You'll find I'm full of surprises.

An apology goes out with this post to my steadfast readers (really just Mark) who have been anxiously awaiting another update this past week and a half. I offer no excuses for my poor behavior. With that said it has been an exciting and busy time here in Baoding.

We have had our first week of classes! I teach quite a variety of students ranging from senior english majors (excellent speaking ability) to freshman non-english major (I have to talk so slow it is hard not to bore myself.) Despite these and other difficulties such as not having blackboards, not having computers, computers not working, finding buildings with Chinese names, etc. the first week went off relatively seamlessly. I have figured out that I am teaching eleven different classes of Chinese students which could make learning everyone's name a tad bit difficult (11 x appx. 40 per class = 440 generic Enligsh names). Also the scheduling here is strange with most classes occurring only on odd and even weeks. The great news is the students are picture perfect respectful of me and each other and really excited to learn English no matter what their current level is and that makes teaching them a real joy.

In other news, after our first week of teaching we get to take a week off due to China's National Holiday. This early part of the week was spent visiting with IECS Director New, his wife Claire, and Tony who lives in Beijing and works for IECS. Our time together was filled with delicious meals and trips to our new local hotspot, The Honeypool, a coffee joint which we have been recently making daily trips to. Emily, Amelia, and I joined one of our friends named Nick, who is an administrator for Hebei University, his wife, Mr. Liang (a Dean), and his daughter Anita (her French name) for a tour of Baoding. It was an awesome day and we got to see many parts of the city that were previously unknown to us. You can view the pictures to the left.


Tomorrow we leave for Beijing to meet up with fellow IECS teachers from Langfang and Tianjin. Traveling during the holiday will likely be hectic but we are looking forward to seeing our friends from other schools. Until next time!

Uncle Owen, this R2 unit has a bad motivator!

Let's face it, in America, motorized scooters are just not that cool. Why not just make a little extra effort and buy a motorcycle instead of riding around looking like an overeager 15 year old. The scooter industry in China however, puts America to shame. Sit on a street corner for 5 minutes and you will see more types of motorized bicycle transportation than you can count on ten, maybe fifteen fingers.

Yesterday team Baoding decided that our feet were no longer adequate forms of transportation for our China experience. Taking the time to endure the 12 minute walk to visit our teammates Jon and Ryan's apartment was quickly becoming too much of a hassle. We needed a transportation transplant and we needed it fast.

Three of our more practical teammates proposed the logical solution, buy bicycles! (the normal kind). A perfectly fine solution but Jon and I wanted to take things a little bit further. With our mission before us we set out with spirits high, stomachs full of dumplings, and our Chinese friend Kevin in tow to help us negotiate/haggle.

As it turns out, a simple bike shop is not enough for China. Baoding presented us with an entire street dedicated to the selling of motorized bicycle transport. We traversed the street 2 times, searching in vain for a reasonably priced used electric bike. Just as our hopes were beginning to dwindle and we had decided on settling for a new bike in an older model, we stumbled upon a gem hiding in plain sight. After a quick inquiry as to the price we knew we had found "the one." The only problem was that there were two of us...

As fate would have it the chap selling us the motorized beauty just so happened to have more used bikes at an undisclosed location. We somewhat suspiciously followed our new friend out of the market, then across the street, finally into an old apartment complex (all the while Kevin assuring us, "It's ok, it's ok, this is safe..."). In an atmosphere that the word surreal does little justice in describing, we walked through a vacant apartment and to our great delight found in the very last room a row of excellence unparalleled in the market. We quickly chose a choice bicycle which he graciously sold us for the same price (after 30 minutes of haggling).

As I told Jon yesterday as we were zipping through the sidestreets of Baoding on our sweet new rides, "this may be the best monetary purchase I have ever made."

Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy

Things in Baoding are just plain done differently than in the US. Take shopping for example. When I needed to make a few purchases to make my living situation more comfortable I would hop into my personal transportation vehicle, drive to the nearest Wal-Mart, and comfortably peruse the spacious and well organized aisles for the items of my choice. As our team ventured out to the largest supermarket in Baoding we quickly discovered that this would not be the case for our overseas experience. In fact when I think of yesterdays supermarket adventure the first thing that jumps to mind is the video game Road Rash that Peter and I used to play for the Sega Genesis.

The game can best be described as a high speed motorcycle racing game meets full contact football with lead pipes and wooden bats. It is a full on brawl to get to the finish line which quickly becomes a secondary objective to knocking your opponent to the asphalt with your metal a long metal chain. Needless to say our shopping getting around the supermarket is a skill that we Americans have not yet acquired.

Somehow we were able to procure most of what we needed in the midst of the masses of clashing carts and people but it was an experience that we will not quickly forget. 2 hours and hundreds of yuan later we all were very grateful to a respite back to our respective apartments. Despite the difficulties I was very much pleased with decorating my room with exciting things like a rug, lamp, and trash can larger than the size of a cereal bowl. Thanks to the marvels of modern technology you can view these new additions if you so desire in a youtube video that shows a brief tour of my apartment.

If there's a bright center to the universe you're on the planet that it's farthest from...

Greetings from Baoding!

We have reached our destination and are currently settling in to our new home here at Hebei University. Our first few days have been quite a whirlwind of activity with a side of jetlag. Upon arrival in Bejing we were escorted directly to a van which drove us to our apartments in Baoding (about a 2 hour trip). The apartments are in a dorm style consisting of a bedroom with a desk, small kitchen room and bathroom.

For the most part our time has been spent meeting with school officials, eating out at restaraunts, shopping for the bare necessities, and being introduced to our new home city! Yesterday we had a 15 minute walk back from the supermarket in which we were carrying a few of our recent purchases. Needless to say that as Americans we stand out quite easily on a normal basis and looked extra ridiculous carrying pillows that had words like FANTASY emblazoned all over them. Like many of the events of the past few days, I like to think of it as a "learning experience" to make myself feel better.

Anyways here is some info for those of you who really like to contact me. My snail mail address is:
Number 2 Building Room 204
Overseas Student Hotel
Hebei University
Number 180 Wusidong Road Baoding City
071002 Hebei Province, China
(I hope all that is correctly ordered)

Also I have a recently purchased cellphone courtesy of Nokia China. Incoming calls are free so don't hesitate to call me at your own expense! #15830219224. China's country code is +86 so I believe that is the only thing you would need to put before my number. That's all for now, I should have some pictures and other fun stuff up in the near future so stay tuned!

Tim

(The map at the top is from http://www.hbu.net.cn/en/ Hebei University's official website. My building is the one at the very bottom to the left of the big green square)