Back From the Dead

Well damn, it’s good to see you again. I know it has been awhile, so I have a lot of things to catch you up on. Let’s start with my trip after my last blog entry.

SanYa/NanNing/BinYang
It was so nice to finally be somewhere warm, sunny, and sandy after conquering the cold of HaerBin. I met up with Fritz the morning after my last blog post and we headed to the airport to catch a plane to HaiKou, HaiNan. HaiKou is at the very north of HaiNan Island, so we stayed there for the night. It was Chinese New Year’s Eve that night so we tried to find something to do, but I was incredibly tired from traveling so I just went to sleep. I didn’t sleep too well with all the fireworks going off all night, but I managed to get some rest. The next day we took a train to SanYa. We found our hostel and set up our tent on their roof. We didn’t bring any sleeping bags, pillows, or anything else one might need to sleep in a tent, but we really weren’t too worried about it. We slept on a piece of foam that was about a centimeter thick and used our jackets bags for pillows. We also used our jackets for a blanket, but the weather was so nice that it wasn’t really needed. I thought staying in the tent was quite nice because it got us up early in the morning from the heat of the sun or the loudness/annoyingness of the firecrackers. During Chinese New Year, firecrackers are heard all day, every day. Sometimes it can get quite annoying – like at six in the morning when you’re still trying to sleep – or it starts to become normal and relatively unnoticed. We thought we were only going to stay in the tent for the two nights that we booked it for, but we were having so much fun that we decided to just stay there for the entire five nights. The first morning I woke up with my back hurting a bit, but after that, all was good. If I woke up early and still felt tired from lack of sleep, then I would just walk five minutes to the beach and take a nice little nap. There are not too many things better than the beach and sun, especially when they happen simultaneously. We spent most of our days going to the beach and hanging out. We rented a bike for a couple days and went on a really long bike ride to the “End of the World.” It felt like the end of the world when we got there. We didn’t understand the significance of most of the things there. I’m sure it was special, but if you can’t read Chinese then, well, you’re screwed. Nevertheless, it was a fun bike ride and some good exercise. Although, at one point we were riding on the beach and some of the guys were squeezing their brakes so that their back tires would slide on the sand. It looked like some fun so I decided to try it out for myself. Next thing I know I’m brushing sand off me. Apparently, the back break and the front break are reversed here in China. Good times. We also met some really cool people at our hostel. Fritz and I hung out with this Philippino guy and two German guys for most of the time. We also met a Polish couple and another guy from Switzerland. They were all super friendly and fun to hang out with. It was my first real hostel experience and I hope it’s not my last. Great way to meet people and here their stories. SanYa was very nice and relaxing. The beach just never gets old.

Next, we took a bus from SanYa to NanNing. We left at two in the afternoon and arrived at four in the morning. We had a sleeper bus, but they really jam people on those things. Not the most comfortable, but I did manage to get some sleep. Once we arrived in NanNing, we met up with a couple of guys who Fritz knows somehow. I’ve asked him many times, but my memory is awful. All I know is that one is the boss and the other is his assistant. The boss is a nice guy, but doesn’t speak English. The assistant is also a very nice guy and speaks pretty good English. They showed us around the city and bought us lunch and dinner. They also put us up in a nice hotel and paid for that as well. They were incredibly accommodating and super nice. We only stayed in NanNing for two days, but it was nice to see the capital city of GuangXi province (the province that I am in).

We then met up with a guy who is a student at my university. I didn’t know him before but somehow Fritz knew him. I don’t think they are very good friends but he invited Fritz and I to his hometown for a couple of days to celebrate a festival there. It was this crazy firework festival where about eight guys run around with a fake dragon and people throw huge strands of firecrackers to try and “kill” the dragon. It is nonstop firecrackers for around five hours. It is extremely loud and sometimes painful (like if you catch a firecracker on the face of something). It was an experience that I will never forget. It seems so surreal still. I was asked if I wanted to carry the dragon for a bit, but I decided against it because it looked painful in there. It was like a warzone (I wouldn’t know, but something like they try and portray in movies). I posted a video at the bottom for you to see just how crazy it was. I wore a Chinese hat, a face mask, and some ear plugs to try and protect myself. My ears wouldn’t stop ringing for about a week and I was legitimately starting to get worried that I was going deaf. For those of you who know me pretty well you know that I’m a bit (ok, a big) hypochondriac, so you can imagine what I was thinking. The rest of the time there was fun. Simon’s (the student who we stayed with) family was incredibly accommodating and nice. They didn’t speak any English so Fritz and Simon helped translate for me. Their home was very nice and they cooked us some great food. I tried 狗肉 (gou rou) for the first time. “Rou” is meat and “gou” is dog, so yeah. Dog meat. It was pretty good. Don’t hate me. Just think about the dogs as being raised like cows. Raised to be eaten. I know it’s hard to imagine since most of us don’t have cows as pets, but just try for a second and then you might not be so grossed out. Or maybe you still are. Oh well. BinYang was the last stop on our trip. We made it back home a few days before school started again. It was a great month. I really love traveling and experiencing new things.

