Beijing here we come

Soooo looks like I'm taking off to Beijing for a week on my own in a few hours. That's crazy, and my first truly solo trip I've ever embarked on (I met a with a friend in Hong Kong so that doesn't count). And it's for a whole week, like, Tuesday to Tuesday. To be honest, I'm really excited; booking the plane and hostel and getting all the travel plans ready totally by myself gives me a rush of independence. I have an idea of a few things to check out there, namely the Great Wall and a few temples and someplace called the Forbidden City. Though I'm travelling alone, I'm planning on making a few friends at my hostel (as tends to happen) so we'll see what kind of adventure I'm in for.

In regards to my teaching job here in Shanghai, for the last week or so I've been totally alone; all the students and other teachers have left. The teachers finished their terms (I'm the only one staying on until Christmas) and the kids are either heading off to Canada or are heading back to their Chinese schools for the fall term. It's definitely been a wild ride this past four months. I've been working on another blog post describing all the ups and downs of teaching this past little while, and that'll probably be finished at sooooome point (idk)

So yeah, since then, all last week I've had a classroom of six new day students, all requiring preparation for interviews with Canadian schools, to teach all by myself. Though it's been sad to see my fellow teachers leave and having to now face the fears of a foreign country solo, I've honestly kind of reveled in the new independence of having the whole classroom to myself. I suddenly have the whole day to execute ideas and am able to schedule things as I see fit, which I've honestly been so comfortable with. It's also been so cool to get to know these six newer kids and notice the differences in the classroom dynamics with six new voices. They're all great kids and I'm gonna miss em.

Moving forward, work wise things are gonna be different, and apparently less demanding. I'm gonna have pretty early and late teaching hours, having appointments of online teaching in Canada with Chinese kids over there, having to account for the 12 hour difference (it's kind of funny that my dad gets up early in Canada to online-teach Chinese kids in China and I have to get up early in China to online-teach Chinese kids in Canada. Seems like we could of coordinated better). But that also means that my 'weekends' kind of consist of the middle of the day on most weekdays (when I'm not doing busywork getting things ready for next years interview-prep leaders), as my actual weekends will be full of kids coming for more part-time interview training.

I've found out about lots of really cool places to go in Shanghai, and have run into some pretty cool people along the way. Turns out that even when you're on your own, if you go out exploring you'll find some pretty great places and people, including amazing-and-creepy large abandoned cathedrals, bars disguised as book shops with a group of fun American's and conversing with random foreigners who spend 500$ on a plane ticket to Shanghai for the sake of a roof-top pool party, which ends up getting them a business deal with a tech-company (I may not get as ingrained in the spontaneous travel life as that guy, but I'm definitely discovering the joys of living life on the go).

Though I've absolutely appreciated more down-time with the kids gone to read (now on the Diary of Anne Frank), play games and bike around, I can't wait for this crazy trip ahead of me. My bus to the airport leaves in a few hours, so wish me luck in Beijing ✌️

Woork and some other nonsense

So, jeez, things have been busy.

For starters we have like, double the amount of kids now, half of whom I teach on my own in the afternoon. I have to prepare them for interviews with prestigious Canadian private schools, so that means working on confidence, storytelling ability, presentation skills and going over the same interview questions over and ooover. It can get a bit old, but I love my kids. They're all super fun and engaged, and it's been fun teaching them things that I really enjoy. That also means though that we now live with double the amount of kids, which increases the fun but also the difficulty in getting them to their dang beds by lights out. I guarantee not a single one of them falls asleep before midnight though (their whispers carry, but us cool university teachers pretend not to notice).

Also I've been going to some hecka fancy events. Our students have some wealthy parents, which means fancy dinners and meetings, which means our boss buys us tailor made suuits! He likes to keep a good image. His connections are actually quite impressive; he's brought in the youngest ever female Olympic triple-gold-medalist swimmer Donna De-Verona to talk with us and the kids (she was so cool) and also the former Premier of New Brunswick (also cool) and just yesterday we held a panel for 3 very distinguished and successful businessmen, including a high-end lawyer and two CEO's. At that meeting as well, my boss made a point of moving me from the back of the table to closer to the head; that's something I've been noticing too. I always seem to be the one who's brought in to speak with the kids' parents and be present during meetings; he likes to kind of display me as their white-male teacher. It's something we've all kinda noticed and we find it pretty funny.

