名人、人群、牛乳饼,给

介绍

我意识到,它已经相当长时间(在我看来)因为我已经溜进我的博客的想法。在过去的几周内发生了很多事情,我觉得两个月已经过去了。我知道节礼日早上可能觉得一个奇怪的时间肯定会冒险进入一个极其漫长的博客(啊哈. .吸盘!),但因为我们是我们,我们这里唯一的圣诞节礼物是凯洛格的盒子给安德里亚惊讶我昨天早上!有多好呢?给! !而不仅仅是任何给我说蓝莓上白色的糖霜和洒!他们完美的咖啡和百利酒我们把圣诞节回来当我们醒来。我只是希望我有一点百利酒了…它通过太快。我打赌几杯温暖会让我开始写相当快!我总是有点‘聪明’几杯后的东西! Now, where to begin........

名人

名人:

是的,几个星期前,一些谣言我听说关于作为一个外国人在中国工作是通过精细风格!在来这里之前,我读过很多故事的人被要求做很多的宣传工作对于不同的人来说,地点和原因。这是我们一周!这一切开始14晚,当我从学校回家早期治疗安德里亚在流行的小店里的外卖烧烤。我们背后的一天庆祝在中国四个月纪念日。Andrea到家后一个小时左右后,我们刚刚开始令人馋涎欲滴的盛宴,这时电话响了。Jecci,一个女孩与我们合作,是代表我们的校长(汉森),指示我们很快回到学校一些广告的事情。她描述的任务是不到含糊不清,我们只能猜测,也许我们被要求受试者的一些照片孩子城堡,也许回答几个促销问题。我们把鸡腿,然后跑回学校。当我们到那里时,汉森站在那里和我的一个学生的母亲……我们不知道接下来会发生什么。 When Hansen informed us that we were going out to drink some tea, I immediately thought that she was likely a rich lady who wanted some extra shmooze time to discuss the progress of her child. The thought of it turned me off because all we could think of was our cooling dinner back home. Much to our surprise, they had a car waiting to whisk us off to God-knows-where. As we headed into the city, we rode along with Hansen, Shawn's mother, and who I'm guessing is her husband's parents. The car was almost as big as a small limo and Hansen's poor English continued to leave us blind as to our destination. The time was nearing 9:30pm and we still had no idea where we were going! Finally after about fifteen minutes on the road, we pulled up to a flashy new place on what seemed like a slightly deserted development property. As they escorted us inside and up the stairs, we couldn't help but notice how unfinished the building appeared, and the lack of staff working anywhere within it. At the top of the stairs, we finally clued into the fact that something unique was happening here. We peered into a large room filled with bright lights, businessmen and young ladies dressed in old gowns. We were about to star in our first commercial!! Hansen had officially pimped our services out to be the poster patrons of this brand new fine tea and reflexology spa! It turned out that Shawn's father is actually a co-owner of the building and I guessed we had made a good impression on them! I just wish we could have had prior warning...there we stood; me in my Lancer sweater and Andrea in her Kid Castle gear! I'm sure we hardly reflected the classy clientelle they hope to attract to this place. Only after meeting another foreigner there, a British man in his 50s named Robert, did we get the full gist of our tasks. All we had to do was sit in these nice chairs and become part of an ancient tea serving ritual famous throughout the time of the Tang Dynasty. For ten minutes we tasted the tea, smiled for the cameras, and listened intently to the description of the serving methods by this sweet girl wearing a purple silk dress. She had her shpiel down pat but unfortunately we could hardly understand a word she was saying. The tea was excellent by the way. The foot massage segment however, was forfeited for a different part focussing on Andrea, Robert and I saying a few words to the camera proclaiming our amazement with the establishment. I even added in a few Chinese words for added flair!! It was an interesting experience and one that we will never forget. The spa offered us gifts aswell for our services; one being a VIP pass to be picked up the next time we go there, and two was a couple packages of really famous, expensive tea that Hansen informed us is the same tea the Chinese astronauts drink in space! How cool is that? What a random night. We came back home within a few hours to find our chicken and bread still mildly warm...or maybe that was just the inch of cumin topping that never ceases to make our mouths go numb! We have yet to see ourselve on T.V but we will try a little harder to look. The past few weeks have been so crazy that we haven't watched too much television...what we do watch is pingpong and lots of it ?I'm going to be deadly when I get home so my sisters better watch out, their reign is over!




