Hello Friends and Family,
It was nice finsihing work are 10:00am and Ryan at 12:00. We met up with Chis and Hua our American friends for lunch and shopping downtown. Ryan went with chris to look at computer stuff and we went to buy Hua some fashionable clothes from a magazine, it is very common to have custom closthes made because it is cheaper. We met up and ate at a BBQ resturant and had some good cooking. It is a little different then what we know to be as a BBQ but the flavor is very tasty. Both Ryan and I enjoyed shrimp and fish when we don't usually like the the taste of sea food. We are growing in our food likes. We caught the bus back and poor Ryan was squished in the very back of the bus like an accordian, it was only bad because it was a full bus. Earlier that day Ryan got on a double decker bus and hit his forehead and the bus started to go and got Ryan off balance, what a sight to see for the Chinese. Our night was not done, we went to a coffee shop that our friends like to go to often, I'm starting to like the coffee more and more because they don't have any frappuccinos here. However, they had some delicious ice cream. We met some of the the American's friends and they were really friendly. Ryan can't handle coffee very well late at night he was up until 4:30 in the morning, luckly he kept busy making our triangle lake film together along with our behai trip into short clips. We are still trying to put them on Youtube so that you will be able to see it.
Today was slower but really nice as we walked around our campus and market area filming the life around us and the scenery. We picked up some movies and came back here and watched a really boring one. Tonight we are going to meet a couple from the Philipians who are also going to be teaching English at the college. Our friend Kate is coming as well and we are going to watch a movie in the park, we don't know if it will be in English or not, most likely in Chinese but you never know.
Even though we are meeting people here and hanging out with them, we miss everyone back at home and wish that we could be hanging out with you as well. It is hard missing youth groups, staff get togethers, Sunday hang out nights, and the first football game of the season. Seeing mark play and talking with family and friends in the stands. Fortunatley we can watch the game online. GO WOLVES! Thank you for continuing to think of us. We'll take some pictures tonight and you can see Nanhu Park in downtown Nanning. See you soon.
Sincerely,
Kealy and Ryan Thorson
September 1, 2007
August 29, 2007
Cooking on our own and swimming with caps
Hello Friends and Family,
Another good day teaching here. It was a much warmer day with no thunderstorms. By the time I (Ryan) arrived at the school I was very sweaty and the students kept telling me to stand under the fan because I was sweating so much. All classes went well and we are starting to use the text books some in our lesson planning. it is a helpful guide and tool for the students. One student walked into the class before it started this afternoon and I was writing on the board and whistling, he said something in Chinese and I asked him what he said. He said I was a giant hummingbird for whistling in class! Pretty funny.
This evening we were preparing our first meal at home when we heard a knock at the door. We opened the door and in walked our five year old friend Amy with three icecream cones in her hand. She had brought ice cream to share with us and came in and we played guitar and sang songs while Kealy cooked our wonderful first homemade meal. We cooked beef, corn, carrots, broccoli and noodles with soy sauce in our wok and it was delicious!
As you can tell, I like the meal Kealy made very much. She even invited Joe, Celia and Amy over for dinner tomorrow night and she is going to cook for them, and me. Amy watched us eat our meal and played around us. She liked to play the guitar and she is very talkative. She knows that we cannot speak Chinese but she carries on just the same. She has even taken it upon herself to teach us Chinese. Tonight, we learned the word Yao Yo (Swimming)!
After dinner we went to the swimming pool with Joe, Celia and Amy. The pool is much like the ones in America and very refreshing. It felt good to get the stickiness off from the humidity. However, it is a rule in Chinese swimming pools that you must wear a cap when swimming to keep hair out of the water. So...we each bought our very own swimming cap!
We both got a kick out of each other in our caps! We had a fun time swimming and now we are relaxing for the rest of the evening. I don't have to teach a class until 2:30 tomorrow for 1.5 hours and that is my work day. Kealy has one class from 8:30-10:10 so that is it. It should be a relaxing day. We are going to plan our weekend and go to the market to buy fresh food for dinnner. Talk to you soon.
Sincerely,
Ryan and Kealy Thorson
Another good day teaching here. It was a much warmer day with no thunderstorms. By the time I (Ryan) arrived at the school I was very sweaty and the students kept telling me to stand under the fan because I was sweating so much. All classes went well and we are starting to use the text books some in our lesson planning. it is a helpful guide and tool for the students. One student walked into the class before it started this afternoon and I was writing on the board and whistling, he said something in Chinese and I asked him what he said. He said I was a giant hummingbird for whistling in class! Pretty funny.
