Hi! So let me tell you all about my Beijing-week! We (being grade 7,8 and the teachers (including myself :p)) left for beijing on Tuesday morning. We divided the kids in color groups..Cathy and I were in charge of the purple group..each group had about 8 kids which was plenty :p We managed to get them on the bus and about 2hours later we arrived at Miniature world..It s like mini-Europa but then Mini-world...The weather was cold but sunny and since it was a week day, the park wasn't busy at all, which was nice..I went to Belgium, Russia, France, America,..haha :) It was cool (yes i took some pictures). The kids were good too, well until they discovered the 'rent your cart here' stand :p Anyways we had no collisions of any kind..we did find a camera..(which the unlucky kid got back on our way to Teda at the end of the trip :p). After Miniature world and a sandwich we left to go to our hotel in the center of Beijing. Three starts, so comfortable but nothing fancy..although being a teacher definitely has its perks,,..we got the hotel 'suites'.. I roomed with Maryanne which was really fun ;) The bathroom door was kinda crappy though, it was easy to get in but it took you at least 5 min to get out again...After everyone checked into their rooms we went out for dinner: Buffet at an Italian restaurant.. cool place,..you got to write on the wall :) original ! After dinner we got back in the bus, this time to go see a famous Acrobat show..We got there a little late,..if you ever come to Beijing you ll get it (traffic).. But the show was really amazing!! It was a 1.5h show but it felt like 10 min cause you were so fascinated by the whole thing :) After that the kids were getting tired (YES!) and so we went back to our hotel.. It was a nice calm night, everyone was in their rooms by 10pm and the lights were switched off by 10.30pm. Smooth :) The next morning a knock on the door woke us up..Uncle Bart with (Mc Donalds) coffee..;) Better than no coffee :p There was a little confusion about breakfast hour and of course everyone showed up at the same time...But we split them up in 2 shifts and eventually they all had their breakfast in time... Wednesday was bike trip/museum day! I was with group one and so we got to do the bike trip in the morning.. The trip itself was really nice and you go places you normally wouldnt go or know they existed,..but I couldnt fully enjoy that since some of the kids who supposedly were able to ride a bike needed some basic 'how do i ride a bike' rules,..and then there was a little part on the road where i was stressing to make sure the kids didnt get run over by a taxi/bus.. :P I had the back and so i got to talk to the back-guide..so i ended up getting all the tourist information :p He also thought it was really funny to repeat what i was saying so i would go ' Go Go Go' and then he would go ' Go go go' :) This did start to annoy me after a while :p After the two hour bike ride we had Korean for lunch (really nice) and then the kids could go buy snacks in this Ole shop it was funny when i told them they could go shop there i said: Ok and now you can go and buy snacks in the Ole winkel ...uhm shop :p After that we went to the Science and technology museum.. Kinda like Technopolis but then 3 times bigger..But since it was a week day and there werent really a lot of visitors a lot of stuff didnt work and then for me the stuff that did work was in chinese :p But the space ship was fun :p It had all the cool science things to do..so the kids had fun :) (i did too :p) After that we all washed our hands and went through the 'let me sniff your hands (uncle Bart) inspection' After that we went out for dinner.. Pasta night at the Italian restaurant again ;) The evening activity that night was Bowling! I was on a roll man :) It was funny .It was my turn and i suddenly get this phone call from my mom. So I had the phone in one hand and threw the ball with the other ..and managed to hit 8 pins :) Haha :) After bowling we went back to the hotel hoping it would be another smooth night,...Think again... at 11.30 we got 2 girls playing cards in the boys room...This resulted in them being put on a train and send home the next day with the whole disappointment speech included, i felt bad for them but there really wasnt anything that could be done.....That day was The Great Wall of China day ! Yaay! When we got there we were kinda panicking at first since the hill going up to the wall was really icy ..and if the wall was going to be like that no way we could take the kids.. But luckily the sun had melted away most of the ice and so we started our hike! The fastest group managed to complete the walk in 2.20h,..the slowest group ( including 3 of the teachers) needed 5h :p But the wall itself was amazing, really really worthwhile ! The frist part was pretty difficult though but towards the end it got easier and all the kids got to the finish :) There was this really cute boy Ji Han who was walking about 5 min in front of me and when you got to this certain point you couldnt go through the tower but you had to turn right..right before entering the tower,..so suddenly we see him standing in the tower yelling at us : I cant find the exit ?! I cant get out?! So we yell back ; go out and turn right Ji han ! It was so funny when we got there a few minutes later he was still circling the tower trying to find the exit :) The very last part of the wall was a mean little sucker though because you had been going down for about 20 min but to get to the exit you suddenly had to go up (and i mean up as in vertically up :P) While we were waiting for the last group to arrive this couple (South African/Austrian) showed up wondering if they could get a ride back to Beijing. They had been travelling through Russia (transsiberian) and now China..it was really interesting talking to them..Fortunately after signing a little piece of paper they could to come along with us :) Talking for the 2h ride to James (teacher) who s been living in China for 3 years now..:p When we got back (late again) we got ready for the pizza/movie night..Our room was the Star Trek room (live long and prospher) The pizza had gone cold by that time but since everyone was pretty hungry no one really cared :p After that everyone went to bed.. the next morning (the last day) we got to sleep in...We left the hotel around 9.30 to go shopping right across the street in Silk Street! Hello Hello, Lookie Lookie, Cheapie Cheapie :p Im getting really good at bargaining btw :) But i was a bit overwhelmed and so only bought a jacket and pants (which i needed, but i needed a lot more really :p) Lunch was Mc Donalds..Didnt feel like it so had some fruits instead...Then of course we get this phone call "The highways are closed because of the fog and so the busses are going to be at least 2h late" ok, What do you do with 60 kids to keep em busy for another 2h...We ended up going for a walk around the block .. Dang one more hour left..So they got to play games in the lobby of our hotel .. eventually we got them all in the bus and took off for Teda :) Arrived at 6.30pm, made sure all the kids got home and got a ride back home :) Auntie Nora welcoming us with a nice home made dinner :) Nisa came in 30min later (back from babysitting) and we all had dinner together telling the stories of the week :) This was on friday..Today is monday so i ll just tell you about my (Beijing Visa, Shopping) weekend later :) ! X