以下周五成为了我们的第二个15分钟的名人当我们下午在公立学校在附近的社区。汉森再次提供我们的服务,这所学校的校长,作为特邀嘉宾,外国人法官为学校一年一度的英语演讲比赛。这次汉森能够给我们几天通知,甚至承认支付我方时间。我们有点紧张,安德里亚,蒂娜和我走到学校,因为我们完全不知道会发生什么,蒂娜从来没有。我们有点放心了,看到孩子的学校,我们都非常喜欢教孩子城堡。处理青少年需要很少的压力,因为他们总是使我们笑!当我们走进学校,孩子们在法庭上院子里立刻开始叫喊他们勇敢的你好,跟着我们上楼梯就像一个大咯咯笑的乐迷!每一次我给一个孩子点头或者你好眨了眨眼睛,他们所有的朋友会笑,做一个小的那个人!安德里亚,我之前从来没有法官,至少不是我们能记住,所以看到所有的孩子们表演;看上去很紧张,打扮好,涂着厚厚的妆,我们很快意识到这种竞争是多么重要的孩子和他们的家庭。 Our task included judging the 10 groups on their introductions, performances, and finally their ability to answer questions created by Andrea and myself. Such question ranged from 'what is your favourite colour' to 'what do you most like about China or Christmas'. The ages varied from 5 years old to 10 or 11, all competing against eachother! It's amazing to see how some very young kids can speak with relative fluency compared with the older grades...it all depends how demanding their parents are in finding a successful English private school such as ours. Many of our Kid Castle students are the best English speakers in their public school...that's makes us feel pretty darn proud! One of my senior students was actually a member of the winning group that day. Our afternoon concluded with a request from the MC (an English teacher within the school) for Andrea and I to get up and say a few words. This totally took us by surprise and we scrambled to come up with something to say. We explained how honoured we were to be judging such a great group of talented students, and how events such as this make the adventure of coming here so much more memorable. We also decided to offer our superb rendition of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer! I think this was the biggest hit with the children, and the principal must have been very impressed aswell because he ended up paying us double what we were originally expecting! Looking back, we had nothing better to do that day, we would have done it for free! Tina did a wonderful job as our acting camera lady!

圣诞音乐会!

一个有趣的周末!一周前周日的高潮过去几周中,中国教师急切,albiet都关注,许多志愿者的孩子准备第二届孩子城堡圣诞音乐会。上周末我认为最好的部分是获得两个星期六和星期天的工作;周六为最后的彩排和周日的功能演示。周六下午汉森把我们(毫不夸张地说)在交通高峰期,出租车路线向华山剧院。这个地方我们肯定会发生什么,没有人真的。去年的演唱会举行jammed-pacted,小会议厅。今年的展览将是完全不同的。剧院是巨大的。它坐着大约一千人,甚至有一个庞大的阳台部分。 Unfortunately it was quite obvious that the place had been lacking a substantial amount of funding for upkeep. I assume that it's not used all that much. The impression we got was nothing less than the Royal Alexandra meets sub-1950. We had to chuckle at the thought of actually filling all of the seats for something like this show. Who could know, maybe we would be surprised! We weren't surprised. Sunday afternoon came and the hall began to fill. When the time came to begin the concert, I would guess that maybe around 400 people were there, which is by all means still a fantastic feat. I admit I didn't see many of my senior students there that day...they're way too 'cool' for a Christmas concert! But there were many more smiling, excited young kids both in the crowd and on the stage. Lucy (an S7 senior) and Sharon (a J2 junior), along with Joey, Andrea and myself began the show by introducing ourselves and welcoming the audience. It was fun being up there in front of all of those people and surprisingly I didn't feel the least bit nervous! Andrea, Lucy, Sharon and I then did a quick skit where Andrea and I sang 'We wish you a Merry Christmas' as the girls sat on our stomachs pretending to have our legs. It was quite amusing but a little tiring, our voices cracked a few times! From there the show began and lasted for a couple hours. There was lots of dancing and even some dialogue from Finding Nemo. Ivy and Jecci also directed the final act which was a shortened edition of Snow white..complete with all of the seven dwarfs! In between acts, Amy, Sophie, Andrea, Joey and I (now dressed as Santa Clause of course) went out on stage and drew names for the giant Kid Castle raffle then offered gifts to the students in the audience..this actually took a long time and was a little annoying to witness but I'm sure it wasn't for the winners. Two lucky students even went home with DVD players! You can bet this assured their futures at Kid Castle...Hansen did some good bribing of parents that day! During the show there was also an English singing competition which was being judged by the Chairman of Kid Castle in China. He must have made the flight from Shanghai for the event, so Hansen and Blanca were both stressed and twitchy all afternoon. The girls were all ready to quit I think! The show ended with myself, as Santa, handing out candy to a few hundred noisy, anxious kids who couldn't form a proper line if their lives depended on it! I was as generous as I could with the chocolate and I know many kids went home very happy with their hauls! But this was just the beginning of our adventures on this wacky Sunday!