Also, the clock is ticking; I have to make a solo visa renewal soon. Which is terrifying. I don't quite know where I'd start with a solo-travel trip, but I guess it's been inevitable since I came here. The main goal is just not to get too lost (I've accepted that I'm definitely gonna get at least pretty lost). So i mean we'll see how that goes. I'm thinking about just hopping over to Hong Kong for a day; a bit expensive but I hear it's a place I really need to check out. I'm gonna try to make the trip work so that I don't have to get a hostel and can just hang out in the city for a day, which is a tall order for a probably 30 hour trip, but I'll take it as it comes (yeah mayyybe that's a stupid idea, we'll see how it goes).

What else to talk about. Pretty soon I'll be on my own; the kids are leaving early August and my fellow teachers and other staff are finishing and most of them are heading back to Canada. I'm gonna have a new group of people to work with and new kids to get ready for interview prep. Safe to say I'm pretty nervous about that, and I'm gonna miss my kids and fellow teachers a lot. I'll also have to be a lot more independent, having to show the new people the places around the neighborhood without getting them hopelessly lost, and also taking more of a supervisory role with my job. It's really nerve wracking but also pretty exciting, I'll really have to take a step out of my comfort zone.

So there's lots on the horizon. Hopefully I make it back from Hong Kong so i can tell yall all about it ✌️

Hey it's me I'm back

Yooo soo i went to Malaysia. Quite the trip. I dunno, you may have seen the photo drop on my wall, it was pretty fun. Shooting the poison dart in that tribal rain forest village was super awesome. I realize that I friggin love southeast Asia; there's so much energy and everyone is so quirky and helpful and theres like so much cheap street food. Also their bananas are outrageous. I went into a guys super crowded fruit market and took one and eventually made it to the counter and the guy told me to just take it, which was awesome, and then I had it and man. You've not had a banana until you've had one from a Malaysian fruit market, they're so insanely good.

Yeah, so, that day was all about walking around Kuala Lumpur and exploring markets and mosques and a sultans palace, and we kept hearing the call to prayer over loudspeakers (which was someone saying 'allahu akbar' many times) and it was so amazing. There was a back road we decided to go down (cuz there were trees all lining it and it was beautiful) and we walked until we saw someone standing in front of a building holding something, and I looked closer and stopped dead in my tracks and halfway through my sentence because heeee had a gun. Like a really big gun. He was just kinda standing there smiling at us, and i waved, and he waved, and I said "We're just gonna. Go back now" and he smiled and waved goodbye and we left. So that was the time I almost died in Malaysia (like not really but at the time it was pretty freaky).

After all that we found a way to Temerloh, a place in between where we were and where we had to get to for our hostel that night (Jerantut). It was there we realized no ATMs would accept any of our cards, and because we're trinket-happy tourists (or at least I found out I am) we had just a few hundred RM left, which amounted to just under a hundred Canadian dollars, which was noooot enough for all the expenses we would need to pay. We decided to take a cross-that-bridge when we come to it attitude, because like, there wasn't much else we could do. Just had a wait for that one Malaysian ATM that would hopefully accept my Timmies Double Double Visa card.

So after that we were looking for buses to get to Jerantut and discovered thaaaat it was actually Eid that weekend, the annual Muslim religious celebration, which is why we kept hearing the call to prayer. That also meant there were no buses. But we found a friendly fellow willing to drive us there for an almost-not-outrageous price and an hour or so later we were in Jerantut, standing outside a closed up and gated off building that we had made reservations to spend a night at (like there was one of those metal bar things you pull in front of locked doors. Like prison bars. I've been googling it forever and for the life of me cant find out what they're called). Safe to say we felt a tinge of alarm, but we got the driver guy to call them and the person told us to simply pull that gate away, push open the door and wait, and after a while we were greeted by a funny, chipper 20 something year old who would be housing us.

He liked to talk, a lot, whenever he could. We discovered that when we asked him the bus times and he said 'ok. I tell you my story' and sat cross legged on our floor and chatted with us until late. We heard a lot of good-natured racism (he tried to convince us Africans could hear over a kilometer because he saw it in a movie about Africa, before we googled it and found out the movie actually took place in the Amazon and the people weren't African) and funny anecdotes. He liked feeding us pastries and changing his mind about the times he was sure the bus would be coming. All in all he was a super fun guy.

