The Sun Rises on a New Year

The first thing I want to say is that in the craziness of the end of the school year I didn’t get to adequately make a final post, and I had about half of it written out, so here is that. Following will be an update about what I did this summer! Yippee!

My time in China is coming to an end, at least for this year. I was talking to another teacher and commenting on how this year has flown by as fast as molasses. What I mean by that is in the moment sometimes time crawls by, but when I look back at how much time has passed I am astounded that I’ve been here for nearly 10 months. I’ve grown a lot in the past school-year here in many ways. But before I get to any more rambling deepness I wanted to list for you some new experiences I’ve had here in China, just off the top of my head and in no particular order.

• I have not driven a car for about 10 months
• I have only worn a seatbelt about 5 times out of about 100 trips
• I’ve taken public transit (bus/train/subway)
• I stopped converting prices back to US dollars. (I’m sure when I go to the States I’ll be converting it to Chinese currency!)
• I played ultimate Frisbee on the beach
• I ordered a pizza in Chinese (accurately)
• I had almost a whole conversation in Chinese with my Chinese teacher.
• I ate a duck brain
• I ate Chinese dumplings—Jiaozi
• I made Chinese dumplings—Jiaozi
• I ate Chinese Baozi (like a bread with meat in the middle)
• I made Chinese Baozi
• I went to the Great Wall of China with my parents
• I know how to say some things in 3 languages now, Spanish, English and Chinese.
• I can write and read a couple Chinese characters
• I saw a lady get into a fight with a guy on a bus and almost attack him with an aluminum step ladder
• I saw fried seahorses on a stick for sale…to eat
• I lit a ton of firecrackers on Chinese new year
• I bought a Chinese cell phone
• I played Counter-strike on a Chinese server
• I ordered something off of the Chinese version of eBay
• When bargaining, I haggled someone down to about 5% of their original price, which was outrageous.
• I bought knock off Nike shoes for about $15. The highest US size they had was a 9.
• I went into a bootleg DVD store that had a secret backroom behind a door disguised as a poster.
• The cheapest full meal I bought was 9RMB (about $1.50)
• The most expensive meal I remember buying was around 75 RMB (about $12)
• I’ve mastered the art of using chopsticks
• I went to Mongolia, which is not in China if you didn’t know.
• I dressed up like a tree for the sake of the environment
• I had a steady job for more than 4 months
• I worked 7 days in a row.
• I camped on the beach
• I was in South Korea…briefly
• I rode a camel
• I slept in a hut

I’m sure there are a ton more I’m forgetting, but this all I can think of for now.

The first thing I want to say is that in the craziness of the end of the school year I didn’t get to adequately make a final post, and I had about half of it written out, so here is that. Following will be an update about what I did this summer! Yippee!

Well, I haven’t written anything this summer, and that’s mainly because the purpose of this blog is to keep people up to date on what I’m doing in China. And the other part was probably laziness. So I will try to give you an update on what I did this summer and what I can be looking forward to as my second year in China begins.

One of the first things I did when I got back was go to Camp Highland. I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about it on this blog, but it’s the summer camp I worked at in 2008 and again in 2011. It’s a C summer camp where we focus on him through high adventure activities like zip lines, ropes courses and white water rafting. And there is also some teambuilding stuff thrown in there too. The first week (yes there was more than one) I went up I just helped out around camp, whether it was helping cook food or run the riflery range. It was a great experience because I got to get to know and bond with some people my age.

A few weeks later I went back with my cousin Josh who was a camper. During that week I got to be a counselor, which is a whole different dynamic. Instead of forming relationships with people your own age, you pour into kids younger than you, kids who sometimes need a role model. During this week I also got to do all the fun activities, like rafting and camping.

That’s me and Josh!

Another great thing about camp, and I just had this revelation the second week I was there, is that it’s basically like rehab for your relationship with Him. I know that sounds a bit harsh, but it’s not really—at least when you think about it. You go into the North Georgia mountains, in the woods, away from TV, cell phones, internet and computers and all you have is other people and the good book. It pretty much forces you to make good use of your time—something I know a lot of people struggle with, especially me. So those two weeks were great for me because I just got to get away and be somewhere not really accessible to me here in China.

