Day Two: Am I Really In China

So yesterday we finally figured out how to get hot water.  We only get it right now between 7:00pm-7:40pm.  So that is fun.  We were so excited!  So easy to please.  Hot water is a necessity!!

I really like the food. Although some of it is really bland.  Some of the soups need salt.  I actually got up at 6:30am today.  Everyone be surprised.  Most of us went to bed around 8 or 8:30 last night.  

We don't start teaching till Wednesday.  Most of the teachers will arrive on Monday and the kids on Tuesday.  The campus for the school is huge.  So many buildings.  

On weekends we have our own cook.  The others don't get fed on the weekends by the school.  So we have a strict meal schedule. 7:20 is breakfast, 11:00 is lunch, and dinner is at 4:30.  Very early meals.

It's easy to get into a groove here.  It will be interesting once our classes start. We only teach two hours a day and it switches between morning and afternoon.  One night class and Fridays they are both in the morning.  

The school is nice and strange.  Some things are very nice like the counter tops in the bathroom but you look at the walls and they are peeling and falling apart.  Guess its what ever you prioritize.

I'll have pictures up soon.

Just got back from a walk around our area.  We went to an area that had some street shops but mostly it was gated companies.  Almost everything is gated.  There is a huge contrast between inside and outside the gates.  Outside there is rubble and garbage everywhere.  I am not kidding.  They have this side walk that is also a mini road for scooters and bikes and they are dirty and bumpy.  All the roads are bumpy.  No one uses signals, they honk when they pass people of switch lanes.  Sometimes they honk at us to get our attention and then they just stare at us.  We did meet a bunch of people.  One of them spoke a bit of English and that was nice.  We also saw a traffic cop who helped us cross the street.  That was cool.  The sun is shining through the clouds and smog today and it feels great, even though I still have to wear my coat.  It was so freezing last night.  It will be nice to get our bus passes.  That way we can see and do more.  

It's still kind of hitting me that we are in China.  You would think that the fact that I can't understand anyone and the scenery is so different that it would hit me more but not really.  So strange.  It will happen eventually.