Hey! So my week was pretty similar to the previous weeks,, meaning Tuesday I had the Art going on and then tutoring Kasuri at 3, . After Kasuri I walked to Tesco (kind of like the Carrefour) and met up with the family,.. We did some shopping and later went out for dinner at Jackie's. This was our first week of our cooking schedule, .Monday is Jiao Zi night (dough with some meat and vegetables inside) which is easy food cause Monday there's usually no time left for cooking,.. Tuesday is uncle Bart's night which is way we went out for dinner Haha, .. So We came up with a new rule, .. you can go out for dinner twice/year, other nights you have to cook yourself.. We'll just see how that goes :) Wednesday instead of art I went to check out the Gym with Eloisa,.. It wasn't as big as i expected but a lot of teachers go there and it's usually not busy at all.. It ll cost me 120 euros for 6 months,..haven't decided yet...Anyways they also offer some classes like Yoga, Pilates,.. Eloisa wanted to try the Belly dancing :) Haha It was fun but don't think i'll be doing it again any time soon though :p In the afternoon I finished a little art Project for Miss Natasha: she needed white crowns with flowers for her performance on Halloween, .. I kinda underestimated the amount of work and time it would take but it worked out in the end, . When I showed the crowns to this chinese teacher she suddenly looked at me as if someone had died,.. turns out people wear white flowers in their hair for funerals here,.. didn't know, but it is halloween so even better :p Later that day I had the French tutoring and that's it,.. Yesterday I helped out with Art in the morning, went home for lunch and then to the halloween meeting at 3,.. We made some stuff for our act tonight,.. an oven, a meat grinder,.. went home for dinner and then came back to school at 6, since we needed it to be dark outside to rehearse our act,.. It's pretty awesome,.. Dave's playing sweeney todd, he'll slit Chad's throat (blood effects) and at the same time Dave slits Chad's throat we'll stand behind the audience and spray them with water =) Then they throw a 'body' down from the second floor and this is where I come in.. I chop up the body, throw it in the meat grinder and make my famous meat pies ! I have a lot of lines to memorize but i'm excited about the whole thing so hopefully i won't be too nervous! By the time we finished it was around 8.30,.. When we got outside we couldn't see a thing because of the fog , I ve never seen it like that before! You could see maybe 1 meter in front of you and that's it, .it was soo dangerous to drive home, I was supposed to take a taxi but luckily i was able to get a ride,.. imagine going 5km/hour, window open so we could follow the white stripes on the road, .. it would be so cool if we got have that fog for halloween night ! Today was a normal day, i'm pretty tired though cause last night before i went to bed i had some spicy soup so i had to get up at around 2am cause i felt so thirsty :p Halloween today ! So cute (i mean scary of course) all the kids dressed up in their costumes :p I did the art, went home for lunch, went to tesco and now i'm just waiting for school to end so we can start preparing our room !! Auntie N. left for Manilla this morning by the way,.. well hopefully she actually gets there since there's this huge typhoon approaching the Phillippenes.. I told her to wave at us on the news if she get's stuck in a palmtree or something :p Okay, got to go and get ready now.. I'll let u guys know how it went ;)
Hi! Can't believe it's already been a week since i last wrote on my blog! As far as i can remember the week wasn't particularly interesting so i ll just skip a few days to the Volleyball tournament..which started Thursday with the first game being played at 5pm. The beginning of a V-ball marathon. 3 days straight people, no mercy, (Ha, and i wasnt even a player). There was a total of 6 teams each consisting of a girls team and a boys team (so that makes 12 for all you linguistics people out there.) The teams flew in from all over China (just for V-ball, i know) Anyways It was pretty exciting for me since I'd got a chance to meet some pretty cool people.. :) Friday we had a lockdown in the gym meaning they locked us in (as you maybe derived from the term lockdown). We had food, music, volleyballs, soccerballs, basketballs and a lot of people! Oh that day a guy broke his nose during a spike, but he came to the gym and played some soccer anyways ;) That's about it really, I had a good time and spent my marathon eating snacks and cheering on teams (the chairs could have been more comfortable though).. On Saturday you had the finals in the afternoon.. SIS boys and girls won! So That night you there was the players farewell, end of the tournament dinner at the Renaissance.. I didnt get to go..since i wasnt a player, .. what do you do right ? So i spent the night watching some grey's anatomy (almost finished season 5 now) and had self made chicken soup with noodles! Sunday was clean-up day.. So thats what I did in the morning.. I cleaned (yes dad, i cleaned) and then we went to the 'freezer' store, where apparently big ships get their supplies, so it was an impressive supply of food (although you couldnt see most of it so i just took uncle B on his word) That night we watched the latest Harry Potter on the projector for that real theatre feeling :) Today was amazingly calm, since it's raport card day and the primary kids didnt have to go to school, so no tutoring, no art, no choir ! So in the morning i did some studying, went home, had lunch, waited an hour, danced when no one could see me and okay i watched some television too :p Gotta go to class now so tell you more later :) Bye !
