Walk to School

I moved from one of the busiest places in Wuhan to another one of the busiest places in Wuhan. This means lots of people and LOTS of buses! Here are some pictures of my typical walk to and from school. I no longer have quite as many options for transportation, but I still have the subway which is by far the most convenient. It's been raining, so I haven't been able to bike, but once it's nice, I'll do that again too!

The buses are lined solidly on my road every morning.

Traffic is at a constant stand-still. I therefore, take my bike or subway!

These cars are also at a stand-still and since the sidewalk is under construction, this is where we must walk.

Sadly, I didn't get any people walking with me. There were others!

Once off the subway, everyone tries to exit. You get used to gliding around to avoid all the people.

First days of traveling

Here is a blog I wrote the first days of traveling...

The last two days have been full of exercise. Once I finally got to my hostel (I took two flights and an overnight train) my students and I explored Lijiang. The hostel guy suggested a bike ride so off we went! We were planning to see an old town and some beautiful scenery by a lake. What he didn't tell us was that we would have to bike up a mountain! We ended up walking quite a ways with our bikes. We saw the town, but then missed our turn for the lake. By that time we were enjoying the downhill, and didn't want to turn back to find the lake.

Day two started off with an early bus ride to Tiger Leaping Gorge. Wow!! We hiked down 2000 meters walked around on the bottom for a while, then slowly, very slowly, made our way back up to the top. Along the way we had ladders to climb, rocks to maneuver over, bridges to cross, horse poop to avoids, and A LOT of stairs!  Even though I felt like death by the end, it was so worth it. The sights were amazing!!! We were down inside of a gorge and I was blown away by the beauty. 

After a short nap back at the hostel, I ventured out for a short walk alone. I loved walking around in china with amazing views alone.  I sang hymns out loud and marveled at the vastness of His creation.  I'm thankful I got this time to relax before heading into a busy year of teaching and studying.

Even as I think back on this area, I'm in love. It was such a great peaceful place to be. It's crazy that in this country of a billion people there are places where no one is to be found. I was alone and it was great!

Horses along the way. They want you to ride them up when your half dead. Great marketing strategy!

You couldn't take a bad picture!

A bridge along the path

They had these great rests spots along the way. Very helpful!

View from my hostel

LOVED this area. This bridge is called G-d River Bridge :)

Hard to see, but there is a milk cow in here

The menu at the hostel

This one's for my dad! It's another cow. This is their "barn"

Beautiful!!!

Willllburr!!!!

Remember the story of Charlotte's Web? One of my students has the name of Wilbur. I love yelling "Willlburrr!" in the remembrance of Charlotte's Web. (I think that happened in the story...)

Wilbur is one of the students I traveled with the past week. He made me laugh numerous times a day. Sometimes he tried, sometimes he didn't even know it. Here are some of the comments he made that make me roll my eyes and giggle inside (sometimes a little outside too)

Wilbur:I need a snap
Jess: nap
Wilbur: but there is no place for a snap
Jess: It's nap
Wilbur: I don't hear the difference
Jess: snap has an s in the front!
Wilbur: oh, it sounds the same

I took some pictures of the three of us…
Me: I'll put them on a usb and give them to you.
Wilbur : usb?
Zero: [translates]
Wilbur : ooh!! Usb, I don't know that. I only know USA

Quote of the day as we biked past some fields
Wilbur: what's this?
Jess: it's corn
Wilbur: Oh! I didn't know that.
I laughed inside on this one. I live in the middle of a corn field and here is this city boy who has never seen corn...

Wilbur: Do you want to play deck?
Jess: Deck?
Wilbur: Yeah, deck. Do you want to play?
Jess: What is deck?
Wilbur: You taught me that word yesterday!!
Jess: Oh, you mean cards?
Wilbur: I thought you said they are called deck.
Jess: Yes, they are a deck of cards.
Wilbur: Oh... I know (meaning, I got it)

I had to take a picture of him next to a corn field. :)

I loved his little sweater vest t-shirt he wore.

 

A gift from above!

As I have retold this story it doesn't seam as amazing as it did when I was there, but I truly believe this is an obvious time that HE answered me in an amazing way...

This is the story of my short trip back home to Wuhan. I just finished traveling with two of my students. They were great travel buddies and translators. However, their flight left a few hours before mine. Not a big deal, I've flown many many times, I can take it from here! Ha! This was the most confusing trip of my life!

My flight was delayed even before I checked in. Not a big deal, only 20 minutes later. Since I had to sleep in the airport the night before, I was extremely tired so I rested a bit at my gate. When I heard an announcement and people getting up to stand in line I got out my ticket and lined up! Here we go!!!

