Weekend in Guangzhou

            This weekend was full of activities! Yesterday morning us 10 teachers, all of our teaching assistants, and a handful of the camp staff took a charter bus to Guangzhou, the capital of the province Guangdong, which is where the town we are living in (Dongguan) is located. We first went to the Canton TV Tower, which is now a popular landmark of the city. It was 114 floors to the top, plus a big antenna thing on top. We first went to the 107 and 108 floors to view the city. I sent a couple postcards home from floor 107! Hopefully they get to the US before I get back. 

            After about 20 minutes, a few of us got the idea to ride the World’s Highest Vertical Freefall, which was on the top floor on the big antenna. After jumping off the World’s Tallest Bungee Bridge in South Africa last summer, I couldn’t turn the opportunity down! The drop was about 10 meters, so not too tall, but it was pretty frightening at the very top before being dropped because you could see the whole city for miles and miles and miles. The second drop was terrifying. The hydraulics of the seats shifted us forward so we were face down looking at the ground before dropping. Yes, I screamed. Yes, I cried a little. Yes, I am a bit of a daredevil. No, my parents didn’t know until after. 

 View of the city from the 108th floor. 

 The Canton Tower :) 

            After the Canton tower we went to a shopping mall and had McDonalds for lunch. It is so popular here and a little bit different than the US. The university paid for our lunch and our TA’s lunches, so it was more a treat for them than it was for us. In the afternoon we went to a “theme park” called Lingnan Impressions. It was kind of like a park with a few streets of old buildings and lots of shops and a few shows. It was cool, but it poured down rain on us and the Chinese TAs and staff did not understand that we did not need to stay together as a big group of 30. It was a little stressful, but the buildings were beautiful and we saw a lot of the older Chinese culture and traditions.

The 10 UNI teachers

            Today, Sunday, us teachers and three TAs went into the city of Dongguan and went to a market called Lady’s Park. There were multiple streets and alleys of shops and stores that we walked through. Most of the stuff was not touristy stuff or things to buy as gifts or souvenirs, but a few of us girls got really cute backpacks. There was a lot of clothes and shoes. We ate at Pizza Hut for lunch and went to Walmart, which was similar, but had a lot of different things, then came back to our campus. Tonight we are getting ready for the second week of camp and trying to recoop from our experiences of the weekend!

Week One - Almost Done!!

            Week one of three of China English Summer Camp is almost over! The days seem to go by very slowly, but the week has gone by fast for the most part. The days are full of teaching and the nights have different activities depending on what night it is. Last night we had another English Corner and it always starts out with talking to different students and classmates about a topic. Eventually we venture off and talk about random things. After answering questions like why my hair is red and why I have “black makeup” (sleepy bags) under my eyes, I taught my class the slap game. The loved it!

            Today is Friday and we all had to give a test to our students. This afternoon another class and mine are watching Space Jam. The areas that I think need the most improvement are speaking and pronunciation. They also struggle with hearing and understanding foreigners. I feel like I repeat instructions a million times before they understand what they need to do for each activity.

            Tomorrow we are going to Guangdong, which is the capital of the province we are living in right now. The city I am in is Dongguan. Sunday we are going to a market for a few hours then getting ready for the week. I hope to talk to more people at home this weekend, but the 13-hour time difference makes life difficult!!

            Yesterday was our first day of teaching! The day started out with an opening ceremony that included two faculty members from Dongguan University of Technology speaking, as well as our camp director, Yana Cornish. Yana and the Vice President of the University exchanged school flags, then the 10 of us teachers did a half-hour performance of fun songs and skits. Ceremonies are very popular in China, so we will also have a closing ceremony to end the camp.

            The students know English pretty well. Speaking it is the hardest part for most of them and pronunciation is pretty awful. The letter “r” sound and the “th” sound are very foreign to them. My students like to repeat words a lot after I say them, especially words with the letter “r” in the middle. Most are very shy to speak out loud, so I have had to make it clear that the only way they will learn is to continuously speak English aloud.

            I have 16 students in my class. 5 girls and 11 boys. All of our classrooms are in the same building in the same hallway. My class joins with another class for the first hour of every day to review what we learned the day before and then I teach solo for the rest of the day. The day went by fast, but we will see once I get through a whole day of teaching!

