Snow in Nanjing!

Tuesday morning we woke up to almost 20cm of snow.  Apparently it was a rare thunder snow storm that happened Monday overnight.  Here are some pics of my neighbourhood Tuesday morning.

The poor trees didn't know how to handle all the weight, we had a lot of casualties over the day.

The snow crippled Nanjing so badly that today when myself and the other teachers got to the school it was to find at most 20 of our students at the school, the rest had chosen to stay home because the roads were bad and it was officially a snow day.  We stayed for all but the last period, where pretty much everyone had given up and our 20 had cut down to below 10 students.
This means that tomorrow I finally get to start teaching Ancient Civilizations to my students and I only have 17 weeks left before school is finished and I've got a lot to cover in that short amount of time.  Wish me luck!

Back in Nanjing

Well I'm back in Nanjing, the end of my travelling around China at least for now.
Eliza left for Melbourne, Australia yesterday afternoon and should be there by now. I hope she has a great time but I will definitely miss her presence here with me in my apartment (already it seems so much emptier and quieter).
The last few days have been kinda hard what with jetlag from all the planes we rode on in the past three weeks and Eliza leaving I started to feel very home sick.  But I have found a community online of expats in Nanjing and I'm going to start leaving my apartment and get to know some of the other expats living here in Nanjing.  Tomorrow night I'm going to a board game night downtown to meet some other foreigners and just get out of the apartment for something other than school, and groceries.
I don't start back teaching until Wednesday morning so I've got a little bit more time to recover and get my head back into the game of teaching.  And this time I'm teaching Ancient Civilizations so it's something that I know and highly enjoy so that is something I'm looking forward to.
I guess that's it for now, I'll keep you up to date with my last few months of my first year in China. 

Beijing Day Seven - Mao Memorial and Grocery Shopping

For Eliza and my last day we went out with Dustin to see the Mao memorial in the morning.  We had to store our bags in a checkroom near the Mausoleum and then get in line and walk around the building twice before we could get in.  As we were getting in line Dustin was stopped and asked to put his camera in storage (Eliza had been made to put hers in her purse, so I was the only one left with a camera other than our Ipods).  We walked all the way around and then we got to security and I was turned away because of my camera - don't really care I had only been going in so I didn't loose the other two.  I went and retrieved the bags and met the other two at the exit.
They explained to me what they saw - basically Mao is in a crystal coffin and there is a light directly on his face and he does not look like he's been dead for 30+ years at all.  We started to wonder if perhaps its not actually real but we will never know for sure.  Eliza said it was the quietest she has seen it in China - there was no noise of any kind as people shuffled past the coffin.
After we picked up Dustin's camera we hailed a taxi to a foreign grocery store that Dustin had heard of from a friend at work.  It made me wish I lived in Beijing just a little bit because they had prepared western meals (roast chicken, pasta salad), and just a whole tonne of Western food, more than any of the stores I've seen in Nanjing.

This is all that I got at the Foreign Food Store - I know not really the most nutritious but I couldn't really buy perishables when I was about to get on a plane.  So I got Pop-tarts, cheetos, kettle chips, snack pack butterscotch, pretzels, Eliza and I got 7 Reese's peanut butter cups, 3 cans of Chunky Campbell's soup, and three cans of Chef Boyardee.  I have since discovered that if I want more of the soup in the last few months before returning to Canada I can order them from a Chinese website and have them delivered to the school. 

And that is the end of our 3 week trip around China.  Eliza and I catch a flight back to Nanjing today (Feb 15) at 3:50 and then Eliza leaves me for Australia on Sunday, which means I am back to teaching on Monday.  It's been so long I feel like I've forgotten the kids and how to teach these kids but I guess I will see on Monday.

Beijing Day Six - Silk Street and Olympic Park

Hello all,

Today Eliza and I went to Silk street which is a huge mall filled with knock off products.  We were pretty successful and only bought the things were we looking to buy.  No pictures from there unfortunately. 

After Silk Street we headed to Olympic Park and finally went into the buildings!

First off was the Watercube. 

I didn't think the cool texture would continue into the inside of the building but it did. 

I like that the original decorations were still up, we spent a few minutes trying to nme the various flags of the world.  Two Chinese flags of course.

Part of the cube was transformed into the waterpark that we didn't feel like going into.

In preparation for London 2012 there was a lot of stuff set up around the Cube to celebrate the Summer Olympics. 

This part is still open to people to practise swimming lengths and it looked like there was a team getting ready to practice.

You could also feed koi fish milk through a bottle. 

After that Bird's Nest.

The torch.

Inside the Bird's Nest.