We didn't go though... we went through the door like we were boarding the plane, then we turned left and walked and walked and I noticed we were following the signs for arrivals. Hmm.. I thought... how could I have arrived, I hadn't flown yet. I asked some of the fellow followers if I was going the right way and they said yes. So, I continued to follow as if I knew exactly what I was doing. Inside I was COMPLETELY confused.

Upon leaving the airport I saw two buses parked. Oh no! They aren't busing us back to Wuhan! (It was a two hour flight, a bus would take forever). We boarded and listened to the man make an announcement. I'm still super confused. I asked the guy next to me what was going on. He tried to explain in simple Chinese. All I got was "airplane broken, going to a hotel, fly later"

We arrived at a hotel and started to "line up" once again. The people handed in their boarding passes and received a key for a room. How long is our delay!? I was thinking. I heard 1:30 being bounced around. Is that am or pm? (It was currently about 11:30am). I was concerned about missing the flight because I didn't understand an announcement, but I continued to do what everyone else was doing as if I knew exactly what was going on.

I handed the lady my boarding pass and said, "one person".

"Any other single girls out there?" She yelled.

"I am" said a young girl.

So, I was handed a key and a "roommate". As we walked upstairs I asked if she could speak English. My heart almost skipped a beat when she responded, yes! I talked more and found out she was going to Wuhan for school. She's a sophomore at CCNU... This is the school that is about a 15 minute walk from my place. AND she's an English major! HE answered my call. He gave me this young Chinese girl, fluent in English to help settle my concerns.

I was sooo thankful for this girl to be there to help me out. I was stressed and so tired, which isn't the best pair when traveling.  I shared a taxi with her on the way home from the airport and plan to meet up with her soon to chat, play games, and eventually, Gdd willing, come to studies. She did tell me that next term she will study the BOOK in her English class. She's never studied it before... well, I thought, I can change that.

So, here is a time I KNOW He answered me in a way beyond what I could have asked for. I'm ready to go and spread that news! Keep me in your Thoughts as we start a new year!

Out and about

I arrived back in Wuhan and then took off for Yunnan! If you haven't been able to look at facebook, I'll post a few pictures here. It started and ended as a very interesting trip. First of all, 3 people canceled, so it ended up being two boy students and me. I thought it might be a bit awkward, but it wasn't! Those two boys were great. They kept me seeing things, exploring, and mostly laughing. Here are some highlights, I'll post more stories later.

View of a village near the Gorge

Great view!

This is the marked path... crazy!

I couldn't get enough of the view!

G-d River Bridge. I loved it,

The longest cable ride of my life! Over 2.5km and more than 20 minutes

The "wild" elephant we saw.

The river in Xishuangbanna.

Heartache

I recently finished my trip back to China. Every year there are different feelings. Nervousness, excitement, anticipation, sadness, etc...  This year I had more feelings than ever...

Every year I have flown to China with a good friend of mine. This year she is staying in America to start her life there. I'm so excited for her new job, home, and friends. However, this means it's the first time in a long time that we aren't living in the same city or even in the same country!

As I boarded my flight in Shanghai one month ago, I was thinking about the last time I would be boarding a plane in China. It nearly brought tears to my eyes knowing that someday I will have to say good-bye to this country forever (of course I can visit, but that's not the same).

Yesterday as I boarded my flight to Shanghai I was thinking about all the family and friends I was leaving behind. Again, it brought tears to my eyes (it really did, I looked like an idiot ;) ) as I was walking once again down the ramp.

I wish China and America could be joined together, but in this life it will never happen. I'm thankful that no matter where I am, after this life I will get to celebrate with my family and friends from both countries, from the east and the west.

side note: this afternoon I set off for a trip with some students!

Summer is almost over

I'm sitting in a library counting down the time before I step on another plane. In about 12 hours I'll be sitting in the MSP airport waiting to fly to Chicago and then on to Shanghai. This summer has flown by. One month in America is much different than 2 1/2!

My school has impressed me this year. I received an email the other day discussing my classes for the next semester. Usually I don't find out until a few days before class. This year, I already have a good idea of what I'm teaching, just not what days yet... Unless something changes I will be teaching the upper lever students for speaking (very thankful for that!), second year students for IELTS, and a Master class. That's right, I'll be teaching a class to students who will be studying for a Masters. I'll see if they call me professor... :)

6am Wednesday morning... think of me, I'll be on my first of three flights!