            The schedule for each day is about the same. We have class from 8:30-11:20, lunch/siesta from 11:30-2:30, class from 2:40-4:30, an afternoon activity from 4:50-5:50, and an evening activity from 7-8:30 everyday. We are not required to go to the evening activity, but last night’s was a lot of fun, so most of us teachers will probably end up going to them anyway.

            Our meals are still good. We do not get much meat, but when we do it’s usually pretty spicy. Not much rice or noodles (even though we would love to eat them) and a lot of bread. The Chinese do not have different foods for breakfast and the other meals. We have chicken nuggets almost every morning for breakfast along with Coca Cola. They only have small packets of instant coffee, but tea is more common.

            Hope all is well at home!

Teaching English in China - Day 1 and 2!!

            First full day – check! After leaving Cedar Rapids around 6:30 am Thursday morning and spending a fun 5-hour layover in Chicago, the 15 and a half hour plane ride to Hong Kong went very smooth. I sat next to an older Chinese woman who did not know how to work her personal TV, and she did not have a problem with waking me up from two different naps to ask for help. It wouldn’t have been so terrible except her screen was in Mandarin, so I had to look back and forth from my screen in English to help her, which of course caused me to lose my spot in whatever movie or TV show I was watching at the time. That was my first eye opener to the Chinese culture. J

            After going through immigration and luggage claim, Yana, my professor and I, met a driver who drove us three hours to Dongguan. We also had to go through a security checkpoint in the van to leave Hong Kong then another checkpoint and customs to enter China. I had no clue that the two countries hated each other so much! There are so many unnecessary differences between the two even though they are neighbors – for example, in Hong Kong the steering wheels in cars are on the right and in China they are on the left.

            I got to my room on the university campus I am teaching at around 11 pm on Friday, which is 10 am Iowa time. My first night of sleep was terrible. The beds are hard as rock and have absolutely no give. My shower was an experience considering they don’t use shower curtains in China. After going outside this morning, within the first five minutes I wasn’t sure why I had even showered because I was drenched in sweat.

            The humidity here is unbelievable. The canteen where we (the 10 of us teachers) eat a family style breakfast, lunch, and dinner is a ten-minute walk and if we aren’t drenched in sweat from being outside, we are drenched in rain water. It rains at very random times throughout the day and when it rains, it rains hard. 

            After breakfast today we had a campus tour by our teaching assistants that are all English majors of some sort at this university and each of us have one or to TAs assigned to us for the duration of the camp to help with random tasks or to translate if necessary. They are also working on their English, so it is a great program for them.

            If you have any questions about anything I am experiencing here in China feel free to email me! schantza@uni.edu 

It all feels like a dream...

I never finished my blog so here goes!...

I made it back to Iowa the night of Saturday, August 20. I had an ordeal the morning of in Naples when they told me my final destination was Amsterdam instead of Cedar Rapids!! After finally figuring that out and barely boarding my plane, I was on my way home after ten weeks in Italy. I flew to Rome then from Rome to Atlanta then to Cedar Rapids. The flight from Rome to Atlanta was roughly 10 and a half hours, but a friend that was in the Sicily group and I changed our tickets so we were sitting by each other. We shared pictures and videos from our summers which was fun. :) I said a sad goodbye to him in Atlanta as I headed back to Iowa and he headed back home to Cali. :(

My mom and dad were waiting for me in Cedar Rapids with a pretty sign saying "Welcome Home from Italy, Allison!" The first thing I noticed was Allison...I was used to Alli all summer!! After getting my luggage we stopped at Texas Roadhouse for supper...you have NO idea how great chicken strips and mashed potatoes tasted!! Also, I got FREE refills on my strawberry lemonade...WOW!!

Sunday was a stressful day...I got up early to pack for school. I got to see my grandparents and a couple aunts for a few minutes, then left around noon for Cedar Falls! My parents moved my stuff into my dorm the Friday before, so luckily I just had my clothes and some other small things. It felt AMAZING to drive!! :) I missed driving so much!

The first week of school I got sick, but I heard that it wasn't uncommon for people to get sick when they get back to the states. I jumped right in to school, work, sorority recruitment, and LIFE!