Teaching
Teaching is going well this semester. I am much busier than I was last semester. I’m teaching about three times the number of hours I was last semester. Before you start feeling bad for me, know that I’m still only teaching 16 hours a week and they are paying me a bit more since I’m teaching more than the other foreign teachers. I actually like being a bit busier because it helps me get things done and not be too lazy. The reason I’m teaching so much more is because one of the foreign teachers left at semester so I took over a lot of his classes. The only downside to teaching 12 classes in a week is that I give the same lesson 12 times. I have now seen the movie “The Bucket List” 12 times. Great movie. Never want to see it again.

WeiZhou Dao
A few weekends ago we had some time off for a Chinese holiday. It is called Qing Ming Festival, which is somewhat similar to Memorial Day. A few friends and I went to this small island off the coast of Southeast China. It is West of HaiNan and East of Vietnam. It is still a part of China, though. We spent a couple of days there just relaxing and enjoying the sun. The beach was about a minute’s walk from our hostel. I could really get used to a set up like that. I absolutely love the beach and the ocean. It was nice to just be there, hanging out with some good people and enjoying the sun and sand. It’s been quite fun and interesting being able to meet, and become friends with, people from all over the world. The nationalities that were included on the trip were Spanish, Mexican, Estonian, American, Indonesian, and Vietnamese. As you can see in the picture of Kait, Adela, and I, (Kait on the left, Adela on the right) I was being very responsible. We have another short holiday coming up at the beginning of May, so some of us might take another short trip.

I’m still enjoying my time here. The weather is becoming much nicer, although they keep saying the rainy season is about here. This week has been extremely nice. Sunny most every day and temperatures in the upper 70’s, low 80’s. Every time I ride my mo-ped around, I just think about how lucky I am to be doing what I’m doing. I’ve actually decided that I want to stay for another semester. I just told P and D about it the other day, and they reacted like I thought they would. Mom shook her head and said “What?!” But, like they always do, they support me. Well, not financially (unless you guys want to). They support my decision and just want me to be happy. I promised to be home for Christmas. Also I plan to come home at the end of June and stay for about a month or so before I come back to China. There are just a lot more places I want to see around China and Southeast Asia. I also want to commit myself to learning Chinese. This plan still isn’t “for sure,” but it pretty much is. It gives you all more time to come visit. I’d love to show you around Southern China if any of you are interested.

Well that’s all I’ve got for now. I hope this post finds you all well and hopefully enjoying some nice weather as we head into Spring. I miss you all and love you very much. Jensen Alan should be here (well not here as in China, but here as in the world) very soon. I’m SUPER excited about having a nephew. I can’t wait to see him when I come home for Kyle and Katie’s wedding. If any of you want to catch up then send me an email or we can skype. I’ve been accused of being bad at keeping in touch, but I’m working on that. Life is good my friends.

-Kevin

"Harry, you're hands are freezing!"

Well I have about a one day vacation here between my vacations so I thought I would update you a little about my travels so far and share some really exciting photographs with you. As many of you may or may not know, my good friend Luika is studying Chinese in Shanghai so I thought I would go up and visit her. I wanted to only stay for a couple of days, but she made me stay for about two and a half weeks. Quite pushy really. Actually, she was incredibly kind to let me stay at her place for pretty much my entire trip. Her roommate was gone so I was able to have a bed free of charge. I had to sneak in every day, but that really wasn't too difficult. I will just talk a little bit about what I/we did over the past couple of weeks.

Shanghai is a much bigger, more expensive, more western, and has many more expats than what I'm used to in Guilin. At first it was a little bit of a culture shock for me again. It's just so much more fast paced than what I've been used to. It really reminds me a bit of New York City. The first couple of days Luika was kind enough to show me around a little and teach me how to use the subway system. Now I'm pretty much a master, but who really cares. Anyway, the first couple of days I just kind of bummed around while Luika was studying, but I still got to see some places. Once she was done with her exams she started to work during the days so I would explore the city. I went to the Aquarium and saw a bunch of kewl fish and such. I also went up in the Jin Mao tower which overlooks the entire city. It was a fantastic view, although the windows hadn't been cleaned yet so my pictures have a few specs on them. I tried to get some of my money back, but my Chinese is rather lacking so, well I didn't really try at all. I really didn't even think about it until I just wrote that sentence. Maybe I should go back. Naa. On other days I explore the Yu Yuan Garden as well as The Bund and People's Square. I came to find out that Shanghai has a lot of watches, backpacks, etc. Everywhere I went someone was trying to sell me something. I tried to sell my MP3 player to one of them, but I don't think he thought it was very funny. I did go to one of the underground markets to buy myself a new backpack because my other backpack broke a few days earlier. It was fun haggling with the store owner for the price of the backpack. Although I don't speak very much Chinese, I have been here long enough to know how much things should cost. So I bought a backpack and some soccer jerseys. Usually I would explore the city and then meet up with Luika later on for dinner or something. One morning I saw a lady run out of a cab to some bushes near by and puke. It was pretty gross, but at least her night before was probably a good one. Where was I? Oh yeah, Shanghai. Luika took me to some cool restaurants and bars around the city. I met a lot of very nice people. There are people from all over the world living in Shanghai which is pretty neat. It's fun to meet people and hear their stories. I tried to take a lot of pictures while I was in Shanghai, but most of them are scenery pictures since I was by myself a lot of the time while exploring. I always feel like a huge dork setting the timer on my camera to take a picture, but I got the courage to do it a few times. My last night in Shanghai, Luika and I went to The Bund so I could take some pictures. It really is quite beautiful at night. Another night Luika got tickets to this show called "Walking With Dinosaurs." It was a bunch of fake, real looking (does that make sense?), dinosaurs. It was interesting. It was all in Chinese but the dinosaurs were fun to watch. Hmm, what else? Can't think of anything right now, but Shanghai was a good time.

