Life has settled down into a routine of sorts over the past month or so. I have gone on a few trips around Shanghai which I will talk about later in the blog, but for now my time is spent pretty much at work and hanging out with my friends. Work is still going well at Disney English. I continue to teach four classes during the week while everyone else in my center has 10 classes but the rest of my time is filled up with demo classes and events for our learners that are already enrolled. I also let all the other trainers know that I am willing to help out with whatever they need to help them prepare for their classes and that helps fill up my time and it also helps out the friends at my center. I enjoy teaching here at Disney English, and I absolutely adore my students more and more each week as I get to know them and their little personalities. My AT Coco will only be with me for another month or so and then she will go on maternity leave. She has been wonderful to work with so far, and though I am sad to see her leave, I'm looking forward to meeting her little baby in October. I can't wait to be Auntie Heather to my little Chinese niece or nephew :)
Summer is definitely here and the hot, muggy weather doesn't help with motivation for going outside. My friends and I have pretty much decided to stick to inside excursions from now on until it gets to be cooler weather. So with that disclaimer, here are some highlights from the past few months.
Visited Century Park with some people from work for a few weeks until it got too hot to play outside. Costs 10 RMB to get in but it is one of the few parks where you are allowed to walk on the grass. It was kinda brutal on a girl who never played sports during her formative years. I did pretty well considering I am not the most athletic person out there. At least I tried and I had the bruises, broken fingernails, and aching muscles to prove it!
So many people are leaving my center. Either their contract is up and they didn't renew or they were promoted and transferred or they put in for a transfer to a different city or a different center. It's kinda sad because I've just gotten to know them and now they're leaving. Our new LLD (my boss) who arrived about a month ago is resigning at the end of the term, so here comes some more change in personnel. It seems that not much is permanent or even predictable in this job! We do get to have some pretty cool parties when people leave, though. Had a smoothie party at work as a goodbye for our former LLD. We also went bowling when three employees left around the same time. Gonna miss these people, but there is always someone new to meet, too!
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| Delicious Concoction |
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| Sad to say goodbye to Rainy |
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| Very sad to say farewell to Apple, too |
Attended Disney English Town Hall last month. Had a superhero theme and gave out prizes to centers and individuals who had the best costumes. Top three individuals were Darkwing Duck, a British Captain America, and Demo Dude who created a costume using the realia we use in our Demos at work. They made a few announcements and then came the reason I attended in the first place. We watched The Avengers on the big screen for free. It had Chinese subtitles, but I still enjoyed it.
Totally got approached by a group of young Chinese nationals one day who asked me to take their picture in People's Square. They proceeded to talk to me to practice their English, so they said. They were from out of town and visiting one of the friends here in Shanghai and wanted to talk to me to practice. One of the guys said that he loved my eyes and that I was beautiful, and then they asked me if I wanted to go to a teahouse to see the art of presenting tea. Now I was very flattered by all of that, but fortunately for me, I had already read about these groups of young people that try to lure a foreigner to the teahouse, rack up a large bill, and then leave the foreigner to pay for it. So I was aware of this scam. I also had just gone grocery shopping and had a bag full of groceries to take home. So I said I had to get home but thank you for the invitation, it was nice talking to you and then I left. Think I handled that pretty well.
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| Favorite Western imports found at City Shop |
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| Element Fresh is a restaurant that reminds me of delicious SoCal fare |
We had a holiday in June, which means I have a day off with everyone else at my center. So a few of us girls took a day trip to the nearby city of Suzhou. It is famous for being a water town and boy, was it ever full of water that day! It rained off and on the entire time we were there, but we still had a good time. There were plenty of markets to hunt through in the tourist areas. We paid to vist and walk through a huge, elaborate garden called the Humble Administrator's Garden. I would love to go back to relax one day when it is not as crowded because that garden was so lovely and peaceful. It was a pretty uneventful trip when it came to things going wrong which was a complete turnaround from my last trip out of the city. Kind of a nice change!
Visited Qibao one day with a group of friends including Dawn, Wendy, Elizabeth and Andrew. It's a Metro stop pretty far removed from the center of Shanghai. It was picturesque and very Eastern compared to the more Western area I live in near downtown. It's a "water town" which means it has an area with shops and bridges and a small river flowing through it. It was fun walking through the alleyways crowded with people, food and merchandise. We decided to experience a 5D "ride" which turned out to be a 3D roller coaster ride with moving seats and a bit of water sprayed on us. It was not the best ride I've been on but definitely entertaining. Also visited a temple compound complete with a pagoda and two different garden areas. I forget how much I miss a bit of green until I come across it in this massive metropolis.
Speaking of bits of green, my friends Barney, Elizabeth, Wendy and I also visited the Binjiang Forest Park which is also on the outskirts of the city. It was practically empty except for our group and full of trees, grass and bushes. It even had deer running around! It was a nice respite from the concrete jungle we normally inhabit.
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| Found a dragon in China...Fancy that! |
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| My friend Elizabeth and I get along really well since we have the same set of humor. |
Another day, our group visited the Shanghai Museum. It's practically right next door to wehere I live and it happens to be free! We wandered through the exhibits on each of the three floors and saw some pretty cool and pretty old artifacts. Probably wouldn't go back but it was nice to see some things from centuries ago, which is hard to come by in our relatively young country.
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| Shanghai Museum |
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| Barney, Nat, Elizabeth and myself checking out the museum together |
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| Furniture Collection |
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| Music Collection |
This Wednesday, my group of friends decided to visit the Shanghai Animation and Comics Museum. I found some familiar characters in the exhibits. It was a nice blend of East and West when it comes to animation. I'm sure my geeky and nerdy brothers would have enjoyed it, too!
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| Famous Faces |
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| Interactive Crafts for Kids |
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| Game Systems Collection |
I'll end this post with some random pictures from the last few months. Quite a few are of transportation since i seem to spend a good chunk of my day traveling from one side of the city to another. Enjoy!
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| Awesome Foreigner Outfit |
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| Classy Rider with a dash of Style |
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| Dressing alike is a common occurrence for young Chinese couples |
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| Reflection - a fellow traveler is waiting on the other side of the platform just as I am |
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| Cab ride on a rainy evening |
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| Green light on a cab means open for business |
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| A trainer found an abandoned kitten near our center so it hung out with us until he found a good home. So stinkin' cute for a cat :) |
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| Normal evening commute back home |
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| Cute Chinese Child |
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| My cab driver was a Jazz music fan one night...listening to Louis Armstrong in a Chinese cab made me smile |
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| My friend Wendy brought me back a souvenir from her trip to Hong Kong. She is from New York City and laughs at me cause I am a SoCal girl who refuses to wear anything but sandals in the summer. |
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| Bright Summer Day in Shanghai |
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| Waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel to take me home and I'm not speaking metaphorically. The light is attached to a Metro train :) |
