A Tiny Tibetan Town

The final stop on our week vacation was the small Tibetan style village of Xiahe.  It is not in Tibet, but Tibetan people live there and the lifestyle follows Tibetan culture.  It was a pretty cool opportunity to see a way of life that is becoming increasingly difficult to access.  After our final overnight train ride we took a van all the way to Xiahe.  Within our short week of travel we covered almost the entirety of Gansu province!  The van ride was the scariest and most frustrating ride I ever hope to take.  Despite it being about a three hour trip, it took us nearly five.  The drivers kept stopping, switching us into a new van, waiting in line for discount gas for 45 minutes,  and taking us to tourist destinations we did not want to go to!  After finally convincing our ever changing drivers that we did not want to stop - we simply wanted to go to Xiahe - they went straight there at breakneck speeds, passing every other vehicle through a windy mountain road.  We spent the majority of our drive on the wrong side of the road, barely squeezing by oncoming traffic.  It was terrifying.  We were hungry.  We were tired.  We were angry.  We very quickly decided that we would be taking the charter bus on our way back!

A tasty Tibetan breakfast

After arriving in Xiahe we took an hour or so to settle into our hotel, have some soup and bundle into all our layers.  We experienced all kinds of weather during our one week, and this was definitely the coldest.  For souvenirs we focused on warmth!  Sara and I both bought warm Tibetan made wool scarves, and Val got a cozy lined toque!  We spent the evening exploring the shops and seeing the village.  It was only one main street, with the houses in the surrounding areas.  

The monastery in the hills

The people dressed and looked completely different from any of the areas of China I have travelled so far.  They all had beautiful structured features, and it looked as though they were wearing permanent make-up.  The blushed cheeks and lined eyes that we struggle to create every day were simply part of their natural colouring.  Everyone was wrapped in thick wool layers, tied around them like dresses.  The women had long plaits and many of them had piles of jewellery.  The amount of diversity within China is incredible!

Monks filing in for prayers

In the evening we gobbled down traditional Tibetan food for dinner.  We ate yak cheese, many kinds of bread, and many other dishes that we were not even totally sure of.  Most of it was pretty tasty, and so we decided to eat there again for breakfast - because we still wanted to try most of the menu!  We had an early night so that we could be up early enough to explore the monastery for the morning.

Statues made of yak butter

We were able to take an English tour through the monastery, though our guide's English was rather hard to understand.  If you were concentrating closely, you could catch about every fifth word...  It was interesting to learn some of the background and history to both the monastery, and the lives of Tibetan monks.  Many of them have been monks since the age of 10.  We saw statues made of disgusting smelling yak butter, saw rooms of monks being taught lessons, we saw a group breaking a multi-day fast, and a room of three hundred monks chanting together.  It was very interesting to learn about, as it is not something I knew much about before.

Our Guide (I think this is the only time he was not laughing!)

After checking out the monastery we spent the rest of the morning and afternoon eating soup and walking through the village.  We then loaded onto the bus (much safer than our previous journey) and headed back to Lanzhou.  The next morning we flew back to Dalian, and, with that, holiday was over!

The entrance to the main prayer room

It was an incredible trip, but we did cover a lot of ground within only 7 days.  We were definitely tired over trains and planes by the end of it!  I think it is one of the most unique areas I have ever seen, and certainly don't regret making the long trek to see it!  What is the point of living abroad if you are not going to take the trips, right?

Bundled against the cold

Monks on the rooftop to ring the bell

Young monks travelling to the monastery

A little munchkin 

One of the statues within the monastery

A Date With Dunhuang

Hello Friends,

Again, sincerest of apologies for being the worst friend/family member at keeping ya'll in the loop.  I finally have put together part two of my holiday post - Dunhuang!  As all time-lacking bloggers do, this post is heavy on the photos low on the anecdotes - but hey, at least it is something!

The night market of Dunhuang.

