Hello Friends and Family,
Wow! This week has flown by. We did so many fun and interesting things. Here are just a few:
-On Tuesday and Wednesday we had no classes because new students were arriving at the college. We did not have to teach, but we were still expected to be at the college. We thought we would be put to work helping students fill out paper work, etc. Instead, we were told we could walk around and all we had to do was 'meet the new students'. We later deducted that we were advertisements, a way to let the new students know that foreigners are here at the college. Needless to say we had a fun time walking around the college, meeting new students and getting to know more of the students we have in our classes. We had a lot of pictures taken of us and even were interviewed by the local news channel about our impressions of Nanning and the college. It was a long two days, but a lot of fun.
-On Tuesday and Wednesday, we had dinner with new friends. Celia again invited us to her home for dinner and she taught us how to make another type of dumpling that was delicious. We will be sure to teach all of you when we arrive home. A great party idea. On wednesday, we invited two other english teachers to our home for dinner; Richard and Ellen from the Phillipines. They are very kind and we had a wonderful evening talking with them.
-On Thursday night, we had our first 'English corner'. A chance for students to come and ask us anything they wanted and we simply talked with them in English. It was a fun informal time to talk with students and they were all very curious about America and our lives there and we were able to share with them more specifically about who we are and what our life in America is life. We look forward to more chances like that in the future.
-Today, we finished teaching our lessons on family. The students especially enjoyed talking about good qualities in a wife or husband. Tonight, we were invited by a man from Ghana, Appiah, who is a teacher here at the middle school, for coffee at a local coffee shop. Little did we know that it would turn into a staff party! Chris and Hua, our American friends were there, Appiah was there with his fiance who is also Chinese and a new teacher from Canada named Ben was also there. So there we were, sitting with two Chinese, an American, a Ghanian and a Canadian! Quite an almagamation of people from different countries but we had a great time together!
-This weekend, we are taking a tour of Shanglin, a mountain and lake outside of Nanning. We are leaving early tomorrow morning with a tour group of other foreigners in Nanning. We have never met them before, but we are looking forward to making some more connections. The trip is cheap and should be a lot of fun. It will be nice to not have to worry about how to get somewhere or what to order on a menu, at least for a weekend. Here is our projected itinerary, just to give you an idea of what we will be doing:
The backyard of Nanning-------Shanglin two-day trip
1st day: Starting at 7:30am, leave from Nanning Hotel and go to Shanglin. Arrive around 10:00am, and then go to Dalong Lake and Daling cave. We take the boat around the lake, and then go into a big cave. Afterwards we will have lunchtime.
After lunch we will drive to the mountain and go swimming in the mountain lake, have dinner there and stay overnight in the hotel on the mountain. We can enjoy an evening together with friends at the hotel.
2nd day: After breakfast, we will go rafting on the Yangdu River and visit a communist village and have their famous wild-fish lunch. After lunch we go by boat which is driven by rope, to visit Qinpai. After Qinpai we will go to Binyang for their famous acid noodle dinner (cost is extra), then come back to Nanning in the evening.
-Should be pretty exciting. We'll be sure to post some pictures on the travel blog when we get back! Have a great weekend, we'll keep you posted.
Sincerely,
Ryan and Kealy
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