Hi! As you probably know Monday is the craziest day of the week here and yesterday was no exception..Got up at 6.40am! Yes, I do get up early :p Had my cereal breakfast while watching the BBC news at the kitchen table, it's funny, if you change the channel upstairs the one in the kitchen changes too :p As usual Uncle B and I went out to get the car,..The elevator is acting strange lately, so i took the stairs today :p At the school we had the usual temperature swine flu check, but for some reason i got to pass without being checked, i must look healthy or something, maybe i ll come in sneezing tomorrow, .. At 8 i had Sang Mi, we read about Mesopotamia this time and King Gilgamesh, an inspiring story about friendship, forgiveness (yea, not my words) and I did a little Word study test with her.. After Sang Mi I had (an apple) the grade 5's for art. It went by pretty fast cause I had to help two students finish their work, I learned that Garfield does not go on diets..:p Lunch ! Rice an veggies :p For UN (United Nations) day this friday, I get to hold the sign for Belgium (Yes, it will be lonely at the top :p) and parade around the school..You re supposed to wear your national costume...(ideas anyone?). After lunch I waited an hour and then went out to do my 20 laps, woohoo! Then I got into a taxi, went home, cooked (yes, I got out at the veggie market, got vegetables and then overcooked them, i ll do better next time), showered, got back into a taxi, went to choir (we're starting to sound really good btw) which was fun, we sang "Guantanamera" Haha, :) and then i went to Bahai Class.. when class was finished we stayed a bit longer and watched some scenes from 'Phantom of the Opera' :) But I was getting really hungry! So we went back home, had dinner (it was like 8.15pm) and then i relaxed ! Haha, and now (Tuesday) I'm tired from yesterday :p Xx
Hi! I have to say this week was so ordinary it's not even worth mentioning...but some exciting things happened though... For instance i found out i get to go on the middle school trip as a reward for my voluntary work at the school, this means I don't have to pay for it, which is pretty awesome since we're going on a 4 day trip to Beijing! We re gonna go to the Great Wall, science museum, Acrobat show, Mini world ( Like Mini Europa), ...and so on :) Yesterday I walked into Auntie Nora's office after my Art class and out of the blue she asked me if i wanted to go to the Broadway show 'Cats' with Miss Natasha, her Dutch husband and one of their friends...the other friend canceled so they had a spare ticket.Why not ? A nice evening out and I love going to these kind of big show musicals. If you're given an opportunity to go (ans get a ride there and back) you might as well go for it ! They picked me up at six, their son came too but he was just going to Tianjin to meet up with some friends. He kept on talking Russian with his Mom, sometimes I understood a word but yea didn't really get the conversation :p I love how they pronounce my name :) So I thought well you guys going to talk Russian, I'm talking Dutch with the dad :p So that was funny, you had the Dutch, English and Russian going on in one car :p With some like modern Russian songs in the background :) Traffic was pretty bad..but we got there on time. Since the tickets had been booked separately we has to split up. Natasha and Richard (it was their wedding anniversary btw) were sitting on the second floor and the other Natasha and I were on the first floor. Row 21 out of 30 so kinda toward the back but next to the aisle so I could see the stage pretty well. I found out Natasha was actually from the Ukraine and had been in China for about 6 years now.. pretty cool. The show started at 7.30 but of course Chinese style most of the people came in at around 8 when the show had already started. The show itself was amazing! The Orchestra, the Singing, The dancing, the costumes ! It was so funny, The show was in English (except for this one song in Chinese which made the Chinese crowd all excited) but on the screens on the side they had Chinese subtitles :p The 'Cats' also ran into the audience a lot which was really fun :) Haha and during the break Natasha and I ran to the toilets and managed to got there first.. you wouldnt believe the line-up when we came out :p After the 2h30min show we all got back in the car and drove home, well they dropped me off and then went on to Bar Street :p The dad couldn't believe I hadn't been there yet ( don t think im going any time soon either) :p So Now it's Saturday: Weeekeend! Just got back from the cloth market, I'm having a halloween costume made for the big show going on in our school in two weeks :) I'm going as the Pie Lady 'Mrs Lovett' in the movie Sweeney Todd :p Should be fun (and insanely scary of course ;) ) Xx
Hey :) Stuff that's happened ever since we got back from camp.. We got back Monday around 11pm so Tuesday was a sleep-in, total relaxation day. Don't think I did anything worth mentioning that day; then again I probably forgot cause i was half asleep all day :p Wednesday first day of school after the holiday; Well, I got to school and the first thing that came to mind was: I could really use a break :p, We all got checked for Swine Flu ( sadly no one had a fever). I had a normal day; Art, ow looked at some universities. Little note for the parents: I'm thinking about London..:) And had my tutoring class with Sang Mi at 3...who's been home during the holiday (with her older sister, but she goes out all day) cause her dad didn't want to waste money on a ticket to Korea for her.. makes me feel so sad :(.. Thursday was pretty normal too.. No Chinese class though, cause it was raport card time, .. but I had practised my chinese with Sally in the morning so didn't really mind...Sang Mi was sick, so i went to check on her (Her place is 5min from school)..and uhm we went for dinner at a friend's house, which was really nice :) Friday I was really looking forward to the weekend! :p At 12 Amy, Jenny, Helen, Luis, some other girls and I went to the Renaissance Hotel to go over our ushering (voluntary, i may add) job for the piano concert on Saturday. Miss Lea, teacher at TIS (Teda International School) was giving a free piano concert for the community. I was stationed at the entry door...(the buzziest door, of course, my luck). I had to greet the people: Hello, Nihao, Welcome ( while giving a sincere smile (uhum)). and to keep the people out during the concert (got to work on my already very strong arm muscles...yes, i failed miserably at keeping them out :p) We got back to school and I went to see the grade 9-12 show at 2pm, hosted by grade 12.. So I thought the grade 12 show, where they portraited the different nationalities - fe: here are some russian students passed out in the hallway or the Mac Donalds eating Aussies... - was funny; (this turned out to be a mistake, ..Apparantly it was NOT funny that they were showing us the 'negative' side of each culture..They had a unity message in the end, but it was not funny, that's probably why everyone was laughing... anyways, After Sang Mi I walked home and chilled around the house...Oh and I saw the new Star Trek movie (Does Star Trek and Charlotte in one sentence sound strange to you? I know! but I actually liked it, what 'd you know :p). Saturday was a nice and busy day; literally nice cause the weather was good and nice because i had fun.. Went shopping with Eloisa in the morning in Tang gu. Shopping in Teda isn't like shopping on the Meir though.. You have to know where to go.. and the words quality and cheap do not really go together here..So I ended up buying one shirt/dress, at least I found something :p But I did find out about Eloisa's experience in Nicaragua, she has worked with missionary doctors as a translator in the poor villages and fully understood me when i was talking about camp and the lack of bathrooms and showers .. She even had roaches going on an everything! After the shopping spree I went to the cloth market with auntie Nora and met up with auntie Janet, her parents and the boys, ...For those of you who don't know: the cloth market is the place where you can pick out any fabric you want and have clothes made at a really cheap price.. For example If I would see a dress i like in a magazine, i could bring the picture with me, get measured and have it made ;) Pretty cool eh? After a few hours we went back home and had a late lunch...I heard this phone ringing, this magical sound gave me the awesome idea to call Helen and ask her to come with me to go and get a sim card! So guess what ?! I am now the very proud owner of a China Sim Card! yaay! At 6.45 we went to the Renaissance for the Piano concert. It was so funny (actually it wasn't for miss Lea) cause in the room right next to the concert hall, there was an octoberfest going on: The German inspired beer drinking humpa humpa fest ! :) Of course this made me even more excited about the piano (uhum).. But I have to say I had fun greeting the people at the door, Man, there was this girl who came up to me: ' hey, my friend really likes you (probably hadn't seen a foreigner before) so could you like maybe give him your number. I smiled politely and declined.. I had to stand..stand..yes stand for two hours during the concert...what a service ;) But after intermission I found a little distraction in texting some people (finally!), sadly Auntie Nora saw me texting and so she made her point very clear after the concert :( We got home around 9.30pm about the same time when Uncle B and Nisa got home from their Beijing Volleyball game... Stayed up a little, went to bed and woke up (still curtainless) at 7.30am this morning...Probably going out for lunch in an hour.. Till we meet again;
