Hangzhou - Day 1

Happy National Day everyone! Or I guess week is more like it. I’ll be honest, I am very sad to be here in Shanghai. Not that I wish I were in the states, then I would be even more sad, but because I am no longer in Hangzhou. It will be difficult to describe in words how much I loved this past weekend, but I will try. This is going to be a very long blog with lots of details and pictures because it is doubling for my journal and I don’t want to forget details. I’ll break it down into days, but still...prepare yourself.

But I guess I should start off with the few days of work before we went to Hangzhou. First of all, my books and packet arrived! Yay! I’ve been trying to do online classes but the materials weren’t available online so mom had to ship them to me. They arrived late, and completely torn open and riffled through, but it was all there. My co-workers got defensive when I complained and claimed it’s for protection, in case it was a bomb or something. I know that they know it’s not a bomb, the government just wants to make sure it’s not any sort of materials that say or teach anything they don’t want the people to know...crazy strict stuff like that. So I’ve spent the past few days (days in Hangzhou included) getting as much of that done as possible, and surprisingly enough, I think I will be completely caught up for my Communications class by the end of the week! Cool! As for my other class, there is no time line so once I’m caught up in this one, I’ll start worrying about my American Heritage. I only worked one and a half days last week (of classes) before I got to have vacation time, so it was hard to concentrate and stay focused. I felt like I was working hard and being productive those days, but I still wasn’t able to get everything done that I needed to. Christine had me working with William a lot on his homework for training next month as well as his T&D (Theory & Development) knowledge. I was trying to get things ready for the next week because we wouldn’t have a prep day like normal and all four of the difference class programs were rotating the next week, so there was a lot to get done for those. I put less important things first and regretted it when I found myself at 6:15 Wednesday evening, being kicked out of the office, and still trying to get my Music class prepared. Then, while on vacation, I remembered that since Yo yo is out of town, I will also be covering her Music classes tomorrow, so I teach three classes in a row and have no time to prepare in the morning before class. So you better believe I’ll be going into work early tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll be able to pull something together...ugh, but I’ll let you know how it goes. But on to Hangzhou....   :)

Thursday I had a slow day in Shanghai just cleaning, packing, doing homework, and waiting for Chen Chen (Sara) to get off work so we could head out. A Do (Michael) came and met me at my apartment around 5:00 and we then headed to the train station. 

Shanghai Train Station

There we bought tickets, got situation, and I did more homework as we waited for Chen Chen and Lincoln to arrive. After only an hour train ride, we hoped in a taxi to our hostel. At the train station there was a big line to get taxi’s, but Chen Chen (being the feisty little woman that she is) decided we didn’t need to wait an hour in that ridiculous line. She pushed us to the front as men were yelling in the boys faces, and she just responded with, “I know it’s rude, but I don’t care. I mean...I care, but, I don’t want to wait.” Haha I love that girl. So we quickly got a taxi and arrived at the hostel in a short time. Let me just tell you about my hostel...so awesome. I loved it! Michael found it and it was so sweet. It was very hippsteresque/old traditional Chinese style. Very cool. We all shared a room with four bunk beds, very small, but besides for sleeping and getting ready, we spent most of the time at the hostel in the living area downstairs. They had internet, a big TV, couches, a small library, a broken foosball table, a small restaurant/cafe, and a beautiful little red lounge area, which was our favorite. It was raining when we arrived and we were pretty tired, so we had dinner at the hostel and spent the evening there (and I did more homework).

I didn’t sleep very well the first night (not sure why) so I when I woke up early the next morning, I just decided to stay up because sleeping just wasn’t happening for me. We had not taken towels, not realizing that hostels do not provide anything more than a bed, so I decided to walk to a store to buy some towels and soap so I could take a shower later. I asked the girl at the front desk where there was a store near by and the directions she gave me weren’t too great I guess. I guess the shopping area is only about a 15 minute walk from our hostel, but with the directions she gave me, I ended up on the other side of the mountain, 45 minutes later, but I was still able to buy a towel and soap, so all was well. I enjoyed the long morning walk by myself and took some fun pictures (it was still raining by the way). 