This evening we were preparing our first meal at home when we heard a knock at the door. We opened the door and in walked our five year old friend Amy with three icecream cones in her hand. She had brought ice cream to share with us and came in and we played guitar and sang songs while Kealy cooked our wonderful first homemade meal. We cooked beef, corn, carrots, broccoli and noodles with soy sauce in our wok and it was delicious!
As you can tell, I like the meal Kealy made very much. She even invited Joe, Celia and Amy over for dinner tomorrow night and she is going to cook for them, and me. Amy watched us eat our meal and played around us. She liked to play the guitar and she is very talkative. She knows that we cannot speak Chinese but she carries on just the same. She has even taken it upon herself to teach us Chinese. Tonight, we learned the word Yao Yo (Swimming)!
After dinner we went to the swimming pool with Joe, Celia and Amy. The pool is much like the ones in America and very refreshing. It felt good to get the stickiness off from the humidity. However, it is a rule in Chinese swimming pools that you must wear a cap when swimming to keep hair out of the water. So...we each bought our very own swimming cap!
We both got a kick out of each other in our caps! We had a fun time swimming and now we are relaxing for the rest of the evening. I don't have to teach a class until 2:30 tomorrow for 1.5 hours and that is my work day. Kealy has one class from 8:30-10:10 so that is it. It should be a relaxing day. We are going to plan our weekend and go to the market to buy fresh food for dinnner. Talk to you soon.
Sincerely,
Ryan and Kealy Thorson
August 28, 2007
Make new friends and keep the old--Fun English Names--New Dresses
Hello Friends and Family,
The last two days here have been very exciting! We have started teaching english to the students at the college. We have the same students only once a week for 90 minutes, so we have 9 different classes. We teach the same lesson to each class so we have lots of opportunities to refine it and make it a good lesson. This first week we are practicing having them introduce themselves and share about their favorite food, sport, etc. Then, we have them write their English names on the board and it gives us a chance to learn their names and ask them why they chose that particular name. We have heard some very interesting names: Berlinda, Spring, Green, Rice, Dumpling, Esan, Johnson, Carlos, CoCo, Silence and many more. They all have a very neat reason for choosing their name and they are able to share why they chose it. Most of the students are very eager to learn English, they even give us applause when we walk in the class and at the end of the class, so that is very encouraging. We are enjoying teaching so far, to say the least. They are all very interested in American customs and holidays and how to make lots of money. Initially, Kealy and I both had an evening class once a week but they changed our schedule so now we don't have any evening classes. I have to teach on Fridays now but that is still good.
Because we had this evening free, we were invited to make dumplings with Celia, Joe and Amy, a very kind family that is in the same apartment complex. Celia is the school administrator and is the one that did such a great job decorating our apartment that we like so much.
This is a picture of us making the dumplings this evening. We put the mix in the dumpling and then fold them up and boil them in water for only two minutes. Then they are ready to eat.
This is Amy, one of our new friends! She is five years old and loves to come over and play. We play with the dice and practice counting the numbers in english and chinese. she speaks very good english for her age and is a lot of fun!
Also, last night, we had a chance to see Kathy, the woman who we met at Western Oregon which introduced us to the college and helped us work out the details of coming here. She is studying in Hong Kong, but her mother is the president of the college here in Nanning so she was visiting her family for the holiday that they just had, which was a kind of halloween. She is very kind and her and Kealy get along very well. She took us to a 'Western Style Restaurant' in Nanning. You can check out the food blog for a picture of the great pepper steak that I had. It was very good to see her.
We like living here at the middle school very much and we are meeting so many wonderful people. But with every friend we make we think of all of you that we miss so much and we are thankful that we can stay in contact with you.
Now...the moment some of you have been waiting for. Kealy's dresses arrived today and they are so beautiful. She looks fantastic in both of them and they are authentic Chinese dresses, tailor made for a cost of 60 Yuan, about $8! She wore one out tonight as we explored the city with Joe, Celia and Amy and went to Five Elephant Square. The pictures turned out okay. We are going to go back during the day and take more pictures of the fountain but Nanning is so beautiful at night. There are many lights and wonderful colors and a lot of people come out at night because it is cooler. There have been thunderstorms and a little rain with wind the last couple of days here so that has been exciting to see the heat lighting. I have been telling my students that my family name means 'son of thunder and lightning' and they think that is pretty cool. Here are some pics of my beautiful wife in her new dresses:
The dresses turned out wonderful and I wouldn't be surprised if she asked me to buy her some more! Which she know I will, especially for $8!
