Shijiazhuang International

After meeting up with the other english teachers arriving at the beijing International Airport. We took a 6 hour busride to Shijiazhuang. This city is the sister city to Des Moines, IA and although it is nearly unheard of in the US it has a population greater than US cities like Chicago. <br>We arrived around 11:00 at night and checked into the university. Luke and I went outside looking around as opposed to ...

... to a few crowded tables. These guys are our hope to get to Taiyuan tonight.<br><br>We go over to the tables where the drivers are sitting and ask each table one by one if they would take us. The drivers of the inflammable materials can't take us, the drivers of the truck carrying new cars won't take the risk - they are too many bandits out there they said, others say they are going in a different direction. With all the drivers at the restaurant ...

Update on a few things we've been up to lately..<br> <br> We lay out in the park when we have time- try to tune out<br>all the "hellos" so we don't go crazy. <br><br> Went to a lunch with Jack (boss at Ai Hua)- he&#8217;s trying to<br>start up a new foreign language school so he had to meet with some official<br>people of the city- I was the only foreigner-they were extremely friendly-<br>asked me a lot of questions and said I could count on them for anything I ...

Peanut Butter and Jelly Day :) *We decided to bring a little taste of the West to our Middle School by making over a thousand peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and distributing them during the students lunch time. It was crazy! We had Willie and our friend John controlling the crowd and Kara and I handed out sandwiches. It was a lot of fun until we got in trouble by the school because theres a rule against it.. even though we told them all about what we were going to do.. ehh ...

... 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 ...

... going to get our hair done on Friday- they want me to bring all my foreign friends. I've also been teaching at a Foreign Language Kindergarten. The kids range from 2-6. They normally have a full time foreign English teacher but they're next one isn't here until May so I'm filling in til then. The kids are adorable. The 4 classes I teach have Chinese teachers that speak to them in English a lot so they know basic things. We ...

... that are taking classes at Hebei Normal University and live in the same apt building as our friend Josh. They were really nice. One was 18, one 20, and one 22. They're learning Chinese (to add to their list of several languages they already know) by taking classes ranging from Oral/Written Chinese to Chinese art history and music. They said there isn't a class they don't enjoy. We talked a lot about traveling and the differences in education ...

... the history of the festival and what it meant. I didn't understand anything since it was in Chinese except that Chinese and Americans are both people and that we can both learn (she said this in English!!!) After I got a picture with her! We hung out for a little while and then went back to the bus to be taken to a model apartment! (Apparently this whole thing was free to the public you just ...

... definitely ended up losing- didnt make me chug though cuz we were all so tired and went home after one game). We slept in on Sunday and then went and got street food- we've tried so many different things. We've started to figure out our likes/dislikes. I've continued to buy a lot of fruit in the market- really good apples, oranges, bananas and huge purple grapes! While we were waiting for our food (it gets crazy busy with students at lunch ...

... to say, Professor Liu treated us to an excellent meal at a Sichuan restaurant. Also at dinner, was Professor Chen who was my colleague Min Li's dissertation director. She has a well-earned reputation for being one of the top cognitive scientists in China and early on (1980s) did research on the effects of using computer technology in the classroom (some of this in collaboration with U.S. researchers). Although she still seems very active, she is now retired, as is ...