When I got back, we had breakfast and talked about what we wanted to do for the day. We got our umbrellas and walked across the street and down not even half a block and arrived at the lake. So close, I know. (Oh, by the way, the reason Hangzhou is a tourist attraction is for the big beautiful West Lake that the city is built around.) We spent the afternoon walking in the rain, taking pictures, and enjoying the lake and beautiful trees. 

There is a tree in Hangzhou which is like the official tree for the city and I love it! Chen Chen and I fell in love with this tree, not for the beauty of it, but because of the amazing smell of the flowers! It’s a very light, sweet smell, and it fills the air because these trees are everywhere you go. Mhmmm! Just makes you want to breath as deeply as possible all the time! 

This is the tree/flower that smells so amazing!

The difference between Hangzhou and Shanghai is that when you see a tree in Shanghai, you know it was planted and it’s in a small boxed area on the sidewalk and the rest of what you see is cement – cement everything. In Hangzhou, everything is built around the trees and the beautiful green and the gorgeous lake. It’s so natural and green! After a few hours of walking around the lake, we stopped to get lunch. We were a little tired so we rested and Chen Chen took a nap in the restaurant. They had bread that reminded me of Ocongate, Peru bread, so I was getting a little nostalgic, but was too excited about being in Hangzhou for it to distract me too much. After lunch we kept walking but diverged from the lake and went into the town a big. We went to some stores and the mall, where Chen Chen and Lincoln bought matching shoes, because their matching sweaters just weren’t enough I guess :) They’re so darling. It was crazy inside the mall with lots of people for the holiday and crazy good sales. They got the shoes for half off, only 400 Yuan, not too bad for a really nice brand.  After the mall, while walking, we stopped and bought some Bamboo. They sell it in a big stick, then a guy comes and shaves it and chops it up for you. You big it, chew it up, suck out thee juice, and spit out the tree. It's so interesting, but very good and very sweet. Yum!

It had stopped raining so we headed to, well I’m not really sure, we took some buses and maybe a taxi to...someplace. It’s like an old Chinese town on the mountain that they turned into a big shopping area. 

There I bought some Christmas gifts for family as well as some pants for myself. I love these pants! Coolest pants ever! I wore them everyday the rest of the trip, so I’m sure you’ll see them in pictures. As we were walking to find the toilet, some guy started yelling at me in Spanish. Yes Spanish, so I was obviously intrigued and went to talk to him. He thought I was from Spain so he was trying to talk to me in Spanish, but his English was better so we switched to that. He was  a guy from Tunisia, Africa (which I had never heard of) but he and his wife had a shop there selling things like plates, drums, decorations, perfumes, rocks, etc. A Do, being all musical and stuff, was really intrigued by the drum playing and wanted to have a try. 

The Tunisian guy somehow convinced me to dance while he laid down a beat and it attracted quite a crowd. He was then giving A Do drum lessons and showing him how to make the different sounds with the drum. A Do picked it up real fast and really liked the drums, but he’s pretty broke right now. The guy trying to sell him the drum was really cool so I was honest with him and told him that sorry, he just doesn’t have a steady job right now and doesn’t have the money. As we tried to sneak away (you have to do that with pushy salesmen) A Do was real honest and said that he wanted the drum but only had 100 Yuan. So what do you know, this awesome Tunisian man sold him the drum for 100 Yuan which was worth about 400, at least. What a cool guy! So of course, we got a picture with him. 

After shopping, we found this awesome little food court (Japanese style I guess) which was just a long hallway outside with shops that couldn’t have been more than 5x6ft big, selling whatever food they had room to cook in there. And in the middle of these shops were little picnic tables. It was so dirty and so crowded and so awesome. There were hobos grabbing people’s uneaten food and digging in the trash, which was more depressing than awesome, but still all part of the experience, right? We got some food and we managed to grab some seats that were all relatively close to each other. I found some creepy men starring at me a lot throughout this area, so I stayed close to A Do. 