Hi everyone Here is the long awaited camp blog! So Wednesday we first had a normal day of school (a full day, remember?). I actually went home after lunch though to finish packing (hadn't even started to be honest) and clean up a little...At around 4 the family got home, finished their packing, had dinner together and then we waited for the others to arrive : Tyler, Amelia, Nathan, Helen, Luis...Teda youth basically...We got into the van and hit the road. When we got to Beijing we first stopped at jenny Lou's (shop) to get some lunch for the next day (while Nisa and I sneaked into the DVD store and bought grey's season 5). We went on to stay at this beautiful apartment with very nice people who had insanely comfortable beds btw :p) We got up at 5 am! and left at 6, picking up Milly on the way, she was so funny. She came down in her skirt and flipflops : Milly, Did you know we're going to hike up a mountain today? :p. Arrived at the airport and met up with the rest of our group (total of about 40 ppl), got on the plane and took off :p right on time, the plane left 5 min after we got on :p. I had the window seat next to Helen and Jasmine, which was a lot of fun :) The plane food wasn't all that...Some sort of liquid rice for breakfast..not my thing, very Chinese. Luckily there was a nice piece of bread with bean filling on the side Ow and an egg, which at first sight looked like a chocolate egg so i got all excited but it turned out to be an actual (black) egg, you were supposed to mix it with the rice or something, Helen loved it, so i gave her mine :p. We got to Wenzhou, got my luggage and realized the bag was to heavy to carry up a mountain for several hours, so I tactically scanned the room to look for less heavy bags and carefully chose my target. It worked, I traded bags with Sean, the rugby player who told me he liked to carry heavy bags ( something to do with muscles :)) Mission accomplished :p. Then we were divided into teams. Gooo team honor!! I had a really fun group: Kevin, Shidan, Kazuma, Nisa, Saba, Sean, Helen and myself :) I heard a 30 min bus trip was the next step...right, make it a 2 an a half hours bumpy (and I mean BuMpY) bus ride in a hot, packed with people bus :). Actually it was pretty fun. We had two guitars, lots of voices and a camp spirit (naive people, we had no idea :p). After this ride the bus couldn't take us any further up so we had to start hiking up. There was a shuttle but the catch is, the shuttle could only take up 10 people at a time. I took the last one and had been hiking for about 2 hours, and this wasn't even the actual hike! When we finally got at the actual hike path it was slowly going dark, windy, misty...this being the last part of the 'journey' we all started hiking up. It was exhausting, you wouldn't believe it and our guide didn't want to tell us how much further ( probably to not discourage us). After a good hour we finally arrived at the top of the mountain. It was dark and we were in the middle of an icy cloud. Uncle B and Auntie Nora were already planning to get us down the next day! The monastery was so mystical. You had this smoke surrounding you when you entered the gate, candles, inscents,...The rooms were very simple. A small double bed, a matrass about 2 cm thick, moisty blankets, no heating...but no one complained ( out loud :p). We all got settled and had dinner together. A vegan meal consisting of rice, mushrooms, tofu, vegetables (that were cultivated in the garden). It wasn't bad at all ( but after having the same thing for lunch and dinner 4 days in a row, ..). There were no bathrooms just a hole in the ground, no running water (a natural well), no showers, and to boil the water you had to use wood fires :) Back to basics i would say! Still since we were all together no one really complained. That night we had a devotional at 8, some free time and went to bed. Forget the much needed 8 hours of sleep a night. The monks got up at around 3 am for prayers, introduced by the lovely sound of a Gong.. At around 5.30 am they were all wide awake and so were we...The first day we had (brought by us) bread for breakfast :p Breakfast was followed by the morning devotional and then we got into our study groups. About 10 people of the same age group (15-18) and three team leaders: Babak, Kalan, Omid... We went outside and sat on this awesome rock, surrounded by the most amazing scenery and studied, discussed together. One of the topics I found interesting was the one about spiritual struggle,..That night we had a Quiz night, questions by uncle Bart, it was so funny. Our group was second last but Uncle Bart had put in two 'Belgian' questions in the final round, thanks to myself ( no need for modesty) we were the only group to get the questions right and we ended up in second place =) We had fun :) The next day i got up looked in the mirror ( the only mirror in the monastery btw) and saw this sun burned face staring back at me, I wasn't expecting a sunburn in october :p So I put on my factor 50 and we went back out on the rock... :) Ow and the best camp moment for me was when I got up with the animators really early that morning to go out and say some inspiring words while watching the sunrise.. It was an amazing moment. We had another study day and that night was Bonfire night. It was pretty cool, we had the marshmallows, stories, songs, ..and went to bed for our final night on the mountain. The last day we got homemade cereal for breakfast it was sooo good! Oh i forgot to tell you about the cleanest room contest uncle bart had going on. Who ever had the cleanest room got dried beef as a price, so the boys went all out spelling I LOve Bart with their dirty socks (dirty being the key word, cause that's why they didn't win :p) ( since i was rooming with Milly (animator) we couldn't win, which had its advantages, no point in cleaning the room...just kidding). So After breakfast we all got ready to go back down. After a few hours and a bus ride we arrived at this place called the nine pools. Nine natural pools on the side of a mountain. The clearest water i've ever seen. It was beautiful and not yet discovered by tourists so we were the only ones there. We hiked all the way up to the ninth pool ( of course) so everyone (after passing uncle Bart's swim test) jumped right in! (freeezzzing) but really fun, standing under the waterfall, jumping off the rocks ;) We stayed up there for a few hours and then got in the bus that would take us back to wenzhou, where we spent our last night at a 4 star hotel. Oh My God! warm rooms, soft beds, a bathroom, a shower :) It really made us appreciate all of it! We went out for Japanese that night, well some of us, since you could choose between Mc Donalds and Japanese :p I got my roommate Amelia and we went to check out the disco, we just checked it out cause it felt more like a love palace if ya know what i mean..haha, we went back to out room and talked for hours. I slept like a baby that night :) We got up at 7, went down for a hotel breakfast =) ! Apparently chinese people have sort of what you would have for dinner, for breakfast.. but they also had a western corner, which i took full advantage of :) Then I had a sing along to you i pod hour with Milly which was so much fun :p Our group, the Tianjin/ Teda group had an earlier flight and so we said goodbye to everyone at noon and went to the airport. Went to Beijing, picked up Auntie Janet's parents, squeezed into the Jac and drove home. Got back around 11pm and slept in the next morning =) I had a great time at camp. It was a lesson in detachment and a time to reflect, something we should all do from time to time.