We took an extraordinarily long train to get to Dunhuang.  We left at about 8:00 in the evening and did not get off the train until 12:30 the next afternoon!  Although we were tired and grumpy from being folded into a tiny train car for so many hours, we did have an enjoyable ride.  We had a compartment to ourselves, and the group of college students beside us kept daring the losers of their card games to come and talk to us.  We kept ourselves entertained by playing games and buying all the trinkets that the passing salespeople had to offer.  Sara bought two lovely holographic pictures, and a singing top.  Karl made a great purchase of a Bob the Builder children's toy.  After checking in to our hotel, we set out to sign up for a few tours and explore the city.  Dunhuang is a small and peaceful city.  It was a welcome change from the hectic nature of China!  Chris and I split from the group for a bit, as we were excited to see the dunes as soon as possible.  We took a bus to the dunes, a mere 10 minutes from the town, and set out on the task of climbing them!  It was much more difficult than expected!  The sand slips away under your feet, so every step is double the work.  The top was worthwhile though, and we spent some time enjoying the hard earned view.  The best part of climbing up the dune is racing downwards!  The sand is incredibly soft, so we took off our shoes and just ran.  If you fall you simply sink into the layers of sand!  After our return to the town, we spent a quiet evening exploring the night market, and stocking up on snacks for our next busy day of exploration.  

Picking up our ride into the desert!

In the wee hours of the morning, we went to wait outside in the cold for a bus to take us on a trip to see desert rock formations and sections of the ancient great wall.  The bus was about an hour late, and we were hungry, tired and grumpy.  Eventually we were loaded onto a giant tourist bus and began our trek into the desert.  We had thought we signed up for an English tour, but instead we had signed up for a no-speaking tour with barely any stops!  Essentially we drove for about five hours, and made about eight stops with 10 or fifteen minutes to explore begrudgingly doled out at each stop.  After naps for everyone to restore our excitement in exploration, and accepting that the tour was not going to be as exciting as we hoped, we thoroughly enjoyed our day.  The landscape was unique, and it was easy to imagine caravans of traders attempting to cross the Gobi to bring goods back from ancient China.   We climbed rocks, took ridiculous photos, and got in a fight with an American couple.  We were not aware that we were not allowed to climb the rocks, as our tour was completely in Chinese.  Moreover, other people were climbing the rocks, setting a precedent we were eager to follow.  What is the point of driving through the desert to see rock formations if you are not allowed to climb them!  C'mon people!  The lovely American couple in question informed us that we were an embarrassment to Americans for our foolish decision to climb the karst!

This is Val's camel.  He kept getting mad because my camel wanted to go fast.

After returning from our bus trip we immediately left for our camel caravan.  We went out into the desert to see the sunset.  We rode through an old graveyard, and beyond to a giant series of dunes.  As soon as we arrived at the dunes we set out to climb that as well (obviously...).  Chris nearly passed out as he tried to go straight up; I met with more success by traversing sideways up the dune.  It was a hard fight to the top but the view was amazing!  Unfortunately I rely on Chris to take good pictures, so said amazing view is not well documented...  The camel ride was one of the highlights of the week away for me.  Although my behind was rather sore by the end of it, a camel ride was not as bumpy as I expected it to be!

A Camel Caravan

Riding into the sunset (apologies for the blurry photography, it is hard to stay steady on a camel).

On our final day in Dunhuang, Sara, Chris and I went to go see the Mogoa Grottos.  They are a series of caves that have preserved paintings and religious texts in them.  Although the history of the caves was very interesting (a series of fights between British archaeologists and the Chinese government), the caves themselves were rather unimpressive.  The place was packed with tourists, and it took us more than an hour to even enter the complex.  We were shoved through caves within minutes and the experience of being jammed in a small cave with 150 Chinese tourists did not make me too excited.  We quickly hurried back to town to spend the afternoon at the dunes.

The view from my ultra-lite.

The first thing we did upon arrival at the dunes was to sign up to ride the ultra-lites.  Only the ladies were brave enough to take off in these.  They are essentially flying dune buggies, controlled by a bar, and powered by what looked like a lawn mower.  They strap you in and toss a helmet on you, so I am sure I was safe!  I managed to take a few photos of the view of up top.  It was a pretty quick loop; I spent only about three minutes in the air.  After the three of us safely landed we went to climb a few dunes and run around in the sand.  

The oasis below my flying contraption. 

A view at the steering mechanism. 

Although we only had two and a half days in Dunhuang, it was enough to explore the sites.  I could have spent more time climbing the dunes - but I am glad that Chris and I went the first day we arrived to get more time.  The city is so unique, and I am not sure if I will ever get the chance to see sights like that again.  On the evening of our last day we boarded our last night train to head back to Lanzhou, and then onwards to a Tibetan village called Xiahe.

The city beyond the dunes.

An ultra-lite in flight.

Chris and I after conquering the dune.

A group shot atop a karst.

Early remains of the original "great" wall.