Also, some young people we were sitting by wanted to talk to me in English and get a picture with me. I’m having to get used to being an unknown celebrity and getting my picture taken with strangers. After food, we kept walking in this Traditional Chinese shopping area and wandered into a store selling collectable swords. I saw a little white boy wearing a shirt with the American flag on it so I was a little confused because there were no other white people around. The women pushed him to come talk to me, even though he was so shy. Turns he’s half Chinese (though you could hardly tell) and he was there with his mom who owned the shop with her sister. They and the dad had just moved from Minnesota a few months ago for the dad’s work and so that Paul (the little boy) could learn Chinese. Man, I forget how much bigger American kids are than Chinese kids. He was only 6 but I would’ve guessed 8 or 9. Chinese kids are just so much smaller I guess. He was darling and liked talking to me but was too shy to look at me, so he starred at the wall as he told me that he liked swords and didn’t know what state he came from but he liked China, haha. Chen Chen thought he was just adorable and wanted lots of pictures with him! She had the pictures though, so I’ll have to steal them from her later. 


We finished the evening a little early, being tired from a long day of walking and shopping and headed back to the hostel around 7:30. We hung out and rested, I did more homework, and just enjoyed relaxing. Chris (the other Gymboree intern) called me because he was also in Hangzhou this weekend and wanted to know if we wanted to hang out that evening. I told him we were tired and we could hang out the next day. I stayed up way to late that night talking with A Do down in the living area and didn’t get to bed until late. He is a yoga teacher and showed me some ways to help my back, as it hurts almost all of the time. But eventually, we headed back to the room and went to sleep....


...that ends Day 1. Here are some more pictures from our first day in the beautiful city of Hangzhou!

Lotus Flower

Chen Chen :)

Can you find Chen Chen across the way?

Oldest hospital in the province

Week 14.5

Happy Monday,

Sorry for procrastinating again, it’s been another long week, or week and half I guess. Let me start back from last week. We had District Conference at church and it was mighty wonderful! Elder Wong of the Seventy came to Shanghai from Hong Kong to speak. I was able to go to both the adult session and the general session. I was a few minutes late to the adult session but didn’t miss anything more than the opening prayer and song, and I got permission to come into work just a little bit late on Sunday so I could stay for the entire meeting. Elder Wong spoke a lot about having an eternal perspective on things and also about afflictions. He was very funny, and also very full of the spirit; a wonderful speaker. As for General Conference, we will be having it a week late. We just have regular church this weekend, and next week we will watch a recording of it from 10am-12pm and then again at 1-3pm. I can’t go to the later, but I can just watch it on my own. As for the Saturday session and the Women’s Conference meeting, I’m really not sure. They didn’t mention anything about them at church, so I really don’t know. But I will just watch them online on my own.

Speaking of conference, Christine was gone to the Annual GymChina/Gymboree meeting this past week, so I had to pick up her Music classes. She’s gone quite a bit these days and I find myself always covering her classes. It would be exciting to earn the extra money, except that as an intern they don’t really pay me for my classes that I teach, just a monthly stipend. Bummer. Oh, but I also had to take her Play – Level 4 class as leading and William was my assistant. It was my first time leading completely on my own, and William’s first time assisting on his own. It could’ve been disastrous, but went pretty well actually. That class usually has about 4 kids, but had 10 the day we taught it, with a lot of make-ups. It was a little overwhelming, but we did great! Phew! Leona observed and recorded the class so Christine could watch when she got back. I haven’t talked to Christine about it yet, but Leona said I did very well, and just gave me a few pointers to add to the class.

Last Monday we had a team building, before Christine went out of town. We were going to have a whole center activity, but the other departments didn’t want to come...I’m not sure why. But it was way fun! After going out to lunch, we headed to north Puxi and went bowling! The place looked pretty sketchy and we were the only one’s there, but it was still fun. Most of these girls had never been bowling before, so it was pretty entertaining to watch them. Christine wanted to make it a big competition, so we had team against team, which doesn’t really make sense in bowling. We lost so she was disappointed, but I think she was more disappointed that nobody cared. She wanted it to be a big competition, but we’re just not very competitive and we just wanted to have fun. 

On the way to bowling!

Jessie, trying to figure out how to bowl :)

After bowling, a few people went over to Niki’s house to play that very traditional Chinese tile game (I forget what it’s called), but I was tired and headed home.

So, I was planning on Skyping with my mother on Wednesday evening and even asked her to wake up early so we could Skype for a while. However, while on the way home, William invited me to dinner with all the roommates and another friend who was in town visiting. I decided it wouldn’t be a big deal and that mom would be happy that I’d be going out to socialize, so she would forgive me for standing her up on out Skype date. I had a great time at dinner with friends and we enjoyed the view of the bund afterwards. 

