Friday, August 29, 2008

Early China Experiences

Once again the people of my new host country are amazed by my incredible ability to grow hair. So far the Chinese are not nearly as brave as the Ecuadorians in that no one has mustered up the courage to physically touch my hair, but they are by no means shy.

The people here treat me like you would a friendly gigantic fuzzy robot that went strolling down the street. When i go to the beach and take off my shirt about 100 16-year old chinese girls run up and take their picture with the magic gigantic man with body hair. I am surprised more accidents have not been caused by people staring at me when i walk down the street (They apparently have with other white people).

Some girls captivated by my body hair at the beach:


We don't actually get set up with our classes for another week or two when the training ends, and so technically we don't know what level we will be working with. Most likely though, they will put us in Primary school with the little goofy kids, since i have had experience and they are in highest demand.

The craziest thing is how ridiculously cheap everything is here! For example a gigantic 20 oz beer costs 4 yuan or about 60 cents. We can get huge multi-course meals for about 25 yuan ~ 3 bucks.

You get a gratifying amount of bizarre free samples in Chinese grocery stores. Here's what they look like:


The only place we have been able to get internet access thus far has been "Star Pizza" which was a Starbucks, that failed and they ripped off the "bucks" and added pizza.

There's a really cool, gigantic park right by our hotel. There's a billion fun mazes to run around in. It's kind of like if the City Museum were just a park instead. Here's Kitty on a rock:


Kitty and I ran into some fun chinese fauna; we met a big city toad running about the sidewalks and a crab in the cool park.



The Krispy Kremes also have way better flavors than in the states. I got a watermelon and a green tea flavored one!


Here's Kitty in the Hong Kong airport with her bottle of Pocari Sweat. It tastes better than you might think.



Signing off,
Andy and Kitty

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Andy!

Hopefully your hair won't cause too many accidents! Sorry I never made it down to school for your going-away party. I hope China is every bit as awesome (maybe even more so) as our trip to Ecuador/Galapagos!

-Katie Murphy

Unknown said...

Andy and Kitie,
Glad to hear you made it and you are off to a good start of getting out and around. Enjoy your free time before the kids drive you crazy...or is that not possible.
take care ,we will keep up with your eventfull trip. Hey,the boys,Nicole,rick and I are going to Lord of the Rings Symphony on the 19 should be awsome music.Take care you guys.Love June and co.