Hi ;) Just had lunch..Tuna Salad.. Yes i'm predictable.. :) Which I paid for with my own 'Staff' card, Uhuh, I'm in :) Some Apricots, Watermelon and Mini-apples for dessert, so i'm just taking it easy right now, you know. Had a busy morning though, Mondays are just crazy.. Had the usual 2hours with Sang Mi this monring (pay day btw, tutor money, not that i do it for the money of course.. (well maybe just a little bit..). But she was kinda distracted by things as I'm hungry, I'm sleepy, .. Still we finished what I had in mind and managed to give her a 10min break ;) Some skill hej? Then I went right to Art.. Grade 5 Egyptian profile things...2 periods so I was happy when it was time for lunch :) So about Thursday I went to Eloisa's appartment in the morning, which turned out to be really fun. She spoke Spanish ( and I tried to understand it :p) about Nicaragua, Nicargaguan Boys ;), How she met her husband, about learning Spanish, Music and so on... She's a stay at home mom now, (used to teach), Sophia (8 months old) is soo cute :) So that was fun! and then I found out we were going to this big Teda / China's 60th anniversary show.. First we went out for noodles and then to the football stadion. We had first row tickets so that was pretty cool cause it was a big event . We were in the Paparazzi section, According to Nisa we probably came on Tv and had our picture in several newspapers.. There's no real evidence of this, so you'll just have to take me on my word that i'm a celebrity in China.. haha There was this creepy Chinese guy though who wanted to take a picture with me.; So i was like what's the harm..right? Right, 5 min later I look to the right .. I was on his display on his cell.. creepy.. Chinese style it was smokey, crowded and noisy .. Chinese public is tough though, i mean The shows I've been to the audience was usually pretty excited and shouting.. They were just sitting there, being all serious.. Except for when this Chinese comedian came on stage .; Judging by their reactions he was pretty funny.. Not that I know.. didn't really get the jokes :p Nisa and I were freaking out when he came shaking hands in the public..We were trying to keep an (obvious) low profile..And it actually worked, right before he got to us he went back on stage :) A lot of people of the school performed .. Choir, mister mazlum, Tyler, Amy and Luis.. And then there was a chinese boyband (I'm true to the Backstreet boys of course :p). So it was a fun show! Then on Friday everything was just like usual ..I went for dance class in the morning, had primary art, lunch and went for a run.. Tutored Sang Mi..And then on my way back to the school this lady comes up to me and hands me this note 'I would like to clean and cook for you' and a number .. So we started talking, in her limited English she explained she was looking for a part time Job, her father was a cook and if I wanted some help! I just could't believe it, cause you know we're still looking for an aiee.. So I had aunt Nora give her a call .. Sadly it didn't work out.. Don't think she was expecting a two story appartment and 4 people to cook for :p Too good to be true in the end... Friday night i went babysitting ..Grace, Josie and Noah..I was pretty tired and Grace was pretty sick, coughing a lot.. (I didn't get sick luckily) so she missed her mommy..but went to bed eventually.. Noah was a handful but got him bed like half n hour before the mom got back. (11pm).. I slept really good that night =).. Saturday was pretty lazy.. I studied soms Spanish...Tyler came over to copy Nisa's notes and so we had some lunch together ...Just a chill weekend .. which was nice, cause we're going on camp wednesday! Hopefully our plane won't be delayed, but it probably will be.. We're spending the night in Beijing with all the Teda youth, so hopefully I'll get some sleep.. Oh yeah we had dinner at the Schmaelenberg's yesterday which was nice :) Guess that's about it, next time you'll hear from me will probably be after october holiday.. so see ya next time.. Love X
Hola! New update will be posted soon! It's just that i have to go to bed right now.. it's kinda late and I have to get up early tomorrow.. you know busy Monday ! I tried oploading some pics but they're too big in kb, will try an take care of that tomorrow.. Everything's fine .. You can look forward to hearing about my Spanish groove, the Teda show, babysitting, lazy weekend , :) Love x
Hi... This is what's been going on in China in the weekend... Saturday Nisa had a volleyball game at 11am so I slept in (meaning i got up at like 8.30 (can't really sleep in if you have to get up early every day)); had a pancake (yes believe it) for breakfast and a season smoothie (peaches are getting out of season so enjoying them while they're still good :p). Then Auntie N asked me if i wanted to go with her and meet up with the principals wife (Eloisa, who is from Latin America) and go to Tan Gu together (that's where you shop..). Honestly, how could I say no to shopping ?! So we got in a taxi ..oh yeah, At around 10am there was this really noisy alarm going off..auntie N asked the taxi driver about it and he said it was for when there was a war ...