Okay, I went up a third time too, but this was just for a weekend. Well, one day really, if we count it in hours. My friend Zach, who works at Camp Highland, told me that there were some Chinese international students coming up for 2 days and he wanted to know if I would go. Heck, why not? So I went up. It turns out these are kids coming over to the US for their senior year of high school and University. They’re all over on 4 year visas. Who! Can you imagine going to a different country when you’re 17 and knowing you will live there for 4 years! I can imagine that a little bit, but boy would that be overwhelming. Much like my students here, they were at varying levels of English proficiency and or outgoingness. Because some kids might know a lot of English, but they never open their mouth to use it—which is a shame. So I had a good time getting to know them, and I practiced my Chinese a little bit too. I asked one of them how the food was, and one of the students thought it was one of the Chinese kids talking! Alright! They asked me what food I liked here and when I told them a few things they told me to stop talking, making it evident that I was inducing a slight case of homesickness. I think they had a good time and I hope they do great wherever they go!

This summer I also got to see a lot of people I’ve missed being away for 10 months. Mainly my dogs. Okay, okay and my family and friends. But really though, I can facetime or skype with friends and family and they can ask me how I am and we can talk. If I try to do that with my dogs they don’t really understand what video chat is so they don’t even look at the screen. It’s like they don’t know I’m trying to talk to them! But it was great to have them jump all over me when I stepped in the door—my dogs, not my family.

I got to see my good friends Cat and Wes, who are currently in American Samoa for their second year of teaching with World Teach. They introduced me to a card game called Dominion, which was really fun. But I also felt like I was getting tricked into playing Magic the gathering…and liking it. But, I was the guy with like 1000 Pokemon cards and had no clue how to play the card game with them. Heck, I’m still that guy—got the cards and have no clue how to play. Go figure.

I also got to play some ultimate Frisbee with my friends Chad and Jenny Floyd and Derek—even though I don’t think I played in the same game with him because there were so many people there. I realized that I am out of shape to play Ultimate. But that can be blamed on three things: first—it was like 150% humidity on one of the days, second—I hadn’t played a “real” game of ultimate since I left, and third—I’ve just been out of shape. So, I will try to exercise some more while I’m over here so I can only use two excuses next year.

Oh yeah, I got to do a bit of shopping while I was in the States. The first thing I tried to do was get my camera fixed. Because, if you recall, in February my screen stopped working, which didn’t allow me to use any of the menu features or take video—which stunk! I sent in my camera via the Best Buy Geek Squad. After like 3 weeks of their estimated 12 days they called me to come pick up my camera. It turns out that when they sent it in they used one of the wrong ID numbers on the form so the people couldn’t do anything to the camera—they sent it back unfixed ☹. But the good news was that Best buy just decided to trade mine in for a brand new one! WOOP! So now, I have a new camera that should hopefully last more than 6 months.

I also got a snazzy laptop stand so I don’t hurt my neck while using my laptop, and a cool wireless keyboard so I can write things without an 8 pound piece of flaming metal on my legs (sometimes my computer gets hot when insulated against 90 degree flesh—go figure).

I didn’t really do any other shopping, I guess. I don’t really need new clothes, even though it always feels like you can use some. “Oh, what a cool shirt!” I did, however, get a light up Frisbee to play with the students at school after dinner. Because, for about half of the year, while the rest of the world is on daylight savings time and China isn’t, their recess time is in total darkness. So this might be a cool way to extend their playtime safely-ish.

This summer I also got to see a lot of family, which was great. I stayed with my brother in his new house, which allowed us to have bachelor bonding time. And I got to hang out with my other brother and his wife too. And as it turns out, this summer he got offered a job in San Diego and he left Georgia the same day as me! So good luck to him while he works at Sony Online Entertainment being a general programmer for Everquest, a game he’s played since he was like 14—it’s that old!

