Lama Temple

This week was the last week of teaching the topic of "My Class" to all the kids which was a great feeling to finally be able to stop saying and acting out words like 'book' and 'crayon'.....I was really enjoying myself and the lessons seemed to be going really well...until Thursday Tom and Jessie from the office came for a meeting with the principal. We all sat together for about an hour and listened to the principal rant and rave and complain about basically everything she's seen me do (which is only one lesson so I didn't feel so bad) but the way she talks sounds horrible like she's going to explode with her arm waving and crazy eyes and it all sounds 10 times worse when i can't understand a word she's saying...anyway I held it together for about half the time then unfortunatly she got the better of me and I burst into tears as I was getting the gist of the conversation (thankyou to Tom for translating and sorry for getting upset! not your fault at all!!!) She basically didn't think I was spending enough time co-planning with the chinese teacher but that was only because she wasn't in the room when we were planning. And she also hated my lesson saying the kids were in their seats to long and weren't doing enough oral English...but hasn't been back to watch another one yet (and hopefully never will)...So at the end of it all I didn't really care what she thought I just wanted to leave but the afternoon turned out to be not so bad.

Friday I took a hour bus ride to Vikki's and we went with Rosie and Vikki's mother Iris to an underground market to buy a DVD to watch...I ended up buying 18 for $20 Australian and have been loving being able to sit in bed and watch a movie.

Today I met up with the girls in the afternoon at the Lama Temple which is very Tibet-eny and it was amazing! so much better then the forbidden city and probably even the Summer Palace because you could actually go in all the buildings and its still used today as a buddhist place of worship so there were amazing statues and buddhas everywhere ad sooo much insence (I hate that smell)

Some of these photo's aren't that good cause they had to be done sneaky and on the run because Monks would chase you if you saw the flash yelling "No photo!!!" The big Buddha won the guiness Book of records its 26meters high carved out of one piece of sandlewood!! it was enormous.

And this Mandala thing was made all out of sand with awesome little pictures!

After Lama Temple we walked down a nice looking street and got sucked in to a little house by an old lady saying "10yuan for look at old house" Don't really know why we went but it was only $2 so we did...ended up being an awesome little museum of all things from the old city like ruins of the walls and bits salvaged from the Summer Palace before it got burned by the French we got down there and there was a chinese girl that gave us a explanation of everything it was fantastic to actually hear what something meant!

The thing in the photo with us in it was in houses when you opened the door and on it is written all the rules and regulations of the house for example respecting the elders etc. (and yes I know I'm tall...I can't help it that I travel with munchkins!!)

The Wooden picture of the Birds was from the Qing Dynasty and tells a story of a mother bird feeding the babies (in the middle) the brother and sister (on the left) are angry that they're not getting fed and the grandpa (top right) with glasses on is thinking "what about the poor grandma (bottom left) all alone and nobody looking after her" And the point of it is that when your relatives get elderly that you should care for them and I guess thats why the tradition is that the grandparents move in with the families and get looked after...

And just as we were walking out we saw this poor little bird at the door...on a leash!!!

We then caught the subway to Wanfujing where there is a night "snack" market with the strangest foods. Scorpions (alive!) and seahorses, starfish and grasshoppers all on kebab sticks. I opted for a ball of deepfried dough coated in sugar that claimed to be banana fritters but was simply dough (tasted great though)

Freezing Weekend...

On Friday Vik and I spent the day together. We met at the Silk market which is another massive indoor market with everything you could imagine in there. It was alot easier to bargin down the price there I think but alot more full on with people grabbing you and yelling at you to buy their things. I bought some beanies with Vik from $25 down to $4 each, she bought some shoes and we both bought a USB (which later Vik opened her's and it had someone's photo's on there of a holiday at the snow skiing hahaha!) lucky it was cheap!

We just shared a massive bowl of noodles that cost a few dollars for lunch then took a train to the Temple of Heaven (bypassing a chinese bakery). The Temple was a series of 3 constructions that were varying sizes simply built for the purpose of giving offerings to different Gods, as well as "Divine" kitchens and corridoors for preparing the sacrifices and things. Pretty cool place but it was so cold so we got over it pretty quick. Caught a train back up to Tien'namen to look for a bookshop that I'd read about but we pretty soon gave up and just walked to the next subway home, which above the subway was a massive building called "Beijing Books"!! We bought a few but they're no cheaper then in Australia.