(okay not weird at all, war drill going on in joyful peace time); so then the alarm sounds and what do we do, i wonder ?, usually when you hear an alarm it's already too late right ? (haha, but don't worry about me here :p). Anyway we picked up Eloisa, she's so nice, really, we started talking and turns out she has a sister living in Antwerp...and she invited me for a spanish breakfast, since I really love that language, already looking forward to that =) We went to the cotton shop where I got an awesome jeans for 14 euros (pretty expensive ey?) and some other small stuff.. After the little shopping spree auntie Nora and I went to the gym the see how the comets were doing. Girls won!! (surprisingly) boys lost (but that's okay :p) as long as they're having fun...Sunday was Eve's Birthday (sweet 16, you'll probably see it on MTV any time soon :p). So Nisa and I made a cake, decorated the house, invited some friends over and then Eve called saying she wasn't going to come to Teda (surprise party), we all panicked, after a few minutes of running around the house like a headless chicken Nisa convinced her to come anyways...=) First people started arriving around 3, Eve got here 3 hours later (think of all the entertainment i had to come up with eheh) but she was surprised ! =) Rest of the night we played some games, heard about all the high school drama girlfriends/boyfriends..then they wanted to play truth or dare (that's were i drew the line and went upstairs to join uncle B&Auntie N), i did come down for the cake though :p After everyone went home, Eve, Nisa and I stayed up talking til midnight, which was fun :) Monday I had to get up early cause I have Sang Mi on Mondays...so got up after maybe hours of sleep, feeling surprisingly awake .had the 2 hours reading class, followed by primary art. Since miss Emebet called in sick that morning, Rose was on her own so I decided to help her with the grade 4's in the afternoon. Now I hadn't seen them before so they all wanted to know who i was. Rose somehow pronounced my name wrong and that resulted in me being 'Miss Sugar' :) Then I had choir which was cool, well maybe except for this chinese lady sitting behind me doing a chinese opera soprano :p Then I had Bahai class which was mainly about history this time..; oh i'm reading a good book 'God loves laughter"...Today was just a routine day. Got up around 8, took a shower (bad idea, made me tired all day), helped out in Primary Art, took some pictures of the grade 1's making a juice box sculpture had lunch, went to elective dance at 2 and played badminton at 4.30, which was actually really fun, i played with mister Klein, mister Kraftszeck, and Uncle Bart (totally beat him with mister Kr. :) ). and then got defeated 3 times when i was playing with uncle Bart ..:p See ya x
Hi :) i'll ben writing most of this update in English, since it's very confusing for me to swtich back to Dutch So what's been going on this week, right? Maandag was extremely busy, but fun. Everywhere I'm now considered an adult (still not used to that word), don't feel like one though, since most 'adults' i meet are at least 10 years older than me but yeah ... Choir was nice...I found out i'm a sopralto (soprano+alto) which is pretty cool.Auntie N is an alto (who sometimes involuntarily joins the sopranos) and Uncle B is Bass (how low can you go) We mostly just practiced tones (ya know do re mi), too bad i never learnt how to read notes, but hey, i have a voice and i'm not afraid to use it :p we eventually sung a gospel song (composed for Martin Luther King ;) ). After choir I had Bahai class which was mostly about teaching...(and maybe just a bit about eating the best grapes ever (sorry, i was hungry). Then it was CSI time and aah the wonderful invention known as 'bed' :) Tuesday nothing special happened (far as i remember that is) the highlight of the day was (which was a definite highlight, don't get me wrong) was that our Aie (= you could say housekeeper, but she's so much more) arrived and we had aie food !! Wednesday was an eventual day! Walk a ton day!! I did ....28 laps !!!! An addition to my other great accomplishments (ahum).. I even got a special announcement: 'our guest runner from Belgium Charlotte 28 laps!' Awesome :) and the watermelon afterwards wasn't bad either. The best about it was that i kickek most of the boys ***es (haha, ya know what i mean). As if that wasn't enough for one day, i had tutoring to do at 3pm (so i had about 20 min of rest)..with a korean girl 'Sang Mi' she's the sweetest girl, smart, focused..but the english is kinda holding her back, so hopefully i will have made (even if it's a little) change in her life. Oh and i also got a haircut, nothing special though, just the ends (chinese people just loce my 'blond' hair, wouldn't wanna take that away from them, would I?). Okay that brings us to today.. Routine basically: got up, walked to school, did my primary art class with kindergarten! I feel so appreciated when all this kids come running up to me, start hugging me :) Nadeem was so cute, he was like 'auntie Charlotte made the most perfect circle ever, look!' Had lunch around 13pm, nice chicken - tuna salad (yes there was some confusion going on: i'll explain: auntie Nora called the cafeteria to see if they could put aside a tuna salad, got down to the cafeteria, asked the chinese people about the salad, turns out there never was a tuna salad, just the chicken version ( of course, me spoiled little girl, preferred the tuna) so the cook came and put some tuna on top of my chicken (i felt so embarrased, what a fuss about nothing)...anyways at three i had Sang Mi, did the homework (grade 5 math (i was totally freaking out in silence of course (maths!) but it went pretty good (hopefully the teacher agrees :p). , walked her home and then got to my chinese class (almost forgot about that!), which went pretty good by the way, i'm learning slowly, very slowly ;). I got into a taxi, went home and had awesome Aie food =) That's it ;) See ya'll