A huge moth we saw in a store, probably bigger than my hand!

On the way home, I got a text on the Subway from Bro. Larkin in my branch asking to call. Of course it was Sis. Larkin telling me that she was on the phone with my mom in Utah and was wondering if I was alive. Goodness gracious mother...I can’t even come home a few hours late without her calling everyone on the other side of the world. Apparently my dear step-mother had a bad dream and called my mother to see if she had talked to me recently and if I was ok. Then I didn’t get online, and when she got in contact with the Larkin’s, they called me and I didn’t answer my cell (it doesn’t work on the Subways usually). I was fine and got home 10 minutes later to tell my mom that she’s ridiculous for worrying about me so much. She’s going to have a hard time when I go on my mission and she can only call me twice a year. 

The next day was a blast! Thursday is my off day so I had planned to hang out with Michael (a du). I slept in a bit, then headed to Pudong. Michael met me at the subway near their apartment and we headed back to make lunch. William and Sara were at work, so Lincoln, Michael, and I enjoyed a simple, yet delicious lunch. 

We then headed to the bus in a hurry to go to Nanjing Rd. There, Lincoln went to the mall (or something) and Michael and I went to the Shanghai Ocean Aquarium. Let me just say...amazing! This aquarium is the largest in Asia and had the longest indoor underwater tunnel in the world! It had 3 floors, it took us 3 hours, and we loved every minute of it! Michael had never been to an aquarium before and I don’t think he was expecting much. I don’t think he really even cared to go that much, but just wanted to go because I wanted to go. He ended up loving it! He didn’t want to leave haha. My very favorite part was the Jellyfish room, absolutely amazing. Michael loved the penguins, and we both loved the underwater tunnel with the sharks and sea turtles. Pretty amazing. 

After the aquarium we headed over to the mall  (after catching a picture on the bridge with the beautiful sunset) and met up with Lincoln again. We then called Sara and William to meet up with them once they got off work. Michael had to go to Jing ‘an Temple (the area, not the actual temple) for a work meeting or something so we all met up there. Michael headed to the meeting and the rest of us enjoyed a little shopping area and then dinner. 

I headed home a little early that evening, after a very long, very fun day! Michael is so cool and we get along great. He is actually going to Beijing with me next month. I was originally going to go alone, so my mother is very pleased that someone is going with me. Especially someone who speaks Chinese and knows the area pretty well. He has been many times before and will be a great tour guide, and also be able to get us good prices on things like restaurant and hotels. Awesome! I’m so excited!

But anyway, Friday was Leona’s birthday, and I had remembered on Wednesday and planned to bring her a little present or treat or something, but I’m a terrible friend and forgot. Sherry and I wanted to order some dessert, but the places near by didn’t deliver, and the ones far away wouldn’t deliver so far. We instead ordered smoothies, which wasn’t as cool, but still nice. We ended up celebrating it a little bit more on Saturday with balloons, singing, and a card. It was fun and she loved it.

So this weekend is National Day and most people get a whole week off of work. We, of course, just get three days off, but it’s still exciting. Actually, I’m going to get 5 days in a row off! Yes! Everyone gets Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off, but I have Thursday as my regular off day and asked for Friday off. Sara, Lincoln, Michael, and I were planning on going to an island and climbing Putuo Mountain. That didn’t work out so we’re going to Hong zho (not sure how it’s spelled) instead. It’s closer and will be a cheaper trip, and should be super fun! William was going to come, but ended up getting a train ticket back to Xian (his home town) to see his family for the weekend. Also, Jillian Newell (my dear friend who is currently living in Weihai, Shangdon province, China as a teacher) is coming to Shanghai for the holiday! Yay! I wont miss her completely, as she’ll be here for a whole week. I will get to show her around and it will be so fun to see her! I’m so excited! It should be a very eventful week, so look forward to next week’s blog entry ;)