在结束和离开大厅,以避免支付出租车把我们带回学校,汉森带领大群员工几个街区到街上去赶公车。这是一个艰难的行走由于建筑物的重建,因为灰尘很厚,空气像一个老的煤矿小镇。公共汽车是滑稽。这里最便宜的公交车是微小的小公共汽车不是远远大于大货车没有加热或空调。这些公共汽车通常是相当完整的作为一个相对简单的方法来节省几元。公车汉森称赞几乎完全和他注定和确定,我们都将得到,无论它是什么。我们都站在校车和乔伊很紧张会使他生病了。必须有40人在公共汽车上为20或30的最多。clautrophic的地狱。我在公共汽车上的人感到难过不得不穿过我们的“guantlet”退出。 Andrea, Tina, Ivy and I ended up getting off a few blocks early and walking. I'm sure we were a funny site to anyone standing at a bus stop! As long as Hansen saved his pennies that's all that matters right?! Perhaps Hansen was smart to do so because he knew how much money he would be forking out (..or maybe it should be 'chop-sticking out') for dinner that night. He respectfully put on his other 'coat' and treated the whole staff, including Sophie's boyfriend to a giant Christmas feast! His stresses and worries instantly faded to show off a simple man who deeply cared for his staff. We all admitted that it was a welcome change to his usual, somewhat strange and always unnecessary edginess. Hansen even cried a little when he offered a nice 'cheers' to Amy who is leaving Kid Castle very shortly after working there for quite some time. The girls were STUNNED. So were Andrea and I. Hansen gained a little more respect from everyone that night. Although perhaps this is because he insisted on refilling our glasses of beer every five minutes! He constantly stood up and wished us a very Merry Christmas and a welcoming holiday in China. We took full advantage of his kindness that night, as did everyone. We were all very happy. Joey and Hansen more so than anyone else, as we ended up sending Hansen home in Sophie's van after he admitted to seeing two or three Joeys, and shortly afterwards Joey lasted just a few minutes at the bar before cabbing it home. Perhaps the funniest part of the night was watching Joey stroll around the restaurant kissing everyone of the Chinese teachers on the cheek. I think he even kissed Blanca (Hansen s wife), much to his dismay! Finally he sent Hansen off with a big kiss on the cheek! What a dinner! Who would have thought it would have been so fun! From there some us headed downtown to Tina's friends bar for a few drinks and to listen to some music. We couldn't believe our luck as we witnessed a guest guitarist from Tibet come and play some authentic Tibetan music live. His voice seemed to make two sounds at once and the harshness and raspiness of his voice sounded mysterious and authentic. Along with his guitar he also strummed on a classic, ornate Chinese instrument that resembled a mandolin. How fortunate we were to experience such a small, live performance such as this. It is a very small bar with great acoustics and the atmosphere made it all the more special. It felt like he was playing just for us! I had to thank him so I bought him a beer for which he bowed in thanks. We were honoured to hear him play. It turned us on to Tibetan music too, so different and unique. We had a great night, a perfect end to a lively weekend!

圣诞节周末在西安

过去的几天里肯定有一个过山车。在我们所有的活动和与朋友聚会,我们不禁感到一个很大的真空知道我们没有回家过圣诞节。这是第一次对我们没有回家过年的所以很容易发现自己很想家。我只是要告诉自己,这是一个巨大的礼物本身,在某种程度上,我们给自己的礼物和经验通过这种冒险的生活。所以一切都归结这是我们最好的和最差的圣诞节。这样一个推和拉的感觉。

无论如何,经过反复去我们当地的外国人食品商店在西安和荒谬的金钱支出成分,安德里亚,我(当然主要是Andrea)为我们的员工创造了一个美妙的圣诞晚餐,乔伊的公寓举行周五晚上下课后。如果感恩节是热身,这顿饭是真正的交易!与经典的肯德基,土豆泥、肉汁、馅,凉拌卷心菜,安德里亚也产生一个美味的三文鱼奶酪球,巧克力软糖蛋糕和一个了不起的草莓芝士蛋糕。具有讽刺意味的是,党的也许最大的打击是两碗果冻她了!女孩们喜欢它!他们在对它大加赞赏。我的帮助是在bacon-wrapped栗树(与真正的烤栗树!)'ouerves。几乎每个人都吃这么多的食物我们可以喝我们的酒!晚饭后我们有一个小礼物交换通过玩“白象”的游戏,你可以偷别人的礼物。员工非常喜欢,但我觉得他们有点太紧张开始偷礼物。 The three men there, Joey, David and myself ended up with the three funniest gifts; Joey with a cell phone 'charm' (he doesn't have a cell phone), David with a pink and yellow scarf, and I with a package of foot lotion! Can't wait to use that! After a week of preparing and getting the girls all excited with anticipation, our Christmas dinner was a huge success!