I also got to go on a sweet trip to New York City with my mom. We went for a long weekend and tried to pack in as much awesome as we could; and I think we did a pretty good job. We went to the 9/11 memorial, we are in the 102 club in the Empire state building (if you don’t know what that is then you’re obviously not in the club), saw The Lion King and Wicked on Broadway. Wicked was awesome, but The Lion King just wasn’t as great as I wanted it to be. It was still cool though! We went to the Brooklyn Tabernacle Church on Sunday, which was amazing. And we also took a walk around Central Park. I think it’s really cool how they preserved some of the natural beauty in a city like NYC when they could have easily just built on it and made a bunch of money. It’s a pretty cool place.
Mom and I in a NYC subway station.
Central Park

We also tried to eat at some semi-authentic New York restaurants. We went to this bangin’ pizza place called Sbarro (I’m kidding, you should watch more “The Office”). No, we did got to a pizza place though. It was good but the service was pretty awful. Yeah, our waitress was sitting down at a table with the other waitstaff drinking cokes and laughing, while my mom and I were halfway through our pizza with empty glasses. We went to a deli and got a really good roast beef sandwich, and I even got some Chinese take out, which I ordered in Chinese. Yeah, the guy was a little impressed. Ok, maybe not, but he did tell me that his two daughters who moved from the US to China when they were 1 were now like 7 and 8. I don’t know if he’s seen them since then, but you have to remember that some of the immigrants in America are here alone, in a foreign country and away from their families. What a life! We also went to McDonald’s. Twice.

As for this school year, I found out what I will be teaching. I’m going to be teaching 8th grade English again for 2 classes a day, 4 times a week. I’ll be teaching 12th grade creative writing 4 days a week for the first semester. For the second semester in 12th grade I’ll be teaching them the personal finance class I taught last year. I’ll also be teaching 10th grade English 4 times a week and 11th grade lit 2 times a week. It’s one more prep than last year, but I think I will be able to handle it.

Even though I’m teaching 8th grade again, we are changing around the book we are going to use. I think the book that we used last year was good, but not engaging enough for middle school students. So I hope this one will help remedy that, and at the same time, make my life a bit easier.

As the days roll in for this school year I’m sure I’ll have more to write, and I’ll try to be better about posting more frequently. Classes for students start on September 3rd, and work for me starts Monday the 27th, so I’ll have a whole week to prepare and get ready for this year. Wish me luck!

Also. This.

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Beijing, Parents in China, and Chinese New Year

Wow, this month has been quite action packed. My apologies for not posting sooner, but I think it is the procrastinator in me. The more days that elapse from when I feel like I should post the more things that happen that I want to include in my post, thus making the perceived post longer. All of this is in my head of course. But today is the day I will hash all of that out for you.

Back in October I talked with my parents about coming to visit me here in China during my winter holiday. Since then they had purchased plane tickets and planned to come visit me on January 9th. That seemed so far away when it was October. But as the months quickly and slowly drifted by that date got closer and closer until I found myself on a bus headed for the airport to pick up my parents.

I was in their position just a few months earlier, on my way to China for the first time, eager to see a Country I thought I knew so much about. When my parents came through the gate at the airport we exchanged hugs and head outside to take a taxi back to my school where they would be staying. This was their first experience of Chinese culture, trying to find a taxi at a reasonable price that would take all three of us and all the suitcases to my school. After a few minutes of searching and my trying my best to use my limited Chinese, we were on our way back to my school, my home.

The thing about jet lag is that it takes a few days to adjust to a new time zone. It is even harder when that time zone is just about 12 hours the opposite of what you are used to. My mom told me yesterday that she still hasn’t adjusted back to US time yet. So the first day we went to the grocery and had some Papa John’s pizza. Papa John’s in China is like a nice sit down restaurant with a menu and a waitress. Just a fun fact.

The next day we were going to board a train to Beijing with another foreign teacher, Daniel, his wife and his parents. So after only one day to adjust to the new time zone we were sitting on our six-hour train journey, stomachs laden with KFC, ready for what Beijing had to offer us.

We arrived at our hostel at dinnertime, shed our belongings and headed to a restaurant called Da Dong where we could get some of the best Beijing Duck in the city, or so I am told. When you order a duck at this restaurant they bring out the roasted duck to your table for your approval before they carve it right in front of you. Once the duck is on the table (pictured below) you are then equipped with chopsticks and a tray of sauces and vegetables to put in a kind of flour wrap with your duck and eat it elegantly like a small burrito.