We are having a good week and learning to adjust to a new schedule, a very nice schedule which we enjoy. We love being here at the middle school and meeting new friends and spending time together. We also like the 2.5 hour lunch break in the middle of the day to eat and 'have a rest' or take a nap. We will keep you posted on fun and new things that we are experiencing. Tomorrow we are going to do some cooking on our own, so check out the food blog in the next couple of days and we'll let you know how it goes.
Sincerely,
Ryan and Kealy Thorson
The last two days here have been very exciting! We have started teaching english to the students at the college. We have the same students only once a week for 90 minutes, so we have 9 different classes. We teach the same lesson to each class so we have lots of opportunities to refine it and make it a good lesson. This first week we are practicing having them introduce themselves and share about their favorite food, sport, etc. Then, we have them write their English names on the board and it gives us a chance to learn their names and ask them why they chose that particular name. We have heard some very interesting names: Berlinda, Spring, Green, Rice, Dumpling, Esan, Johnson, Carlos, CoCo, Silence and many more. They all have a very neat reason for choosing their name and they are able to share why they chose it. Most of the students are very eager to learn English, they even give us applause when we walk in the class and at the end of the class, so that is very encouraging. We are enjoying teaching so far, to say the least. They are all very interested in American customs and holidays and how to make lots of money. Initially, Kealy and I both had an evening class once a week but they changed our schedule so now we don't have any evening classes. I have to teach on Fridays now but that is still good.
Because we had this evening free, we were invited to make dumplings with Celia, Joe and Amy, a very kind family that is in the same apartment complex. Celia is the school administrator and is the one that did such a great job decorating our apartment that we like so much.
This is a picture of us making the dumplings this evening. We put the mix in the dumpling and then fold them up and boil them in water for only two minutes. Then they are ready to eat.
This is Amy, one of our new friends! She is five years old and loves to come over and play. We play with the dice and practice counting the numbers in english and chinese. she speaks very good english for her age and is a lot of fun!
Also, last night, we had a chance to see Kathy, the woman who we met at Western Oregon which introduced us to the college and helped us work out the details of coming here. She is studying in Hong Kong, but her mother is the president of the college here in Nanning so she was visiting her family for the holiday that they just had, which was a kind of halloween. She is very kind and her and Kealy get along very well. She took us to a 'Western Style Restaurant' in Nanning. You can check out the food blog for a picture of the great pepper steak that I had. It was very good to see her.
We like living here at the middle school very much and we are meeting so many wonderful people. But with every friend we make we think of all of you that we miss so much and we are thankful that we can stay in contact with you.
Now...the moment some of you have been waiting for. Kealy's dresses arrived today and they are so beautiful. She looks fantastic in both of them and they are authentic Chinese dresses, tailor made for a cost of 60 Yuan, about $8! She wore one out tonight as we explored the city with Joe, Celia and Amy and went to Five Elephant Square. The pictures turned out okay. We are going to go back during the day and take more pictures of the fountain but Nanning is so beautiful at night. There are many lights and wonderful colors and a lot of people come out at night because it is cooler. There have been thunderstorms and a little rain with wind the last couple of days here so that has been exciting to see the heat lighting. I have been telling my students that my family name means 'son of thunder and lightning' and they think that is pretty cool. Here are some pics of my beautiful wife in her new dresses:
The dresses turned out wonderful and I wouldn't be surprised if she asked me to buy her some more! Which she know I will, especially for $8!
We are having a good week and learning to adjust to a new schedule, a very nice schedule which we enjoy. We love being here at the middle school and meeting new friends and spending time together. We also like the 2.5 hour lunch break in the middle of the day to eat and 'have a rest' or take a nap. We will keep you posted on fun and new things that we are experiencing. Tomorrow we are going to do some cooking on our own, so check out the food blog in the next couple of days and we'll let you know how it goes.
