A Summer of Great Experiences

I have left China and made it home. The jet lag is ridiculous. My summer in Guizhou was beyond amazing. It was my summer vacation, but going to GFC was more than just a vacation. The summer was an eye opening experience. Meeting loads of friends from all over the world, making friends with some amazing students, learning about culture through friends, and learning about culture through making mistakes. It was all wonderful. There was not a time that I was truly bored. Some days may have been less eventful, but there was always someone to talk to and hang out with. Not only was I able to lean about Chinese culture at GFC, but because of our incredible multicultural intern and volunteer program I learned about cultures from all over the world. My travels in China this summer was not a couple weeks of taking buses with a tour group to hotels and museums. My summer, thanks to GFC, was 10 weeks and 4 days of meeting and creating special bonds with people, being submerged in culture, and working my way through situations with a huge language barrier in between. To be honest, being in a tour group and going places with them is very fun, but the real fun is when your on your own in a country you've never been to, where people speak a language u barely know, in situations you never thought of being in. That was my summer thanks to GFC and all the amazing friends I have met there.

 Air China sweeps me away from Guiyang to Shanghai with the sun behind me.

 Keunhee posts up a sticky for me on my last night in GFC.

 This was the last class I taught at GFC. I will surely miss these Hotel Management students. Photo Credit: Random student walking past the class room at the right time.

 On my last night my friends and I went out to have my last bowl of Huishui hot pot. Photo Credit: Chaley Ayers

 Emma, Me , and Gabi and Huanguoshu waterfall. Emma, Gabi, and I became very good friends this summer.

1 Week Countdown

As of today, my one week countdown to my departure has begun. Exactly one week from this moment I will be attempting to get cozy in a bed somewhere in a Shanghai hotel. The picture above is my Chinese name written in ancient characters. Unfortunately this is not the original name my grandmother gave me, but this is one that my friends here at GFC gave me. I could not write the characters of my entire name, but only my family name. Because of this, Peiling, one of my friends from Malaysia, and a couple other friends came up with this new name for me. My new Chinese name is Ye Tian La, which means "Daily Happiness""Everyday Happy" or "The Most Happy". Whichever one seems the best. All of us had one made during a trip to Qinyang village. I have come to realize that there is a truly special connection between all of us summer interns. We all have our own friends in our respective homes and colleges, but making friends here at GFC is a little different. When we all go to college, we mix with thousands in hopes to find a handful or so of people that we connect well with. This summer at GFC, there were around 20 of us who came to one little campus. We all come from very different walks of life, and from all corners of the planet, but we all bond extremely well. I feel that it takes a certain type of mentality to willingly come to the backwoods of China and teach, and I feel that it is this mentality that allows us to bond so well. Whatever the reason is for making such great friends this summer, the fact is that we all became so close. We've all known each other for about 2 months and we all know each other so well. Our chemistry is perfection, we work with each other but more importantly we have learned from each other. Maybe only I just have learned so much from them. I am glad to say that I have been able to spend time with this special group. Of course it must all come to an end and we all have to go back to our colleges. Some leave in 4 days, some in a week, and some a month from now. Many of us agree that the scattered departure times takes a real toll on our happiness. It is the time for constant sadness where people who we have amazing connections with are constantly leaving. Hopefully we can meet up again in different places around the world.

Fun in Guiyang

 A couple days ago I went to Guiyang with David. Originally the plan was that I would follow him to the passport office and then we would just hang around Guiyang for the rest of the day. The night before we went to Guiyang, David and I decided to invite many of our friends. Our group ended up being 8 people. When we got to Guiyang we decided it would be best of David went ahead to the passport office to meet Callum then we would all meet up later on. At the first bus stop we found a student who was going to the train station to get home. Since David only knew how to get to the passport office from the train station, he would hop a ride with the student to the train station. The student flagged down a random biker who would charge for the trip. The bike would be cheaper and faster than public transport. David left GFC today. He and I became good friends. As great of an experience this college offers us, it is also one of the saddest places. People are always coming and going. We all make friends then we all leave, and in reality we will most likely never see each other again. That is the one thing I hate about coming here.

 After David went off on the bike, the rest of the group and I went to go get some lunch. We took a public bus to the only Carrefour in the city. Carrefour is kind of like a Wal-mart, it has a lot of international goods. This is just a picture of Jen on the bus.

 After Carrefour, we all went to Guiyang Mountain Monkey Park. David and Callum told us it would be a nice place to burn some time and it would be a good place to meet up. The park was very awesome. This is the lake that you see upon entrance to the park. The entrance fee was about 5 yuan.

 As you enter the park, you can see cable cars heading to the highest point of the park. Everyone decided that it would awesome to take the cars up and then we would walk down. After I hopped into the car, everyone took a picture of the first person going up.

 Another pair, Jen and Bowie, loading up in the next car.

 This was the amazing view from the lower cable station.

 About halfway up I turned around and I saw this view. It is absolutely amazing.

 I snapped this picture right before I got up to the summit. This shot gives off such a Jurassic Park feel.

 The sexy shitless man at the top opens the door for us.

 At the top of the mountain this is the view of Guiyang. Guiyang is one of the most expensive cities to live in in China. Real-estate here is ridiculous, so I have been told.

