China

Today was a fun day out. Erik and I finally went to the Shanghai Aquarium which Erik has been looking forward to seeing since we got here. It was fun. They had a Deadly Aquatic Animals exhibit which showed some of the most dangerous sea animals. Some of the fishes were huge! We loved seeing the sharks and of course, the penguins!

This is a picture of a man feeding the fish. He seemed totally unconcerned about the sharks swimming around him!

After the Aquarium, we went to our first FIFA game. It's women's soccer and it's pretty popular. The USA played Nigeria, so there were many Americans watching the game. It was a fun experience.

The stadium where the game was played

USA VS. Nigeria. USA won 1-0.

So things have been a little crazy here for the last few weeks. Changing jobs was much more difficult then I imagined. My boss at Shane (the job I left) has refused to hand over some important papers that my new job needs in order for me to legally work there. I've been told it is illegal for my boss at Shane to not give me these papers, but he apparently does not care. We joke that he must be some kind of mental case because he is acting highly irrational and although he has a right to be angry at my leaving, refusing to give me my documents, especially when I gave him notice before quitting, is a little extreme. We've definitely been having a little bit of a rough start here in China! But we're learning as we go along. Fortunately, I was paid for my last month of work. I was concerned that he would try to not pay me, but he did. So the worst thing that could happen now is that I would have to retake my health exam (which is unhealthy to redo so soon and would cost me nearly 100 USD, but whatever I guess). I took one before, but he won't give me my results, so I'll probably have to get another one. So frustrating!

On the positive side, I'm enjoying my job at Kid Castle very much. I love the people I work with and I've made some good friends. The kids are a challenge to teach, but I feel I'm adjusting. Thankfully, there are some wonderful people there who are helping me work out this mess with my previous job and have even helped Erik and me with our apartment issues.

Like Erik said, we’ve decided to hold off on getting a new apartment for now. Although we would like to get a nicer place, this one is extremely cheap and we're able to save a lot of money. Mostly, neither of us wants to deal with any more stress or making new adjustments.

Though, we've been busy, we've still managed to have some fun. On Monday, I went to Suzhou, a city about an hour away from Shanghai, with the staff at Kid Castle. They treated us to it because the school met the recruitment goal for this year. Since I've only just started work there, I was not really apart of it, but got to go anyway. It was a very fun day. Suzhou is a beautiful city that is called "the Venice of Shanghai" because of the many rivers that flow through it. There are many beautiful gardens there. We toured one of them and also went to the Suzhou Museum which I found to be a little boring, but I enjoyed feeding the fish in the pond. They were so huge! And they would jump out of the water and fight for the cookies. We also did a little shopping, of course which was also enjoyable.

Today we hung out with one of our friends from the U.S. who's here for a little while. Always good to do that. And to get an American breakfast of pancakes and a chocolate shake. (I guess a chocolate shake isn't really breakfast, but it’s so hard to find good ones here!)

Erik and I are looking forward to our trip to South Korea next month. We'll be staying there for 8 days and hopefully will be doing a little traveling around the country. Erik is looking forward to seeing one of his friends who has been teaching English there for the past year. Should be fun!

Not too much else going on, hopefully I'll get all my stuff sorted out soon.

The weather here has been cool, the best weather I've seen in Shanghai.

On the downside, we've been having trouble with our landlord getting out of our lease agreement. We stand to lose around 400 USD if we leave.

To make matters worse, I broke Amara's camera today. I feel terrible.

Today I went to my orientation for my classes. It felt like freshman year again. I got my student ID, took my placement exam, and met a lot of interesting people from all over the world. It will be interesting to see how these classes are taught, being that everybody speaks different languages.

I included some pictures from our friend Michael's birthday. We were the only foreigners there, which is good. Those experiences really help us better understand both the language and the culture.

Erik here.

Monday marked my last day of work for the classes I taught during the summer. It was dificult to say goodbye to my students. I am very proud of them, to say the least. Yesterday I was offered a permanent position at the location I worked at in July and August, with a nice pay increase. I have a week vacation before I start work and begin classes, so I am trying to make the most of it.

Yesterday we went to Dino Beach, a nice waterpark in South Shanghai. A few days before, I went to the Shanghai zoo.
Today our roomates Kelen and Jason left for Nanjing. We will miss them, it has been a really fun summer.

This year, we decided to go to the part of the Great Wall that was restored. Last year, we had a wonderful time hiking the old, unrestored section. But this year, we wanted to see how the wall looked like 2000 years ago. It was definetly differnent than last year - the dozens of tourists, the stores, and a great big tacky Olympics sign (you'll see in the pictures). The Great Wall is amazing to look at, and it is no suprise to me that is considered a wonder of the world.

Olympic fever has swept Beijing. Olympic memorabilia is everywhere. Construction on stadiums, tourist actractions, and other facilities are being built night and day. The Government has even launched a movement to "train" their citizens in how to be polite (for example, there are now fines for spitting on the ground and littering). All this for preparation for the big games.

Here is a picture of one of the olympic venues. The opening ceremonies will take place in the brand new "birds nest" stadium, surely to be one of the symbols of the 2008 games.