星期六的下午,安德里亚,我乘一辆公共汽车去市中心满足员工。我们都同意出去吃饭和与彼此共度平安夜在蒂娜的朋友的酒吧……也称为“在路上”。最近我们知道的人说,自定义(定义)在西安在圣诞前夜是许多人在城里头内城墙漫步街头。我们聪明的离开时,因为我们只有一个小时散步之前我们必须满足员工,我们想要一个机会走动,只是她和我我们惊讶地看着多少人充满了人行道。这个场景让我想起了我看过照片在位于市区繁华地带的长江北京最繁忙的街道。人无处不在,被迫移动几乎在单独的文件中。供应商每十英尺从闪烁的圣诞老人帽子到气球卖给万圣节面具。我认为有些人在这里得到西方节日有点向后。我们去钟楼前转身回去东圣我们停下来拍了许多的照片越来越多的人群。虽然很奇怪,但经历了多次“家”的感觉一样忙碌店面抨击英国圣诞节歌曲从巨大的安装扬声器系统。 Lights filled the streets and you could see the 'Christmas cheer' on people's faces. We met the staff for dinner at 6pm and ate at a restaurant that came from Mao Zedong's home town. There were posters of him everywhere and they alone created a somewhat more traditional Chinese atmosphere. From there we headed down the street to On The Road. The bar was all decked out for Christmas and we sat there and hung out for a while being treated to live guitar playing alongside a cello. Great music; authentic Chinese and we're even learning the melodies to some famous traditional songs. Around 10 o'clock, Andrea and I decided to join Joey's old roomate Tony from Ithaca, NY to venture out for a walk up East St. We were so glad we did. What a site! Approaching the street we could see that all traffic had stopped and vacated, as the four main gates of the city wall had been blocked for the evening. People everywhere walked up the middle of the street. There must have been hundred's of thousands of people in the downtown that night. There were people walking as far as the eye could see. Not doing anything specific...just walking! Apparently North St. was even busier!! Music played and people were yelling and laughing everywhere. Giant fireworks were being lit in surrounding neighbourhoods, and people on the street had firecrackers, sparklers, smoke bombs, you name it! We actually had to keep a keen eye out not to step on a lit cracker! We could see them smoking on the ground ahead of us, waiting to blow. As we walked, surprisingly we only saw two cops who were sharing a moped...did they have things under control?? My guess would be, not in the least...but everything was in good fun, and people were just out to have a good time. It was simply a mass of people of all ages out for a late night holler-fest downtown. It was incredible! We took some great pictures and video footage. We couldn't count how many times random revellers passed by yelling 'Hello' and 'Merry Christmas' to us in great English! I think people were happy to see we were having such a great time spending Christmas in their city! Heading back to the bar we couldn't help but wish to keep on walking...it didn't matter where we would go, I don't think anyone on the street had an actual destination! After spending another few hours at the bar we decided to call it quits and find a cab since the streets had finally reopened to traffic. Andrea, Tina, Ivy and I took a taxi to another street and decided to jump out and get a bite to eat from the late-night eateries. This is where the girls introduced us to our first experience of eating duck neck....yes duck neck! It must have been dried and cured and it came to us in cold but spicy pieces. We were so hungry, Andrea and I were eating duck neck like potato chips! After sitting down to some kaorou (beef skewers), youmou (grilled cumin bread) and pickled ginger, we stopped at a vendor and purchased a couple bowls of pear cider similar to hot apple cider back home. The cider at home is a little better, but this was served with kiwi slices, pineapple and white mushroom fungus...bizarre..you never know what you're going to get! We couldn't wait to get home to bed after this. So ended our Christmas Eve in Xi'an. An unforgetable experience to say the least.

圣诞节的早晨很好和放松对我们的几个电话回家。那天晚上安德里亚和我出去吃一口吃正宗的藏族餐馆,我们吃了芝麻白菜和奇妙的面条与羔羊肉。甚至乐观的茶是不同的味道。很好。我们见面以后我们的朋友大卫和他的同事在一个全新的爵士俱乐部在名为广州GroovJazz城墙。在这里我们有一些葡萄酒和一大群英国我们见过面,以及这个尼日利亚人名字亚历克斯,安迪从汉诺威,德国,这家伙谁拥有酒吧。爵士是优秀的,所以是公司。幸运的是几晚后,每个人都很累,没有太多的人呆很晚。我们想回家,寻找通过信使从家里打个电话。这是伟大的每个人都在家里吃早饭。 Wish I was there! Have a great New Year's and everyone behave themselves. I'm going to sign off and go soak my hands, I think I just gave myself Carpal-Tunnel!!