 The picture above shows more of the industrialized side while this one shows more of the poorer side.

 As much as I hated getting a picture taken of myself, I knew I had to for two reasons: 1) it was an absolutely awesome place and 2) my mom would kill me if I didn't. Photo credit: Emma Lenz

 Two words: MONKEY BUTT!

 This monkey stole that bag of pop corn from the lady beside it. She tried to take it back but the monkey  grabbed it back from her.

 These two monkeys stole those bottels from people too. Crazy creatures these monkeys.

Huishui Streets

A couple days ago I found myself being overly lazy, so I decided to head into Huishui and take a couple pictures.

 I got into Huishui at the time the local schools let out for lunch. I saw these two friends come out of a little corner shop. What was really interesting was the conversation they were having. One boy has his arm around the other, and they seem to be engaged in a really deep, intense conversation.

 I went to see the corner shop the little boys came out of. It was a store that sold a type of dumpling soup. I figured I would try it out. The dumplings are made on order. This is the shopkeeper. She makes the dumplings infront of your table so you can see. It is nice that the dumplings are fresh, but the speed in which she makes them is just incredible. I timed her to see how many she could do in 10 seconds, it came out to be just about 15.

 This little girl and her father came in near the end of my meal. I tried to get a picture of the girl picking her nose, but instead I got the aftermath of the picked nose. She had already put her finger in her mouth.

Right before I left I saw these two little ones come through. Despite China's "One Baby" law, I think these two might be siblings. I actually see a lot of families with more than one child around here. Even though they could be siblings, I like to imagine this as a really crappy date.

Hot Pot Night

A couple weeks ago, I went out for hot pot with Erin, Keun Hee and Lincoln. Lincoln is a student to all 3 of us. This dinner was to celebrate Lincoln doing very well on his exams and to say farewell to Erin.

 The type of hot pot we got was divided into 2 sections. Spicy and non-spicy. How it works is that the soup base boils infront of you at the table, then you order raw food and then cook it in the soup yourself. I cannot read Chinese so Lincoln and Erin took care of the food. There is a bowl and a plate on the right side of the picture. The food on the plate is a type of sausage, not sure what kind of sausage though. The item in the bowl took me off guard. It is duck intestines. I thought it would be absolutely horrid, but it was really good. Let it sit for about 8 seconds in the boiling soup base, and it makes for a huge flavor explosion in your mouth.

 Here we have some beef, lamb, black mushrooms, fish, soup filled beef balls, chicken feet (my favorite), pork, and more. We ordered so much food that the waitress had to bring a little cart to put beside the table to hold everything.

 This picture was taken about halfway through the meal. Happy faces mean happy stomachs haha. Everyone except me stopped eating soon after. Since I have gotten to China my appetite has become so large, I eat non-stop. The head chef here calls me "Two Portion Josh".

This is the aftermath of the dinner. Absolutely 99.99% destroyed. Best meal I have had since I have been to China.

Bush Wackin'

The other day Callum, Gabi, and I took a hike up a hill. I am not sure if you guys have noticed, but there is a large hill that over looks the football field and track in some of my pictures. Well, we climbed it. The main reason for the climb was to get a good vantage point of the campus to get some pictures. I saw this flower right at the base of the hill. There was a flower that had bloomed there, but I accidentally knocked it off. Oops!

 Before we started our ascent, we walked around the base looking to see if there was a trail up. The only thing we could find was an overgrown logging trail turned into a water way. This trail took is up to a ridge about 200ft below where we wanted to be, but we went up. The logging trail was beyond the point of where it could be called steep. 80% of the climb on the logging trail was done on all fours. Since it was also had rained a couple days before, the trail was really slippery. We slipped a lot. The reason we are not on all fours in this picture is because it was one of the only parts of the trail i could stand comfortably enough to take a picture.

 At the top of the first ridge the trail stopped. So we took a couple photos. You can see here how dense and deep the brush was. That didn't stop us though, we kept on going.

This picture was taken at the top of the lower peak. It was the first view of the campus from above. This gave us hope that there would be an even better view at the highest point.

 After resting for a couple minutes, we were moving again. This picture was taken very near to the top of the peak, but the brush was too dense for us the push through. We couldn't find a clearing either, so no picture was taken. It was very disappointing, especially since we had pushed our way through so much crap. At around this point we were walking on so many fallen branches and trees we were pretty much suspended from the ground.

 

 On the way down, we became lost trying to find the trail we had previously made. We eventually found the logging trail again so we went down. We decided that the fastest and most fun was down would be on our asses. It was awesome. Callum went first, I followed closely which turned into me crashing into him.

 Gabi was behind me and she came down faster than both me and Callum. She crashed into both of us.

At the bottom of the mountain we were absolutely covered in crap. Callum cut his hand sliding while trying to push a thorn branch of of his way. That same thorn branch hit me in the chest. Gabi was untouched. We decided that since our first ascent was disappointing, we will go one more time. This time with something to cut our way to the top.

Exam Week

English teachers were asked to administer their exams starting this week. Today I began with the interview section of the exam. After writing our exam, we give them to the English department which prints them and places them in sealed packets. For me to administer the exam to the class, I have to show the sealed envelope infront if the class then break the seal infront of them. We will see how well they do in the next 3 days of English examinations.