Great Wall!

So yesterday we decided that it would be a great idea for our first Saturday to go the Great Wall. What we were not expecting was the flood gates of Heaven opening up on us and raining down its glory. The whole drive there was nice, except for that I got the privelage of sitting in the front seat with the driver who spoke no English and continued to talk to me the entire hour and a half then would just laugh at my look of confusion. He was probablly making fun of me but I have no idea. I will choose to think that he was complimenting my sense of style and great decision of wearing a white skirt on a day to hike the great wall. (Which is now stained brown)

So we get there and it starts pouring. We go to buy our tickets thinking we are here so we are going, and these two American guys from Missouri start talking to us and tell us that they heard to wait thirty minutes. They talked to us forever! And all Ally and I wanted to do was go buy a pointy hat. We finally escaped and we walk down to where we had seen pointy hats and of course we buy one each. After awhile it stops raining and so we put on our pointy hats and all these Chinese people started asking to take our picture and then they wanted one with us! It was awesome, we are now famous here. We are probablly framed in some Chinese people's house already or they will send us out as their Christmas card. We finally make it up and thank goodness it wasn't hot because it is a LONG walk. Then because of our pointy hats/friendly faces we make more friends. These ones are American boys again. One was 22 and the other 30. They walked the whole way down with us and also wanted a picture of us... which is weird because they are American too. People love us here.

Oh ya and today Ally and I talked in Mexican accents for about 4 hours. It was because we watched a bootleg copy of Happy Feet from our house that had no ending last night and the Mexican penguins are our favorite part.

Here some pictures from the trip so far

Ally and I with our pointy hats. This is the reason we came to China.

This is the part of the wall where Mulan fought off the Huns.

Another shot of the Great Wall at Mutianyu

Serious Chinese peace sign face on the Great Wall

My first post!

Well everyone, you might have noticed that this is a different blog/website than before. For some reason I can not get my other blog to work! At first everything on the page was written in Chinese somehow but we figured that out. Finally I just gave up and created a new one.

Well so far Ally and I have had a great time here. For those of you who don't know, Ally is the other girl who came with me and we are living together in an apartment here. The first night we got here Tim (the principal) and his wife Becky and their Driver, Ching Ming, picked us up at the airport. We were so tired and they took us to our apartment and showed us everything and even had bought us some groceries. The next morning we woke up at 5 just because we couldn't sleep. Ching Ming picked us up at 9:30 to take us to the school. Ching Ming speaks no English so even though we tried to talk to him he just smiled away and laughed and so of course we liked him. We got to the school and Tim showed us around then took us to our first authentic Chinese resturaunt for lunch. It was fantastic! If you ever come to Beijng I'll tell you were to go. That night we went to bed at 7:30.

The next day was our first day of orientation with all the other teachers. If you can believe me and Ally got up the nerve to walk to school that day. It takes about 35 min and about 100 cars almost hit us (this is not an exaggeration). The traffic here is unbelieveable. At one point we got trapped in between two buses and if we had stood one in front of the other we would have gotten hit. We figure the best way is just to find a China man and tail him. They don't care if you touch them. There are 10 teachers in all and so far we have become friends with 2 others (not including the other 2 ACU girls). That day for lunch one of the teachers took us out and then she showed us where to find the good bargains and go shopping and where to get cheap good massages. So of course after that we shopped. Then after walking to school and feeling breave we decided to go crazy and take the bus back like a regular local. That was scarier than walking but now that we overcame our fears we are ready for China. That night Tim had us to his house for dinner and grilled out for us! Then they took us to the park and we just walked around and chatted.

Today was kind of the same. We came to school and planned lessons then realized how overwhelming the first day will be since we basically know nothing about the students. Monday should be fun. Our other teacher friend Jeff came to lunch with us today. We went to a tex mex place that was good. (We have not eaten enough Chinese food as you can see). Then after lunch we came back and planned more. Yuck.

I know this is getting long but a few funny stories you should know:
1) They had someone teach us a few phrases and she seems to think it is important we learn the characters too. She kept stressing that. It will never happen sorry. She also told us never to get in a taxi because we practiced stop the car for about thirty min and never got the tone right once. oh well, we'll just jump out.
2)Yesterday when we shopping all these men kept trying to sell us silk underwear and saying things like "you lady need silk underwear" the funny part was that they looked like boxer briefs and sometimes there was a picture of a man wearing them.
3)For the first two days we showered with freezing cold water because Becky told us she turned the hot water heater on and so we just assumed that since they turn the ac off at night this felt good to them. Don't worry, Tim came over last night and really turned the hot water heater on.
4) The first morning we discovered that our house contains a keyboard, a bongo, two guitars, and a violin. So of course, all of ya'll realizing how musically talented me and Ally are, we formed a band, known as the Ching Ming's here in China. If you are lucky we will post some of the video's later.

Sorry this is so long I'll try to keep my posts more regular so they won't be so long!