Lovin Luoyang

Everyone meet our Chinese family!

Meet more of our Chinese family!

Now meet even more of our family!

Jared and I love all of our little babies so much! They're goinging up so fast, sniff, sniff.

Besides our babies though we love our Chinese Grandmas.

These lovely ladies are two of the lunch ladies.The lady on my right and I are wearing the same shirt! Or close to it. When I pointed this out to her she almost fell off her chair she was so excited. They don't think their fashionable so when that's why she was so excited. (I had someone tell me that after).

They are also so sassy! Jared and I are still working on our chop stick skills and when they saw us using chop sticks they just started laughing and wouldn't stop. How embarrassing. We powered through the language barrier and learned how to use chop sticks like a real Asian! They were so proud of us. The lunch we spent with them was probably one of my most favorite 30 minuets scence we've gotten here. Look how cute their smiles are.

But this next picutre is my favorite

Look you can see their uniform the wear to work. It's the purple jacket I'm wearing.

Oh here's my Chinese boyfriend who always wants to take picutres with me when he sees me.

 

This is our first couples picture.

 

Now here are some of Old Town in Luoyang. It was amazing!!

Here's Jared at the enterance

If you go on Pinterest and type in Luoyang, China it mostly pulls up Longmen Grottoes, and BBQ street. I wanted to know where BBQ street was but I couldn't find it on any maps, web sites, or anything. I was so sad because I didn't even know where to look. Then later that day we found it! Here's a video of what a small section looks like. The two people saying hello by Jared and Dave and Lily. He's a teacher at our school, she grew up here, and they got married about a year ago.

Yep it's pretty cool here!

This is a sweet pipe I found there. I thought it was a Chinese flute. Lily (The Chinese lady) told me it's for druds. Specifically Opium. Sadly Jared didn't let me get it even thought I begged and begged.

Here was the coolest thing though. Colored Chicks! My dad told me not to buy any or I couldn't come home. I wanted to though so badly!

 



Longmen Grottoes
Good morning! It's about 11:10 Saturday morning!
(Jared makes fun of me for telling the time, but I like it so everyone can see the difference)

Yesterday the school took us to Longmen Grottoes. Long=Dragon Men=Doors Grottoes=dynasty. In China the dragon represents the Dynasty and it protects the Dynasty so the place we went to had a palace where the Dynasty lived and you'd have to go trough the protecting doors. That's probably the worst explination ever but just read it 10 times and maybe you'll understand.

This is a picutre of the Biggest Longmen Grottoes all the little caves has different buddhas in them an dwe walked all along here. There are so many move "caves" we just couldn't fit them all in.
This next video is of the biggest statues the ones in the middle of the above picture.

So depending on who you ask the answers differ on how old they are and why there were made. Some say the Qin Dynasty (I think they said the Qin) had them made so they could pray to them and they are said to be 1000 years old. Others say the queen of the Qin dynasty was a vampire and she forced her slaves to make them for her and they were made in 500AD. They are so cool though. The pictures and video's don't do the justic. the paint and the detail in every single one of them is incredible! Jared and I just had a blast there!
If your wondering why some of them are faceless it's becuase durring WWII some people from other countries destroyed their faces out of hate. Others stole faces for themselves, some took them to different museums, and some I'm sure just fell off.

 

 

We love you! We'll try to post more on the blog, but neither Jared nor I are very good at remembering to do it. Sorry about that.

Hey everyone!

Another week is now winding to a close. We have now been teaching for almost a month, and are still having fun getting through the growing pains invovlved in learning to adapt to a completely different culture. I don't know why, but I can never seem to remember that whenever anybody hands me change at a store, it is customary to accept it with both hands. 23 years of grabbing my change with one hand has led to countless dirty looks from store owners and checkout atendants. Haha I say they should just be happy for our business! A custom that Leslie always forgets about is that here in China, the personal bubble concept doesn't exist. If you are waiting in for line for something, you literally need to be shoved right up against the person in front of you. If you leave even half a foot of space in between, someone is sure to cut right in front of you in line, which never makes for a happy wife.

Oh speaking of stores, we had quiet the adventure at the grocery store this past week. While we were shopping, Leslie suddenly got hit with the need to go pee really badly. After looking around and not seeing a bathroom, Leslie informed me that her emergency was on the verge of reaching epic proportions. So, she sprinted up to a group of grocery store workers and tried to ask where the nearest public restroom was. Of course they had no idea what she was saying. After trying for a couple of minutes to say "BAAAATTTTHHHHHRRRRRRROOOOOOOMMMMMMM" as slowly, loudly and clearly as she could, she began to grab her crotch and act out needing to use the restroom (at least I thought she was acting, she infromed me later no acting had occurred that day haha). The group of workers which started out as 3 or 4 girls quickly esclated into 15 to 20 people circled around Leslie. They were all fruiously scratching their heads and shouting out guesses as to what the crazy American girl was trying to say. An impromtu game of Sharades has never been so much fun! Evenutally, someone did realize what she was trying to say and pointed her in the direction of the nearest bathroom. I felt bad for Leslie, although having a wife with the worlds tiniest bladder does lead to some funny situations every once in a while :)

Leslie here!
So yes that was so embarrassing to have to tell 20 people you have to pee, and be the mokey at the zoo. I should have got paid for my performance.
Other strange things have happened here. When a student comes up and asks, "Teacher, can I touch you?" They get offended when you give them a shocked expression. I've learned that actually translates into "Can I hug you?" Ha ha my bad OF COURSE it means that why would I even think differently? Talking about students. I sure have some silly ones.