Church was great yesterday, as always. I led the music for my new calling. I was pretty nervous at first, being in front of such a large congregation in such a huge conference room, but by the second hymn I got over it. We had some great talks and lessons, and one of Visiting Teaching in Relief Society. We got out V.T. assignments, but I was a little frustrated with talking with my new companion. She also works so it will be hard to find a time to go teach, so instead of trying to work it out, she just said “I’ll just do the teaching for us.” I actually want to do my Visiting teaching, so hopefully it can work out. My visiting teachers talked to me and were very sweet. They said coming out to Puxi wasn’t a big deal and they would be willing to drive the hour, so nice! But I also told them we could always meet somewhere half way and have lunch or something, so that will probably work out well. Oh, there is a new YSA in our branch! But of course, he doesn’t even live in Shanghai. He works 6 days and week and is two hours away. He seemed a little stiff (not wanting to talk to me because he has a girlfriend and I’m a girl – lame) and didn’t seem to excited about hanging out ever, but oh well. I love my Chinese friends and figure I have plenty of time to hang out with Americans when I’m back in America.

Work has been...work. Things have been a little negative and stressful for everyone with low enrollment, low attendance, and low paychecks. For some reason, everyone likes to blame everyone else for why we are having problems, instead of just focusing on how to fix things. It’s kind of stupid actually. Aside from stressful, it’s been an interesting week. I’ve discovered that two of my co-instructors are lesbian, which isn’t a big deal, but was quite a surprise for me (for one of them at least, the other, I had guessed). Also, Yo yo has been feeling sick lately, so Niki went to the store during lunch to buy a pregnancy test (sort of as a joke I think) and it turns out Yo yo is pregnant. She was crying and I felt lost as I wasn’t sure if she was crying out of joy, or if she was upset. I wasn’t even sure she had a boyfriend. She does, but has only been dating this guy for a little over a month. After work, I talked to Sara about it a little bit more. Usually, one would get married after finding out their pregnant, but Sara says that they probably wont. She really isn’t sure what they will do with the baby. They might get an abortion, or she might keep it. It’s way too soon to tell or even talk about. But Yo yo seemed pretty cheerful after work, but still looked overwhelmed. We’ll see how it all turns out. We also had a meeting today that lasted three hours, and only one of those hours was in English. I was so bored and annoyed because they were just arguing in Chinese and I had no idea what was going on and as soon as I would whisper to someone to translate for me, Christine would get annoyed at people talking and would make us all shut up. Ugh, it was an interesting day. I’m glad it’s over. And I’m super glad I will have such a short week this week and am looking forward to the weekend holiday! Yay!

I love you all and I hope the light of Christ is with you always!

Love, Alyssa

Week 13

Hey guys!

Well it’s been a pretty eventful/stressful/fun week. Christine really likes me working at Gymboree, and I think it’s because she knows if she asks me to do something, I’ll do it. Even if it really isn’t my responsibility or I don’t want to, I’m not one to say no to my boss or avoid doing the task, especially when it’s something that needs to be done. Last weekend was the Mid-Autumn Festival in China, so we had a marketing activity at the center after work on Sunday with about 30 families. It was pretty fun, but pretty last minute planned. The marketing department told Christine about a week before that they wanted us to perform for the little festival, so we had to hurry and figure that out. Christine then gave me the responsibility of finding the music, choreographing a dance, teaching everyone, making costumes/props, and being the soloist – this included wearing a very traditional Chinese costume, a solo dance, and having to memorize and recite a few lines in Chinese.

 It was a busy week, but it’s over now, thank goodness. The marketing activity was really fun and it went well. We did our little performance, had a magic show, and then the kids made moon cakes. They also could get their face painted and their picture taken with Chang E, the moon fairy (me), but most were afraid and didn’t want to. Kids are so backwards here. They love clowns and are afraid of fairies/princesses. Pretty much the opposite of kids in America, but whateves.

I also tried on Leading this week, finally. Christine let me know that she would be gone next week so I’d be taking over her Level 4 class during her absence. I then informed her that I had never even tried on leading, and she then tried to convince me that I had, many times. I really hadn’t, so she made me try on the next class, and I still have to take over her classes next week. Trying on went pretty well actually. I was a little nervous and spoke too quickly, and Christine gave me some notes on things to work on, but she was pleased with me overall. It was pretty easy actually, having taught Music for the last few months. Play is definitely easier than Music, but different, and will take some getting used to. William also tried on the whole assistant part and will be my assistant next week when taking over Christine’s classes. I’m not too excited about leading by myself with a newbie assistant who still doesn’t really know what he’s doing...but hopefully it will be ok. Thankfully she’ll only be gone this one week. I’m glad Christine is pleased with me. Today she told me that in her meeting with Jenny she was going to tell her about how much she appreciates my hard work and how great I am. She’s doing this in hopes that Jenny will then give us money to have a big instructor dinner before I go home :)