It was thoroughly entertaining to watch our parents fight with the chopsticks as they tried to grab their pieces of duck. I think one of the lessons they learned here was that you can’t just ask for a fork—that you are in China, and when eating Chinese food you pretty much only get chopsticks, and maybe a spoon. Maybe.

The following day we were off to see the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, and Tiananmen Square. Man, the Forbidden City is huge. It must be over a mile long, and in each courtyard area there is a huge temple and adjoining rooms along the side. It really is a city. I have loved to be there to see it in its prime. To see how everything was set up and to see it as a real city. While it is beautiful today, part of its beauty is lost due to the fact that it is now a tourist attraction and not a living breathing city. It’s like looking at a fossil—it’s spectacular and big and ancient, but pales in comparison to the real dinosaur.

In Tiananmen Square we saw the gravesite for China’s past leader, Mao Zedong. It was a cool place, but not really much to see besides open spaces. I like the picture of the flag with the sun behind it, but I don’ know the significance of the solid red flags.

After visiting these places we went out to grab a bite to eat at McDonalds. I know I know, my parents are only in China for a few days and I’ve already taken them to 3 American restaurants. But sometimes the quick and easy, and safe option is the best. Here are some of the alternatives that could be found down food street, right across from the golden arches.

The next day, which was my mom’s birthday, we woke up early and headed out to the great wall with our friend, Mark, who gave us a personal tour of this part of the wall. After eating at the Subway restaurant near the wall we took a ski lift type thing to the top of the mountain and began our hike on the Great Wall of China. A pretty cool place to spend your birthday if you ask me.

Can you spot my parents?

After about an hour of hiking the wall we had made it to the top of the section that was accessible to tourists—and what a beautiful view from the top. At the top were other tourists who, after making the ascent up 50 steps spaced a foot apart and only four inches deep, needed a smoke after their cardio. Some people baffle me. And there was also a guy carrying his newly adopted Chinese baby up the wall on his back in a backpack. He was also slightly intoxicated.

Our trip also included a journey to the famous Pearl Market, whose bottom floors are made up of fake electronic, watch, and clothes vendors shouting “Lady, lady, buy purse! Cheap! Cheap!” to my mother. I bought a green laser pointer and a wooden carved Chinese chess set because they were awesome.

A brief aside about this market and others like it. When you go in there the first thing the vendors notice about me (or you if you ever visit) is that I am a foreigner. And they associate foreigners with money, because they somehow took a trip to China, which is expensive. Well, I’m teaching here so that’s not really true. So when I asked the guy how much the chess set was and he told me 150 RMB I know that his price is based on all those facts, and his hope that I am stupid. Because only a foreigner, who in the land of the US, at least, are not accustomed to haggling over price with people. I told him I would pay 50 and he insisted that I pay only 120, so I walked away when he started shouting prices at me. After ignoring him he finally started yelling “Okay! Okay!” I got that chess set for 50. It’s all about the experience, and I think shopping at places like that is one of my favorite experiences.

After taking a plane trip back to Qingdao my parents and I relaxed for a day and played some games with the now parentless (they flew back to the US the day after we got back) Daniel and Marta. Over the next few days we visited the sights in Qingdao, and went over to a Chinese teacher’s house to make dumplings on the small Chinese New Year.

It was great to show my parents the city in which I live. Although it’s not super famous and lacks gigantic tourist attractions, it is currently my home. So when I talk to my parents and tell them that I went to the grocery store then they can know that they have been in that same store. I think in that way they can be more connected to me.

The day my parents left to go back to the US I got in a van with a Chinese friend, CJ, his wife, and two other teachers from their school to go to Zibo (pronounced Zih-bwah) for the Chinese new year. All of his family lives in Zibo so we were going to spend the next four days hanging out with them and experiencing all of the traditions of the Chinese New Year.

One thing I noticed immediately about Zibo is that their city was decorated so much better than Qingdao. At least the parts I had been to. Almost every street was lined with illuminated trees of different colors and patterns.

And they even have a Wal-Mart. Ok we have one in Qingdao, but it’s like an hour away from my house and isn’t that special.