Like I said, most of my time was spent in Shanghai, but we did manage to make it up to Harbin (Haerbin). Harbin is the the Northeast of China, very close to Russia. It is known for it's really cool Snow and Ice Festival, and also for its incredibly cold weather. We decided to make a short trip up there to see what all the fuss was about (we later came to find out that it's so damn cold...that's why people fuss). We flew in (delayed flight) Wednesday night and flew back to Shanghai (delayed flight again) on Friday night. Wednesday night we just walked around a little and found this Russian restaurant that Luika's friends had recommended to eat it. It was delicious. After that we walked around a little more then went back to the warm hostel. On Thursday we got up and went to eat some local food at McDonald's. Then we caught a cab to the Siberian Tiger Park. The tiger park reminded me of some scenes from the movie Jurassic Park. We were in a van with bars over the open windows so that the tigers couldn't eat us. We all know that it's fun and games until somebody gets hurt. They weren't taking any chances I guess. We drove through the tiger park where there are literally hundreds of tigers. It was really cool to see. Tigers are really amazing animals. We tried to buy a chicken to feed the tigers, but we couldn't figure out where to buy it. If you wanted, you could also buy a cow for 2000 yuan to feed to the tigers. No thanks. After we left the tiger park, we went back to our hostel and hung out in the lobby. We watched a few episodes of the not-as-good-as-the-American-version The Office and then played some card games. Later on in the night we went to the Snow and Ice Festival. I had four pairs of pants/tights on and four long sleeved shirts with a coat. I also had four pairs of socks with toe warmers (thank you Mrs. Bankson), and two pairs of gloves with hand warmers (thanks again Mrs. Bankson). I also wore a hat, a scarf, and something else to cover my face. That all still wasn't warm enough. It got close to -30 degrees Celsius, which is the coldest weather I've been in. That being said, I'm glad we went. The Festival was fun to see. The different things they built out of ice and snow were amazing. There were also tons of ice slides all over the place. I may have gone down one or two. Or most of them. Who doesn't like an ice slide? It was also interesting trying to take pictures because my camera started to be really slow and the battery started to run out very quickly because of the cold. Our eyelashes started to have icicles on them from the cold. It was just crazy. Crazy. Our eyelashes started to have icicles on them from the cold. We stayed at the Festival for a couple of hours, then headed back to the hostel. We were recommended a hot pot restaurant nearby for dinner so we thought we'd test 'er out. We walked in to this family owned establishment and immediately stared at by the 10 or so patrons there. The boss lady asked us if we could read/speak Chinese because the menu was only in Chinese. Luika can, so we decided to give it a try. We finally got all our food ordered successfully and it was brought out to the table. After about 10 minutes the husband of the boss lady left and came back with his daughter. She sat down with us and asked if we needed anything from her. Huh? Apparently her dad went and got her to come sit with us and talk to us in English. Her English was very good and she was very nice. She sat with us for the rest of dinner. Earlier, before we got our food, we ordered a couple beers (3 for Luika and 1 for me). The warm lukewarm at best, so we asked for cold ones. The boss man then just took them outside and five minutes (maybe less) later they were nice and cold. That's how cold it was. After that we found this firework stand and bought some sparklers. We decided to light them one by one until we were done. We did it right in the middle of the street, right next to the rest of the fireworks. Good thing we didn't light the entire stand on fire. That probably wouldn't have been good. After that we just went back to the hostel and went to sleep. The next day we got all packed up and decided to walk around the town a bit more. We found this old church (I'm blanking on the name) and looked around a bit. We then went and had dumplings and made our way back to the hostel to leave for the airport. I spent a couple more days in Shanghai and then got back to Guilin late last night/early this morning. I had a fantastic time there.

I'll be here in Guilin for about 14 more hours until I leave again. Like I said, today is my vacation between my vacations. Fritz and I leave tomorrow morning for Sanya, Hainan. It is an island off the Southeast coast of China. It is supposed to be the "Hawaii of China," so I'm looking forward to that. I've been in very freezing weather, and now I get to go to some warm, sunny weather. I'm not sure the exact date I'll be back in Guilin, but when I do get back I'll be sure to write about my travels to Sanya. If you want, you can always email me at kevinshrout@gmail.com. Also, I have posted all my pictures to Facebook so go check them out if you're interested. Well I better get going because I still have to unpack and then pack again. Rough life.

