Went on an excursion today! The Chinese department cancelled classes and took everybody out to the countryside. We headed north out of town but beyond that, I have absolutely no idea where we were. Doesn't really matter though. It was a beautiful sunny day, lots of cornfields and wide open spaces and it was an opportune excuse to get out of the city for awhile.

Our first stop was a small elementary school where they escorted us into a classroom to teach a mini-English lesson. Us four Americans taught the kids "Take me out to the Ball Game" and the proper way to sing the ABCs and were just getting to itsy bitsy spider when the PA system came on signaling stress relief time. Yes that's right, the 10-year olds gave their temples and eyes self massages in time with the counting being piped in over the speakers. Our lesson was unfortunately over.

Recess came next and many of the kids found it highly amusing to chase one of the Japanese students who was with us around the playground. Darren told all the kids that he was a rabbit and that they should let the Japanese go free, but chase him as soon as he got a little ways away. It was very cute.



This is probably too much information for many of you but thought I'd share anyway because well, I was...proud? I've mastered the art of using the restroom in public. Yep, squatted right down next to another person and did my stuff. This is a big deal because there are no stalls in public restrooms...in fact, restrooms routinely consist of nothing more than a stone platform with a holes cut out. Needless to say, using one of these without shame is an important achievement.

After the school, we bussed to a nearby hill park where we were told to "go climb mountains but be back by 1." It was basically a walk through a foresty area but Darren and I found some stairs and hiked around to the top of some hills which afforded a pretty good view of the surrounding areas.



On the way back down, we were persuaded to pay 2 kuai and ride a donkey cart down the hill. Entertaining to say the least and the man even let us drive! Look how much fun Darren is having~ :-)


We had lunch after that which was basic countrystyle food (read: slightly more plain and far less greasy than what you'd find in the city. We had boiled sweet potatoes, various chicken, lamb and beef dishes, some vegetables, soup...to be honest, the food just kept coming and we left feeling quite satisfied.

We went to a vineyard after that where we got to buy some of the largest grapes I've ever seen! So tasty too! It was so peaceful and cool, I could have sat around under the grapes all day. A very contented and relaxing way to spend the day.



Paul and Jeremy (hiding in the back) are from America (Paul actually graduated from Willamette eons ago and Jeremy is from Indiana) and DJ is from South Korea.



In other news...

This week I met with my tutor for the first time. She's a second year student who's studying to teach Chinese as a foreign language so this will mean good learning opportunities for the both of us, methinks.
I got paid! (Woot)
I was published in the Shenyang Daily paper. They ran a story on Teacher's Day (National Teacher Appreication Day) and they interviewed a bunch of foreign teachers and did a little blurb on each of them. Nevermind that some of what they published I never actually said, I got my picture in the paper and it's a decent article so I can't complain. :-) If I run across a scanner, I'll post it here at some point maybe.
Freshmen and graduate school classes start next week and then we have a week long holiday for Golden Week (Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day coincide within 7 days of each other and so it becomes a long vacation and an excuse to travel. The department is taking us to Chunzhang next Friday for a few days of sightseeing which will be really fun. After that I think I might take some day trips to places around the province but nothing too long. I'm not real excited about traveling when everyone else is and so I think I'm going to use the time to get lesson plans and whatnot figured out for the semester so that I can spend free time actually doing things that I want to do. Here's to no more procrastination!

Hope you're all doing well~I updated the comment option on here so now anyone can write comments, not just people with blogs. I'd love to hear from you all!