December update from China!

Greetings from China!

Can you believe Christmas is less than two weeks away? Can you believe I've been in China for over 4 months now? Wow, its crazy how fast time goes by.

So since my last update in November, a lot has happened. Let's start with Thanksgiving. After the third session was over, the staff had a Thanksgiving potluck dinner the Sunday night after Thanksgiving. It wasn't quite the traditional Thanksgiving dinner I look foward to every year, but I guess it was better than nothing. We had roasted chicken in place of the traditional Thanksgiving turkey and it was pretty good, but nothing replaces a good o turkey at Thanksgiving. Let's just say potluck isn't my idea of a Thanksgiving dinner. Regardless, we all had a good time and we are all very thankful for the things that we have been blessed with.

During our one week break, a few of us took a trip to Xian to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. We took a train to Xian and not to worry, unlike our trip to Inner Mongolia, this time we went early and didn't get lost trying to find the Beijing train station. We got tickets for a soft sleeper train and wow it was nice! There are 4 beds in each room and its basically riding in first class and it was the easiest 11 hours of traveling ever. We went to bed about an hour into the ride and then the conductor woke us up around 6:30am to let us know we will be arriving soon. If you are ever in China and planning on traveling by train, I highly recommend you spend the extra $30 U.S. dollars and upgrade to the soft sleeper train...it was so worth it!!! We stayed at a very nice hostel which was in the heart of Xian and literally right next to the Xian City Wall. Not to worry, the hostel was very nice and it was basically like staying at a hotel. Anyways we got on a bus and took a 45 minute bus ride to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. It was really cool to see the Terra Cotta Warriors and learn about the history behind it. Later that evening, we got back and decided to walk the local streets of Xian and get some local food for dinner. The next day, we rode bicycles around the Xian City Wall. This was quite amazing as we rode all the way around the Xian City Wall in 90 minutes and got to see a great view of the city from all angles. If you ever go to Xian, you need to do this! Later that evening, we hopped back on our soft sleeper train and went back to Beijing. Again, money well spent for that soft sleeper train as it was the easiest 11 hours of traveling. When we woke up in the morning, we were back in Beijing. Why can't all long distance trips be this easy?!? Anyways Xian was a great trip and I highly recommend it if you are in China!

So we started our fourth session on Monday, December 7th. This session I am co-facilitating with Ed. Ed is a Baptist Minister from Georgia and he's 79 years old. But don't let his age fool ya, Ed is full of energy and passion and he's an all around great guy! You have to admire a guy like Ed who is 79 years old, has cancer, but is spending the final years of his life traveling to places like China and teaching English. I am honored and very happy to be working with Ed this session. Ed and I have 33 wonderful students in our middle level class, who are so enthusiastic and ready to learn English. It makes us very excited to teach students who have such positive attitudes!

By the way, do you remember the very slow internet we had for two months in the dorm when we first arrived in China? Well its back because our 3G internet that was faster, is down and has been down for a couple weeks now. So we are back to using the very slow 1G internet in our dorm. I am at an internet cafe right now because I wanted to upload some new photos (my class from session 3, the staff Thanksgiving dinner, photos from our trip to Xian and also some late photos from our trip to Inner Mongolia) to send along with this update. Click on the link to see my new pics: http://july212000.shutterfly.com/2499

We have a two week break after this session is over on December 26th, so my parents, my brother and his girlfriend are flying to Hong Kong on December 29th and I will fly to Hong Kong that day as well to meet up with them. We'll spend New Year's Eve together in Hong Kong and then fly back to China and do some traveling and the tourist thing.

I hope you all enjoy your holidays. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Wishing everyone all the best in 2010. Take care, miss ya lots!

Timothy Wong