As always, I hope this post finds you all well. I miss you all terribly and love you as well. Life is funny sometimes, but it sure is good. Remember that.

-Kevin

A man travels the world over in search of what he needs, and returns home to find it. -- George Moore

I want to start off first by saying I hope everyone enjoyed a very merry Christmas, and a fantastic new year. Does time fly or what? 2011 already? Man, I remember back in the good ole days when (fill in the blank yourself). 2010 was a good year, but I hope 2011 is even better.

Let's get down to it; Christmas was not-so-fantastic this year. It is truly a holiday that is meant to be spent with family. It came and went this year and I can honestly say it felt nothing like what I'm used to. I hope to never miss another Christmas with my family. They mean the world to me and spending such an important holiday away from home helped me realize that even more. Sometimes I take them for granted. Actually, many times in my life I have taken my family for granted. This year I think I truly realized how blessed I am to have such an amazing, supporting, loving family. On a brighter note, Christmas Even was pretty good. I know that totally contradicts what I just said, but given the circumstances it was good. A bunch of the foreigners all gathered at one of the apartments and had dinner. Everyone brought a typical dish from their country. The food was excellent. We also had a secret santa gift exchange, which was fun as well. Christmas day was blah. The bright spot, however, was breakfast at McDonald's with Kait. Of course it didn't even come close to some good old fashioned egg casserole, but it did the job. I did get to talk with the family via Skype on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, so that was nice. Well and it sucked. But mostly it was nice. The picture on the right and below is from our Christmas Eve party.
New Year's was a good time as well. We went to dinner with a lot of people and then just went downtown to a bar to celebrate. Again, it didn't really feel like new year's, but I do have to say it was better than Christmas day. Don't get me wrong, I am having a great time here and have made some amazing friends. But the holidays are just different away from home. Much different. Almost as if they don't exist. I mean they do exist, but it's like they don't. Like I know we had December 25th and January 1st here this year, but it just wasn't the same. Ok, I'm done. The picture below is of Fritz and I on new year's. I'm not as grown up as I look. Trust me.
I have also gone on a couple short trips over the past month. The first one was to a city called Yangshuo. It is about an hour and a half away and is a very popular city to go see. It is very touristy. The city is beautiful. It is surrounded by mountains. I went there with some friends for a night and then met up with some of the other foreign teachers/students the next day to take part in a massive (massive as in 300 people on each team) tug-of-war game. Later in the night we saw a show on the water with the mountains lit up in the background. It really was beautiful. I tried to get some pictures but they didn't turn out as good as I had hoped. The next short one night trip I went on was to a city a little further away called HeZhou (prounced huh joe, or something like that...who knows). I went with a buddy of mine, Erik. He is from Estonia and has been teaching in China for a little over a year. Good dude. It was me, him, Charlie (his Chinese roommate), and a bunch of Charlie's colleagues. The main attraction there was the hot springs. Erik and I traveled there by ourselves and planned on meeting Charlie at the bus station. Well, we got to the bus station and called Charlie, but no answer. We waited for about 30 minutes until he finally called back. He was in the hot spring. Fair enough. Erik and I took a taxi to downtown where we were supposed to meet up with Charlie. He and his colleagues showed up about an hour later. It gave us a chance to walk around and see the city a little bit. We eventually went to dinner and then to a KTV (karaoke bar, but you get your own private room). We were there the rest of the night. Toward the end of the night there the Chinese guys taught Erik and I a gambling game. Of course I refrained. I mean, come on, my parents taught me better than to gamble. Especially with guys I don't know in a foreign country playing a game I'd never seen before. I won 100 yuan. Suckers. The picture to the left is of the hot springs. The picture below if from Yangshuo. It's Fritz, Carmine, Ricca (a Chinese friend), and myself.
A few more things...
A special thanks goes out to John for booking my ticket back home for Kyle and Katie's wedding on June 4th. I am super excited and very thankful to John for using his miles on me. I know they could've gone to much better use, so thank you so incredibly much.

Happy birthday Rohlf, and happy birthday Chad. Joe's birthday is today and Chad's is the 5th.

A big congratulations to Calvin Clark and Melissa Lewis on their engagement. Wowzers, I can't believe it. Seems like yesterday we were in Ross Hall getting caught for making a beer pong table (sorry Mom and Dad...never told you about that one). But I wish the best for you two and can't wait for the wedding.

As always, I hope this post finds you all well. I miss you all and love you all very much. Life is good my friends. I hope 2011 brings you all the happiness in the world.

-Kevin

This is a picture of one of my classes. Fantastic.

