Happy Sunday!
On Wednesday we will have been in China for 6 weeks already! Holy smokes, the time goes fast! Two weeks ago we moved into our spacious 3-bedroom apartment overlooking BOTH the Yalu River and the Dandong cityscape. We love our new apartment as it sits right on the river in the "old district." There are two main parts to Dandong, the "old district" and the "new district." The old district houses the large hotels, the multicultural restaurants and shops, movie theaters, museums, historical sites, parks, and more. The new district is mostly comprised of huge high-rises, our school (EBIS; Eagle Bridge International School), the Friendship Bridge, and the soon-to-be opened customs center. The bridge that joins North Korea and Dandong will open shortly. Dandong-ians are desperately hoping (and building infrastructure) in the hopes that North Korea at some point will open their border for commerce between the two countries. The sheer number of high rise apartment complex's around town that are empty waiting for that moment is staggering.
In our almost six weeks here we've learned many new ways of living. For example, you have to buy a water machine because you are not allowed to drink out of the facet. In order to refill your (one) bottle with water you have to buy water tickets. When your bottle is empty, you simply put one water ticket in the opening of the bottle and take it to the guard station. The guards will then call the water man who will exchange your bottle with a new bottle. Later that day you walk down to the station and pick up your water! Voila!!
In our time here we've also:
-Bought a scooter to zip around town and for transportation to and from the school.
-Paid for a year-long membership at the local gym for Nathan and I
-Bought a large toaster oven (they do not have ovens in China....I know right?!)
-Bought mattress pads for all of our beds. Here they only use one bedspring on the beds so getting a mattress pad and/or a foam pad is absolutely necessary.
-Hired a woman to help clean our apartment. After the first cleaning she asked for feedback and notes on how we would like our apartment cleaned. Then after receiving the document she told our foreign ambassador that it was too much work (essentially, she didn't want to use cleaner when she cleaned; using toilet water to mop the floors is standard practice ). Nathan and I have decided to use our cleaning budget and instead use it for massages.
-Learned how to use all the taxis, i.e. how much it is for each area of town and how to say each place in Mandarin (our reliance on our "cheat sheet" is becoming less and less).
-We've met our neighbors, who consist of a couple, their daughter, the wife's parents, and the husband's parents, all of whom are incredibly nice.
-Bought the kiddos kites and remote control cars to play with in our courtyard.
Nathan and I started work this past Monday. It was a week of hurry up and wait, not at all what I'm used to with DPS. Working in China requires A LOT of patience and we are finding that often times what easily gets done in the states takes about 5 extra steps and 3 extra people do to things. We are learning that if you can sit back, be patient, carry your book with you everywhere you go (I've read 4 books already during my time here), and relax then you will handle here just fine.
It was nice to start to create a new routine for our family but was somewhat challenging because we still don't have our curriculum and can't begin to plan. What is nice is that the (brand new) staff bus picks us up from our apartment in the morning and drives us the 20 minutes it takes to get to school. The bus will then take us back to our apartment in the afternoon. Lunch is provided by the school for all the staff and students and man is it good!! I honestly have never had such good cafeteria food! They made this eggplant, potato dish the other day, hmmmmm.
Last Thursday I was told that I am going to be the only foreign teacher who will teach in the elementary division. I will be spending 3/4 of my time teaching 2nd graders and 1/4 of my time will be teaching Kindergartners. They are sending me to Shanghai next week for an international elementary school training. I will travel there by myself and will be joined by the Chinese Principal, Mrs. Catherine Wu during the last part of the training and we will then head back together. I am very excited to travel to Shanghai and am very excited to attend my first international school training. I am curious to see how it differs from my trainings in the states and what programs/curricula they use.
EBIS, essentially has two schools, a Chinese school which is preschool - 8th grade and an International school which is 5th-12th grade (there is overlap in the junior high school). Nathan, unfortunately still doesn't really know what he is doing next year. We know that he'll be an ESL (they call is EFL here) teacher but are unsure what grade he will be teaching and how many blocks he'll have in a day. We do know that he will have his own classroom though! The ESL coordinator just returned from the UK and will begin to schedule Nathan's classes. There are 9 international teachers for about 20 international students. I believe there are about 60 students total in the entire school. We still don't have a lot of information about how the school, classes, and programs will work and won't really until the end of this week when everything is finally hammered out (school starts Monday September 1st).
....That is all for now. We are meeting another investor of the school today (there are 5 total; all are wealthy Chinese businessmen). A new development of his has opened in the new district and he is having a ribbon cutting ceremony complete with food, drinks, and a movie. Nathan is off to meet his friend, a Canadian, to see if he can officially get on a soccer team here; another one of those things you would think would be easy but it is turning out to be very very difficult...
Sending much love from China,
Y.
