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

"Traded the Van For It Straight Up"

I've been in Guilin now for over a couple weeks and I'm really starting to settle in. I really enjoy hearing from everyone back home so don't ever hesitate to write me. Here goes my update for the last couple of weeks...

I suppose I'll start with the title of this post. The quote comes from arguably the greatest movie of all-time, "Dumb and Dumber." This quote comes after Lloyd trades their van for a mo-ped and then goes to pick up Harry who is elated with Lloyd, telling Lloyd that he "totally redeemed himself." Now I could probably put up a "Dumb and Dumber" quote every week just because I really like the movie, but this quote has a little significance to my post (I promise). Ever since I got to Guilin, I saw people riding around on bikes and mo-peds. At first I really thought I wanted a bike, but after some thought the mo-ped seemed to be the way to go. So I went out a couple of days later and bought one from a mo-ped shop. The picture to the left is me with my mo-ped and the very friendly man who sold it to me. Neither of us understood a word the other was saying the entire time, but somehow the transaction got completed. I rode away into the heavy traffic terrified of getting back to my place. Kaitlin had also gone with me, so I was also in charge of her life as we rode away. I guess you could say I was a bit nervous at the time, but oh well. It is an electric one so I just charge it up every night. It's been a ton of fun to ride around on and it is a very convenient way to get around the city. I am starting to figure out the traffic, although some things still don't make sense, but it is what it is.

Last week I met with my boss and my waiban (the person I go to if I need help with anything), Crystal. I also met with the rest of the foreign teachers who will be teaching this year. For some, it is their first year and others have been here longer. It was nice to meet them all and find out where they were all from. My boss, Mr. Lan Wei, had a meeting with the entire group and basically just laid out his expectations and guidelines for us. He also informed us of when we would start teaching. I will start teaching at the end of this month or at the very beginning of October. I was happy to hear this because that will give me some more time to figure out the city and also to start to learn some Chinese. Today was the first class and it was at 8:40. I fully intended to go, but when my alarm went off in the morning I knew I still needed a few more hours of sleep, so I of course did not go. No worries though because I was informed that today was super basic and I didn't miss anything. I have a good reason for me sleeping in, which I will explain in a bit. Anyway, after the meeting with everyone we had dinner which was very good. I've met a lot of kewl and interesting people here so far, which I'm very happy about.

This next part I didn't really want to write about because I don't want to relive it, but I guess I will anyway. Yesterday we all had to go and get our medical check-ups. Now I had heard stories about how much it sucked and also how they had to draw blood. Now of course, if you know me, you know I hate needles and I hate getting my blood drawn. I really don't even like getting shots. Even the thought of doing either makes me uneasy and sweaty. Hell, right now I'm even sweating. Anyway, we had to get meet up at 8:30 in the morning to head to the hospital to do the check-up. I, naturally, only slept for about 2.5 hours that night because I couldn't stop thinking about it. I tried to do things to take my mind off it, like watch the Drake soccer game against Oakland on GameTracker (which is loads of fun). It didn't help that we lost (we or they, I don't know anymore). Then after that got over around 2:30 a.m. my time, I spent another couple of hours trying to get Facebook and YouTube to work. I finally got it to work, but please don't tell the Chinese government. I want to stay here a bit longer. Ok, back to the real story. So we get to the hospital, fill out some paperwork, and then sit around for about 1.5 hours. They then tell us to go around the the different stations to do our tests. I first did an x-ray. Then I did my height, weight, blood pressure, and so on. After that I went to get my blood drawn. I didn't look the entire time, and then I realized I was done and stood up. I could tell that it was starting to get to me so I went where I knew there was a fan blowing out very cold air. I went to stand in front of it, and of course, it turned off after about 2 seconds. Fantastic. I then found my way to the lobby very quickly where I laid down on a hard bench while sweat dripped off my face. I was fine after about 5 minutes, but everyone there just kind of looked at me. I'm convinced that if I would've passed out, no one would have come rushing my way. I then had to go to this electric test and also get an ultrasound on my stomach and sides. They didn't find any babies, but they also didn't really find anything. Apparently the lady couldn't find my intestines or something (I wish I spoke Chinese), so now I have to go to another hospital at some point to do another ultrasound. I now get to sit here for a couple of days hoping nothing is wrong with me. Oh well, things could be worse.

I'll try and end this post on a bit of a lighter note. I met a guy today named Fritz, from Indonesia. He's a super nice guy and he took me, Kaitlin, and Adela (another foreign teacher) out to lunch. He then asked me if I played basketball or soccer (football here), and I told him I liked to play both. He then went on to tell me that he plays with a bunch of guys and wanted to know if I wanted to play soccer with them tomorrow. I said yes, so tomorrow I finally get to strap the boots on and touch a ball again. I'm pretty pumped up about this because I haven't touched a soccer ball in a long time. It's hard being away from a sport I love so much for so long. Tomorrow night will be glorious. I think you might be able to follow the match at www.fritzandkevinplaysoccer.com (Mom, that was just a joke so please don't actually try and go to that website).