The gang hanging in the sand.  (Don't worry, that bandito is actually Karl.)

The best part of the dunes - coming back down!

A final karst for your viewing pleasure.

Destination Lanzhou

Family and Friends,

I profusely apologize for my terrible communication skills this semester!  I am not sure where my time has gone this year, but gone it has.  First term is nearly over and I have completly neglected my friendly updating blog posts.  I am merely going to gloss over the exciting highlights of term one here at Maple Leaf, and then proceed on the exciting part - fall vacation.  First term was a mess of changing class lists, and settling into a new apartment, with weekends of sushi dinners and market shopping.  It was a lovely term, it was a hectic term, it is a nearly finished term.

The first week of October is the National Holiday here in the PRC.  That means we get a week off to go explore this wonderful country of ours.  It is the week with the highest amount of travellers of the entire year, so it is a bit of a nightmare to get train tickets, plane tickets and hotels booked - but I am unwilling to miss a chance to travel (that is why I am here, after all).  I chose to go to the province of Gansu, which is in central China and is host to a variety of different climates and cultures.

The famous waterwheel.  It was actually rather impressive!

On Friday evening, Sara, Chris, Karl, Val and I all piled into a train compartment for an overnight ride to Beijing.  The train was packed so it was pretty difficult to barter for beds in the same compartment.  We ended up sharing with a grouchy old lady, who was none too thrilled to be jammed in a stall with five Canadians excited to begin their week off.  She assumed we could all speak fluent Chinese, and jammered away at us.  Our interpretations resulted in this understanding: she thinks we are fat, she thinks we have ugly skin (my freckles especially), and she thinks Val is a babe who couldn't possibly have had three children.  We may have told her we were all one family, and she was rather confused at our varying appearances.  She was mostly concerned that Sara and I were so atrocious looking and Chris was so very handsome.  She amused us for a short while, until she got insulting.  After a long ride and a bumpy sleep on a skinny train bed beside an open hallway, we arose in Beijing and jetted across the city to catch a plane.  Jetting across cities was a task we did often on our week holiday.  From Beijing we flew to Lanzhou.  

The overnight train compartment (the bunks go three high on either side)

Lanzhou is the capital of Gansu, and is particularly well known for heavy pollution and beef noodles.  We actually found it less smoggy than expected, and enjoyed downing large bowls of their famous dish!  We arrived late in the evening to Lanzhou, so our time on Saturday was spent scrounging for food and then we went to settle in a real bed for a night.  We ended up eating hot pot at a restaurant with no English menu or pictures, so we just wandered around the restaurant and pointed at the dishes of other customers.  Fortunately they customers found it amusing, rather than offensive, so we were able to get a decent meal.

Sara and I practicing how to use Chinese toilets.  

We only spent one day in Lanzhou, as our real destination was yet to come.  During the day we walked along the Yellow River to see all the sights.  First we viewed a giant waterwheel (in Waterwheel Park, of course), and then we moved on to sheep skin rafting.  Sheep skin rafting is exactly as it sounds.  The raft is made of blown up sheep skins.  It is a truly disgusting image, and I wanted to share it with you - so I have included a photo.  We took our very small, very tippy, raft down a very polluted river.  We felt rather famous, as I think we were the only Westerners in all of Lanzhou, and the ride was a definite highlight!  Karl compares all events on the holiday to the hype of the sheep skin raft.  All people should experience such a ride.  Along the river bank there were many different statues and Chinese art, but I must admit these things do not hold my attention well.  We took a gondola across the river to take in the views of the city and see a temple, but it was nothing spectacular.  We did enjoy the famous 7 flavour magic tea of Lanzhou though.  For 100 RMB each we tasted of the magical herbs, but I was the only one who actually enjoyed it.  They put a massive lump of sugar at the bottom of all of our teas!

The auspicious 7 flavour tea

After a healthy meal of beef noodles, and a short exploration of the shopping centre, we were reading to take another overnight train and wave goodbye to Lanzhou.  It was a fine stop for a day, but it does not have much to offer for Western tourists.  There were some caves I was hoping to visit, but they were actually quite a ways out of town - and too far for our one day stop over.  

Next stop: Dunhuang!

