Oct 08

So, here I am again, with another wonderful update!

As it is, life is flying by here. Things are more into a routine than ever, and we are really enjoying ourselves.
The classes are a bit up and down, but given that I work about 5-6 hours four days a week, who can complain?
Usually, it's great, in any case.

We've had a discussion about this quite a few times; how on earth will we be able to go back home and be responsible people.
Here they take care of pretty much everything for us, and the money is good as well.
(not with our current status, but after these six months there's a formidable raise awaiting for those who stay)

It has it's downsides for some though.
I am (as I've mentioned before) very lucky with my school. They respect me as a teacher, and do their best to help me if needed.
Some of my friends aren't that lucky. The worst example is from a school in Beijing.
My friends were asked to make a test for their classes. After making, having and correcting the test it turns out about 1/3 of the class failed. As a reaction, they decided to put up extra lessons for those who failed, and give them the opportunity to take the test again.
When they presented the idea for their class though, no one understood what they were talking about. It turns out their school gave "re-corrected" the tests, and most of the class passed with a 90% correct.

It's very obvious that education can be bought in some schools, and that teachers like ourselves are there to look good for the parents and public more than to actually teach.
Some neighboring schools are in the same situation here, but like I said, I am (luckily) not.

Anyways, over to something happier.
The last few weeks I've been spending a lot of time playing games and watching movies. It's nice and relaxing, and it's very very free, witch is nice after my week in Beijing (especially the silk market) where I blew most of my salaries. (I currently have 200 yuan left this month. It'll work out!)

Here's a pick of the pure awesomeness Mario sweater I bought back then by the way:

In other news; we went to a war museum this weekend.
As I might have mentioned, the/a war between Japan and China broke out here in Shenyang on the 18th of October 1931 (if I remember correctly).
The museum was very interesting, lots of graphics. I learned a few new things as well.
But I have to say, I don't trust it completely. The biggest difference between this museum and the others I've been to is that this one wasn't very objective when it gave out the facts.
It focused a lot on shame, and who was the winning and losing side. The day itself is remembered as a day of shame in Shenyang, because they were invaded.
I can't see why though, it's not their fault for being invaded. Japan was quite advanced at the time, and hard to deal with, especially with a surprise attack.

The quotes were kind of "when Japan aggressively attacked and threw shame over Chinese people".
It's quite clear how they feel about Japan for what was done here almost a 80 years ago now.
(I agree that an official "we are sorry" wouldn't hurt from the Japanese side, but still.. both nations officials are rather childish on this front I think)

And last thing worth mentioning; Adrians birthday! :D

We celebrated in Alexis and Emmas apartment.

I have some photos of that happing;

The gang, with matching hats for the occasion

Us playing homemade twister, with colors taped to the floor (kudos to myself) and a dice to decide where to put what.
This is actually myself in a special position, and Morgan with his head..yeah, you see for yourself. It has a tendency to end up like this when we play twister.
(And for some reason, we just keep playing it.. :p )

Anyways, that's all for now.
I hope you are all well, and I will update more later on, with more exciting news in a thrilling way from China!

I'm terribly sorry it's been this long since my last update.

I sat down last week with the purest of intentions to update the blog. It's a very very long story, but to put it in short I accidentally ruined windows on my harddrive.
But thanks to a very helpful chief of computers on my campus I now have a brand new XP cd, key kode and he even managed to save all the files from my old harddrive.
So all pictures intact, thank God!

But anyways, life has been kind to me the last few weeks.
The teaching is working out fine, it has its ups and downs, but I am not complaining.
For the most part, I kill my free-time with hanging out with my friends here, watching tv-series (they are very cheap here after all) or playing games.
I've learned a very entertaining dice game, and Chinese chess. They are both fun, and I will surely bring them home.

I've become very good friends with a very nice Chinese English teacher at my school. His English is very good, and we learn a lot from talking to each other. I'm so thankful for having met him, it's my first proper culture exchange opportunity on this program.

This is us having dinner at a "hotpot" restaurant.