We spent our nights at CJ’s parents house where his two brothers joined us with their lovely wives (and one baby). CJ is next to me in the picture.

His oldest brother, on the left taught me how to play Chinese chess. And by taught me I really mean he obliterated me five games in a row using only half his pieces. But I think I got the hang of how it works. His two brothers don’t really speak that much English so it was cool to be taught a complex game with almost no language being used. That night we left to find that it was snowing! Yay, snow!

On Chinese New Year’s Eve we gathered back in CJ’s parents house where we had a traditional family-style dinner before we were going to watch the Chinese New Year program on television. I was told that the people who rehearse for the program practice each day for up to 9 months before the new year, and everything is rehearsed down to the second. I don’t know if that is true, but it probably is. There were acts of Chinese Acrobatics, comedy, dance, singing, magic and just about every other form of entertainment you could think of. For not understanding anything they said, it was still pretty entertaining.

And then we did the fireworks. All around the city, since about 8 o’clock fireworks had been going off non stop. But at midnight, oh man, it got crazy. I took a video, that I can’t really upload

And how about some home-made Chinese firecrackers made out of newspaper that had been sitting in a wet basement for half a year? Yeah, let’s light those.

The picture below has got to be my favorite of the night.

And here is a guy across the street rolling out a ton of fire crackers.

Overall the night was a little loud and a litte crazy. I felt like I was in a warzone for a lot of it. But it was really cool. And they are still doing fireworks like 4 days after. Oh, did I mention that the screen on my camera stopped working? So I can’t really access any of the menus or see any of my pictures right after I take them. Now I have a retro digital camera. All the convenience of digital with the surprise of not knowing how the pictures turn out that a film camera brings.

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A Week Among the Mongols

This past week China had its national holiday. That equated to me getting 7 days off of work to do whatever I desired. It turned out to be going to Mongolia with some of my fellow teachers, Mayu and Robin. Here are their stories (DUN DUN). Sorry, I just thought that sounded like a really cool intro from law and order.

Anyhow, since Qingdao didn’t have any flights to Mongolia we had to take the train to Beijing and fly out from there. During this trip I had many many “firsts.” One of them was riding in a train in China, which is a lot like riding on a plane that never quite gets the hang of that taking off thing. Train ride aside that first night we were slated to stay in a hostel. Now, when I think of the word hostel I think of that little chain of movies that came out where the tourists got savagely murdered by the staff and people around the hostel. I mean, the word sounds like “hostile” for Pete’s sake.

But the hostel in Beijing, called Fly By Knight, was really nice. They had soft beds and the owner, David, who is probably in his late twenties invited us to have some dinner with him and his staff. So we settled in that night ready to wake up at 5:30am to catch our flight to Mongolia.

Let me tell you, the Beijing airport is BIG. Now I bet you have been in an airport, and maybe even a “big” airport, but unless you’ve been to the Beijing airport you might not realize how much you’re overselling the word big. Maybe more so than that was how impressive it was with how open and tall it is.

As I stepped off the plane into the airport in Ulaanbaatar I remarked at how small the airport was. I think there was only one or two places to dock a plane, and definitely not more than one terminal. In fact, along the runway were scattered and tattered bi-planes, with holes through their wings and rust eroding at their metal frames.

We got in a taxi, that wasn’t really a taxi, but some random guy, trusting that he wouldn’t abduct us, and made our way to the UB Guesthouse. Hostel number 2. This one was…okay. Alright, it was nice, but compared to Fly By Knight it was kind of a downgrade. We weren’t going to be staying there long though. When we got there we booked a tour through the hostel where we would travel around Mongolia for four days and three nights. We grabbed a bite to eat at a local bakery and walked around UB for a while.

The owner of the hostel, Bobby (who is a woman), told us about the local Black Market. She assured us that the word “black” came from when the marked was established during communist rule and since it wasn’t “allowed” to sell the goods it was selling it was dubbed the black market. Well, this pretty much fits the definition of what I thought a black market should be. So I stuffed some Tögrög (Mongolian currency) into my pocket and made my way to the market.