Criminal Minds is the Bee's Knees

I am back from my hiatus. I know I know, you are all so relieved. It's been about a month and a half since I last updated you on my life here in Guilin, China so hopefully I can do some updating in a time efficient manner. First off, my cast. I got my cast taken off last Thursday and was told that I should still use my crutches but I could put some weight on the hell of my foot. I am currently using just one crutch because I think I look cooler. Actually, it's just much easier than two and it's easier to carry when I'm driving my moped. You didn't think a broken foot would stop me from driving my moped did you? Well it did for a little while, and then I just got tired of it so I decided to drive it. Once I got back to the hospital for the fourth (and hopefully last) time, it will have been 8 weeks. Eight long weeks. I hate when you are looking for time to fly by fast so something will happen because then I feel like I miss so much. Oh well. I am almost healed now, so I'm feeling pretty good about that.

Since my last post we have celebrated Halloween and Thanksgiving. Halloween was an interesting, but fun time. A bunch of the foreigners in Guilin met downtown all dressed up in our costumes. There were many people around taking pictures. I'm not sure how many pictures I posed for that night, but I think it probably exceeded 100. "Picture?" they would say as they walked up with a camera. "Well why the hell not," I wanted to say, but usually just said, "Sure." I don't mind taking pictures with/for random Chinese people, but after a little while it gets a little old. But hey, I chose to come here right? The picture to the right is of my costume. I was dressed as a bum, because I kind of already looked like one. I wore a sign around my neck that said, "Will dance for beer," written in Chinese and English. I had a few takers, but mostly people just laughed. If only they knew I was completely serious. Can't win them all. We walked around downtown for a bit and then made our way to a few bars. A couple people took my crutches away thinking that my costume was, well, just a costume. Seriously. This is real life. I need those crutches. They are my legs. After some convincing that my foot was in fact broken, and those crutches are indeed a necessity, I got my crutches back. At a different bar someone decided to kick my cast thinking it was a fraud. Overall, bad costume choice, but it was a good time nonetheless and made for some good stories. Thanksgiving was spent at a nice buffet inside a hotel called the Shangri La. It is a super nice hotel and the food is delicious. They actually had turkey and mashed potatoes. Of course it didn't even come close to what I have been spoiled with on my previous Thanksgiving meals, but it just gave me another opportunity to be thankful for something. Like cheesy potatoes. Damn. I miss those. Anyway, Thanksgiving was a fun time and a good meal. There were about 16 of us at the dinner, mostly made up of Americans. Maybe we will all go back for Christmas dinner.

Now I want to share a good/scary story from earlier today. I went to lunch with Kaitlin to get some noodles (thought we would mix it up a bit). Actually, we have noodles and rice a lot. It's easy and convenient. I can say what I want and they understand me so I eat noodles a lot. Anyway, we enjoyed our meal and headed to my moped to come back home. As we were about to leave, we saw a man jump out of his car and start going through his trunk frantically looking for something. Then, he slammed his trunk shut and ran into a restaurant right next to the one we were just at. All of a sudden he reappears back outside with a meat cleaver in his hand. Fantastic. Two other guys then come out of nowhere, one with a rock in his hand and the other half trying to hold him back .The man with the cleaver got in the face of the man with the rock in his hand (clearly at a serious disadvantage) and they were having a few choice words with each other. This is what I believe was said..."Hey man, would you like me to chop up that rock for you?" "No thanks. I think I might just try and throw it on the ground and break it in to a few pieces." "Ok that's fine. Suit yourself." "Well, you sir, have a nice day." "You do the same"...Actually I think I might have gotten it wrong. They did seem a bit more mad at each other than that. They chased each other around for a bit and then finally stopped. The two men went back to their moped and drove off. The guy finally gave back the meat cleaver and went back to his car. He drove off as well. There was obviously something that happened before these men stopped at the red light out in front of the restaurant. Good times, good times.

I am still enjoying the food for the most part. I eat a lot of noodles and rice. I also like to eat dumplings every now and again. Whenever you ask for meat in your dish, you usually get about 3 or 4 small pieces. That is probably why everyone is so skinny over here. We also like to go to hot pot restaurants. This is where they put a big bowl/bucket of water in the middle of the table and boil it. Then they bring out all sorts of different vegetables and meats that you cook in the water and then eat. These dinners usually last a lot longer, but it is very good food and always a fun time. A lot of times for dinner we will go to any one of the many BBQ places around. You can pick out vegetables or meat on a skewer and they will cook it for you. A couple of weeks ago I went to one of these by myself. I was sitting down about to eat when these 3 Chinese guys invited me to come sit with them. I of course said yes, and before I knew it I was drinking Chinese liquor with them having a great time. I was trying out the little Chinese I've learned so far and they were speaking some English with me. Communicating with them was hard, but we had a great time. I find that by saying 'yes' more, I have a lot more interesting/exciting experiences.

My inability to walk over the last 6 weeks has given me a chance to watch a lot of a show called Criminal Minds. It is a crime show that I find very entertaining. I have made it through almost four seasons already. There is a website called tudou.com that has so many different television shows and movies on it. The only problem is that the website is all in Chinese so it is quite hard to navigate. Anyway, that has been a nice substitute for me when going up and down 56 steps didn't sound like too much fun.