Anyways, the most exciting thing in my life these last few weeks is definitely this holiday, which I'm still on until Monday by the way.
I went to Beijing.
My friends here were very slow, and it was a lot of back and forth about how was doing what, so I halfway decided no to go.
But then it turned out that a Norwegian friend of mine (Patric) was coming to Beijing to visit a friend of his that lives there this very same week.
So it was done, I had to come now. (he even brought Norwegian chocolate!)

I booked my own hostel, and it turned out to be a bit away from where my friends from here were staying. So basicly, I saw them on the train going there, but not since. They never really bothered to plan out things so I had time to meet them somewhere, so after seeing the forbidden city alone after trying to find them for half a day, I decided to do things on my own from there.
Thankfully it worked out fine though. Patric and his friend there (Stian) were very cool to hang out with. It was very very nice to speak Norwegian again, nonetheless to eat "melkesjokolade" (the chocolate), something I've been missing more than I thought.

Me and Patric in a taxi.
Patric had a little bit of a jetlag, and after the two or so beers we had earlier I couldn't refuse the opportunity to abuse it.

After hanging out for dinner and checking out a few bars with them, I called it a day.
I lived at a decent hostel in WuDaoKou, a little bit outside the center circle of Beijing. A very nice street right outside, it's close to Beijing university, so it's a very international street. Lots of languages and food.

The next day, we checked out the silk market.
It's basically a huge building filled with just about everything. I just wanted to see it, but in the end I bought three sweaters.
The people there are pretty much..insane. They run after you, block people from leaving their stores, and not to mention their abuse of my beard/face. Some just point and laugh, some just comment on it instead of/whilst giving the usual "you are handsome, will you look at this", and some even jumped out trying to touch it followed by telling me how rude I am to prevent them from doing so.

BUT; you get a lot of cool stuff very very cheap, if you take the time to hassle properly.
I ended up buying three sweaters ofcourse.. But they were all awesome. The first lady hid the hundred Yuan I gave her behind her back along with the sweater, demanding five more Yuan for a few minutes before I got her to give me the sweater.
The second one refused to let me leave without buying something.
As I would only buy one sweater, and for no more than a hundred Yuan she trying to contain me there until I changed my mind.
When I said "bye" for the, I dunno 89th time?, and pushed here away to leave she agreed on the price tough.

Lastly, the Mario sweater was harder, as I actually really wanted it. So I had to go up to 225 Yuan. Quite expensive for the marked, but it seems to be in good quality, and dude.. it's a Super Mario sweater! I'm still so very very excited about it.

Before going home, Patrics friend showed us a cd store. On one of the walls in that cd store there was a bookshelf. That inself is rather suspect, but as it turned out to be a secret entrance to a rather cheap DVD store it was just perfect. So very very Chinese XD

At the end of the day we were all so tired we just watched some Seinfeld, ate some takeaway food and went to bed early.

No pics from the silk market sadly, I kind of regret that.

But anyways, next day, what had to be done; the great wall.
It was awesome.
I signed up for a 10km hike on my own. My skating shoes and Jeans were a horrible choice for the trip, but it was a lot of fun.
I talked to a Australian and a Swede on the way, and it's a day I'll never forget.
The wall is amazing.
(A whole lot of stairways though, so I was totally beat once we got to the end.)

Here are some pics:

Lastly that day I met up with Dennis, my friend from traveling in World Campus Japan.
He finally got a new job after the two tours we've been doing together, and seemed to be doing very well.
I wasn't sure what I wanted to eat, but after he heard I hadn't tried the bejing duck, it was decided. Apparently it's the great wall and the Beijing duck that are the two things one really can't miss in Beijing.
And it was truly magnificent, very very VERY good.

Me and Dennis having dinner together ^^

The next day, I checked out the "Lion King cafe" right outside my hostel together with a friend I met with TTC (my program) in Shenyang.
The cafe was nice, very japanese style. It had pretty much nothing to do with the lion king once inside though, to my enormous disappointment.

But anyways, home now, ready for teaching on Monday.
This has been a huge update, I'll get better with more frequent short updates.

There are a few more fun stories to share, but alas, they can wait.

For now, check my wall of awesomeness:

I finally got these posters, I've been dying to find them in Japan. Ironically I found them here.

Talk to ya'll laters!