It was packed. With people. With things. With animals. There were literally about 30 isles of leather boots. There might have been more, but my fellow teachers got bored after a few isles. We perused the goods there which ranged from garbage collected from dumps like random pieces of metal, plastic, shoes, cell phone covers and then there was some food stands. This was on the outskirts of the market. On the inside where the higher quality items were you could buy home appliances, furniture, clothes, shoes, fabric, strings and various odds and ends. It was like an Ikea on crack, and the crack was laced with a few thousand Mongolians. I ended up buying a camel hair hat, which I didn’t know existed. I also bought this knitted jacket thing (there is a picture of me later wearing it) just because I wanted something warm and semi-authentic from the black market. They had a lot of really good knock offs too, like North face and other European outfitter brands that I didn’t recognize. I didn’t want anything like that, so I went for the super hoodie for only ₮30,000, which is like $23. Not a bad price considering in the states that will sometimes barely buy you a t-shirt from the mall.

Below is a picture of these seeds that everyone in UB ate. All the time. There were shells all over the ground. Everywhere.

Victorious from our purchases we hopped on the slow bus back to the hostel.

I’ll get back to the slow bus comment in a minute, but I want to take a brief minute and give you some quick facts about UB and Mongolia. Mongolia’s population is only about 2.75 million people, and a million of them live in UB. I think just about every person has a car, most of them are Toyota Land Cruisers, so the traffic is really bad. I mean really bad. They seem to follow most traffic laws, but running red lights is very common and we did almost see an accident between a bus and a super tiny compact car. The pollution in UB is also really bad, I heard someone say it was one of the worst in the world. Since it sits in a basin surrounded by mountains the smog is trapped, and since there is scarcely rain the yellow haze just sits. Now you know why the bus was slow…kind of.

The next morning we arose and took a ride in a 4 door Hyundai to Terelj National park where we were to do some hiking, horseback riding and were going to stay in a ger (pronounced gee-air or gyare). The car ride was a bit bumpy, but we got to know one of our ger-mates, Matthew, who is from France. We talked and got to know each other on the way into the park. I think one of the things that amazed me most about Mongolia was the landscape. I have never really ever seen anything like it. It’s just so…treeless. In the park, however, trees and rocky mountains seemed to be more prevalent as compared to the rolling grassy hills in the western parts of Mongolia.

A tour group met us there to take the same car back to the hostel. They suggested that we take a hike over some hills (which are quite steep at times) to see this huge rock formation that looks like a turtle. He said it was called “Turtle Rock.” Well, I’ve seen turtles and I’ve seen rocks, but I haven’t ever seen one that looked like the other. And apparently neither had any us, or our newly acquired Argentinian friends, Cecilia and Santiago. So we struck out on our mini-adventure at around 10am, well before our 2pm lunch curfew.

After about half an hour we crested the hill told to us by our tipster. The one where we would be able to see this turtle shaped rock. Well, we all saw it, but I can testify that it did not look like a turtle. And I have several pictures as proof, see for yourself, does it look like a turtle? Does it?

Well, me, Matthew, and Santiago weren’t convinced so we decided to hike all the way to the turtle to have a closer look. The girls stayed behind on the hill to have girl time.

The journey there took about an hour and was full of good conversation and the sharing of cultures. I can say now that besides the beauty and experience of being in Mongolia that the people we met contributed equally to the quality of our trip.

Guess what? It still didn’t look like a turtle from up close. But we got to have a cool experience combined with a few cool pictures.

After we had lunch we got settled up for our horseback riding trip. We were led by…Khangis…or something like that. I really can’t remember the kids name. But he is 15 and basically takes care of the horses and the other animals on the property. After an hour of trotting around the countryside we got back to his property where we were allowed to take a horse and just ride around. It was pretty cool, but for some reason, after I had just gotten the hang of having my horse gallop he made me switch horses. After the second switch we heard some quick galloping coming from where Matthew had just been riding when all of the sudden we saw his horse come tearing around this bend, riderless, with the saddle hanging off to the side and things flying off the horse. I started running toward where the horse came from, fearing that Matthew was badly hurt. As it turns out the worst of his injuries was a minorly bit lip and some dirt from head to toe. Needless to say, none of us were keen on getting back on the horses for a quick gallop.

