Sunday, September 7, 2008

Trip to our city Yongzhou and our first day here

Well we made it to our city and school. Our city is Yongzhou and it is in the Hunan province in central eastern china. It is only about 4 hours away from where we were before so that is nice in case there are problems our company is close to us. The bus ride was an adventure as always. We had a person come with us from the company to make sure we got on the right bus etc.. he told the driver where we should get off. That was nice. However then we got a flat tire and had to sit in this hot bus for an extra half an hour or so in the middle of nowhere. Then we were told to get off soon after. However the bus station did not look very safe, nor was it open! As soon as we got off we were mobbed by taxi drivers, and when i say mobbed i mean MOBBED! It was pretty scary, no one spoke English of course. The FAO (foreign affairs officer) from the school who is like our "go to" person for everything was nowhere to be seen! So we managed to find a phone and called him, but we were in the middle of this circle of men! It was scary. so we ended up walking to the other end of the parking lot so they would leave us alone, finally they did. Then the FAO showed up and said he was told we didnt get in until 6pm. He even called the bus driver and yelled at him!!
Then we were taken to the school. I believe that we are teaching in an inner city school for sure! Its really run down and pretty gross. But our apartment is huge and i think Megan and I will be sharing it cause the other one is gross, and has been set up for an office etc... Or first night we had to kill a cockroach and a big spider! Lets just say it was a restless first night. Also our first night (which was sunday night) All the department heads took us out to dinner. Lets just say it was really awesome food, but we didnt understand a thing,. and we were the only women obviously.
Monday morning we went with the FAO to get us cellphones. They are prepaid cellphones and if you call me then its free for me, but not you. I would suggest getting a phone card if anyone wants to call me. Here is my phone number 15574602042. Im not sure how to call international yet. When i get my address i will put that up here as well.
I have my first class in the morning and will be teaching Senior 1 which is like juniors in high school. They are pretty excited to see us, everyone is saying hi when we walk by the classrooms. I will be teaching 16 classes a week in 45 min increments., mostly in the evenings which will be nice.
We also attempted shopping by ourselves today! We went to the supermarket and it was interesting. All we got for food was rice and soy sauce!! Thats all we could figure out. We also got other things like cleaning supplies and toilet paper. I am happy to report that we have a western toilet in our apartment!! Thank goodness!!
Yongzhou is a very big and dirty city, not like quiet Yangshou where we were. Lots of cars and smog, i think the population is around 360,000. We are one of 8 foreign teachers, four of whom we know. other than that we are the odd ones out, which is fun. People came up to us to say hello, but thats about all they can say! Yongzhou does however have a McDonalds, which we havent found and a KFC and Pizza Hut. We had the KFC today it was alright.
I should get ready for my class tommorrow! Wish me luck!! There should be about 60 to 70 kids in each class!!

2 comments:

nicole_lee6905 said...

i am so glad everything is going well for you!!!! good idea on the blog by the way!! we miss you!!!

Rachel said...

Michelle you are so brave!
I bet you will know chinese before you know it. Make sure those students know who is in charge...Have fun!