the excellent service.

Service isn’t really a big thing here in China, so I wasn’t overly impressed compared to regular American restaurant service. Except for the restroom attendee, who squirted soap into my hands for me – kind of cool. They still had squatter toilets though, which I’m used to now. I’ve decided I don’t really like Hot Pot, contrary to how popular it is here in China. It all tastes the same after you put the different foods in the boiling pot, and then you dip it all in the same sauce, so really it all just tastes like the sauce. Boring. But it was still fun. There was a guy going around to the tables making noodles while throwing them around and doing tricks, it was pretty cool. I’ll see if I can upload a video on here...

It was a fun day, but I was feeling a little homesick. Not homesick because I miss home necessarily, but because while you’re living in China and only interact with other Chinese, you will always be the odd one out. My co-workers are wonderful and are so sweet to me, but inevitably I will feel like the outcast and feel lonely because I don’t understand what’s going on half the time, I don’t understand their culture, and they don’t understand mine. I love being here and I will be very sad to go home in a matter of weeks, but it does get hard sometimes.

Last Thursday I had a busy day, busier than I had hoped. I woke up and got ready to give a speech via Skype to some of my family as part of my Public Speaking class I’m taking via distance ed.. After the speech, I quickly went out the door for my busy day. I met up with Sherry at People’s Square to go to the Shanghai museum. She brought her niece who was quite darling, but this museum wasn’t really age appropriate for her. Nothing inappropriate about it, but it isn’t a place that would interest a 1 ½ yr old. Sherry probably spent a good 10 minutes inside the galleries and enjoying the museums, and the rest of the time out with her niece because she was cry if we took her into the galleries. I enjoyed the museum anyway, and would come out and talk with Sherry in between galleries.

I didn’t have time to eat breakfast that morning because of homework and speech giving, so I felt I was too hungry to really enjoy the museum. We only spent about over an hour there and then took off for lunch. We went to a traditional noodle shop where Sherry ordered me a dish with blood and some sort of intestine meat. Man, I wish she would tell me what she’s ordering for me more specifically than “meat” and noodles. The blood frozen and made into a gelatin or something, so it’s like the texture of tofu and dark brown. I just picked it out and gave it to Sherry and mostly ate the noodles, which were clear and made from potato.

After lunch we headed to the Metro, I quickly said goodbye, and took off towards Pudong. I went to meet with my visiting teachers but ended up being a little late, it was ok though. After the metro, it took me a while to find a taxi. Once found, the taxi driver took me straight to the apartment complex but dropped me off out front. I had no idea how huge this apartment area was or I definitely would have had him drive me inside. I called Sister Price and she came out to find me. We enjoyed chatting and visiting for a while, they’re very sweet sisters. I was going to grab a taxi back to the subway (metro – same thing) but Sister Peterson offered to take me. She needed to drop by a store first and I was in a hurry, but it was ok. She had brought her daughter with her so I enjoyed chatting with her 4 yr. old while she ran into the store. It was fun talking with a kid I could actually understand, and kind of weird too. They finally dropped me off at the metro where A Du (Michael) was waiting. We were going to head to the Art Museum (I know, two museums in one day!) but it was too late. We didn’t want to leave the area because we were planning on going out for dinner at a close by restaurant but we weren’t hungry and didn’t want to eat for a while. We headed over to Huangpu Rd. and enjoyed the foreign mall there. We played in the toy store, but spent most of our time in the book store. I was reading a book called “101 things for foreigners to know about Chinese culture” or something like that. It was really funny reading it with A Du because he was getting a little defensive about things and I found every word of it to be true. We also read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” because it is one of my favorite children’s books and he had never heard of it. It was fun. We wandered down and found an international grocery store where I bought cheese! Yes, real cheese! It was very over priced, but well worth it. But actually if you convert it to dollars, it’s about the same as in the states, but everything is cheaper in China so it seems like more. A Du’s friend kept calling him earlier about wanting to come hang out with us but he was over in Puxi (about an hour away), had to teach a Yoga class back in Puxi in just a few hours, and we were planning on going out to dinner very soon. I invited him to come to dinner with us but he’s Indian and I guess Indians don’t eat out in restaurants...or something like that. So we said another time, but 45 min. later he called again saying he was at the Metro waiting for us. So we hurry and bought my cheese and ran to meet him. His name is Sangee (pronounced sun-jee). He had a really heavy Indian accent and I had a hard time understanding him. He didn’t speak Chinese, but I found A Du having to translate for me, because I just couldn’t understand his English very well. We talked for about 10 minutes in the station, got on the subway and rode with him for about 5 minutes more and then got off at our stop to go the restaurant and he headed back to Puxi. It was strange and I’m not sure why he came all the way out to meet us just for 15 minutes, but I guess he wanted to meet me.

So, we headed on to Cantina Agave! A Du had never had Mexican food before and I had been craving some real bad, so I found this awesome little restaurant in Pudong for us to go to. I told A Du I would buy him dinner for going to Beijing with me and being my tour guide, so this was making up for that. We ordered tacos and loaded nachos! The food tasted Mexican with a little bit of Chinese flavor to it, but it was still pretty darn good. He got Baja fish tacos and they were amazing!