Sincerely,
Ryan and Kealy Thorson
August 26, 2007
Wow! What a weekend
Hello Friends and Family,
Sorry it has been a couple of days since our last post. We are still alive and still in China. On Friday, we were taken into town and had dumplings with four Chinese and a Japanese man, then taken to buy a cell phone. I think Mr. River was getting tired of us not being a home to answer our phone, so we bought a 300 RMB cell phone in China and now we can call anyone in China and they can call us. It came in very handy this weekend when we decided last minute to go on vacation to Beihai! The city of Beihai is on the Gulf of Tonkin, about 2.5 hours by bus. We hopped on a bus on Friday night and found a hotel we saw online. The taxi driver kept taking us to different hotels, trying to convince us we should stay there instead, but eventually he took us to our hotel. We had a great time together. It was good for our confidence to get out on our own and venture into China without any help. We had to do a lot of pointing and gesturing and we used our travel books and English-Chinese book. But we stayed at the Silver Beach all day, walking the boardwalk, swimming in the water and drinking coconut milk. We were covered by an umbrella and a hat for the whole day, except for one hour of swimming, but that was enough to burn our faces and shoulders. It is very hard to find sun tan lotion in China! We will post the pictures from our trip on our travel blog and you can go to that by clicking on the 'Traveling China' link to the right of this post. It seems that we are having problems posting pictures so we will get those up soon. We will also update the 'Fun Foods of the Far East' blog and you can see the meal we had this morning. Eventually, I will try and put pictures of the two birds I have identified in China so far so that all our blogs will be updated. We had a great time relaxing together and preparing for the week. We found out on Friday that we will start teaching tomorrow (Monday) so we have been preparing for that as well. We will each teach 18 45 minute classes a week. We got our schedule tonight. I (Ryan) don't have any classes on Friday! Kealy has one in the morning and she might see if she can switch it to Thursday and then we would have a three day weekend all semester long. The semester lasts 21 weeks with a 5 week break in between semesters. Sometime I will post our schedule but we each teach about 4-6 hours a day. They take a 2.5 hour lunch break and we each have one evening class a week and a English corner/club on Thursday nights. We will let you know how teaching goes tomorrow, we will probably start out with basic introductions and days of the week. If you have any suggestions on topics or teaching methods we should use, we would love to hear your ideas. You can e-mail us anytime, we check it constantly. Tomorrow we are having dinner with Kathy, the daughter of the president at the college here, who was a graduate student at WOU where we met her and arranged our teaching here in China. We are looking forward to seeing you again. Hope you all enjoy your Sunday, it was a good day here; palm trees, sandy beachs and my beautiful 'lao po' (wife) with me! Talk to you soon.
Sincerely,
Ryan and Kealy Thorson
P.S. We found a movie store across the street in the market from the school that has new movies in English! We have already watched Fantastic Four and are watching Die Hard 4 tonight!!!
Sorry it has been a couple of days since our last post. We are still alive and still in China. On Friday, we were taken into town and had dumplings with four Chinese and a Japanese man, then taken to buy a cell phone. I think Mr. River was getting tired of us not being a home to answer our phone, so we bought a 300 RMB cell phone in China and now we can call anyone in China and they can call us. It came in very handy this weekend when we decided last minute to go on vacation to Beihai! The city of Beihai is on the Gulf of Tonkin, about 2.5 hours by bus. We hopped on a bus on Friday night and found a hotel we saw online. The taxi driver kept taking us to different hotels, trying to convince us we should stay there instead, but eventually he took us to our hotel. We had a great time together. It was good for our confidence to get out on our own and venture into China without any help. We had to do a lot of pointing and gesturing and we used our travel books and English-Chinese book. But we stayed at the Silver Beach all day, walking the boardwalk, swimming in the water and drinking coconut milk. We were covered by an umbrella and a hat for the whole day, except for one hour of swimming, but that was enough to burn our faces and shoulders. It is very hard to find sun tan lotion in China! We will post the pictures from our trip on our travel blog and you can go to that by clicking on the 'Traveling China' link to the right of this post. It seems that we are having problems posting pictures so we will get those up soon. We will also update the 'Fun Foods of the Far East' blog and you can see the meal we had this morning. Eventually, I will try and put pictures of the two birds I have identified in China so far so that all our blogs will be updated. We had a great time relaxing together and preparing for the week. We found out on Friday that we will start teaching tomorrow (Monday) so we have been preparing for that as well. We will each teach 18 45 minute classes a week. We got our schedule tonight. I (Ryan) don't have any classes on Friday! Kealy has one in the morning and she might see if she can switch it to Thursday and then we would have a three day weekend all semester long. The semester lasts 21 weeks with a 5 week break in between semesters. Sometime I will post our schedule but we each teach about 4-6 hours a day. They take a 2.5 hour lunch break and we each have one evening class a week and a English corner/club on Thursday nights. We will let you know how teaching goes tomorrow, we will probably start out with basic introductions and days of the week. If you have any suggestions on topics or teaching methods we should use, we would love to hear your ideas. You can e-mail us anytime, we check it constantly. Tomorrow we are having dinner with Kathy, the daughter of the president at the college here, who was a graduate student at WOU where we met her and arranged our teaching here in China. We are looking forward to seeing you again. Hope you all enjoy your Sunday, it was a good day here; palm trees, sandy beachs and my beautiful 'lao po' (wife) with me! Talk to you soon.
