The Allen's Online Blog

We spent Saturday walking the streets to get a feel for the city. Unfortunately, most places were closed for the weekend, but the few that were open made our experience worthwhile! We saw a beautifully ornate temple filled with worshipers bowing, burning incense, and throwing red crescents on the floor in order to interpret their future. I wish we had pictures, but it seemed disrespectful to be snapping photos in the temple.
Our major cultural experience was lunch. We lost ourselves on a small backstreet and experienced a thing called "Shabu Shabu." The restaurant workers only spoke Mandarin, but God blessed us with an English speaking patron. The English speaker told us how to order by first choosing a meat. Then, two platters of food, one with our chosen meat and the other with mixed vegetables and loads of unknown items, were brought to our table. Everything was raw and we were given a pot of boiling water to cook our meal. We also made our own sauces from a bunch of unlabeled spices and sauces. It was incredible! Sunday, we took a group back to the "Shabu Shabu," but I was too sick to eat :(
Other random interests, we met a Canadian and a Chicagoian at breakfast
Monday started training, what a day!! We worked hard from 8 in the morning until about 7 at night. Then, after an authentic (and cheap!) dinner, we socialized with some new friends on the hotel roof. We had to be back in our rooms by 9:00 to await phone calls from our branch heads.
My phone call brought many surprises! First of all, this week of training is to prepare us for English language classes, but I just discovered that I won't even be teaching English! I'll be teaching math and scenic in an "English Only" school. Also, whereas the English classes have a strict curriculum to follow, I'll be writing my own curriculum. Housing, location, career, schedule, and transportation are all different from what I was expecting, but I'm still just as excited, if not more!

On a funny note, I had several embarrassing moments during our first day of training. On one occasion, one of the teachers was showing us motions for a song. He said "show me singing," meaning for us to come up with a hand motion. I burst out singing a nice, loud "la!" oops :)