Hi :) Let me tell you about my Beijing weekend Zaterdag lekker uitgeslapen (hoewel dit nog steeds challenging is onder het oversized raam zonder gordijn). Terwijl ik zalig lag te dromen in mijn 1persoonsbedje (waar ik nog maar enkele keren uitgevallen ben), had Nisa een volleyball game om 10 am. Aah, het huis voor mij alleen, i love it. Hoewel we die bewuste zaterdagochtend niet echt veel lekkers in huis hadden (Food -> Beijing) was het toch lekker relax. Daarna een beetje opgeruimd (hoewel ik een zeer georganiseerd en ordelijk persoon ben (geen sarcasme natuurlijk)) was het toch nodig om even cleaning momentje te houden :) Rond 13u kwamen de sportievelingen thuis (na een nederlaag voor the girls, maar een sweet victory voor de boys), lunch gegeten en dan in the Jac op naar Beijing city =) Onderweg enkele Grey Anatomy afleveringen gekeken (verslaving zou een understatement zijn). En 2uurtjes later the arrival. First impression: busssssy ! Ok, denk logisch, wat is het eerste dat je doet als je naar Beijing gaat ? Right! Shopping ! Heb awesome sneakers gekocht, slippers, een sporttas, een handbag (of course) en een toppie :) Beijing, I'll be back! Mijn maag gaf aan dat het tijd was om naar de vrienden te gaan.. Erg vriendelijke mensen, Kids were fun too (13, 15 en a 7 month old baby :) ) The Food was definetely Glorious! Yumm! en de rest van de avond hebben we chill in hun huis doorgebracht met veel lachen en babbelen en ohja Prank phonecalls ..(ik ben tot de ontdekking gekomen dat 't veel leuker is als je 15 bent dan als je 18 bent, maar het was grappig om de rest bezig te zien :p ) .. Rond 11pm gaan slapen. Saba's kamer was niet groot genoeg voor 3 girls, maar ik was maar al te happy om in de andere kamer te gaan liggen (kan nogal moeilijk slapen met andere mensen in een kamer). First thing I did in the other room was kill the clock, making this annoying ticking sound :p) De matras was nogal hard, maar ik ben toch easy in slaap gevallen. Rond 8.30 wakker geworden en me langzaam naar de keuken begeven voor de best meal of the day (Breakfast!). De rest lag nog diep te slapen, terwijl ik genoot van cereal, yoghurt, fruit :) Rond 10am kwamen the sleepy heads around the corner. Aangezien Uncle B and Auntie N naar een meeting moesten zondag, moesten wij iets zien te verzinnen om te doen. Eerst was er het plan van het amusement park, maar dat zag Nisa uiteindelijk niet zo goed zitten, dan wilden we naar een movie theatre gaan, maar ze speelden enkel chinese films. Uiteindelijk zijn we dan maar naar the mall gegaan =) Maar aangezien the mall nogal expensive is, zijn we naar een soort mega lunapark on the top floor gegaan. Which was pretty cool. Rond 4pm back to the house met een tussenstopje in de carrefour (i needed fruit duh :p). De Carrefour was insanely busy! Maar we got what we wanted (or what i wanted). Dan recht in de taxi naar the holiday inn, waar nonkel B en tante Nora op ons wachtten. Van daaruit naar the illigal DVD store and Food store :) en dan back home ! :) rond 8pm thuis aangekomen, avondeten, een aflevering CSI miami en off to bed :) Vandaag was ook een lekker gevulde dag tot nu toe: 's morgens had 'k bijles met een 11jarig meisje (vijfde leerjaar) who's falling behind on her English. Samen een boekje lezen en wat vraagjes beantwoorden...you can call me miss Charlotte :p Daarna 2u primary art ! en daarna naar huis voor een lekker lunchje :) Oh heb 'k al gezegd dat 'k alleen een taxi kan nemen en actually kan zeggen waar ik naar toe wil (de school dus :p) cool uh.. ?! Over een dik uurtje heb 'k family choir en daarna Bahai class. Busy busy ! Lots of love Xx
Hello :) Net terug van een dagje Primary Art. Currently in tante Nora's office :) Wat heb ik de afgelopen zoal gedaan ? Wel ik heb me vooral beziggehouden met lesgeven aan de kindertjens hier...Tjees vandaag hadden we grade 6 en de les ging over perspectief tekenen.. Aangezien ik niet echt artistiek aangelegd ben..hmm, dan toch maar liever verschillende soorten lijnen tekenen met het eerste leerjaar :p Na de middag kwam een grade 2 kindje (Chris) vragen of ik toevallig Canadian was? (Liefst had ik gezegd: 'Canada, yep, that's right), maar aangezien ik nooit lieg (en zeker niet tegen naïve, alles wijs te maken kindjes) zei ik 'België' ...Aah, België? Nog nooit van gehoord! Ligt dat in Amerika ?? 'Europa' Ooh ...spreek jij Canadees ?? :p En daarna de ELC (English as a second language) kindjes: we waren juice boxes aan het schilderen met witte verf: vroeg een meisje: Is this Milk?? :p Oh en mijn kamer is nu zo goed als klaar ! :) (Ik vroeg me al af wat ik in het weekend ook al weer gedaan had). 3 blauwe muren, 1 rode muur, op een blauwe geschilderd: 'welterusten, buenas noches, good night, bonne nuit' en dan op de rode muur een tekening met 'live laugh love ' in het Engels en het Chinees :) Ohja en een 'SKY' met wolkjes en sterretjes :p Nu is het enige wat ik nog nodig heb: een gordijn !! Coming soon Nu aan het twijfelen of ik vandaag nog wat laps ga lopen....misschien straks tijdens de volleyball ... Voor de rest not much going on at the moment, hoewel ik het druk genoeg heb (no worries) .. En dit weekend Beijing weekend ! jihaaa See ya
Binnenkort nieuwe update ! Nu 8.32 am.. over een halfuurtje naar de school wandelen (gisteren nog een leuk spelletje gespeeld tijdens die wandeling : wuiven naar de buitenlander :) ) Dus nu nog even klaarmaken en dan vertrekken. Vandaag op het programma Primary Art, Volleyball, .. voor zover ik weet tenminste. Oh nog een leuk experimentje om voor te stellen in school: gisteren was het de jaarlijkse egg drop ! = Je moet een ei inpakken in bv bubblewrap, een knuffel, watjes, ...wat je maar wil (ongeveer de grootte van een voetbal), je mag geen parachute gebruiken en dan moet je dit pakketje van verschillende hoogtes laten vallen: 3m, 5m, 9m, 22m. Wiens Ei overleeft is de winnaar :p (heeft met fysica te maken en kan dus perfect als experimentje tijdens de lessen :p ) Ok, nu moet 'k me echt gaan klaarmaken, maar binnenkort volgt dus nog meer ... zài jiàn