Sincerely,
Ryan and Kealy Thorson
P.S. We found a movie store across the street in the market from the school that has new movies in English! We have already watched Fantastic Four and are watching Die Hard 4 tonight!!!
August 22, 2007
Feast Fit for a King (and queen)!
Hello Friends and Family,
Well, yesterday we had quite the experience! We spent most of the day in our apartment with the gentlemen that came to fix our toilet! That's right, we have a toilet now! It is so nice to be able to sit down and relax when going to the restroom. :) After the put our toilet in, we had to go across the street and get our photos taken for our new visas. We went to our contacts office, Celia, and she was not there but there was a gentlemen there that was very kind. He hardly spoke any English, but he wrote on a piece of paper 'we are good friends'. We managed to explain to him that our Chinese was not so good, so he handed us a Chinese Business book called 'the secret to success'. I think he thought that would help us learn Chinese.
Last night we went to dinner with our two bosses; Mr. River from the college, and Celia here from our apartments. They took us to an extravagant restaurant that was absolutely amazing. Everyone there was waiting to serve us and we had Beijing duck, fried pumpkin, pork, cabbage soup, flower tea and even a little fish head! They showed us around the entire restaurant. I think we are going back on Friday so we will take pictures and put them on the blog.
Today we traveled downtown to try and get our physical so we can get our work visa. We met two teachers from Thailand and learn some Thai words also. It is fun exchanging English for someone elses language and trying to learn.
Here are some pictures of our view from our apartment balcony:
And this is a picture of the entrance to the college where we'll be teaching. The classrooms are in the tall building in the back.
Looks like Disneyland!
Thanks to all of you that have e-mailed and called. It is so nice to stay in touch with you. You can call or e-mail any time. We are not able to view this blog after it has posted, so if there are mistakes, let us know, but China restricts access to certain websites and apparently are blog is censored here. But we can still post. We love you and will talk to you soon.
Sincerely,
Ryan and Kealy Thorson
Well, yesterday we had quite the experience! We spent most of the day in our apartment with the gentlemen that came to fix our toilet! That's right, we have a toilet now! It is so nice to be able to sit down and relax when going to the restroom. :) After the put our toilet in, we had to go across the street and get our photos taken for our new visas. We went to our contacts office, Celia, and she was not there but there was a gentlemen there that was very kind. He hardly spoke any English, but he wrote on a piece of paper 'we are good friends'. We managed to explain to him that our Chinese was not so good, so he handed us a Chinese Business book called 'the secret to success'. I think he thought that would help us learn Chinese.
Last night we went to dinner with our two bosses; Mr. River from the college, and Celia here from our apartments. They took us to an extravagant restaurant that was absolutely amazing. Everyone there was waiting to serve us and we had Beijing duck, fried pumpkin, pork, cabbage soup, flower tea and even a little fish head! They showed us around the entire restaurant. I think we are going back on Friday so we will take pictures and put them on the blog.
Today we traveled downtown to try and get our physical so we can get our work visa. We met two teachers from Thailand and learn some Thai words also. It is fun exchanging English for someone elses language and trying to learn.
Here are some pictures of our view from our apartment balcony:
And this is a picture of the entrance to the college where we'll be teaching. The classrooms are in the tall building in the back.
Looks like Disneyland!
Thanks to all of you that have e-mailed and called. It is so nice to stay in touch with you. You can call or e-mail any time. We are not able to view this blog after it has posted, so if there are mistakes, let us know, but China restricts access to certain websites and apparently are blog is censored here. But we can still post. We love you and will talk to you soon.
Sincerely,
Ryan and Kealy Thorson
August 21, 2007
Can't Wait--Here's our apartment!!!
Hello Friends and Family,
Kealy and I decided not to wait until tomorrow to show you some pictures so here are some of apartment just to give you an idea and we will post some of the city tomorrow: We hope you enjoy looking at our pictures
Walking to our plane in Canada
Here is the outside of the main building at the middle school where we are staying
Our livng room with comfy chairs
The other half of our living room
Looking from our balcony
Bedroom
Kitchen
Bathroom-sorry it's upside down
The college
The flee market
Kealy and I decided not to wait until tomorrow to show you some pictures so here are some of apartment just to give you an idea and we will post some of the city tomorrow: We hope you enjoy looking at our pictures
Walking to our plane in Canada
Here is the outside of the main building at the middle school where we are staying
Our livng room with comfy chairs
The other half of our living room
Looking from our balcony
Bedroom
Kitchen
Bathroom-sorry it's upside down
The college
The flee market
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