We were dying to watch an English DVD that night so were looking for the men that sell them on the street...the one time we want them there no where to be found...But Jessica must of read our mind because when we got home she had been out that day and bought Revoloutionary Road for us to watch! Vikki was not at all impressed with my bed and said she had a bad night sleep haha! It shows I must be used to it now.

Saturday we all met up at Panjiayuan Market known as the Dirt market because it's outside and been going for years, all the village people used to bring there traditional wares and sell on this big dirt area. It's apparently the biggest market in Asia and it's huge!!!! we were there for over an hour and only saw less than a quarter of it but it was too cold to stay any longer. I bought a scarf and headband and Rosie bought a teapot, Peta bought a little pocket watch, and Vik bought a scarf. We took a taxi to Tien'namen in an attempt to find the Underground City...we didn't go with high hopes because no one we ever asked had heard about it and all over the internet travellers say it has taken them hours to find and often haven't found it at all....but was a great tour if you were able to find it. What it is is a series of tunnels that go all around under Beijing that was created years ago for the "high-ups" if Beijing ever came under attack. But, there are apparently heaps of opening though all are extremely hard to find being just little doors down tiny alleys and my tour book only had one of them listed. We got as close as we thought and then started asking people, finally one guy said yes and told us which way to go but at the same time tuk tuk drivers came passed and said we know exactly where it is....in our huge rush of excitement we STUPIDLY forgot to comfirm a price before starting the trip! it was a fun ride and pretty scary on the main roads but then they started taking us through the little allyways and pulled up out the front of a big door that said Underground City....But...It had a sign saying it had been closed since April for construction :( Thats when it all went downhill....The Tuk Tuk people started demanding the ridiculous amount of 300 Yuan and pulled out thier WordArt business cards with the price list on it!!! we were pretty annoyed at them because they knew it would of been closed so we initially said they were getting nothing...that did not go down well at all and they started yelling for 300 and following us on their bikes. I dont mind being yelled at but someone grabbing my arm demanding money is another thing... We all started yelling then and I think the locals were loving a bit of action! Seeing Vikki has the loudest voice by far she gave them a hundred followed by the rest of us which was still far too much money then we turned and left, they were still yelling but stopped following us.

We spent the afternoon in the Forbidden City which was goo to finally see but a bit of a let down I think...Everything over here looks big and great designs but you are never allowed in any building so its a mad push with the millions of asians to get to the window where you can take a photo and see in, plus we were all freezing and hungry.

Went to Hou Hai the Ex-pat area for a warm drink and dinner before heading to the Beijing Theatre (which is a beautiful building inside but no cameras) and watched the Shanghi Ballet...I hate Ballet! I had a nose that wouldn't stop running so all the prestigious theatre-going Chinese now think its normal for Australians to watch the ballet with 2 bits of tissue hanging out your nose..and the Music was awful! a high pitched screeching lady singing what I'm assuming was words. the other girls loved it though so obviously being a non-dancer I just wasn't able to appreciate it.

Snow!!!

First snow of the Winter!!!!! it was beautiful walking to the kinder today getting hit by giant snowflakes. Didn't last long though and its all starting to melt again now.

Late Valentines Arrival...

Yesterday I got a call from a Beijing florest that I had a delivery that didn't make it on te 14th so could it come tomorrow! haha so no surprises today but I got home to a gorgeous bunch of roses and the nicest card from John....(he can be pretty romantic...sometimes) The flowers were beautiful and Jessica has asked me to teach Wade her husband to be more romantic!
My new camera does this little colour accent tricky that Vikki showed me...pretty cool once I figure out how to use it properly!

The other exciting bit of news is that it snowed today!! I walked out at 7:30 to the kinder and it started falling all over the place. Very light and only for a few hours but after dinner Doris went outside and brought me in a pile of snow from the ground! I looked out my window and there was about an inch covering the ground. It was beautiful. I took a quick snapshopt from the front door but nothing special because it was absolutly freezing and I'm starting to feel a sore throat coming on...just what I need to help my melodious voice...(and yes mum I'm still taking iron pills!!!) hopefully be some great snow photo's tomorrow if it snows through the night!

Hou Hia and our first bartering session....

Today we all met at Lama Temple Subway satation and got a taxi to Hou Hai its a big ex-pat area with lots of bars and western food. Had a yummy lunch there and discussed the "new arrangements" that is we'll be teaching 4 days mon-thurs (except for poor pip who agreed to 5!) so fridays are now free!! YAY after a nice jacket potato and pizza we walked down the street that had heaps of souviner shopa but at ridiculous touristy prices so bought nothing there. Except this little shop ahd a man sitting in the back with some fancy tea table and he kept pouring us glass after glass of the most amazing tasting tea..it was great! Black lychee tea and mixed fruit tea!!