Before dinner Matthew and I decided that we would hike to the top of this small mountain to watch the sunset. It was a tough hike because I think I’m a bit out of shape as well as the fact that it was at a higher altitude. It really beautiful though, being up in these foreign mountains and watching the sun set on a part of the world I’ve never been to before. We made the steep, and kind of dark, hike down and headed to our ger for my first cold night in a hut.

Here is the small mountain we climbed to catch a view at a beautiful sunset.

And that was just the first day.

Day two consisted mostly of a van ride out to the western part of Mongolia. I think we were in the car for a total of about 8 hours. And it was bumpy. But it was good to watch a different landscape speed by. Someone told me that Mongolia looks a lot like Wyoming. Well, I’ve never been to Wyoming so the landscape was very new for me and it held my attention for a long while as I watched the treeless hills roll by. We made it to our next destination just in time for dinner. One unfortunate thing about this day was that it was mostly spent traveling down bumpy roads in a cramped van.

I learned my lesson from the ger the night before and stayed up a bit later than the other people with me so that I could keep adding wood to the fire. I think one problem we had the previous night is that it got dark at like 7 so we all went to bed at around 9, and from 9 until 7 the next morning is a long time to not be putting wood in the fire. So this night I loaded up the stove and went to bed smothered in the 80ish degree air. It was nice while it lasted.

This is me with my fellow teachers, Robin (middle), and Mayu.

Day three marked our trip to Erdenezuu, which was the ancient capital of Mongolia. At KK there is a large enclosed Buddhist temple area with many different buildings and shrines to their many different gods and protectors. One thing I found interesting was that there seemed to be a different diety for each problem people seemed to have. Man, wouldn’t it just be easier to have just one person to be in charge of all that? But it was interesting to see their different culture and how Buddhists worship.

On the way out of the temple we saw this guy with an eagle. Apparently in a few places around Mongolia people have eagles and other birds that they will let you hold for about a dollar. I thought, why not? So I have the guy my ₮1000 bill and put on this huge oven mitt thing and donned my eagle. The scary thing was that they would make you shake your arm up and down trying to make the eagle put out his wings for a good picture. But when you did that he would sometimes try to fly away, which was a little scary considering the size of his talons and beak.

After that little adventure we headed out to lunch and then to the miniature version of the Gobi desert, which was about three hours away. So we took another bumpy ride to an area of Mongolia where it looked like someone had spent a lot of money to import playground sand where it shouldn’t be in order to make a tourist trap. But that wasn’t really it at all. I guess I never thought about the fact that deserts are formed, that they don’t just exist or don’t exists. There has to be somewhere in the world where the landscape is in between making a full blown desert. And I think that’s where we were, because there were a lot of little formations that I saw and thought to myself: “That is totally how a sand dune could form.”

At this destination we got to ride camels out into the dune area of the desert. I have never ridden a camel before, but with the saddle set up they had there I can say that it is equally as comfortable as riding a horse, or equally uncomfortable depending on your comfortability threshold.

We were able to dismount (which was it’s own unique process) and walk up the biggest sand dune there. I’ve never walked up a steep slope made completely of sand before, but it was pretty awesome. And to top it off, I didn’t even get any in my shoes ☺. At the top we could see around and it was pretty beautiful. My fellow riders decided they wanted to take one of those stereotypical jumping pictures. So here it is.

After our camel ride we headed back to ger number three to watch the sunset before dinner started. In my opinion this was one of the cooler sunsets, because there were these dark clouds hovering above the mountains which gave a really cool contrast to the brightness of the sunset. I took a bunch of pictures of it as well as trying to take a panorama of the sunset.

[Here is a brief aside to anyone wanting to take a panorama and stitch it together manually. Make sure all of your camera settings are on manual, or at least the same. In one of my pictures I had to mess around with the colors afterward because it didn’t look the same, and still kind of doesn’t]

But here is that picture anyway.

After watching the sunset we headed into our ger for our last dinner together as a group. We got to eat this one by candlelight since it was already so dark. About two hours of cards followed this picture, and then bedtime. In the morning we headed back to UB in our van. We were a bit closer that we had been in Erdenezuu, so it didn’t take as long to get back to the hostel.