I hope this post finds all of you well. Life is still good. The weather has been quite nice lately, which has been a good change from what I'm used to at this time of year. I miss you all very much.

-Kevin

P.S. Sorry I don't have many pictures for you this time. Hopefully next time I will have much more. The picture below is of a bunch of us at a Korean guy's birthday party. Enjoy.

I Should've Gone to English Corner...

My first couple of weeks of teaching are in the books, and it's gone better than I had thought it would. My students are incredibly nice and very anxious to learn. I teach seven classes a week; 3 on Wednesday, 3 on Friday, and 1 on Saturday morning. I spend about 11 hours a week in the classroom, so as you can tell life is still rough for me over here in China. I can hardly handle all the pressure that is on me. Even my body is falling apart from it all. If you didn't catch that, I was only kidding. Well except about my body falling apart. Read more to find out about that. Fantastic story. Anyway, I have an extremely limited amount of pressure on me. Really, if pressure were measure on a scale from 6-26 (6 being the lowest amount of pressure), I would be around a 7. Yeah, my job is pretty kick-ass. I see most of my students only once a week, but I do have one class I see twice a week. Those students are employees of a local chemical company, so their age range is between 22-27. Their English is ok, so it is a little more difficult to get them to understand some thing. We're making progress though, slowly but surely. My other classes are first-year students, and some are with third-year students. They all seem pretty excited to have an American as their English teacher, so let's hope that excitement lasts all year long. My first meeting with all my classes I just did introductions. I showed them pictures of family and my house. They enjoyed those very much. They thought Kristin (my sister-in-law) was my girlfriend, so when I told them she was my brother's wife they seemed a little disappointed. Oh well, can't win them all. They asked me many questions about why I came to China and what I thought of it so far. They also asked me if I like Chinese girls, to which I replied,"The Chinese people have been very kind to me so far. They have also been super helpful." Question successfully avoided. My second class I taught them about some American music. We talked about different genres and different artists. I even was able to play some songs for them, which they enjoyed for the most part. Gold Digger by Kanye West, however, was not one of their favorites. I did explain what a "gold digger" was, so at least they learned something from the lesson. They really run a tight ship around here. My employee class is the only class that actually has some sort of textbook, but it sucks so I barely teach out of it. My students tell me what they want to learn and I come up with lessons based on that. I will do some lessons about business because some of their majors are business English. They want to learn a lot about America and how people live so that will be quite fun to teach them those things.

Now the story about my body breaking down. I broke my foot. My left foot to be exact. The outside of my left foot to be even more exact. I lied. It's more of a fracture than a break, but it still hurts. As some of you know, I had surgery almost two years ago on my right foot for a stress fracture on the outside of my foot. Well, my left foot had started to feel similar for the last few weeks to how my right foot felt. Then, I was playing basketball on Thursday night and made a cut to go left and felt my bone crack. Since my pain tolerance is so high, I could barely feel it. No, but seriously, it hurt like something that hurts really bad. I knew it was broke right then (just like I knew my ankle/wrist/foot/arm/stomach had been broken/messed up in my past). I've had too many x-rays to count in my past, and very very seldom have had anything too seriously wrong with. One stress fracture out of countless x-rays. I was really hoping I was right about this one. I know that sounds bad, but if I was a baseball player I would have already been demoted to Triple A. By me having an x-ray and something actually being wrong with me puts my break-percentage up quite a few points. Fritz, kindly enough, took me on my mo-ped to the hospital and I got a cast put on and also got some quite comfortable crutches. Really, though, they suck. Big time. Especially because I live on the 4th floor. Things could be worse. Now to explain the title of this post. I was asked earlier that day to go to the campus where I teach (which is 40 minutes there and 35 minutes back) to partake in something called English corner. This is where I just stand around and talk to students for a couple of hours. I agreed, but later decided I really didn't want to go because I would be there late and had to go back there early the next morning to teach. I then called my boss lady back and made up and excuse as to why I could no longer go. I think someone had a birthday party if I remember correctly. Then I broke my foot. I should've gone to English corner...

Pre-broken foot I was able to do some hiking and rock climbing around Guilin. The pictures in this post are from earlier in the week. The mountain we climbed was quite high, and the view from the top was pretty remarkable. Guilin really is a beautiful city. Sitting at the top of this mountain really made me appreciate this opportunity I've been given. It also helps to remind me to take the time to take everything in and be thankful for all I have. Although me breaking my foot takes away many things I love to do (namely playing sports) away, I know that I still have it pretty dang good. For that, I am thankful.

I hope this post finds you all well. I miss you all very much. I love hearing from you guys. Don't be afraid to email me or message me on here to let me know how you are doing and what's new in all of your lives. Life is good!


-Kevin


P.S. Big win for Mizzou today. Hopefully the Chiefs can get back to winning tomorrow.

Hello! Hello? Hello.