Ohhh ang it was freeezing today -9...it was ok under your clothes but any exposed skin was numb.

I saw a bakery thing with a line the size of the great wall and seeing a have a soft spot for pastry I lined up to get a geezer. I just pointed to a few different things and they fill plastic bags with lite 50 little pastry shapes and I got 2 bags one was just pastry things with sugar on them and the otehr things had cream in the middle! sooo good and I got 2 egg tarts (the best!). After us all feeling sick from those we got a taxi to Sanlitun Clothing Market...(if anyone comes to visit I am taking them here!) its indoor and 5 huge levels of everything!! from perfume to coats to digital cameras...so we were there for about 2 and a half hours. Vik and I bought big winter coats for Melbourne which they wanted to charge 650 Yuan for and we ended up getting them for 100 and 130 which was about $35 Austrlian.

I bought my favourite perfume Stella which is $65 for 25 mL and I got 100 mL for $70!!! bought a thick Abercrombe jumper for less then $20. And lucky last...I bought a good 10 mega pixel camera that was around 2800 yuan and I ended up getting it for 1800yuan...BUT!! I was told by Viki and Peta : that they were around $650 australian and I agreed to pay $400 austlian at 1800 Yuan...thinking I got an awesome deal saving $250 bucks I come home a look on the net just to check....There selling on the net for like $200!!!!!!! so looks like I bombed out there but its a great camera and it was only released late last year apparently so I'll get over it...(WAIT....Viki rang me all high and mighty :) and said on the canon website the camera I bought was $690 austrlian dollars and there no way it could be that cheap!!) so really I saved $300 australian which makes me feel a whole lot better! Thanks Vik and Rosie haha...

Not really looking forward to another week at Kinder but thank goodness its only 4 days AND we're are going to the Ballet on saturday at the big theatre near Tien'namen Square. It's the Shanghi Ballet and it looked really good so can't wait.

Can't think of a clever title

This week I got some photo's of me in action at the kinder with my happy face plastered on...I also made some resources finally to make the number of english resources in the kinder a grand total of 1...

I am trying to plan something for the 4 of us girls to do every weekend to allow us to keep feeling a little bit like tourists so friday night we went out for dinner. I planned to go to a nice well known walking street near tien'namen Square but we didn't all meet up until 7:3o and walked round for about an hour trying to find this street. we asked prably 10 different people and some didn't even stop to help...we got sick of walking and so lost so ended up just going into the first resturaunt we saw...it was ok food and good just to sit and relax and chat.

Also that afternoon I decided to do some exercise and asked where the nearest indoor pool was (instead I should of asked where a GOOD pool was...) after a bus trip to the west end of slumville I walked through a poorer suburb and community (directed by the maid) and found the indoor pool....which was deserted apart from a few old people playing boardgames and one guy that sat and watched and appeared to be the lifeguard! haha I walked down to the pool expecting alot more then I got....Underground-not a sole around-dark-pool...haha but seeing my maid had taken me all the way here then just left I couldn't really walk out so I jumped in (didn't put my ears or head under!) did a hasty 25 laps of dodgy breast stroke and left half an hour later...I will be looking for a new place to swim from now on!

Today felt sooo good to sleep in till 8 O'Clock!! we had a pretty lazy day and the neighbour came round and we all went to the park to play some sports....I watched... this park has a bit in the middle (where i played ping pong) that has all play equipment but its exersise machines and the park is full of old chinese people bending over backwards and stretching their legs over there head in amongst 3 year olds playing on slippery dips...I wanted to take a photo of a funny old man hanging upside down but thought it might not be quite subtle enough..And this little boy came up to me and said Nee How Lowshur (which is hello teacher) he was there with his parents and his english name is Eric he's one of my favourites because he gets in hysterical fits of laughter and is one of the rare ones thats joins in all my songs with alot of enthusiasm!

Oh and this is my first souviner I had made at the Summer palace. (my name in pictures) it was amazing watching her do it so quickly with little sponges, L is a boat, E lucky fish, A is a something bird (can't remember) and H is bamboo and a sun...

I really didn't want to put this up but through family demad it's here. I hope by watching this you'll get a small glimpse at not only my inability to hold a note but also the struggle of singing and performing to an often mute crowd......and I sing about 6 songs 7 times a day....