I don't think a day has gone by without some memory crossing through my head about this amazing summer. :) I have been back in Iowa for 25 days and I still miss Italy a ton. Some nights when I'm doing my homework I'll find my mind start to wander to this summer, so I pull up pictures. You may think that this is a distraction or an act of procrastination, but it is the only thing I can do to remind myself that this summer was not a dream.

This is the fourth week I've been back to school and I miss my staff like crazy!! If you're reading this I want to say thanks for the memories you made with me this summer and I can't wait to see all of you soon!! To all my other fans of this blog, thanks for following me all summer!! I'll have another one when I go wherever this winter and next summer. :)

Ischia!!

This weekend we went to ISCHIA!! It's one of my favorite places of the whole trip...so gorgeous :) We left a decent time on Saturday and got to Naples to take the ferry, but of course with our luck we missed the one that we should have been on, so instead we waited for two and a half hours to get on the 1355 ferry.

After getting to the island, and finding our hostel, we found a beach. The beach we found was pretty rocky...actually very rocky and of course we took the roughest way down to the water. My hands got scratched pretty good...a little painful :/ The water felt so nice though. We went back to our hostel and took a shuttle to a restaurant that was very yummy! I got gnocci again and very delicious cheesecake.

Sunday we got up and found natural hot springs which were very cool, except my feet got cut up by the rocks in the water as well as my hands from trying to keep from falling when I slipped. After staying there for awhile, we took a water taxi to another beach thats known for its hot sand. It was SOO hot. It was unbearable to even run on, let alone stand or walk. It was usually okay when you were on your towel, but holy buckets it was hot.

We took the forever long bus back to the original port and hopped on a ferry to get back to Naples. Ischia was a lot bigger than I thought, and was a lot less-touristy than Capri and the Amalfi Coast. I think that's why I liked it better. I'm going back next weekend for our last weekend here :(

2 weeks from today I start classes at UNI!! I got my work schedule for the first week today, so it's starting to hit hard that I'm going home :( In some ways I'm ready to come home, but in others, I'm not. I'll miss Italy and everyone hardcore when I get back!!

I hope everything at home is going swell and I'll see you soon!!

Milano and Pisa

This weekend one of the guys, Zach, and I went to Milan and Pisa. After a really rough week last week and the other guy having to leave, it was so nice for the week to end!! We were supposed to go on an overnight train from Aversa to Milan, but we got to Aversa and there was some sort of fire, so no trains were going out at all. We went home after getting Donor Kebabs (SO good) and came back early Saturday morning to leave at 4:51 am.

We got to Milan around 11, figured out the Metro system, found our hotel, and headed to the place where we were supposed to meet for our tour we had already paid for. We couldn't find the place at all and ended up following another couple who said they had a tour at the same time we did. We didn't figure out until we were already there that it was a different tour...oops. So, we took the metro back to where we started and found the right place. By that time we had missed the beginning of the tour, so we walked to the Duomo and met up with them.

The Duomo was so cool...very big and reminded us a lot like Disney's castle in Walt Disney World. So pretty!! :) After getting on the bus, we did a panoramic view of the city. There was a lot of contrast between different parts of the city. Some parts would be very very modern, and others were very old.

We went to a castle, where we ended up going back for to eat supper, then went to a small chapel where the Last Supper was. We got to go inside and see it...very surprising to me! I always thought it was smaller painting in a frame...boy was I wrong!? It was painted on a wall...a large wall. It was so neat to see.

We went back to the train station to reserve our tickets for Sunday, then went back to the area around our hotel. We tried to find the big soccer stadium, but there was a big wall blocking it, so we ended up turning around. Then we went back (again) to the castle and walked around the park there. We found a restaurant that when you paid 8 euro for a drink, you got a free buffet with it. It was very good :)

Sunday we left Milan around 9:15 and went to Pisa. We saw the leaning tower, and that was about it. We got some more donor kebabs then went back to the train station. It was fun to see, but other than that, Pisa is boring. We ended up going back to Florence to get on a high speed train to Naples. Just our luck, there was another delay in Naples, so our PD, Alex, had to pick us up again. I got home a lot later than I thought.

Along with Alex, was our new counselor, Meghan! She came from Germany and will be with us the rest of the summer. I hope we don't scare her away :)

 The castle and fountain we saw many many times

 Duomo

 Arches we walked by Saturday night

 Restaurant where we ate supper

me and the leaning tower :)