Oh, A Du loved the Mexican food by the way. He loved the food and the music and the atmosphere of the restaurant and the fact that you eat things with your hands, everything about it! Haha it was fun. After dinner we walked in the rain to catch a bus but after a while of walking I decided I was tired and I didn’t want to walk anymore and then have to wait for a bus, so we grabbed a taxi back to the metro and I headed home. I wanted to get home early that night to work on homework, but didn’t end up getting home until after 9:30. Ah, oh well. I should enjoy my off days with a social life.

It was really nice to go to church on Sunday, having not been in two weeks. I do love church, and it fills me with energy for the rest of the week. Sunday, Yo Yo had decided that she was going to go through with the abortion. She gave Christine two days notice that she would be needing at least two weeks of for the procedure, which Christine wasn’t too happy about. Yo Yo had already taken off two weeks just a week or so ago to go on vacation and then to give such short notice for this, well no one was too happy about it. Yo Yo teaches so many classes, the most out of all the instructors, so it’s quite an effort to get her classes covered. Monday we kept very busy as we recieved huge orders and lots of packages so we had tons of boxes to unpack and organize. Lots of new toys and things arrived to sell at the front desk for kids, which of course made me want to buy all of it for my darling nieces and nephews! I think I will go home a broke woman, as I will spend all my money buying things for them for Christmas.

So Monday was good and busy but we were feeling sad that Yo Yo would be gone for a few weeks. We ended the day with a meeting that consisted of us getting yelled at and chewed out for low attendance, even though the attendance is higher than it has been in months. I guess because it’s not perfect, it’s still all our fault. Actually, I find that Christine is negative on Mondays because she has to meet with Jenny and the other heads of the departments. Usually she really cool and practical about things, but no one likes her on Mondays and our instructor meeting are always dreaded. Jenny is so negative and I feel it really hinders this center’s progress and growth, which is sad. I agree with Christine who says she’s too young and immature to run a center. She get’s stressed and too focused on numbers and just takes it out on everyone else. For example, we’ve have discovered cockroaches in our center. Most of them being the the instructor’s office, so of course Jenny immediately tells us why we have cockroaches and why it’s our fault and that it’s because we leave food out. Of couse, there are cockroaches in the Art room and shoe room too, but that must still be our fault, I’m sure. It’s so frustrating, but I’ve gotten pretty good at killing coackroaches, so that’s a plus. Thankfully I don’t have to work with Jenny too much though, and most the time it’s really awesome working here.

Well, like I have mentioned, I have been doing online school, trying to catch up. I have a lot left to do and am feeling pretty overwhelmed, but am trying to remember take things one assignment at a time and not let myself feel too overwhelmed with the 7 credits I’m taking, on top of working 40+ hours a week. Especially now that I’m covering so many of Yo Yo’s classes, it’s a little crazy. Tuesday I work half days and usually only teach one class, but now teach three in a row. Jessie and Jo Jo will be covering Yo Yo’s Thursday classes, and they’re not really Music teachers, so we co-taught together on Tuesday to give them more practice. Jessie taught half of one class, and Jo Jo taught half of another. They both did pretty well, I gave them feed back for things to work on, but I think classes will be fine on Thursday. Yesterday it was just me, Christine, and Leona for the day. We decided to go out for lunch instead of ordering in and ended up taking like two hours. Shhh, don’t tell, or we’d definitely get in trouble. It was fun though and we went out to a good restaurant. Christine let me take home all the left over’s so I was set for dinner last night, and lunch today. It’s nice not having to cook.

Today I am planning on lots of homework, cleaning my apartment, laundry, more homework, scripture study, and more homework. I’m planning on taking a break in the afternoon and hanging out with A Du. He bought me a Yoga mat and so he might teach me some Yoga today. If not, we’ll just enjoy Zhongshan park, which is pretty close to my apartment, but I have never been. This weekend I will be overloaded with all of Yo Yo’s classes, but it should keep me busy and should be fun. Next week the Music theme is The Beatles (I don’t know why, seeing as we teach babies and toddlers), but it should be fun. My co-workers are so surprised by how little of the Beatles I know, because I mean come on, I’m American! Haha but I do know a few songs.

It’s crazy to think I have less than two months left. I will be home within a matter of weeks! Less than 8 weeks actually. I have been working things out for school and talking with mom, I have realized how busy I need to be next semester. I really wish I hadn’t dinked around so much my first year at college, because now I have so much I need to do before I can get into my program, and I would really like to get into my program before I go on my mission. And I would really like to go on my mission and turn in my papers next summer, which means I have a lot to get done in a short amount of time. Ugh. But, I don’t need to stress about it too much until it gets here. Until then, I can work hard here and enjoy China.

Oh! Some of you probably saw this on Facebook but the other day I had my first real conversation in Mandarin! I went to buy some eggs and the market near my home. It was a short and simple conversation, but I was able to tell the man what I wanted, how many, ask him how much it cost, if I had the right amount of money, etc. I understood everything he said and he understood me! It was awesome :) My Mandarin is far from even semi-fluent, but it’s so cool that I’m making progress! My co-workers were so happy and proud when I told them.

Well, I really must get on with homework and cleaning my apartment. Busy, busy! But it’s nice to have a real off day. I promise to not be such a slacker like I have been and not wait to long to write again. These blog posts are too long when trying to cover multiple weeks. But I love you all and love hearing from you! Wo ai ni!

Love,

Alyssa Nicole Escalante

Zai Jian!

P.s. Mom mentioned that I've never posted pictures of actual classes at Gymboree, so here are a couple.