Tie Dong Hotel Anshan

Today was our final day at the school; we drive to Shenyang tomorrow. In the morning, we visited he Haicheng Primary School. The children's orchestra sounded top notch! Students entertained us with dancing; a troupe of boys demonstrated acrobatic breakdancing and girls performed a traditional costumed Mongolian dance. We saw a class of students learning English using a fast-paced response method and an entertaining computer game projected on the screen. More classroom visits were ...

Today was a big day, but a tiring one. Each member of our group visited four classes; Math, Physics, PE and English. I made the mistake of participating in PE: calisthenics, shooting free throws, running laps, and tai chi. In the afternoon, we were invited to participate in gym time. The boys played basketball against the Chinese and lost by 16 points. The game was ugly! Mr ...

... after we had to part company. Mr Howard told us that his host family found him a hotel because he was too tall. He was sorry to not have a host family, but he does have HBO. Tonight we had a "Western" dinner. Most of ordered pizza, which had a wonderful sweet crust. We are stuffed! Our students are very excited because tomorrow we spend the entire day in the school, attending classes, eating at the student canteen, and sharing art and sports activities. We are having a great time!

... have been the most tasty yet. Then we convened at Haicheng Senior High School to meet the host families. Every student was introduced to the host, and enthusiasm and smiles filled the room. Both students and hosts were delighted by the meeting. Group picture ( of course) and then home. My host is quite gracious and her husband is a wonderful cook. I am writing this morning before I meet ...

... cooking where food is cooked in boiling water or oil, not really sure which, kind of like Chinese fondue, but with no bread and cheese. Just raw meat and oil....usually very spicy oil, yum! Anyway, at dinner we discussed my headache some more, and I was offered the chance to go see my Chinese uncle for some acupuncture. So I said sure! So after dinner we dropped Shuang Shuang off at her house to do homework, and then headed over to "Uncle's ...

... her in Chinese. After our lesson I was taken to uncle Li's family's home for dinner. I met the whole family, aunts uncles cousins, grandma and great grandma, it was very interesting and fun, but slightly awkward as my Chinese is not quite up to a family discussion. its very lovely to have an adopted family here, being so far from home and with so few people who speak english around, its nice to ...

... to manually turn a switch to drain the water....which can sometimes leave my clothes fairly soapy if I accidentally dumped too much detergent in, necessitating a second cycle just to "rinse" my clothes. Then I take out my laundry, squeeze it dry, but trying not to wring it too much as I don't want my clothes to stretch and dump them in the "spinner". instead of a dryer I have a spinner, just like we use to wash lettuce for salads, the idea is dump in ...

Well, it's been a few days and I'm not sure I'm going to remember to put everything in that has happened....they have been quite a busy few days. Anastasia and I have been getting along very well, its nice to have someone to talk to, and we have very similar views on quite a few different topics. Pretty much every day we have spent a few hours walking around the city and exploring. There are incredible amounts of beautiful outdoor markets with ...

... a semester in Beijing, so i already feel like the idiot child of the family, but i hope that my Chinese will improve with time, after the physical we went to lunch with the foreign teacher coordinators and the two principals of the schools, and then i got to come here and check my email and write this blog, i know there is a lot i left out, but I'm typed out right now....more to come later! and my Internet should be up in my apartment in a few days.....keep those emails coming!!

... farmers' children, about 180 total. Grade 1 students were writing Chinese, grade 2 were studying biology. Teachers plan using the Internet because their materials are limited. We had lunch at the Taian county government building with county officials. A government farm is located here. After lunch we returned ot Haicheng Senior Middle School, my "homeschool." Students put on a debating competition, an annual event. The topic was, "Should people be rewarded for ...