Our evening in Jerantut was cool. Not temperature wise though. It's so dang hot in Malaysia. Anyway we were walking around upon arrival trying to find a workable ATM (no luck) and found ourselves being followed by a slow moving car. Eventually it stopped and an old man got out and beckoned us towards him. I was like, no thanks, but Anneke, having once hitchhiked across Canada, was less wary of people in cars and we walked up to see what he wanted. He found out what we were doing there and offered us a ride to the bus station, which we politely declined, but he did seem super sweet.

Later we kept walking around and found a very active and pretty mosque and were chased down three times by a bike gang of 10 year old's wanting our picture while striking 'Western' poses. We fiiinally also found an ATM that would actually exclusively only accept my Tim Hortons Double Double Visa Card, so money-wise we were more or less alright. That evening we found an awesome little family run business where for 2 dollars I ate one of the best meals I've ever had. The next morning we were looking forward to a trip to Taman Negara, a tour-led trip through a Malaysian elephant-and-tiger infested jungle. We weren't getting a response about where their office was, which was where we were going to get picked up by the shuttle, but fortunately we found it on our walk around Jerantut that evening. I finished the night attempting to go out solo and find the source of fireworks that we could hear nearby that were celebrating Eid, but a few wrong turns later I ended up at some really sketchy train tracks and in some back ally areas with the fireworks somehow sounding even further away, and I decided my navigational skills were not to be honed that night and went back to the hostel.

The next morning we left early to go to the office, and upon arrival discovered that there were no shuttles coming because they didnt receive our RSVP. After everyone being a little confused and freaked out for a bit, the guy there said we would be getting a special ride just the two of us if he could get a driver, and then found a place for us to have breakfast that served exclusively toast and coffee and asked us to wait patiently. After surprisingly amazing toast and coffee (that's a theme here all the food in southeast asia is incredible) we were told that although we couldnt get any drivers, the owner himself was driving the hour down and hour back to pick us up, which I'd say is pretty special. After a very pretty and very winding ride, we were in Tamen Negara.

So we went on a jungle tour where we were climbing a mountain and doing a canopy walk. While our group was waiting for our turn, our tour guide actually let Anneke and I go off on our own and explore, which was great. Eventually we did the walk (which was a little terrifying cuz i keep forgetting when I sign up for these things that I'm scared of heights) and climbed the mountain. Afterwards, while we were waiting to ride the rapids, we were informed that there was someone who could check with the Jerantut bus schedule and let us know when the next bus to Kuala Lumpur was, which was super helpful, considering the internet suggested the bus station was in an area where there was nothing but four tents and a bench.

We got lost (as we do) but eventually found our group again, and clamored into a rapid-bound boat on its way to the tribal village known as Orang Asli. There were about 7 of us on a narrow boat heading to the local tribal village, and after driving for a minute, our driver killed the motor and we were just kinda chilling in the middle of the water for a while. We were all silently wondering why he wasnt still driving, when we turned around and saw another boat coming for us. Now is a good time to mention that I had kind of struck up a friendly rivalry with our main tour guide, who was a hilarious older and very jungle-experienced man, and he went by us on that boat with his hand in the water and completely drenched the entire lot of us. The journey then turned into a competition where the boat drivers tried to splash each other and take us through rapids while rocking the boat for the sole purpose of getting us wet. They were a great group. My rival though tried to distract me by pointing at a nearby mountain then got near us and for about 10 seconds sprayed water until he'd utterly drenched me, which I couldn't let go.

After getting to the beach, I had revenge in my heart, and continued the rivalry with the completely dry tour guide by chasing him around the beach with a water bottle (ending with me falling spectacularly, getting sand into every inch of my clothing and having everyone laugh at me). We went around for a while, taking pictures and observing daily life for the village, and i eventually got the leader back while he was giving a speech to our group by dousing him with a nearby bottle, and all was right again (he thought it was hilarious). We also learned a few things about the Orang Asli culture (like how its bad luck for a leader's child to be born in the village so the wife has to deliver the baby in the jungle, and how they hunt with poison blow darts). Then I was selected by my tour guide rival to be the first to demonstrate hunting with the weapon, which I did perfectly (pay no attention to the video). We left a tad early to see that one guy about buses, and found out there were actually no buses out of Jerantut that night, so. We were kind of stranded.

