Today we had a nice leisurely start to the morning. This was largely to do with the lack of breakfast. We were told that breakfast would be between 7am and 9am in a room downstairs so, as we were getting picked up at 9am, Georgia and I decided to go down to breakfast at around 8. We went downstairs and could not find this 'breakfast room' anywhere. A couple of the others came down and they couldn't find it either. Nobody else in the hotel could speak English. So this wasn't ideal! Luckily, we still had some nibbly bits left over from our train journey, so we had some of that before getting ready for our first day in GuiYang.
For those of you who don't know, GuiYang is the capital city of the province Guizhou, and is located in southern China. If you want to know more about GuiYang, I found the website http://www.chinahighlights.com/guiyang/ particularly helpful.
The first thing we did on our tour of GuiYang was a tour around the experiment centre branch of CC English School. I didn't really know what to expect from the school, as it is a school simply for learning English, and the students come in after school and on the weekends. The school we went to was based on the third floor in a building across the road from Zhucheng Square. We all bundled into the lift, baring in mind that someone always has to push the button to keep the doors open or you will get trapped between the doors.
The first thing we saw when we got p into CC English school, was a massive poster with each of our year 12 - and in some cases year 9 - photos on it. I think it was an advertisement for host families. How delightful. I'm the one with the roots.
After having a look around the school, we went down a floor to a restaurant. We were all given menu's and had to basically guess what we wanted through the pictures, with a little bit of guidance from the CC English school teachers we were with. They recommended we had some 'ice cream'. This was back in the days when we were naïve and we took all the Chinese translations literally. When it came out, it was more of a milkshake rather than an ice cream, and the flavour was rather peculiar. It tasted a bit like rose soap, not overly appetising, but it was one of the flavours that although you're sure you're not overly keen on it, it's addictive to keep eating it. I ended up having spicy noodles for lunch and I was very thankful that I actually enjoyed them!
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| View from the restaurant. |
We then went to another CC English school branch to have a meeting to sign our contracts, and discuss the sorts of things we will be doing during our stay in GuiYang. We had snacks on the table, and a few of us went to go and try the grapes, thinking they were the same as the grapes in England. These grapes however, have ginormous pips in them, and, once we had committed to putting them in our mouths, we had no idea what to do with the pips. It was rather awkward. Luckily, I found some tissues in my bag, so we could discreetly dispose of them. It's so weird how the littlest of things seem like such big issues at the time, but to anyone else reading this it probably doesn't even seem like it matters!
We were also given our itinerary for the next three weeks:
September 2nd Family day
September 3rd One day tour in GuiYang city; tips for living in GuiYang: survival, Chinese, city, transport, food etc.
September 4th T.I.P training
September 5th A visit to Jinianta and Xinhua branches of CC English school
September 6th T.I.P training
September 7th School activities in Yanan and Jinyang branch
September 8th School activities
September 9th Family day
September 10th Visit to Qinyan ancient town
September 11th T.I.P training
September 12th Visit to Museum and Weiqing branches
September 13th T.I.P training
September 14th End of host family stay, move into new accommodation
September 15th Visit to Anshun city with overnight stay
September 16th Visit to Huangguoshu waterfall and return to GuiYang
September 17th Free day
September 18th Launch of T.I.P training program for teaching staff and check in to accommodation on training site
September 19th T.I.P training for teachers
September 20th T.I.P training for teachers
September 21st Free day
September 22nd School activities
September 23rd School activities
So it felt like we were going to be super busy! The idea of staying with host families was absolutely petrifying, especially as we would all be separated. But, it was only for about two weeks which made it less daunting.
We then went back to the hotel to have a 'rest', this grew to be a common theme throughout our stay in China, and then we went to an all you can eat restaurant. I was getting worried, we hadn't been to one for a while. The restaurant was really pretty, with fountains and a koi pond greeting you. The food here was less exciting as the all you can eat's in Beijing, there was a lot more fish and everything seemed to be a lot spicier. There was a whole fish on the table, that none of us fancied picking at with our chopsticks so, naturally, Ollie turned it into 'Mackerel Kay' and provided us with the entertainment for the evening.
This was the first time we tried the fried sweet dough and the most delicious sauce. It tastes quite similar to condensed milk. We were all hooked, and gutted there was only enough for two each!
After we had finished eating, we made our way to Walmart in Zhucheng square. It's pretty cool how futuristic it all looks. The Walmart was underground, which was pretty cool and it was massive.
The main reason for going to Walmart was so that we could get a mobile to stay in contact with each other. They had a lot of imported phones, that were at least double the price they were back home, God knows why, pretty sure everything is made in China. Eventually, we found the cheaper phones, but boy were we in luck. We found flip up phones that had light up flowers and fairies on the front as well as a mirror. Georgia and I fell in love.
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| The photo doesn't quite do it justice. |
Apparently we were causing a scene, as a few people in their rooms came out to gawp at the 'English friends'. Some of them were worried about us sitting on the floor apparently it was too dirty for us to sit on, so they went to get us plastic bags to sit on! One girl in particular stayed and chatted with us for a while, as apparently any sort of communication with a native English speaker can greatly improve their English. Well, we were there to help! She grew rather fond of Alex, whom she believed looked like 'Bella from Twilight'. Obviously, we found this hilarious, so we egged her on saying she actually was Kristen Stewart, but she couldn't tell anyone as she didn't want the paparazzi to come. It was hard to see whether she believed us, or was just playing along, but she wanted a picture with Alex, and asked for her autograph aswell!
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| Making friends |
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