Thursday, October 20, 2005
Tropical Paradise Weekend!
Hi Guys,
Hannah here for a change. Well the most exciting thing we have done recently is go to Sanya on the south coast for a weekend, it was great (see photos!). Its about four hours by bus and is definitely going to become a weekend retreat during the year. We stayed in a gorgeous resort in a place called Yalong Bay which means Asian Dragon Bay, its a beautiful 7km stretch of white sand beach and palm trees. Our resort definitely had the nicest stretch of beach and had the coolest swimming pool. We finish teaching at 12 on fridays so were able to get there by 5pm and headed straight for the pool. We had an interesting Buffet dinner with strange combinations of Chinese and Western food, some of the labels of the dishes were really amusing Chinglish but unfortunately I can't remember any. One thing I do remember though is that in the information pack in our room it said that all their food had been created by top "cats", we think they must mean chefs as the food was pretty good. Also, by the buffet there was this guy with a big hot plate making "Indian style pancakes" filled with fruit or meat. He was so funny to watch, he rolled out the pancakes and then picked them up and swivelled them around his head whilst wiggling his hips in the most bizarre way and then let the pancakes blow up into the size of a football before popping them, the Chinese guests were just stood around watching him really seriously and we were sitting nearby having dinner in absolute hysterics at his wiggles. The resort was completely open to the elements and had a lovely sea-breeze running through it, it wasn't very busy so we had a completely relaxing, quiet break. On the Saturday we spent most of the morning on the beach splashing around in the sea on huge inflatable hoops. The water was so clear and warm and then we collapsed onto some sunloungers for a while before spending the afternoon by the pool. The breakfast buffets were amazing, with bacon, sausages and actual proper bread which is a very exciting thing to have in China. Somehow whilst relaxing on a tropical beach I managed to pick up a nasty cold and by Sunday was too ill to enjoy being outside so we headed back to Haikou in the morning rather than have most of Sunday on the beach as planned, it was a bit disappointing but we had a great time during the rest of the weekend and will definitely be going back there as often as we can afford it!
Not much has happened since then. We are both enjoying the teaching. I only have two classes and the one I see for eight hours a week is a little first year class of fifteen students who are doing Home management, training to work in the domestic service industry in either Korea or Israel. It seems quite bizarre, they spend their time learning how to clean and look after children and then have quite a large amount of English lessons. Their English is not that great, Rupert's first years have much better English as they are English Majors, but they are so sweet. They seem really small and young, there is one boy and fourteen girls, the boy seems very shy and a bit overwhelmed by it all, someone told me that the course has only just been opened up to boys and I suppose he is a bit of a guinea pig. Anyway I have been teaching him for a few weeks and have just managed to get him to speak to me, so far its just been the odd word or two but I'm working on it and hopefully soon he'll manage to give me a whole sentence! The rest of them are so cute and keen and I feel I am getting to know them really well, all the other classes here have thirty five or more students so its great to have such a small class.
We're planning to buy bikes this weekend as we live on the edge of town and there are a couple of rivers next to the campus with paths alongside them and we're hoping to go and explore some countryside. Apparently its very quiet and peaceful, you just have to watch out for the odd water buffalo straying onto the path.
We are so enjoying the food here, a friend has translated a couple of menus from restaurants on or next to the campus so we have gone from being able to order from a choice of about eight or so dishes I actually know the names of to having menus with tens of dishes to choose from, it is pretty cool, although now we will definitely be needing the bikes to start working off all this food!
Tomorrow afternoon we are going to attempt to get Rupert's haircut, it should be interesting, we have been recommened a hairdresser but I doubt we'll ever find it and if we do the results could be quite amusing as my Chinese is not really up to describing hairstyles. I am looking forward to it and will be sure to take photos if the results are comical..................
Hannah here for a change. Well the most exciting thing we have done recently is go to Sanya on the south coast for a weekend, it was great (see photos!). Its about four hours by bus and is definitely going to become a weekend retreat during the year. We stayed in a gorgeous resort in a place called Yalong Bay which means Asian Dragon Bay, its a beautiful 7km stretch of white sand beach and palm trees. Our resort definitely had the nicest stretch of beach and had the coolest swimming pool. We finish teaching at 12 on fridays so were able to get there by 5pm and headed straight for the pool. We had an interesting Buffet dinner with strange combinations of Chinese and Western food, some of the labels of the dishes were really amusing Chinglish but unfortunately I can't remember any. One thing I do remember though is that in the information pack in our room it said that all their food had been created by top "cats", we think they must mean chefs as the food was pretty good. Also, by the buffet there was this guy with a big hot plate making "Indian style pancakes" filled with fruit or meat. He was so funny to watch, he rolled out the pancakes and then picked them up and swivelled them around his head whilst wiggling his hips in the most bizarre way and then let the pancakes blow up into the size of a football before popping them, the Chinese guests were just stood around watching him really seriously and we were sitting nearby having dinner in absolute hysterics at his wiggles. The resort was completely open to the elements and had a lovely sea-breeze running through it, it wasn't very busy so we had a completely relaxing, quiet break. On the Saturday we spent most of the morning on the beach splashing around in the sea on huge inflatable hoops. The water was so clear and warm and then we collapsed onto some sunloungers for a while before spending the afternoon by the pool. The breakfast buffets were amazing, with bacon, sausages and actual proper bread which is a very exciting thing to have in China. Somehow whilst relaxing on a tropical beach I managed to pick up a nasty cold and by Sunday was too ill to enjoy being outside so we headed back to Haikou in the morning rather than have most of Sunday on the beach as planned, it was a bit disappointing but we had a great time during the rest of the weekend and will definitely be going back there as often as we can afford it!
Not much has happened since then. We are both enjoying the teaching. I only have two classes and the one I see for eight hours a week is a little first year class of fifteen students who are doing Home management, training to work in the domestic service industry in either Korea or Israel. It seems quite bizarre, they spend their time learning how to clean and look after children and then have quite a large amount of English lessons. Their English is not that great, Rupert's first years have much better English as they are English Majors, but they are so sweet. They seem really small and young, there is one boy and fourteen girls, the boy seems very shy and a bit overwhelmed by it all, someone told me that the course has only just been opened up to boys and I suppose he is a bit of a guinea pig. Anyway I have been teaching him for a few weeks and have just managed to get him to speak to me, so far its just been the odd word or two but I'm working on it and hopefully soon he'll manage to give me a whole sentence! The rest of them are so cute and keen and I feel I am getting to know them really well, all the other classes here have thirty five or more students so its great to have such a small class.
We're planning to buy bikes this weekend as we live on the edge of town and there are a couple of rivers next to the campus with paths alongside them and we're hoping to go and explore some countryside. Apparently its very quiet and peaceful, you just have to watch out for the odd water buffalo straying onto the path.
We are so enjoying the food here, a friend has translated a couple of menus from restaurants on or next to the campus so we have gone from being able to order from a choice of about eight or so dishes I actually know the names of to having menus with tens of dishes to choose from, it is pretty cool, although now we will definitely be needing the bikes to start working off all this food!
Tomorrow afternoon we are going to attempt to get Rupert's haircut, it should be interesting, we have been recommened a hairdresser but I doubt we'll ever find it and if we do the results could be quite amusing as my Chinese is not really up to describing hairstyles. I am looking forward to it and will be sure to take photos if the results are comical..................