The theme for Music this week is Latin. I was pretty excited to sing lots of Spanish songs, but most of them are in Portuguese or translated into English. Only one of them is in Spanish actually, so that’s sort of a bummer. I don’t really like the lesson plan either, so it’s been a little bit of a disappointment, but classes are going fine thus far. I’ll be trying on more leading, and possibly be getting my own Play classes soon, but I’m not sure, it depends on scheduling. I really hope we enroll more kids soon because they’re taking some of my classes to give to Jessie and Sherry because they have so few. It doesn’t effect me money wise, so I really shouldn’t complain, but I’m sad I won’t get to teach those classes anymore. I’ll miss my kids :(

I didn’t do too much on my off day this week, just relaxed, cooked, cleaned, got a haircut, and did a little shopping. The haircut was interesting. I tried to use what little Chinese I’ve learned so far, but it’s pathetic how little I understand. Even when people talk slow, it’s just so hard for me to recognize the words. Ugh, hopefully it gets better by the time I come home. I was going to go to the Aquarium with A Do (Michael) this week, but that didn’t work out, so hopefully we’ll go next week. Oh, also next Monday we’re having a Center activity where everyone in our center will go bowling after work! Fun!

Chinese lessons are going ok. I really like my teacher Cathy, she’s way cool, but I’m not sure her teaching style is best for me. On top of that, I’m so busy with work and will be much more busy once my school books arrive. I hardly practice as it is, so once I jump into online school more heavily, I’m not sure I’ll practice much at all. We’ll see how things go after my books get here though, I may have to drop the lessons, but we’ll see. I’m actually a little worried about classes because my books should’ve arrived already but haven’t yet, and I’m already behind on assignments. Pray that they get here soon.

Well, I’m officially half way! I am on the downward slope, and I’m having such mixed feelings. I am feeling so depressed that I have to leave China so soon, leave my friends, my branch, my work, the kids. It’s so depressing. But at the same time, I’m so stoked to get back and get back into school hardcore and then to put in my papers for my mission! I’m so excited to see family and friends, and to go to the temple! Leaving China will be so sad, but going on with life and moving forward is always exciting and such an adventure! Being half-way done, I got half of my plane ticket reimbursement back. I am now feeling rich and wanting to see a little bit more of China. We have three days off for the National holiday next month and I’m thinking of going up to West Lake. It’s sort of a romantic place, very beautiful I’ve heard. I wouldn’t be going for romance, but a lovely trip away by myself. We’ll have to see if I can fit it into my budget though, I still have to save for Beijing. Leona will help me to look for train/plane tickets and hotel prices next week so I can start planning my Beijing trip. I plan on going at the end of October sometime, maybe for 3 or 4 days. As of right now, I’m planning on going by myself, but we’ll see if someone ends up coming with me. Sherry said she would want to go with me, but probably wont be able to get work off at the same time as me. I’ll be meeting the YSA’s in the Puxi branch this weekend, so maybe one of them will be interested.

We have district conference this weekend, yay! A general authority is coming! Yay again! I know that’s old news for those of you who live in Utah, but to have one come out in China, it’s pretty exciting. I’ll probably be a little late to the Adult session tomorrow, but will leave work as quickly as possible, so hopefully I don’t miss too much. I told Christine I will be a little late on Sunday, and she said it was fine. There is a YSA/SA meeting in the afternoon on Sunday that I won’t be able to attend  because I have class, so that’s a bummer, but I’m excited for the other meetings! Another exciting thing about coming home soon is not having to work on Sundays and being able to go to all meetings and Church activities.

Well, that’s life this week. The highlight was definitely the Mid-Autumn Festival celebration. I have more pictures posted on my Facebook, so feel free to check them out. Love you all!

Love,

Alyssa

Week 12

Ni hao again dear friends and family,

Well, another week has come and gone and it’s almost frightening how quickly the time slips through my fingers, and yet it’s exciting at the same time. Although I am sad that my China adventures are half way over, it’s exciting to think about what else will come my way as I continue on in this journey of life.