I have been super busy lately so I want to send my deepest apologies for lacking on my blog posts. Actually, I haven't been doing too much so I don't have much of an excuse except for that I'm lazy. Still, my apologies. I am in the middle of uploading all of my pictures onto Facebook, so if you want to take a look at what I've been up to then look on there. I will try to also post some pictures on here for those of you who do not have Facebook.

The title of this blog comes from me not being able to think of another clever title for a blog post, so deal with it. The story behind this title is as follows...
Whenever I'm just walking around and a Chinese person sees me and recognizes that I probably speak English, or at least know what "hello" means then they will shout, "Hello!", "Hello?", or "Hello" at me. Each time I have a good laugh when they do this. Sometimes it seems as though they are shouting at you. Other times it's as if they are asking a question, and then sometimes they are actually greeting you with a "hello." Lately I've been getting tired of answering in English, so I will either say, "Ni Hao" (Chinese), or "Hola" (Spanish, duh). Sometimes this will confuse them which I find to be a little humorous. Maybe you're different and wouldn't find this funny, but that's what makes this world great, right? Anyway, that is really all I have to say about the title of this blog. So, you're welcome.

The much needed vacation I went on was a very good time. We went to a couple of villages and the local people were very kind to us. The first village we went to was called Ma'an, and it was a village of the Dong people. Around 90% of the people in China are Han Chinese, and the other 10% are a different type of Chinese I guess. Anyway, they look similar to me. This village was beautiful. We went on a hike up a mountain very close by which gave us a fantastic view of the entire village. It really was quite gorgeous. (Side note: The power just went out for a bit, and now it's back on...end of side note). The picture to the left is of the village from where we were hiking. We spent two nights there so we just did a lot of exploring and what not. We ate at our hostel, which was overpriced, but oh well. One of the nights we played soccer in the street with a couple of the kids. That was a good time. The picture below and to the right is of me playing soccer with one of the kids. After we left Ma'an, Kaitlin, Carmine, and I went to another village called Ping'an. This village is known for its rice terraces, which I hear are pretty amazing. Unfortunately, when we went it was quite foggy so we didn't get a great view of them. There is a picture below of what we had for dinner that night. Quite tasty actually. I want to get back there though, because I hear it's a "can't miss," if you are in this area. On the way back from Ping'an, we kind of had to beg our way onto a bus to take us back to Guilin. We ran out of money and thought that we could get some out of an ATM, but all of us were unsuccessful. We somehow explained to the lady taking the money for the bus that we would find an ATM in Guilin and pay her for the bus ride. Going against her gut feeling, she finally let us on the bus. We held true to our word and paid her when we got to Guilin. After all, we were thankful to make it back without any money.

That following weekend I had my first "side" job. Fritz heard through this guy who heard through this guy that some company needed some foreigners to help them out. This is actually quite common practice around China. Many Chinese companies like to have foreigners promote their company because it brings a bit more prestige to their company. Now, I didn't need anyone to tell me that I could bring prestige to their company, because, well, let's be honest. But in all seriousness, it was hard to take myself or anyone else serious during this expo. We had to dress up in a cap and gown like we were graduating. This company was selling apartment buildings and the place was called, "Harvard something or other" (I added the "something or other" in case you didn't catch that). We just stood around handing out pieces of paper to interested people. Hell, even if they weren't interested I still gave them a piece of paper. Many, many, many people took pictures throughout the three days. Sometimes they tried to be secretive, like standing 10 feet in front of us while crouching down so to get us in the background. A couple times I would notice this and walk a couple feet to the side to get out of the picture, because after all, I didn't want to ruin their picture. We all got paid 1,000 yuan for the three days, which I was pleased about. I was so pleased that I went and bought another mo-ped. New. Freaking awesome. Alarm on it. Can lock front tire. Big lock. That's all I'm saying about it (don't want to jinx it). But seriously, it's kewl.

After the much needed vacation, I had a few days to sit around and ponder what I should do next here in China. A couple of days went by and the thought of thinking too much about what I should do was really getting to me, so I took another vacation. A couple of friends and I went to this place about an hour and a half away called Lingchuan Jiuwu. It was this little place tucked in between the mountains and we had to cross this rope bridge to get to it. It was a super relaxing time. We just sat around and ate, drank, and swam in the river. The bridge went over the river so of course we jumped off of it into the river. It was about 25 feet high, so kind of scary, but very fun. The picture to the right is of Fritz and I jumping off. I tried to pose, but, well you can come up with your own joke. We jumped off many, many times and it never really got old. I still can't believe that I could get myself to jump off a bridge that was 30 feet above the water. I thought about maybe doing a dive or a flip off of it but I figured 35 feet might be a little too high to try one of those stunts. Anyway, we only stayed there for one day and one night. We had three meals, many drinks, and obviously stayed in the room for a night and it cost us 100 yuan each. That is approximately $15. Awesome.

I had my first day of teaching yesterday. I was a little mad that they put me to work on a Friday, but I guess they thought maybe I should start doing some work. I teach on Wednesday's, Friday's, and Saturday morning. I'm not too happy about having a Saturday morning class, but given the fact I only work three days a week, I guess I really can't complain. I will talk more about my classes in my next post. It's always important to leave your blog followers wanting a little more. That way they will come back. You know what I'm saying?

