These gifts were accompanined with stories to inform the foreigners about one of the many unique celebrations in China. Liv also got a beautiful paper cutting from a student as a thanks for help outside of class - which is awesome as Liv has had her eye on buying a paper cutting since arriving in China.
Since we can't always rely on gifts to break the monotony of teaching it is lucky that we live in China where the world around us is all very new and exciting, meaning that outside of class there are many things to keep us entertained - and trust us there are a lot of entertaining things about the place! Such things tend to pop up out of nowhere, which makes for more fun and laughter on our part!Waking at 6am on Monday morning to the sounds of new army trainees practising their drills outside our window, we laughed off our early wakeup call as a once off. When we were woken in the exact same manner for the next two weeks (even during the weekends) the humour quickly faded.
The most memorable event of the past few weeks happened on campus as we were heading home after a day of teaching. Out of nowhere a security van zoomed past us and came to a tyre-screeching halt, before a pile of heavily armed personel exited the van as if they were on a military exercise, only to burst the illusion by calling out to the two foreigners (us!) "helloooo". A little surprised and not wanting to take a bullet for the country we returned the pleasantries and continued on our way. Everywhere we go people are constantly calling out "helllooooo", but shy away giggling if we dare to reply or attempt to take the conversation further.
Almost daily we jam ourselves onto the already sardine-tin packed bus for our trips to town, but normally the bus driver will refuse more passengers at a point. However on some occassions the physics of maximal capacity doesn't apply as more and more passengers pile on the already overflowing bus. On one occasion when we were already packed on so tight we didn't even have to hold onto anything, even more people climbed aboard, leaving the bus so full the door couldn't close and the poor people were hanging on for their lives, so as to not fall out! However, the real adventure is when we have to try and scramble our way out of the bus before the bus driver loses patience - this task is even more difficult when carrying mulitple bags of shopping.
During one trip into town we stumbled across the night markets in the middle of downtown, where we spent almost 2 hours wandering the stalls of what will now be our local market. The markets were filled with the wonderful aromas drifting from the foodstalls, which we will enjoy on our next mission there. However, our first experience here was all about shopping and we walked away with clothes, glasses, belts and new jandals for Adam! The only problem is that we were ever conscious of the fact that the last bus back was at 9pm - if we miss the bus the cost of getting home goes from 2 yuan by bus to about 30 yuan by taxi.
The day after the markets we were finally taken to the visa office to get our working visas, and we were ecstatic to find out that they last through to the middle of September giving us a couple of months to adlib more of China after work. The trip to the visa office couldn't have come sooner as our travel visas were due to expire that very weekend, and we were getting a little worried about the hefty fines and deportation issues that come with being overstayers! After our previous experience with getting Chinese visas we were prepared for the inevitable wait at the visa office, however our boss who had accompanied us was clearly not prepared for the over 3 hour wait! The very slow 3 hours was rewarded with a delicious lunch at an old, traditional Chinese restaurant, where it was wonderful having a local do the ordering. In true Chinese fashion much more food than needed was ordered meaning Adam got a doggybag full of goodies to take home!
Our third Saturday in Jinan was spent with students who took us around more of the shopping sites of Jinan. Our first port of call was the skate shop were Adam spent hours deciding on a wicked new skateboard setup. Then our student guides took us out to lunch ordering again a feast that we couldn't finish. Before long we were headed on a doubledecker bus towards the huge markets that sell almost everything! Although we set out with the aim of returning with a new wardrobe, the enthusiasm our students displayed at the skateboard store quickly diminished amongst the skirts and jeans! Sparing the students some misery we headed back home, vowing to return on our own with a wallet packed full of Maos (cash!).
Liv's committment to her students was very evident last Wednesday, as she spent the evening helping out one of her most dedicated students, while Adam headed into town with Dovid. Every Wednesday night foreign teachers from different universities and schools throughout Jinan get together at Wei Weis for a feed and beer. Wei Weis is located on the Muslim street that is dotted with 2-metre long bbqs where seafood, meat, and vege kebabs are cooked on the spot! While Liv got an early night to bed, Adam finally made it to a Chinese bar (a nice change from buying beer on the street, although it cost him 5 times as much) and partied the night away with his new friends returning in the wee hours of the morning ...
One of our hightlights over the past two weeks has been putting our webcam and headset into action as we finally got skype set up! We have since spent the majority of our time skyping the hours away - seeing our family for the first time in months is wonderful, hopefully they don't get sick of seeing us! Just got to get mum and dad techniphobics online with skype now ...
The first of October is National Day in China, and this is commemorated with a week long holiday, which we welcome with open arms as a break from teaching and a chance to really explore our new home.
The adlibers survive to the holidays.
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