Chicken Head and Duck Head — Yum!!

So… nothing major from the rest of the school week, except for Friday after school.  Friday after school we had a Coffee House at our school (there is two schools the American teachers are teaching at… Golden Goose, our school… and the main school).  So… we spent a bunch of time prepping in the afternoon, setting up all the furniture, speakers, etc.  The coffee house itself was great… some of the teachers did a hilarious lip-synch to the backstreet boys, some good improv (impressions), and some good poetry reading (gotta love Shel Silverstein).  I chipped in with a brief rendition of “‘Tis a Gift To Be Simple”… gotta love those Unitarian roots.  Anyway… it was a good time, but made for a long-ass day.  We left for school at 8:45am, and we were still there cleaning up at 8:45pm.  And good lord, did that room get hot.  We had two air conditioners running (they have full-size stand-alone models here, I’ll have to take a picture of one), but with 60+ people in the room, it got HOT, fast.  And when I say hot, I don’t mean USA kind of hot.  I mean dripping sweat, your clothes are literally wet you’re soaked kind of hot.

Anyway, overall very good stuff, and lots of fun (we were rocking out to tunes from someones i-pod at the end), but TIRING.  Then this morning four of us got hit up again to go fufill our obligation of teaching at the girls school (for further clarification on why we have to teach at the girl’s school on Saturday’s, see my previous blog post entitled “Everything is Cheap Here”).  Dragging my ass up for 7:30am departure was painful, but fortunately the four hours there went by quickly, and now that is done, no more teaching the girls school for me (thank god), the rest of the teachers just have to finish up next week and then we’re all done.

Nonetheless, it made for a long day.  If I didn’t only have a week left, I probably would have just chilled out this afternoon, due to the fact that we were going out to dinner tonight for the headmaster’s birthday, but need to be trying to fit everything in… so… we went and checked out the major bookstore here in the city… the art supply store (which has some beautiful paintings), and Parkson’s, the major department store.  Then on to dinner, and then karaoke.  So out allllll day after a long day Friday. Ooff… there is very little down time here, that is definitely one thing I miss about the states.  But I will be back far too quickly, and then have plenty of down time and no China time, so making the best of it.

Ohh!!  How could I forget.  Attached to Parkson’s is a KFC.  Oh. My. God.  I had a chicken sandwhich, french fries and a pepsi, and let me tell you, that was the best damn thing I’ve eaten in a long time.  Not that the Chinese food we eat isn’t wonderful… it’s great… and we’ve been out to some amazing restuarants, but all the meat we’ve gotten has been in little tiny pieces, and I never quite seem to be able to get my fill.  Not sure if this small pieces of meat thing is indicative of  all food here, since the food that is ordered for us is heavily swayed by the large number of vegetarians in the teacher group, but good lord was it beautiful to have a nice solid chunk of protein, on real bread (yes, I did in fact call a KFC white bread bun real bread), with fries and a coke.  Sooooo nice.  My stomache was happy happy, let me tell you (in fact I just did).

So… that’s been the past few days in a nutshell.  Continuing to go to blind-man massage, which was great, really helped relax my back after basketball (my shoulders were killing me the next day… they’re not used to getting exercise… I guess that’s what I get for getting all my stateside exercise via roller-blading).  School has been school… we’re off Charlotte’s Web, the kids thought it was boring… so we switched to this book called “Time Cat”, which is about this cat who can visit different time periods and takes his owner… which is turning out to be too difficutl for the kids because there is all these time period specific words that the kids don’t know and will probably never need to know again (we’ve hit ancient Egpyt and Ancient Rome in the story so far… trying to explain a headdress in simple English words… legion, centurion, clay tablet… it sounds easy enough, but try explaining what clay is… it’s not that easy).  Anyway… we’re going to switch to something else on Monday, different time periods are too hard.

Random fun story from dinner:  we get whole animals here… we had duck at dinner tonight at the headmaster’s birthday dinner thing… and the whole duck came out (in pieces).  So of course, after heading the chicken’s head at dinner earlier in the week, the headmaster (Mr. Chin) was looking forward to the duck’s head this evening.  No kidding, the duck’s head… including the bill, the eyes, the brain… whole nine yards.  The best part was, after eating the brain and scooping out all other edible parts, he lit up a cigarette and used the skull as an ashtray… nothing like eating your brain and then using the skull to ash in… now that’s throwing it down.  Score:  Mr. Chin 1 — Dead Duck 0.

Traffic continues to be crazy, especially taking cabs.  The cab ride to dinner was a little scary for a couple of reasons.  1) There was a major gas leak in the car somewhere, it REEKED of gas.  2)  Drivers are crazy over here, but this cabbie was a little psycho.  We spent a good deal of the time driving on the wrong side of the road, I shit you not.  We also completely ran a red light.  Running a red light here is not as scary as running one in the states, since people generally drive slower here (they have to, given how little regard they have for the rest of the rules), but still fucking scary, let me tell you.  Craziness.  Fun, but crazy.  I’m sure you’re loving to hear all this mom — don’t worry, I won’t get killed.

Still no photos, still haven’t managed to find time, but nothing is planned for tomorrow, so should have time then (I know, I know, I keep saying that… there’s always something to do here though… sorting through photos is just not a priority).

Alright, I think that’s all for now.  We’re taking a white-water river rafting trip on the 30th, the day before I leave, which should be awesome, I’m really looking forward to it.  Other than that… day off tomorrow… full week of school… then Saturday, white-water river rafting Sunday, then I’m outta here.  I can’t believe the time has gone by so quickly.  Kinda crazy.

Peace out for now, y’all.

-Seth