Beijing!

Ni Hao!
Sorry that I hadn't posted yet - but we haven't really had any downtime until now! Right now it is noontime in Tongliao, and I am sitting at my new desk in my new room which is part of our new apartment building right on campus here at the Tongliao Number 1 Middle school!! More to come about that. I'll start at the beginning of China, when we got off the plane and go from there.

So, we got off the plane, went through customs (rather smoothly) grabbed our luggage and went out to find a large crowd waiting for everyone getting off the plane, of different walks of life. We searched the crowd and found this skinny, goofy, excited man with a big happy smile plastered across his face waving at us with a big sign that had all of our names on it, and "Tongliao No. 1 Middle School!". This is David (aka Gaowei) who quickly has become our best friend here at school. He introduced us to Mr. Zheng (our boss, and David's boss) who is also one of the most interesting and hilarious people I've ever met. David's english is superb, whereas Mr. Zheng's is a little choppy at times. Both of them are extremely kind hearted and great people to work with.
Anywho, we took a private bus out of the airport and into Beijing until we arrived at a hotel that we were at for aprox. 5 minutes before being brought to the train station in order to send our luggage to Tongliao via train the day before we left. Mind you, EVERYTHING that happens in China is last minute, and you aren't really told what is happening. It's just something you get used to. It was also raining when we were doing this whole luggage fiasco, and trust me, the story is ridiculous. But I digress - we bus'd it back to our hotel, got a chance to shower (after our 14 hour plane ride. Ugh.) and we all walked over to a small traditional chinese restaurant for dinner. Dinner in China is UNREAL. The food is usually wonderful (or extremely weird - you have to pick and choose) and it was at this dinner we discovered Pei-Joe (Chinese beer) and Bai-Joe (Chinese liquor). Pei-Joe is actually pretty good - it's a light beer, and pretty tasty. Bai-Joe is ALL Mr. Zheng drinks. The stuff is LETHAL. Literally hell in a bottle. God bless the man for drinking that stuff. Anywho, dinner was grand (more on Chinese eating habits later), we went home and hit the hay.
The next morning we woke up in Beijing and were ready for a big day with David and Mr. Zheng. We went to the olympic stadiums, The Water cube and the Bird's nest and checked that out. Next we took a bus to Tiananmen square and gate, and got a quick peek inside the Forbidden City. I guess the city is HUGE, so we didn't really have enough time to check it all out. But it looked beautiful. After that, we took a 20 minute walk to Wangfujing street - a very famous street in Beijing for it's shopping, etc. We exchanged money there, had lunch (noodles) and did a little shopping. There were a lot of small street shops everywhere - and a small snack street. I bought a little book of Mao quotations, and that was basically it. From this street, we went to the train station (huge) to wait for our night train to Tongliao. The train ride was relatively easy.. the accomodations were small but comfortable, and we were exhausted. We all slept through the night and woke up about a half hour before the train stopped. And there we were!! TBC in the next post.

BIG NEWS!

On the advent of the official beginning of Fall, we finally have our set leave date. September 20th at 6am out of Logan Airport, Boston. The journey is now VERY real. Oh dear.

Things done recently:
-Said goodbye to friends and family everywhere, NYC, Providence, and home respectively.
-Had a lunch date with two of the ladies that recently returned home to the States that were enlisted in the teaching positions that our group will be replacing. Three of the girls that I will be traveling over to China with also jumped into the lunch. Extremely informative, nerve releasing, and exciting conversation!
-Visited the Hall of Asian History in the Museum of Natural History in New York City. Research!

With any hope, the next post I pile into this journal will concern living in the Orient! 'Til then!

Developmentals

So it's August 6th.. T-MINUS 1 DAY AND A FEW HOURS TIL THE OLYMPICS BEGIN! But that's besides the point. The big news is that our departure date for China has been pushed back by a couple of weeks. Rather than August 20th, we have been set back to leave for September 15th - due to security issues, etc. with the Olympics in Beijing. This is from the directors of our program... Check it out:

Dear 08 China Group:

Due to the Olympics, the government of China has been very strict - and somewhat secretive until the last minute - about visas, including work visas. Even top businesses people are not getting visas until September

The entire PC Group has been approved for the visas, but no one is getting them unti September, including business executives. Many other teaching applicants have not been approved because they did not follow the strict - and somewhat confusing - application process.

There was a delay last year in following the new application process. We followed it this year and are approved, but the ban on all but Olympics Visas until Sept is a blanket ban.

Everything should proceed smoothly in September, as it did last year.

Love, China.

So basically what this means is thus: I'l be at work for an extra two weeks, then spending September at home before shooting off to the other side of the world.

How about THAT!?

Pre-Travel Notes!

Greetings, salutations and above all, Ni Hao! Welcome to my newly constructed Blog created in an attempt to record and catalog my next year or so living and teaching English at the Tongliao #1 Middle School in Tongliao, China (Inner Mongolia Province).

Today is July 28, a lovely Monday, and I'm living right now in Providence, RI. Currently, our leave date for China is set for August 20th. There are a whopping 6 fresh college alumni from Providence College (all Class of '08, like me) that will going to China to teach, myself included! All of us have been getting ready for our flight and just enjoying the last few weeks of America we have remaining. I've been working at a Country Club in Barrington for the past two months, and living with a few of my most adored friends from college for the time being.

Starting August 10th I'll have moved back into New Hampshire (my true home) until I leave for good. Aside from work I have had a decent amount of free time this summer - if you're curious, I've been spending most of it reading (Catch-22 right now), hittin' the beach, visiting as many friends as humanly possible, and trying to get all my ducks in a row.

I can't start to explain the anticipation and excitement I have built up for this coming job and adventure - it's almost ridiculous. Almost every other night I've spent time looking at pictures from cities and places around China where I'll be living, OR watching youtube videos of the team of Providence College students that are over in China right NOW who did the same program that we are coming to replace them for. Check out the videos to see some of the things I'll be doing!

I'm going to try to do some justice to this Blog and load it up with as many pictures and documented items as possible over the next year in my travels - make sure anyone who keeps up on it constantly yells at me to work on it so people can have at least some menial idea as to what I'm up to! Thanks!

More updates to come as they float into my life!

RL