Ice Skating

Today I went ice skating with Ariel and Lily. Ariel knows how to skate - she grew up in a smaller town in Northern China, and Northern China has no shortage of ice during Winter. I've only been ice skating once before, but that was enough to know it is similar enough to roller blading that I am able to do it. Lily has never done either before, so for a lot of the time Ariel and I took turns teaching Lily how to ice skate. She was able to make laps on her own, without holding on to the wall, by the time we had to leave.

Then the three of us went to get lunch, and then play pool - which it turns out all three of us suck at, but I suck considerably less than either of the girls. Ariel didn't play much - she wandered off for most of the time, but it gave me the chance to show Lily how to shoot properly. No, I don't mean the sleazy way you see in movies. Then we waited for a while in an internet bar, which mostly involved discussions about how good Lily and I were at breaking our computers - they both ended up needing a reset. Then Lily had to go, so I escorted her to the bus stop, and she said how much she enjoyed herself today. That kinda hit me in my soft spot, and I've been a bit dippy ever since.

Finally, Ariel took me to her yoga class, and I was the only guy there. Also the only foreigner, but I think being the only guy was more worrying. I'm used to not being able to understand people over here now. It was very relaxing, I have to admit, and the teacher has a hell of a voice (she's also beautiful and graceful, but you kinda expect that - it's the voice that struck me, even if I only understood maybe six of the words she said during the whole class). I'll seriously consider joining the yoga class, although it's not so close to me - I'd have to take a bus every morning to get to the class. I'll make a decision once I've slept on it. I'd rather join that one than one closer to me because I can go with Ariel; plus that was the class that impressed me, I'd have to go and be impressed all over again if I went to another.

Kiss the Sun

On Monday, Vera and her friend Frank came over to make dumplings. In theory I was going to help, but in reality I was kicked out of the kitchen most of the time. The dumplings were good! Alex and Linda were still here, so we all ate dumplings for lunch. Frank had to go earlier than Vera, so the four of us that remained went up to the rooftop to take photos. Alex just bought a new camera and was eager to try it out, and I took mine, too, so there were plenty of photos - it was a good time for it, too, with the sun setting. The photos are at the end of this post! But first...

Yesterday Linda, Alex and I went to a nearby gym, and talked to the manager about me teaching some capoeira classes. It seemed to go well, and tomorrow I'm going to do a demonstration class, just to the staff. If that goes well, I guess we'll discuss regular classes.

So, all today I've been preparing for it. I have a lesson plan set out, I have a CD of capoeira music, and I have a brief resume and "what the hell is capoeira anyway?" typed up. Here's hoping it goes well! Even if it doesn't, we can use this as a template to approach other gyms about it.

Enough of that. Photos!

These two are just nice photos of buildings silhouetted against the sunset.




This one is Vera and me.


This is Alex, and -


This is Alex and Linda.


This is Linda, kissing the sun.


I thought the sun looked so tasty, though, that I ate it. I didn't eat much dinner after that, I was so full.

Gravity Anomalies

This morning was pretty crazy. Ever since the earthquake there have been stories of "gravity anomalies", which I ignored just as much as all the aftershock warnings we used to get. More so - at least aftershocks really happened, even if they didn't happen when anyone said they would. Anyway, I don't have class this morning, so I stayed at home, and about quarter of an hour ago something weird happened in the kitchen. It only lasted a few minutes, but fortunately that was long enough for me to grab my camera!

Another Long Day

Why is it that the really long days seem to involve girls I like?

This time, the cause of the long day was being triple-booked. First, Ariel invited several of her students to her place for photos and hot pot, and invited me too. The main reason for me going was a girl called Lily, who I'd met once before when Ariel brought her to work - she was interested in seeing what teaching children was like. She's a lovely person, very beautiful, and seems to be interested in me.

I didn't have much of a chance to talk with Lily, but I did have a great time with Ariel, Lily, and Lily's friends. We managed to get the hot pot going despite not having any water, by going downstairs and washing the vegetables in the building management office - which did have water. Afterwards, we went to a nearby park to take photos with each other, and we had a lot of fun with that. All the other girls didn't have very good English, so even when I was talking to someone else it was usually through Lily, since her English is pretty good for a university student, and much better than any of her friends.

That was what I did in the morning and afternoon. At this point it started to rain, we all parted ways, and Ariel and I went to Kiko's new apartment for a housewarming party. All the teachers at school were invited, but neither of the other foreign teachers turned up - I don't know why Ivy wasn't there, but she must have had an excuse, since no-one was asking where she was. Alex, on the other hand, just wasn't there, despite saying he would be. However, it was a great party - Kiko and her husband cooked a whole lot of food for all of us, and it was really good. I even tried chicken feet for the first time! They're not as bad as they look, but they still creep me out. Also, her new place is really nice - but the price you pay for a nice place (other than large amounts of money, of course) is being a long way out of town. It took us an hour to get back by bus, and apparently it takes Kiko two hours when she goes to work in the morning during peak traffic.

After that, Ariel and I left to go meet Yoyo, and we went to KTV for Yoyo's going away party. Yoyo leaves for another town this Sunday, so we had a small goodbye party - just the three of us. Although karaoke in a more familiar setting does exist over here - normally in outside drinking places, rather than bars - KTV is very popular, and is very different despite using the same basic notion of singing along (badly) to songs you know. First, the KTV place we went to was huge, and was very well presented. It looked more like an upper-class hotel than a karaoke establishment - polished stone floors, high ceilings, the staff all dressed in suits. Second, you don't sing in front of a bunch of drunken people doing the same thing as you in a place like this - you get a room to yourself, just you and your friends. Personally, I think that's cheating a little - it's not the same unless you demonstrate how badly you can sing in front of a room full of strangers. Third, although you can get drinks, they're not the primary focus here (since you don't need to be quite so drunk to sing in front of your friends as you do to sing in front of strangers), and instead they have a small buffet service out in the hall.

We booked from 11pm to 6am, but we were all so tired we started falling asleep at 3am; so we left and went our separate ways back home instead of staying. It was fun while it lasted, though, and they had a healthy selection of English songs so I could play along, too.

Okay, enough of that. Time for photos!

All the photos are with Ariel and her students. I forgot to take photos at Kiko's place, and the photos from KTV are dark and not very good. The first few of these are group photos, and have almost everyone who was there in them, except for whoever was behind the camera.


This one does have everyone, though, because we got a random bystander to take the photo.






These ones aren't group photos.






Neither is this one.

Outside Demo Class

On Sunday half the teachers from our school went out to one of the richer apartment building complexes, and we held a demo class outside. It all went nicely - Alex was the star of the show, he does very well in situations like that. Afterwards we gave out flyers for the school, and Alex gave his to every kid in sight. He even managed to give flyers to a couple of teenage girls, much too old for the school, and too young to have children of their own yet. I'm not so good in situations that require me to mix and mingle, but I did manage to give out some of my flyers.

There were photos taken, too. Here's one! In this one you can see me, Kiko, Ariel and Alex in front of the kids doing a pretty silly song and dance.