Yangshuo Adventures

(Max)

All right, so yesterday was quite the adventure. We started the day off with a nice early start at 7:45 a.m. when our tour guide, Summer, took us to the well-known Elephant Hill. About a fifteen-minute walk from the hotel, this natural rock structure resembles a massive elephant dipping its trunk into the Li River for a drink. Local myth tells that the elephant was a servant of the jade emperor and was sent down to earth, but when the elephant realized the beauty of Guilin, he decided to stay. After about a half an hour stay at this site we returned to the hotel where our driver took us to the very famous tour attraction, the Li River cruise. I can’t even start to describe the magnificence of what we witnessed on that four-hour tour.

Jetlagged in Hong Kong ...

(Dareus)

Despite extreme jetlag from arriving the previous night we managed to wake up and gorge ourselves on a buffet style breakfast with a picturesque view of the bay of Hong Kong. The smog gave the skyline a hazy shade and completed the Hong Kong feel. Somehow we missed the plethora of things to do in Hong Kong and wandered around the coastline for a couple hours despite it being the Chinese New Year, which should have given us even more to do.

(FIRST POST of 2014 China Exchange) And They're Off!

2014 group, left to right: Dareus Chen, Tim Jaung, Max Dunn, Exchange Chair Ms Viz (not going!) Teacher Heather Lockrow, Caitlin Sheehan

The 2014 Dover-Sherborn High School China Exchange students and teacher took off for San Francisco and then Hong Kong VERY early on Wednesday morning (had to be at the airport at 4am!).  First reports from Hong Kong are that they are having a great time, enjoying New Year festivities.  More will be coming in the form of frequent blog postings, so return here often to stay in touch with their adventures over the next 8 weeks!

(FINAL POST of 2013 Exchange) Aiya! My Last Blog Post!

(Deanna)

Today was our official first day in Beijing. I was woken up by a woman telling people to get up at 6 am and then proceeded to go back to sleep for a little while longer. We all finally woke up at around 7:30am when we realised we were approaching the station in Beijing. Me being on the top bunk of our section I had to throw things down with Veronica to Brandon and Patty and then organize ourselves to get off the train. In getting off the train, we met our tour guide Lily. We walked about ten minutes to get to the parking lot where our van was (in Beijing, vehicles cannot always park on the street due to the large population so there are many parking lots). We went to the hotel, took showers and ate breakfast.

"Might as well throw Platform 9&3/4 in there!"

(Brandon)

Hello from Ho Chi Minh! We got on the wrong train (no one explained "platform 2" was the first floor of the station), largely due to the tickets being in Chinese and the conductors being nonexistent. Well,
it looks like we're going to have to learn Vietnamese now.

Until Next Time, Hangzhou

(Patty)

Today was the last day of our last weekend with our host families, and so three of the four bears (plus Mifield) (Brandon was busy tea shopping) met up to go ice skating. I, for one was excited to get back on the ice and really enjoyed teaching some of the other kids how to skate (which also provided some comic relief). Afterwards, we got Korean BBQ and went to go see the new Oz Movie, which was.. Interesting. In the evening, I ate a final meal with the Ye family, and packed all my stuff for Beijing.

"Two Trains!"

(Deanna)

On this lovely Thursday, the Bears started out the day ready for Culture class. Zou Lao Shi asked us if we wanted to go to Prince Bay Garden near West Lake, we happily said yes. Before leaving, I presented the group gift to our teacher who was both happy and surprised.

"So we put our hands up like the ceiling can’t hold us..."

(Brandon)

Curse this alarm. Five more minutes of sleep and I'll get up. I promise. Half an hour later? Just getting up. Inhale breakfast and we're out the door. Upon arriving at the school, the gang convened at our den to start another school day.

Getting Ready to Say Goodbye...

(Patty)

Hi all!

Today was another characteristically busy day for everyone's favorite bears. The morning started off in Chinese painting, a class which we all enjoy but do struggle with a bit due to our artistic inabilities (I'm the weakest link in this case). About an hour into class I had a painting which I was fairly confident in, as I thought it looked like the subject matter I was trying to depict (flowers). However, when I went to go show the teacher, her response to my masterpiece was that it didn't look like a flower, but at least it had feeling! From that point, I fell back onto the refined art of splatter painting. Ah, looks like I won't be a Picasso any time soon.

Teaching in China

(Veronica)

My apologies for the absence of blog postings – I have been kept busy the last two weeks teaching Gao Er and Gao Yi classes, respectively (these are equivalent to our junior and sophomore classes). As noted in an earlier post, the class culture greatly differs from what I am used to. However, this time I wasn’t teaching a set curriculum. My presentation consisted of a virtual tour of Boston, a run through of the different colleges and universities in the area, my family and interests, a tour of DSMS, what I teach in 7th grade English, pictures of my classes (yes, kids, they loved the pictures we took before I left!), and a sample poetry lesson that incorporates music. When I have run out of time during my lesson with the Gao Yi (year one) classes, the students have closed the doors and windows, urging me to continue. Since some of the students are host siblings for the Bears, the feedback I have received is that they enjoyed how expressive and animated I can get.

"School Meeting"

(Michael)

I woke up this morning at 5:30 to attend one of the more misleading school sponsored events that I have attended on any continent. The event was given the generic title of “School Meeting” and it was just that. The attendance of every student, facility member,  was compulsory and attendance appeared to be organized and counted with military precision. The students organized themselves into lines divided by grade and class and organized by height while the faculty formed a separate block of people. Students in red sashes and armbands moved about the sea of people and counted and shifted their peers to better fit the lines of the group.

"That's For Babies!"

(Deanna)

The day started out in driving to school to meet up with the Bears at 8:30. With my quirky and lovely host mother who was dressed in bright pink pajamas, we finally arrived at the school. My host mum said “You didn’t eat breakfast, I’m going to get you a hamburger”, she runs out of the car past traffic and into KFC. Five minutes later, she comes back with coffee and a sandwich for me in which I thank her many times and tell her how sweet she is. She waved goodbye and went on her way while I met up with the Bears.