I have started online school but am still waiting for things like books and school packets to arrive before I can really start. My professors have allowed me some extra time to turn things in due to my unique circumstances. Even though these are distance ed. classes, most people aren’t quite as distant as I am. Chinese lessons have been going ok. I changed the day that I have them so now I have a full off day on Thursday with no obligations of any sort. My tutor says that my pronunciation is great, but I need to practice and remember the tones. I think she’s a pretty good teacher, but always tries to cram too much into the lessons. It’s not very ideal and I can’t really retain all the things we go over because it’s so much. The lessons are supposed to be for 2 hours, but she usually ends up staying for 3 because we get distracted just talking about whatever. She’s pretty cool so it’s easy to get caught up in talking about other things. Classes at have been fine this week. In music the theme has been Elvis, which was way fun. I’m not sure how much the babies and toddlers are benefiting from a theme like “Elvis Presley”, but it’s still fun to learn about it in class. Next week is Latin so I’m learning a lot of Spanish and Portuguese songs right now. It’s almost painful to hear the other instructors’ attempts at Spanish. They have sung these songs before, but they learned them from another Chinese instructor, who obviously had no idea how to pronounce Spanish correctly. Even now that I have corrected their words, their heavy Chinese accent makes it sound very funny. I am going to try on leading for Play tomorrow. I’m a little nervous, but glad to be getting it over with. Christine is really pushing me to try on leading, but honestly, I know they don’t have any classes for me to take over, so I’m not sure why she wants me to try on so badly. I will be trying on Level 4, which is about the easiest Level for leading, but it’s a big class so we’ll see how it goes. I’m continuing to work with William. I keep hoping to post about how much he’s improving but...well, he’s improving a little. He still struggles so much though, I don’t know how he’ll do at training next month. We have given him a new nick name at work – Fa Mier. His Chinese name is Fa Ming, but he tends to put an “er” on everything he says, in English at least. He always says words like umbreller, undernear, or feer,  instead of umbrella, underneath, and feel. His English is improving though, slowly but surely. He’s starting to get the format of classes down, but still needs to work on class control, time management, and most importantly, his confidence. That, sadly, is something we cannot teach him. He is always so nervous in class, I hope he gains more confidence soon. Also at work this week, we set up the second Play room that has not been in use. 

We still don't have enough enrollment to be using it for classes, but they will be needing it for training's that happen at our center. Oh, and the Gymboree Annual Music Festival has officially been cancelled, which is pretty depressing. Bummer.

This weekend is Mid-Autumn Festival. I don’t know much about it, I just know it’s about some fairly lady in the moon that makes moon cake for everyone, so there is a lot of moon cake being sold lately. Cathy (my Chinese tutor) brought me some moon cake, a few different flavors. They are always very small, just bite size. They’re ok, but it’s very Chinese tasting cake, which isn’t very sweet and often a weird texture. It’s not too bad though. This Sunday after work, we will have an event at the center in the evening for kids and parents. We will put on a small performance about the Mid-Autumn tradition and then have something fun like a magic show or something. I lucked out (being foreign) and get to be the fairy moon lady and come out with my bunny (a Gymbo doll with rabbit ears) and sing some song in Chinese. Then all the other rabbits will come out (the other instructors also wearing rabbit ears) and we will dance, or something like that. Haha, oh what silly things you do when working with 0-5 yr olds.  Monday, most people will have work off, but we still have to work half day. We will come in the morning and then probably leave around lunch time. After we go out for lunch, we’re going to go and play bad mitten, so that should be fun! But, I really should stop telling you about what is going to happen next week, and tell you about what happened this week.

I got a calling at church! Yay! I am the new music conductor in sacrament meeting! Fun stuff. It will be all official next week. Hmmm...What else happened this week? We had another big training but it was at our center this time. It was for all of the instructors in Shanghai area and it was about how to improve our Art program. Chris (the other intern) is so interesting. I saw him at church on Sunday and all was great and dandy. We sat by each other in sacrament meeting and Sunday school and chatted and were just being friendly people, you know? But I saw him at the training and said hi and he sort of blew me off, like he didn’t want to acknowledge me as a friend or something. Weird kid. Oh well. This training was mostly in English so it was easier to stay awake than the last one, but I hate that they all start around 1 o’clock, right after lunch. It’s so hard to stay awake while digesting and sitting in a dark room staring at a projected screen.