I always appreciate hearing from all of you. Know that I miss you all very much and love you very much as well. I hope all is well! Life is good!

-Kevin

P.S. Kyle and Scott...My electricity went out today while I was talking to you. Maybe I should've bought a little more. Next time my friends, next time.

P.S.S. Kevin - 4*, China - 2.
*=New mo-ped, vacation to Ping'an and Ma'an, vacation to Lingchuan Jiuwu, and haven't lost in soccer (football) since our first loss.

China - 2 Kevin - 0

Hey everyone! Sorry it's taken me so long to post on here again. I have a lot to say but hopefully I won't write too much and bore you all. First, I'll start off by explaining my title...

The night after my last post I played my first soccer game with Fritz, Oliver, Brett, Carmine, and Jerry. We were a quality side, but in the end we were outmatched and outclassed. The Chinese were just too good on the day. I was super pumped to get back on a soccer field and lace up the boots again. I felt like I was in heaven for those two hours we played. I was definitely rusty, but it felt so good to just run around and get some touches on the ball again. At one point the game was fairly close, but in the end we were too tired and they were just better. During halftime and after the game I cooled myself off and rehydrated with some cold water. Most of the others, however, enjoyed a bottle of Coca-Cola and a cigarette. To each their own I suppose. If you lost track of the score, it is now China - 1, and Me - 0.
The next morning I gave my legs a break and laid in bed for awhile. I was pretty exhausted after the game the night before and my legs were pretty dang sore. I spent most of the day just sitting around being lazy until about 5:00 pm. I then went and met up with Kaitlin downtown at an American cafe to do some reading and umm... *cough* journaling *cough*. My memory is bad, so this will help me down the road remember that I came to China for a year. Anyway, I met up with her at this cafe around 5:45 pm. I had some coffee and wrote in my journal and read a book about a guy who is telling his story about when he came and backpacked around China. Quite interesting actually. I wrote in my journal about my kick-ass new mo-ped, and the soccer game, and other things that were on my mind. I was in the place until about 7:45 pm when I decided it was time to leave. I walked out and walked down the street where I had parked my mo-ped. Kaboom! It wasn't there, naturally. Now I know I said my memory isn't too fantastic, but I know that I parked it in that spot and it was no longer occupying that spot. I asked around to see if anyone had seen anything, but of course no one had (I actually was just showing them a text that a friend had sent in Chinese asking if they saw anything). I am 96% sure that I locked it up, but the more Diana asks me about it the less sure I am that I locked it up. But yeah, I locked it up. I should've been more upset about it, but I suppose that sometimes things happen. It is what it is my friends. I have my health, I'm not pregnant (update about my medical exam), and all in all life is good. If you are still keeping track, the score is now China - 2, Me - 0.

I spent the next few days walking around and exploring. I took a few pictures of some of the places I came across so I hope you enjoy them. Guilin really is beautiful. There are many rolling hills and mountains all over the place. I keep trying to find one to hike up, but I've been unsuccessful so far. I also went on a long bike ride around the city on a bike I borrowed from Fritz. It was nice and relaxing and a fun way to see the city. I also came across some farm land and farm animals so I snapped a few pictures. It really just reminds me off all the time and hard work I've put working on the farm back in Independence, MO (one summer counts, right?). Anyway, it is nice to get out and about to explore the countryside. We also found this little part of the river that is roped off for people to swim in. It is surrounded on two sides by mountains, which is a pretty awesome view. I've been swimming there a couple of times now and it is very refreshing. It was especially nice cooling off in the water midway through my bike ride.

I still have yet to start teaching. I should be getting my schedule tomorrow sometime, but I'm pretty sure I will start this coming Monday. Right now the University (Guangxi Normal University) is on holiday because of the mid-Autumn Festival or the Moon Festival as it is also called (I think). It will definitely be nice to have these next three days off of school. I'm going to go do some traveling with some friends. We are going to go to Sanjiang tomorrow and stay for a few days. I really just need a vacation right now. Waking up whenever I want and really having no obligations as of right now is really hard on me. Some time away will be the perfect remedy. But in all seriousness, I am anxious to get in the classroom and start teaching. The only thing that really kind of stinks is that I was one of two teachers randomly chosen to go to the other campus to teach. The worst part about that is I have to ride a bus 40 minutes each way every day I teach, as opposed to a five minute walk to class. I guess I can take a little nap on the way there if I have early morning classes.


The guy in the picture above is me. The one above that is Fritz and I. He's a good dude.



I want to thank you all for reading my blog and supporting me through my travels. I love to see comments from those of you I maybe haven't talked to in awhile and those of you who are close friends and family. I hope this post finds all of you well and enjoying life. Again, please feel free to email me, or skype me, or send me packages full of Taco Bell and Mac and Cheese. I miss you all very much. Life is good. Love you all!

Kevin