We were given a ride back to Jerantut, where we went back to our hostel and were very grateful to see that our chipper talkative friend would take us for another night (he just showed a big smile and said 'nooooooo problem' so that was nice). We went to get food at that one nice small family business place again, where we saw a lot of the same people from the night before, including the friendly old man we encountered upon entering Jerantut, who gave us a nice wave and a smile. We had a nice walk around some kinda sketchy areas (but literally everywhere we went people were so friendly and it was great) and were whispered about, stared at and greeted as we went. 'Twas quite the time.

So the final day, all we knew was we had to be back in Kuala Lumpur airport at 5:00 at the very latest for our flight. We left early to get to the bus station, and found out that there were no buses back to Kuala Lumpur from Jerantut. We asked about other buses, and there was one leaving to Temerloh at that moment, so we hopped on that one, hoping to find better bus luck there. An hour later we arrived in Temerloh at just about 9:30, was gonna get some breakfast but asked first when the buses were leaving for Kuala Lumpur. We were told that there were no more buses available heading to Kuala Lumpur, and to try again tomorrow. We impressed the importance of finding one, and she got on the phone with somebody. Eventually someone came and said there are two tickets to a 9:00 bus because there were two no shows, so we could buy those, and with them try to get on the 9:30 bus. We got them and went running, got to the bus as it was starting up, and showed him our tickets. He told us they were the wrong tickets and was very hesitant. Soon though the guy who sold us the tickets came over and told him to let us on, so we hopped into 2 empty seats and got the last bus out to Kuala Lumper. It was definitely a roller coaster of a day.

And then back in Kuala Lumpur we took a few more buses to get where we needed. We bought some street non-meat (some crazy carb loaded vegetarian stuff that was actually super tasty) and explored Little India, which was beautiful. I think I might wanna return to southeast asia someday. We managed to get to the plane by 4:00, and got to our flight and was back in Shanghai. We actually then slept in the freakin airport until the subway opened to save money (Anneke's idea. We totaled 15 hours of transit that day so I was too tired to object) then poof. Weekend over.

For my first during-travel travel experience, it was pretty amazing. Lots to see, lots of experiences and lots of last-second luck. Work is getting super super crazy (we're getting like 5 new students in the last month for some reason) so who knows what things'll be like when I write next. Guess we'll have to see. So far, I'd say the adventure is going pretty well. 2 months down, 6 to go ✌️

Runnin' away to Malaysia and some other stuff

Yooo so exciting news, I'm heading to Malaysia a week from today. Whaat. Turns out I have to do a Visa Renewal, which I choose to look at as mandatory travel, so that's pretty exciting. I have no idea what's in Malaysia, and I keep accidentally calling it Mongolia, but I'm sure it'll be a time and a half. This whole travel thing is new to me so why not jump in with both feet right? It's gone well so far. I'm better than where I started; true story, when I was told I would need a travel visa to go to China, I was planning to stop by CIBC (my bank) to see if I could get one. I've come further since then.

You could say I've somewhat recovered from culture shock (though I'm sure there's more where that came from in Mongolia). I was kinda thrown into it here right off the bat: after arriving in the airport I went with a fellow teacher to see if I could just get some water from the airport Burger King. I asked for water, and they filled a cup, and I grabbed it and immediately let it go cuz it was boiling hot. I was like...what. So I got the teacher to ask for cold water, and the lady got some, came over and poured it into my boiling water, which afterwards was still boiling. Like, I was amused, but still thirsty, so I got my friend to ask one more time for cold water (which i made a note to learn is 'bing shrey') and ended up with a cup of ice. I figured that was essentially what I'd asked for and took it and left. I still really appreciate that memory as my first moment entering a new culture; apparently folks just drink boiled water around here like it's no biggie.

For work, I've been tasked to come up with the most darn entertaining Dictation class one could hope for (that literally means just writing down word-for-word sentences I read to the students), so we'll see how I swing that. Last class I got them all yelling at each other (in English hurray) because of a game for that class that I got them to play, which was tons of fun, so now I gotta best that.