Inflated sheep skins used for rafting

Our wee little raft

Our guide

Right Back At It

After a long and relaxing summer break, I am back in China for another year.  I spent most of my summer at home with my family, and touring around B.C. to catch up with friends.  I was in Canada for a total of seven weeks, and I was actually feeling ready to head back to China.  Upon my return I have already encountered humidity of 100%, clogged toilets, and the water turned off in my apartment.  Returning to an apartment with almost nothing working was a lovely wake up to life in China.  On the positive side I just finished spending three hours one on one with my mani/pedi lady as she scrapped away my summer feet.  It was a truly disgusting sight.  I also missed Chinese food!

Before I get back to school work and the hard task of travelling Asia I will share a few of my fav events from the summertime.  I didn't bring my camera around too much, as you can see!

Chillin' with my boy Sniffles

Catching up with friends from home

Boating with the fam (yes, that is Sniffs on the tube!)

My brother got married to this lovely lady!

Lastly, pretty much everyone I encountered in Canada asked me the same questions.  I figure I may as well recount them on here.
Q. Why the heck would you go to China?
A. Why the heck not?  I have a full time job in the profession I am trained in, I get to travel a new part of the world, and I can actually afford to live.

Q. Do you speak Chinese?
A. Nope, sure don't.  I am terrible at Mandarin, as I was not able to put any time into studying last year. I know enough to direct a taxi, order my dinner, and let people know I am teacher from Canada.  I would like to know more, and get incredibly frustrated that I do not know more.  However, I don't have a ton of extra time to devote to it, and I find it very difficult.

Q.  How much do you make?
A.  How much do YOU make?

Q. When are you coming home?
A.  I am not sure yet.  I am hoping to teach abroad for a few more years, but you never know what could change.  I would love to teach in at least one different area (probably another continent), so that I can have the opportunity to travel in a different sphere.  

That's all for now!

PS.  I have having troubles with my VPN and extremely slow China internet these days - hence the slow start on returning to recounting my adventure.

Daily Sights Round 2

I am getting ready to head home for the summer, so I am gonna post a few more of my "daily life" shots from around my neighbourhood before I head back to regularity of the homeland!

Morgan, Sara and I ordered a set of these off of Chinese EBay, it even has spikes down the back

A street vendor who set up shop on his bicycle

Donkey carts selling fruit

My street

The main outdoor shopping street, dubbed "Robson" by Canadian staff

No Longer a First Year Teacher

Although I am not on a plane home yet, I am done my first year teaching (and my first year in China!).  It was an incredible year, even though it was an incredibly challenging year.  In my first year as a teacher I taught three blocks of grade 12 boys their most important class for all of high school - English 12.  Here at Maple Leaf it is made even more important by the fact that most of them have only been speaking English for three years.  I was blessed to have a pretty sweet group of boys, who over the past ten months got very used to my teaching personality and were willing guinea pigs to my learning process.  

Here were my goals from this semester:

1.  Plan my assessments better
2.  Keep up with marking
3.  Start with grammar and work up
4.  Be less of a grump when my kids act like typical teenagers

Reflection:

1.  I made a definite improvement, but still have an incredibly long way to go in this department.  I am really looking forward to the chance to teach English 12 again next year - and have waaaaay more direction in my planning and prep towards my ultimate end goals.  

2.  Super awesome!  I even had three points this semester in which I had marked every thing in my possession!  I think improvement here does relate to a slight improvement in planning.  I spaced out my assessments better and organized myself better.

3.  I instituted "Grammar Extravaganza Wednesday" for the entire semester.  Each Wednesday we would do a short lecture and then a mass of exercises, with a quiz on the content the following Wednesday.  I hope to improve this next year, but it was a good start.

4.  Improving.  It really helped this semester to have one fun class (drama) where I was able to see my kids as kids.  I get bogged down worrying about their marks and their upcoming exam, so it was a benefit to me to be able to see the kids relaxed and actually enjoying school.  It was also much easier to downplay my stress levels this semester as I was more settled into a routine (both to life in China and life as a teacher).  

Next year I want to continue to work on assessment, improve classroom routines, and find a more efficient way to communicate with my students outside of class time.  Hopefully next year I can set up a Moodle account or a wiki for my students to grab resources, easily email me, and cut down on the need to track down a thousand handouts and papers that students are missing.  I also get to teach a block of International Relations next year - which I am ridiculously excited about!  

I feel like my first year teaching was a success, but I am glad to have it behind me!  Bring on the next one!

Check out my students on their last day!

A Block English 12 (class of 22)

Drama 10 

Drama 10

Drama 10 (all 19 of them together)

Flag ceremony

D Block English 12 (20 students)

Lined up for flag