Kaixuan Jinyue Hotel Shijiazhuang

... in line, and when we got back they had given away all the rooms. Beasue of this we got upgraded to a suite. We had a siting room with couches, a refrigerator, and even a balcony! Lucky us.

Once we got our stuff up to the room, we went to find a late dinner with Kirk the program director. He led us to an outdoor place which is a carwash by day and a restaurant by night. It was good we had mutton on a stick ...

... Mr. Fu drops us off at the northern part of Shijiazhuang. We need to take a taxi to the north-western part where the Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan expressway is. After getting stuck in traffic for nearly an hour we arrive at a reststop on the Shijiazhuang-Taiyuan expressway. It's now dark and the only vehicles at the reststop are trucks. There's quite a few truck drivers eating at the restaurant at the reststop. We walk in, everyone stares at us, we smile and sits ...

... br>
*Taught them about playing card games in English- they learned
“Jack, Queen, King, Ace” they usually say”11,12,13,1.” Taught 'em different
card terminology and they learned a couple different games like BS-except I
called it “lie” and Egyptian Rat Screw. They taught me a game that’s a lot like
“P&A “or “*******.”

*Wrote short stories- students had to include 5 ...

... house. The live in a storage unit where they sell children's books. We made dumplings and Willie got drunk with the grandpa. Kara and I bought some fun books- I want to give em to the kids I tutor as going away gifts because a lot of em are in Chinese and English. I think Young Young would really like one for her son too. Day of Fun in the Sun with Sunny and Jassi's families *I teach these two little girls and their moms always ask me do things with them but because ...

... area of 15.8 thousand square kilometers (6100.4 square miles), it has 6 districts, 12 counties, 5 county-level cities and 1 national-level new and high-tech development zone under its prefecture. Shijiazhuang has a population of 9.395 million, 2.313 million of whom live in the urban area ...

Since we've been back from our big trip, I've been a teach-aholic. On top of my Mon-Fri job at 42 Middle School, I've been teaching several new people though Mickey's Company, meeting with Young Young 4 nights a week, teaching at a new Foreign Language School 3-4 nights a week, and teaching at a Kindergarten twice week. My middle school students have been much better lately. They're still ridiculously loud and I still have ...

... we were gonna do saturday night and i had to keep coming up with lies- so and so has a banquet dinner, this person made plans with other people, etc. Willie waited outside the apt and had people make cards as they showed up and I distracted kara until I got the signal that everyone has arrived- took a lot of stalling (i asked her about 4 different outfits, jewelry, and hair and then made up that willie was busy talking with students so it'd be a ...

... we loved teacher's day. We all got interviewed but later found out from some students who watched it that only Alissa and I were on the news! Sorry Willie! We are getting a disk copy of the news report so I will add it to the blog as as soon as a get it. The student performances were really interesting. They are really talented in singing, dancing, and playing musical instruments. I have included many pictures and videos at the end of this blog so you can see for yourself. We ...

... just wooden boards with a three inch foam thing. they dont use top sheets either but i think i might buy one anyway. i didnt even notice the comfort of the bed a t\the time though cuz i was so tired and just immediately fell asleep (around 10:30pm). I woke up at 6 and was wide awake. i unpacked a bit more and walked downstairs to write but of course the korean guys (who live in our building but really just sit in the computer lab all day/night) were ...

... its skyscrapers and huge LED billboards on which run continuous advertisements for films, hotels, restaurants, etc. These are sometimes 5 or 6 floors in height and 40 or 50 feet wide. Finding a taxi was a challenge because several cabbies protested that our hotel was considered too far from the station. We found this ironic because when we arrived in Beijing from Seattle, we were turned down by many cabbies because the airport bus terminus was judged too close to the ...