January and chinese adventure

okay so January saw the end of the first semester of teaching for me. after giving out some finals, making some grades, and talking to parents it was time for me to be on vacation for about 4 weeks. my first stop was zhangjiajie.

i went there because the two people i was traveling with lived there and it was one of their birthdays. we had a traditional chinese birthday. that is to say we have dinner with a cake full of fruit, then we went to a karaoke place and drank alot. that night it snowed and it was beautiful. the following day we went around town and i got see some cool sights.

 

later that day we left zhangjiajie for shenzhen and the airport in zhangjiajie was so small that there was no heat and our flight was delayed. but eventually we got to my favorite city in china, shenzhen. once we got to shenzhen it was 2am and we could not check into our hostel till 6am so we played cards in KFC till 6am. later that day we went to windows of the world

while at windows of the world i got to ride a camel.

and i got to shoot a bow and arrow. 

later that day we went to pizza hut where i got some escargot. it was actually pretty good. the next day we left to hong kong.

while there we went to see the world's largest Buddha.

after that we went to the highest place in hong kong and ate at bubba gumb shrimp.

the next we went to disneyland hong kong. 

later that night i wound up getting sick and throw up a bit. but the next day i felt better and we went to macau.

while there walked around to various casino and we saw 2 shows, one was a 15 sec show about the five dragon. the other one was of the greatest shows i have ever seen called the house of the dancing water.

later that day we were walking back to our hostel and i spotted this is the lobby of a hotel.

probably the coolest thing i have ever seen in a hotel lobby. the next day we left to go back to shenzhen and we eventually went to coco park and had some drinks on the metro there a chinese guy who spoke no english and was about 60 had the mortal kombat theme song as his ring tone. the next day we went on a 13 hour train ride to this beautiful city called Yongshou.

that day we walked around the town and i got some good shopping done for my family. one thing i got to do was hold a hawk.

the next day we took a tour of some famous caves.

later we got to take a mud bath then relax in a hot springs. it was so nice.

. after that we saw some cool sights and i had a monkey chilling on my shoulders.

the next couple of days i didn't do much because i was sick again. our next stop was in chengdu. while there we went to a Buddhist monastery. 

the next day we went to a chinese museum. 

the next day we did something freaken awesome. we held a panda!

the next day was the last day of vacation. we went to a park called people's park and it was nice. 

all in all it was a very fun vacation but truth be told i am looking forward to starting up class again. i have wonderful students and it should be an exciting second semester. 

month of December

alright so dec. came and went in china. the first thing that happened was it got really freezing cold. it is weird living in a place so cold, i am not used to it. the beginning of dec was relatively uneventful. the one cool thing i did i went to hong kong.

it was pretty cool although i was only there a day so i didnt see much but in a couple of weeks i will be going back. later in month i went to lushan for chirstmas.

 

it was pretty nice especially because the school paid for everything for the trip. christmas eve found myself and the three guys i work with sing christmas carols in the streets of lushan. so christmas was nice. and new years eve i went to a place called cafe roma and brought in the new year with some good friends. this next month should be nice. i am finishing up my classes and i will be doing some traveling. next month's blog should be more interesting. 

first three months in china

okay so this is my first blog ever s here is goes. i have been living in china for over three months now and i thought i would share the experience. i dont want to get into the pros and cons of china first off. but lets start from the beginning. when i got here the school has no place for me to stay. luckily one of the other teachers let me start at his place. this was really helpful because i didnt even know how or where to get food. after that i slowly started getting things like my own place and an e-bike. so i am settling in still but i have alot of thing and am way more comfortable now. speaking of comfort, the beds here are rock hard. so i have three mattress toppers to make me bed soft enough to get a good nights sleep. these first three months have gone by fast. i have done some good traveling. the first place i went was lushan which is a mountain town.

we hiked the mountain all day the started in a city at the foot of the mountain. one thing i like about china is that when i go to bars i get free drinks and usually the owner comes and says hi. makes me feel like a baller. the next place i traveled too was shenzhen which is the city above hong kong. i had a class while i was there so i did not get to walk around much but one thing i like was it was like vegas and new york mixed.

 the most recent place i traveled too was machau. this place is like china's answer to vegas. its pretty cool but it is no vegas, still though is had great beef jerky and i got to see a cirque du soleil which was awesome.

 i am leaving for hong kong on weds and i hope to travel around a little then but i will be going to hong kong about a month after that again with some friends for spring vacation. i will try and update this blog monthly now that i have it. but basically i already miss america and americans.