Gisteren om 9.30 am afspraak met miss Natasha(Rrrussian). Dit betekent opstaan rond 8u (wel eerlijk gezegd word 'k elke morgen zo rond 6u wakker aangezien ik recht onder het enorme skyraam lig en dus kan 'genieten' van de ochtendstond. plus in China is het 's nachts nooit echt donker, geen nightvision nodig (damn)). Vervolgens richting keuken: breakfast (favorite meal of the day). Beetje chillen en dan rond 8.55 (housekey: check!) door het park, over de brug, door de rode business gebouwen, 2x oversteken (crazy, 6 rijbanen naast elkaar, probeer dan maar eens over te steken als het 10sec groene licht aanspringt, maar ik leef nog (voorlopig)( geen zorgen heb op hout geklopt). Net op tijd op school :p en geen visitor badge meer nodig, connecties he....Richting kantoor miss Natasha...guess what? Dansles ? hmm eerder verhuis de spullen van het oude kantoor aan de ene kant van de gang naar het nieuwe kantoor aan de andere kant van de gang (zo'n 100m verder, ruwe schatting). Daarna hebben we samen sleutels uit karton geknipt voor de dansles, tijdens dit creatieve voormiddagje, heel wat te weten gekomen over Miss Natasha, van opgroeien in Rusland tot long lost loves en de moeilijkheden om werk te vinden als danslerares...:) De wintershow lijkt me wel de moeite: een soort remake van high school musical ..funfunfun...Na een anderhalfuurtje sleutelschilderen lunch !! hmm Korean Food, I like it! Na de middag afspraak met Thea: finished book 1 ! En dan...trommelgeroffel....some shopping in Tan Gu ! Super ! Shoppen in China, definetily a unique experience! Niet te beschrijven... Heb coole oorbellen gekocht ;) en grappige fotootjes getrokken, really cool.. ( he JB ;) ) Kan 'k misschien later eens uploaden... Et Voilà, .. Vandaag samen met the family (en Eve, Nisa's best friend) opgestaan...6am :o) Breakfast, in Jac naar school gereden...Afspraak met Miss Natasha 9am.. dus had nog een comfortabel uurtje om tante Nora's PA (Personal Assistant) te zijn...wat brieven rondgebracht..weten de kindergarten teachers ineens ook wie ik ben :p One guy even asked me: 'so do you have child here?' Weird !! 9am sharp naar Miss Natasha...finishing touch aan de laatste sleutels gelegd...lunch (showe teacher ontmoet, met een Belgische vriend, zij is van Portugal, maar haar Nederlands is echt amazing (best way to learn :p ) (soort van croque) 20 laps gelopen, tijdens Nisa's volleyball training...Tante Nora liep er maar liefst 5! (na mijn eindeloze aanmoedigingen om samen eens te gaan lopen :p) 's avonds lekker gaan eten op restaurant :) Laat de chopsticks maar komen! Morgen eerste chinese les !
Ok, ik weet het...ondertussen al een paar dagen geleden sinds de laatste blog, maar bedenk even: Ik ben in China! en met all the excitement going on...Hmm wat heb ik de afgelopen dagen zoal gedaan ? Wel Vrijdag bv was er 's avonds een bahai bijeenkomst om een paar leerkrachten van de school kennis te laten maken met het Bahai geloof. Ik zat naast Haleh, en het duurde niet lang of we hadden een erg leuk gesprek over vanalles en nog wat en misschien ga ik zelfs bij haar zangles volgen. Volgende maandag ga 'k eens een keer proberen. I'll let u know! Het was een toffe avond met praten, zingen en zelfs playstation :p (JB, heb dringend playstation verbetering lessen nodig!!). Zaterdag was een chill dagje met veel grey's anatomy (season 4). En 's avonds hadden we een game night met some local youth. Taboo! Cool spelletje: er staat een woord op je kaartje en dan moet je dit woord uitleggen aan je teamgenoot zonder bepaalde woorden te gebruiken. Bv Je moet Waves uitleggen maar water, ocean, am/fm, ...mag je niet gebruiken. Was wel lachen :) Om af te sluiten hebben we Bring it on 4 gezien (niet aan te raden...way toooo cheesy!) Zondag zijn we in de voormiddag naar Shine Home geweest; een soort van weeshuis voor mentaal gehandicapte kinderen. Het eerste wat je waarneemt als je binnenkomt is de overwhelming smell, het went niet, maar je bent daar om met de kinderen te spelen en zij zien je maar al te graag komen. Samen kleuren, verven, met blokken spelen,...simpele dingen, maar met iets kleins doe je iets groots voor deze kinderen. Het was zeker een nieuwe ervaring...Daarna (na een verkwikkend powerslaapje) gingen we met z'n allen naar Tian Jin, naar tante Nora's zus Janet en haar twee coole kids Adeeb and Anis. Voor het eten zijn we (Nisa, Anis, Adeeb and ik) nog even naar het bejaarden fitness park geweest. Origineel in elk geval, maar soepele spieren kweken zichzelf niet :p Het was uhm ontspannend. Daarna lekker gegeten, beetje Rataouille gekeken en nog wat monopoly gespeeld. Als afscheidspakje kregen we zo'n nieuwjaar firecracker :p Very cool! En dan komen we aan bij vandaag. Na mijn les met Thea (supertof meisje, too bad dat ze donderdag terug naar Canada gaat for uni); hebben we samen de eerste muur van mijn kamer geschilderd in cherry red (what else?) looks nice. Een paar complicaties toen de blauwe verf ineens mee af de muur kwam, maar dat valt op te lossen. Oh en gelukkig was het afwasbare verf, niet dat er iets mis is met roodgespikkelde huid (en face)...Gelukkig had ik mijn slechte t-shirt 'i climbed the great wall of China' aan! Daarna zijn we samen naar de school gelopen! Jawel gelopen, wel eerder Supersonic Mode, en ik dacht dat ik de conditie van een para had..damn! Op school was ik tijdelijk secretaresse van tante Nora.. best grappig: mensen komen binnen 'Hey, you don't look like Nora ?' :p En dan nog even een afspraak voor morgen gemaakt => ik ga helpen met de dansles, :) deze avond zijn we nog naar een youth samenkomst geweest, interactie, discussie, nieuwe inzichten.. I like it. Et Voilà. Ten slotte nog een gelukkige verjaardag aan mijn mama jeeej xXx