Once we were back in UB we went back to the bakery, which also served western food, where I got a philly cheese steak, Mongolian style. It was surprisingly good. It gave me enough nourishment to make it all the way through the many exhibits at the National History Museum of Mongolia that we went to after our early dinner. I haven’t been to a museum in a long time so I think going in this one gave me a sensory and information overload. After the 15th room or so I had taken in way too much information, so it was time to go back to the hostel for the night and just chill.

That last night I met some people from different parts of the world on different journeys for different reasons. It’s pretty safe to say that I am probably never going to see any of them again. There is something unique about that fact when you talk to someone. After getting pretty late I headed back to my room to read before waking up for our flight the next day.

And I made it back to Qingdao safely.

I think that overall I had a really great experience on this trip. I know I already said this, but I think that part of what made this trip great was meeting cool people like Santiago, Cecilia, Matthew, and Nina. People I would have never gotten the chance to meet had I not decided to go on this adventure. I love nature, and I love seeing different parts of the world to see just how different nature can be, but I don’t think I am cut out for the whole living out of a backpack thing. Well, at least not on the level where I feel like every day I have to do like 12 different activities to get the most out of my trip. I have told several people this before, but I think my personality is more suited for landing in one place for a week or two and just hanging out, preferably with people I like ☺. Seeing the sights was good, but I’m going to be looking forward to my weekends in QD for a while.

Thanks for reading this little novella. I hope you enjoyed the pictures and my experiences in Mongolia.

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Fresh Views on an Ancient World

Well, I made it. If you were wondering why it took me so long to actually sit down and make a post I’ll have you know that I’ve been busy! And tired.

Over the past three days I have experienced a lot. When I first arrived I basically slid my suitcases into my room, plopped down on my bed and failed to fall asleep for my hour nap before lunch. Previous to that I had my 16 hour flight from Atlanta to Seoul, Korea. On the flight I watched Thor, Soul Surfer, and Hanna (which was weird but good). And slept. I was fortunate, however, to not have anyone sitting right next to me the entire flight, which gave me some space to stretch out. Here is a look at my flight over. Pictured first is the flight path, followed by a Korean Air plane and then an inside look at the Seoul International Airport

Anyhow, after my failed nap I went with one of the other foreign couples, from Indiana (I think), and we went out to eat and to get me a phone. After the bus ride (we ride the bus just about everywhere) I experienced four new dishes at lunch, one, which I think is my new favorite, is this shredded potato stuff with some spices. It’s called to-doe-suh (or at least that’s how you say it), which goes kind of well with the hot soy milk I was provided as a drink. Afterward we went to get me a phone.

This is when I realized how much I take for granted the fact that most every store or restaurant in America you go in has someone that speaks English. However, in China, at the Chinese phone store, you are as likely to find someone that speaks English as you are to find someone fluent in mandarin working at the Verizon store in Canton, GA. AKA not likely. So after about an hour of passing a phone back and forth between the employee and one of our Chinese friends I had a brand new phone (It’s no iPhone) for 232 yuan which is about $40 USD.

One thing I found out is that stuff here is cheap. I got some rugs, cups, sandals, pillows, and laundry detergent for only about 200 yuan. Once again, a good price.

Here is a look at my room after I got everything unpacked. First is my room, followed by my bathroom, then the view from my little balcony.

But aside from the cultural part of being in China I have been busy getting the twelfth grade classroom set up for when school starts in two days. This includes moving all the desks into the classroom, but don’t worry, there are only 4 twelfth graders, cleaning the floors, windows, walls and the aforementioned desks. We also have to decorate, because all those posters you remember being in your teacher’s classrooms didn’t magically appear on the wall. They put them there.

I’ve also been preparing what I am going to be teaching in my different classes, which are: Business Math (12th grade), Journalism (also 12th grade), 8th grade English and 9th grade English. Don’t worry though, because unlike the US, I don’t teach each class every day. The schedule is set up more like a college schedule. Also, on three days I have the pleasure of being the teacher in charge of ceramics club, which is super boss. So as I get into the scramble of writing syllabi and lesson plans, just remember that I’m over here ☺. I might get more into the food or the bus or different aspects of daily living as I go on. And you can’t wait to see the shirt I bought at Lotte Mart!

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