An 11 day break...

10/9/07

I've been in China for eight weeks now. Eight weeks. Sounds like a long time, but really, that hasn't seemed to be the case. In fact, it seems like I just started teaching. So you can imagine that when I had a week break this last week, it seemed a little out of place. It was National Day here in China, Monday, October 1st; the celebration of 58 years of existence for the People's Republic of China. "A long time"…hmmm, we are at 231 and that doesn't really seem too long. All that too be said, I had a week off, well more like 11 days because I still had no classes on Thursday or Friday at this point (I will have classes on Friday for the first time this Friday).



But my vacation started with a banquet dinner at the Guiyang Sheraton hosted by the provincial government with foreign teachers, business people, and engineers in attendance. Dinner at the Sheraton, yeah, not a bad deal. I passed on the caviar though.


After judging an English Contest on Friday afternoon and then getting paid I was ready for that vacation. Things started slow, just spending Saturday with friends and Sunday at fellowship. On Monday though, I went with my teammates Kara, Susie, and Jen to Anshun (1.5 hours west of Guiyang ) for a camping trip with two other teachers from ULS and some students. I left Guiyang with everyone's bedding in my bag/strapped to my bag and needless to say turned more heads than usual on the way to the bus station. We spent Monday in Anshun prepping. I got to stay in a concrete shell of a room that belonged to one of the students. He made it as much like home as possible and I think I would prefer it to living with 8 people in a dorm room, but still, it was quite basic and the toilet facilities…I'll spare you the details. We took a bus to our camp spot-a twenty minute walk from the road into the woods. It was nice, no buildings, no cars, no blaring horns, a little peace and quiet and rest for the senses. Dinner was a bbq over the fire. It was delicious, but definitely not the quickest way too get food and I was hungry. All this meaning it took all that was in me to stay patient and just wait for the food. And after dinner (a three hour event), it was time for bed. Now you may wonder why I bother to mention this part, but it was really one of the more entertaining aspects of the trip. After realizing the tent we were borrowing was not a three person tent as we were told, but rather a two person tent, the two other guys and I shrugged and said, oh well. Actually, I am not quite sure what they said, it was something in Chinese, but I don't think they minded it, they shared a sleeping bag. I was squished against the side of the tent all night however, but I still managed to sleep decently well despite having one side, my head, and my feet up against the side of the tent. But the tent was a little mildew-y and I think I might be allergic because I am still congested-or I have a cold, so I'm not really sure. Ok, enough about camping…



We got back to Guiyang and a day later we were on our way again. This time Kara, Susie, Jen, Miah (another American teacher here), Hanna (an American studying Chinese), and Martin (Susie's old student and my closest Chinese friend) were going rafting. We boarded a train and four hours later we had arrived. We spent the rest of the day swimming in the river and I even climbed a little mountain. It was a great way to let the testosterone flow. Just going and climbing. And I had to really do some climbing. I was sort of set on summiting the little mountain, but to do this I had go over a little open faced area and climb up, not the safest, but here I am typing to you today, alive and well. Rafting was quite the experience though. The setting is a shallow river that winds through a beautiful green canyon. Towering limestone walls draped with vegetation. It was beautiful, every turn on the river was another gorgeous view. But I say a shallow river because, well, it was white water, but it wasn't. They gave us a two person raft and a six foot wood pole and said good luck. Of course, I was quite excited for the opportunity, but some of the girls weren't really interested in guiding themselves down the river. The float was a lot of fun. In the rapids you just had to get as low as possible without putting your butt on the bottom of the raft because it was bound to hit boulders in the river, all the while holding the pole like a kayak paddle and just bounce around, trying best to not get turned sideways and tip. Oh, and to not hit poor Miah in the head with the pole. This was my biggest fear and yes, it did happen once, but she has since forgiven me and no long term damage was done. We had to stop a few times and empty the boat of water. One time we managed to fill it to the brim. It was quite the trip. We arrived back to Guiyang late Saturday night. I got some rest, went to fellowship on Sunday, worked on lesson plans for five hours (still a difficult and painful experience. You can be Thinking of that) and went to bed only to start teaching again the next morning not really feeling like I had 11 days off. I guess that's how it is when you pack in trips like that and travel all over the province. So things are good here. Hopefully I won't leave you hanging as long on the blogs in the future, but as you see, I've been busy.