Well that's enough for now. I hope I don't bore you all too much. Again, I hope this post finds you all well. Life is good in Guilin. Also, I was finally able to load the video of my apartment, so if you want to check it out, it's at the bottom. Love you all!

Kevin

Locked In China

I have now been in China for two weeks. It has been quite the adventure so far and I know it will continue throughout the year. I'm going to try and update you in the least amount of words as possible just to give you an idea of what the last two weeks have been like...

I arrived in Beijing on August 16th, and a friend and I made our way to a hostel for the night. We got ripped off by the taxi driver and had to pay too much, but at that point I was just happy to be where we were supposed to be. It was an uneventful night and the next morning we made our way back to the airport because we had to meet up with the rest of the group there. We met the group and got on bus for five hours headed to Shijiazhuang (I still don't think I can pronounce it correctly, so don't worry if you can't either). We were to stay there for about five nights and have some Chinese lessons along with just trying to learn some of the Chinese culture. It was a good time and I picked up a few useful phrases, but I still have a long long way to go. The second night in Shijiazhuang I got "Locked in China." I went to use the bathroom in my dorm room, and when I tried to get out my door wouldn't budge. Lucky for me, my roommate came into the room a couple minutes later and after a few laughs realized I was seriously locked in the bathroom. We tried different things to get me out and finally my roommate had to go get a guy from the front desk to come help me out. The guy eventually got the doorknob off so I could see him through a two inch hole, but still the door remained shut. What the hell, guy? Anyway, it only took a couple more minutes and the door finally swung open. I was in there for 50 minutes. 50 minutes I will never get back, but I guess it makes for a decent story.
On the weekend, I went and stayed with a Chinese family. The picture above is of me and the 11 year old son of the family. I was with him and his mom for most of my time at their home, but I did meet the dad on my last night there. They were incredibly nice to me and made me feel very welcome in their home. The son did most of the translating for us, but it was still rather tough. He spoke fairly good English and the mom didn't speak much at all. There were a lot of awkward moments with them laughing at me and me not really knowing what was going on, but it was a good experience. Their food was delicious. They kept bringing me more and more food, and then told me I didn't eat very much. Holy cow. They also showed me around Shijiazhuang, which was very thoughtful of them. They told me if I was ever back in their city that I was welcome at their home and they also gave me their phone number to call anytime I needed help. All in all, it was a good experience and a good insight into what Chinese families are like.

Carmine, Eder, Kaitlin (the three others from Drake in Guilin with me), and I left on Monday afternoon on a train headed for Guilin. It was a 26 hour train ride, but for the most part it wasn't too bad. I was so happy when we finally arrived in Guilin. It is a beautiful city and the weather is nice too. Actually, it's kind of hot right now, but I'm not complaining. We came straight to our apartment. I was able to get all my stuff put away, which made me feel a lot better because I was not enjoying living out of my suitcase. The pictures to the left are of my apartment. I also have a video, but it wouldn't load so if you want me to send it to you, let me know.


I've spent all week just exploring the city and seeing what there is to do around here. It is a pretty awesome city, and I'm pumped to be living here for the year. I'm thinking about buying a bike or an electric scooter (which would be awesome), but I haven't decided which one yet. I got a Chinese phone the other day and we finally just got internet yesterday thanks to two Chinese students who helped us with the phones as well. The Chinese people really go out of their way to help others. It's pretty awesome.

So far, so good here in China. I of course miss everyone back home, but like I told many of you, you are welcome to come visit me anytime you'd like. I would probably just make sure I know you're coming first, but hey, if you just show up I'll be just as excited. The hardest part about living here in my opinion is the language barrier. It's hard not knowing if I'll be able to eat because I don't know how to order something. I've met a few people here that know some Chinese so it's helpful when we go out to eat together. I hope to start getting language lessons soon. Also, school starts on September 6th, but I really have no idea when I will start teaching. We haven't heard much from the school so far, but I'm not real worried. Life is good right now.

I hope to post on here at least once a week, but sometimes the time gets away from me. Any of you are welcome to email me if you want...kevinshrout@gmail.com, or you can also find me on skype...kevin.shrout. I hope this post finds all of you well (I'm saying all of you, but it's probably just mom and dad reading this ha).

Kevin

祝你好运，我们会想念你，看到你很快: Zhù nǐ hǎo yùn, wǒmen huì xiǎngniàn nǐ, kàn dào nǐ hěn kuài: Good luck, we'll miss you, see you very soon!!

The Fam

Kevin, I can't tell you how excited I am and everyone else is for the adventure that sits in front of you.  Don't get me wrong, we are all going to miss you so much - I'm gonna miss just knowing I can pick up the phone at 11pm my time and know that you will still be up in the midwest and will answer the phone. Maybe I've been at work too long or maybe had a drink or two and just wanted to shoot the shit.  :)

Bottom line is you are doing something that all of us wish we could do and you are doing it!!  This is going to be an experience you will be able to think back on for the rest of your life! I'm jealous of your adventurous nature along with your care free attitude.  That type of free will and spirit will bring you amazing experiences that most people can only dream of.  Good luck Kev, and at the very least please have some fun and come back with some great stories!

We'll miss you and we love you!