Kids riding Segways.

 We went to dinner with our two friends from Louisiana that we met at our hostel. 

Cliff and Eliza

Me and Dustin

Beijing Day Five - Summer Palace

So today after a very late start Elixa and I made our way to the Summer Palace.
We went to lunch first at a restaurant near the hostel.  As we were finishing up two foreigners walked in and sat at the table next to us.  I noticed the man had a Canada flag patch on his bag and we had to ask.  Eliza thought she had heard an Aussie accent so immediately assumed that he wasn't Canadian but it turns out he is from Grimsby, Ontario and the woman he was with was actually from Argentina.  This man from Grimsby is the closest to home (Toronto) that we've met so far, the other Canadians were Quebecois and Calgary.
After lunch we made our way towards the Summer Palace, it was actually quite far from our hostel so we had to take three seperate subway lines to get there.
We arrived late in the afternoon so we couldn't buy a ticket to see the whole park but we were able to see the Palace itself and a frozen market street called Suzhou Street.

This is people seat skating along the Suzhou Street.

Musicians.

All the sewers in these ancient complexes remind me of sad faces.

Peek-a-boo

Very well fed and beautiful cat.

Eliza chilling as she waits for me to finish my picture taking.

And of course my favourite saying of the day...

Beijing Day Four - A lot in One Day

This was our busiest and longest day so far in any city with the exception of maybe Singapore.  We left the hostel at 10am and didn't return until 9:30 that night. 
First Stop: Forbidden City
     The Forbidden City or Palace Museum is probably one of the most known historic sites in Beijing and it did not disappoint.  It was busy and crowded but not nearly as bad as the Lama Temple the day before. 

Mao welcomes us as we walk through the first gate into the Forbidden City. 

Frozen river cutting through the main courtyard.

One of the most famous halls, definitely the one I thought of first when thinking about the Forbidden City.

One of the main throne room halls, each hall had a seperate purpose, one was for changing where the Emperor would get dressed in preparation for a ceremony, another was where the Emperor rested on his way to the ceremony (it's a long walk from his residence to the front door!).

Inside the Imperial Garden, can only imagine how beautiful it looks in summer.

A man made hill in the garden with a building on top, the emperors, emperesses and royal concubines would travel to the top of this hill for various ceremonies. 

One of the restored roofs, they are working on restoring the buildings and are spending every Monday afternon between January and March of this year to do this (except for today since they had to be open all day for all the tourists who wanted to visit).

We had seen these bronze vats throughout the City and were speculating on what they were intended for.  Eliza had thought that oil was lit in there to bring light to the city.  She was partially right, they actually held water to put out fires, and after we found out that so many of the original halls were built down in accidents this didn't surprise us. 

The main gate on our way out. 

Nest Stop - Tiananmen Square (Lunch and Mao)
After the Forbidden City we met up with Ian in Tiananmen Square for lunch and to visit Mao's mausoleum and the Beijing Police Museum.  The lunch was delicious but unfortunately both Mao and the Museum were closed so we had to move onto our next stop. 

The Monument to the People's Heroes located in the centre of the Square.

Mao's Mausoleum

Next Stop - Temple of Heaven

A hall within the Echo Wall at the Temple of Heaven.

Eliza and Ian infront of the famed Temple of Heaven itself and a random Chinese woman who looks upset at me for taking the picture. 

The 70-year old door,  when the Emperor Qianlong of the Ming Dynasty was 70 years old his advisors built him a side entrance to the Ceremony Hall so that he did not have to walk the entire way.  He decreed after it was built that only Emperors who had reached 70 years of age or older could use that door.  None others did, so he turned out to be the only one to ever use that door.

After the Temple of Heaven we took a break in a McDonald's to get warm and to wait for sundown to go to our next stop.  While we were sitting this little boy and his family started talking to us - his English was almost perfect and he only struggled in translating the names of movies and books from what he knew of in Chinese - an example he called Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, cup of fire so basically the same thing.  

Last Stop of the Evening Before Dinner - Olympic Park at Night
After McDonald's we made our way to the Olympic Park again, this time to see the buildings lit up at night.  Before heading to dinner with Ian's roommates (the first time in China I have been outnumbered in terms of gender - 4 guys, 2 girls). 

And that's all we did on Day Four in Beijing - Day Five is looking to be the complete opposite its almost 1pm here and we had wanted to go to the Summer Palace but I don't know if that is still going to happen we shall see.  Still have two full days here before flying back to Nanjing on Friday and not much more that we absolutely have to see so we got time.  Next time I go to the Olympic Park I am going inside the buildings!