Today was really fun though! Let me tell you about it. I was looking forward to sleeping in, but plans changed late last night and I ended up waking up around 7 AM this morning, so I didn’t get to sleep in at all. I had to go shopping and shower and clean up my apartment before meeting up with Sherry at 9:30. We went to Yuyuan, or Yu Garden, this morning. It was quite beautiful. We had a fun time, I really like Sherry, we get along great. 

Once again, people asked to take their picture with me, just because I'm foreign. I agreed this time though. I figured it doesn't matter too much, and it's nice to say yes. We had lunch afterwards and did some shopping too. I bought some sunglasses, super cute chopsticks, as well as some presents for some friends/family, so I won’t mention what those things are. My new chopsticks look like turquoise colored pencils! They are just darling. We had lunch at a buffet sort of place, that was obviously for the tourists. We spent the whole morning walking so we got tired pretty quickly. We were done around noon and went back home. I picked up a few more groceries on the way home, chatted with some people online for a bit, and then crashed. It’s always nice to be able to take naps, that’s why I love off days. A do (Michael) wanted to hang out so I felt bad that I fell asleep while texting him. He actually was texting me about it the night before and I wasn’t so sure how it was going to go. Between texting just being a poor way of communication and his English being not so great, I was feeling like it was going to be a little awkward, thank goodness it wasn’t though. He works fairly close to where I live (maybe 20 min. away) and taught a class in the morning and then not again until 7pm, so he wanted to hang out in between then (oh, he is a Yoga instructor by the way). He came over to my apartment and I wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to do. We had never hung out just us before today, and usually we’re in a big group going somewhere and doing something exciting, not just hanging out. It was actually really fun and chill though. We just ended up talking and hanging out in my apartment for a few hours. I made a light dinner (he didn’t want to eat too much before his class) of sweet cooked carrots and marinated chicken. I thought it was pretty good, if I do say so myself, and I think he enjoyed it. We just talked and ate and had a really good time. He was over for more than 3 hours so that could’ve been really awkward, but it was fun, he’s way cool. Oh, he also brought me some corn. I’ve only had corn once here in China and it wasn’t too great, pretty bad actually. I didn’t really want it when he gave it to me, but I didn’t want to be rude. Thankfully, it was pretty good. Definitely not Utah Valley sweet corn, but still good. They obviously don’t eat it with butter and salt like us, they just cook it in water, and of course, oil. They cook everything in oil, literally. Over all, it was a real fun day. I still need to do some Chinese studying tonight and get ready for tomorrow though.

I have been exploring my neighborhood more, I don’t know why I haven’t before. The grounds of my apartment complex are a lot bigger than I had thought, and quite beautiful. Once you get back in there, there are fountains and statues and ponds, it’s very peaceful.  Lately, I have been getting off at the subway stop just before mine, even though the walk is a little longer. This way I get to come in the back way and walk through the beautiful apartment grounds. There is a large stage/gazebo area and every morning some older folks do their Tai Chi exercises, so it’s fun to see on the way to work. Sometimes in the evenings, they even have some traditional dancing going on. My friend Jillian Newell (who is currently living in Weihai, Shangdon Province, China teaching English) just informed me that she will be coming to Shanghai this fall! That is pretty exciting and I hope I get to spend some time with her while she is here! Oh, and I told Sherry that I would really like to go to Beijing but don’t have anyone to go with. She would really like to go with me, so we’re going to talk to work and see if we can get that worked out. That would be way fun. Also, Michael has been telling me about some of the places you can go that are very close to Shanghai. Other cities that you can go to by bus, only an hour or so away. I would really like to travel a little more and do more site-seeing. It’s so beautiful here in China, I just can’t see enough of it.

Well, that’s that! I love you all, and most importantly, I love my Savior and am blessed that He gave me this opportunity to come live and grow in China. Zai Jian!

Love,

Alissa Laoshi (What the kids call me - Teacher Alyssa)

Ge Li Sha (Chosen Chinese name)

Alyssa Nicole Escalante 

P.s. I always put up more pictures on my Facebook, in the Shanghai and Gymboree albums, so feel free to check them out!