This seven year old boy's name changes every week. They all have English names, but unless they really like their names they change them everytime you ask them. Also younger kids change them more often then older kids, so I don't know his name but he loves to blance things on his head. I teach him every Thursday and he is so cute!

At the Junior High on the first day of school I asked all the students what their name was and what is one thing they like to do. This cutie said so proudly, "My name is Bob and I like to eat candy!" I pinched his fat cheeks and said "yes you do!" We've been best friends ever scince!

 

The video you can watch is of some of my junior high students doing Eye Excrsises. It's more enjoyable if you know the kids I'm sure, but I still hope you get a few giggles out of it. Jared and I like to watch the boy with a hand over his face and the other one doing the peace sign. These kids are quite the entertainment! I never get board here!

 

We'll I have more to upload but I better do that tomorrow. We have to go to bed. School comes way to early in the morning! We love you all and hope everything is going well! If you have any exciting news please email us! I still don't know why it won't let people comment:( Thanks for all the support and the sweet messages I've gotten from people. It really means the world to us!



Life in Luoyang

Sorry for no updates in a while, Leslie and I have been having a blast adjusting to our new life here in Luoyang! We have received a lot of Facebook messages from people telling us that their comments keep getting deleted here on the blog. I don't really know why that is, so please send us an email or Facebook message to keep in touch :)

Our first week here in Luoyang was really hard on Leslie. She initially cried a lot, but has really been a trooper in quickly adjusting to life far away from home. Something funny that happened on our fifth or sixth day here was that Leslie came over to me and cheerfully declared, “I am doing so good today huh babe! I haven’t cried at all yet the entire day!” I glanced at a clock and noted that it was only 10 am in the morning. “Yes Leslie, you have done great not crying AT ALL day…” I replied. Haha she is doing fantastic now though!

Anyway, we are teaching at the Luoyang Number 2 Foreign Language School. It is a pretty ritzy private middle school. There are about 3,000 students here on campus. The kids live on campus in dorms during the week, and their parents come pick them up to take them home on the weekends. I teach 15, 45 minute classes per week and Leslie teaches 16. Our students all have English names for our class that they previously selected. Some of the more memorable names of students in our classes include Squirrel, Birdkiller, iPad, Robot and Jasmine (for a boy). Teaching is way more fun than I was expecting. It has been super cool getting to know the kids the past couple of weeks and gouging their English abilities. The students take a lot of very strenuous courses such as math, science, history, etc. and receive technical training and English grammar principles from Chinese teachers. What we teach is called "Oral English" classes. We have no curriculum, so basically our job is to just engage the kids and get them to practice their English skills as best as they can. It is really fun to see how excited the students get when they realize that all of the grammar rules and study they have done is paying off when they are able to talk and have a conversation with a person who speaks no Chinese. It is so rewarding to really help them have their English skills come to life!


Our school has a website that you guys can visit if you are interested in checking out our campus.


The URL is http://eng.ly2y.com/


From the main page, click on "More" to see an ariel view of campus. As you can see, the school has several buildings, a river running through campus, a huge soccer field, basketball courts, a track etc. If you click on "Beautiful Campus" in the top center of the screen, the very first picture that pops up is of the foreign teacher’s apartment building, where we live. We live on the top floor in the penthouse suite :) It is great to walk out on the balcony which overlooks the river and campus each morning to start our day!


Campus is built out in a developing area of the city. It is surrounded by massive skyscrapers and apartment complexes.... all of which are completely vacant. It is kind of eerie to walk outside at night and see all of these huge building with not a single light on. We have been told that within the next year or so, this area is going to be bustling with TONS of people. But as of right now, a peek outside campus reveals what appears to be a ghost town. A 10 minute walk leads us to several fantastic restaurants that we have frequented and access to cheap taxis and buses to take into downtown Luoyang. We know that we have just scratched the surface of what Luoyang has to offer, but we have had some great adventures going out and getting lost in our wonderful new city. There is another American teacher who is married to a Chinese girl, so her and Leslie have become shopping buddies. Leslie says she is going for a new "Asian Style", so she has had a great time going to several malls to get new dresses and clothes with her friend. I think she looks cuter than ever! The fact that she can shop til she drops and still not spend very much because everything is so cheap here helps me to sleep better at night as well.


So much has happened and is happening every day, I'm not sure what to even write. We are having the time of our lives here and relishing every moment of our time in Asia. Thank you everyone for your support, and please email us or shoot us a message on Facebook to let us know how you are doing!

Love,

Jared and Leslie