Admittedly, I'm finding it kind of hard to keep coming up with new content for Public Speaking class. There's only so many ways you can make em speak right. Like, they're finishing their debates on Thursday, and have already done a number of speeches and dialogue based things. So...now what. I gotta get creative. Which is cool. I can do that.

K, one more thing. Yesterday I went to get my haircut, and like, it was actually crazy. It was like ten dollars cheaper than I've gotten it for in Canada, and they made me fancy coffee and I got a massage and there was like a fancy bed and stuff for when they were washing your hair, it was nuts. I was mucho impressed. My head looks a bit like a pencil now but at least it was an amazing experience.

Hope the weather has stabilized somewhat over there and it's finally stopped snowing. Cheerio 

A solid month

So, guess I arrived in China over a month ago, which is insane. Time has honestly flown by. I'm getting more comfortable with my job for sure, but I'm definitely no more adept at navigating my way around Shanghai. Like just the other day I exited a cafe from the opposite side of the St that im usually on and was totally lost for like 7 minutes. I've always been good at getting lost though so maybe that's just me.

Yeah, so went to that Village on the Water last weekend, and it was awesome. There's decidedly like an insane amount of amazing places in Shanghai, and each one of them impresses me equally. I'm still at the point where I can go outside and still be impressed just because there are trees everywhere (there actually are like lined with the sidewalk it's wild) and I can't understand the signs and not many people look like me. And like the other day I played that 'guess what I'm asking' game with a small restaurant owner (the restaurant was small, not the owner); i asked for beef and got noodles, asked for chicken and got a plate of pig ears, and asked for water and got coke. Dont get me wrong, I was still happy with all of it. It's just fun that a simple exchange-based interaction can leave both parties confused and smiling.

Jerry says hi. He wanted me to include him in this blog post. He's the new math teacher. Me and him went to play basketball today at a public court (which parents seem to use as a daycare because of the abundance of tiny children that are always there just chillin on the tarmac, but if you're careful it's still usable as a court) and met a guy around our age who spoke decent english that we managed to play a game with. That was cool. I'll be in this neighborhood for a long while and gotta socially start from scratch so it's cool getting to know folks.

Finding options to stay active has been important cuz i can tend to go stir crazy just lounging at home for a while. I like using the city bikes (which are literally lying everywhere) to go for a ride, or playing daycare basketball, or getting sports injuries in the apartment (ok, embarrassing true story, yesterday I got a bloody lip by playing foosball with one of my students. Foosball. A foosball sports injury. Like, I lowered my face down near the players for some reason as he spun the thing and the plastic friggin guy kicked me in the mouth and I bled. That's insane). Hopefully I get to play some badminton soon, cuz this past year in university I've really gained an affinity for badminton, and I wanna find some place to play it.

This week our boss really wants us to go tough on the kids in regards to vocab and milestones and classroom rules, so that means more strict policies and being the badguy who has to take away their phones. So hopefully the kids dont hate me by the end of this. I'll just say it's me acting out from being hit in the face by an inanimate plastic figure.

Wish me luck 🙏

Bleh

Blaahhhhhhhh I'm so siiick. I havent gotten better, I should probably be taking it easier. I always plan to go to bed early but then end up doing something because I'm in Shanghai, but its been two weeks I've been sick now and I need to chill a bit.

It's been fun, though. The apartment where I live is huge, and we have a funny older woman who cooks and cleans for us who we call IE. She speaks no English so we're on pretty good terms, as the only things I know how to say to her are 'hello' and 'very good', and that makes for a pretty polite base for a relationship. We've had a bunch of funny little interactions, like when she started pointing at her phone over and over and speaking in Chinese, and so I pulled out mine hesitantly, thinking "does she want me to call someone or..?" Then she went over and pointed to the washing machine and I was just totally lost, and to this day I have no clue what she was trying to say. But she's funny and makes great food and apparently has some cool grandkids.

I've had a surprising amount of downtime; when we're not exploring outside or trying to teach tomorrow's international students anything but curse words, we're just kinda lounging around. We've seen a lot of movies (two of which are totally two of my favourites, y'all need to watch The Greatest Showman and Her) and I've already read two books, one of which is Flowers for Algrenon, which I'll talk about at length how it is far more depressing than it needs to be. I'll probably start the Handmaid's Tale soon, even though Margret Atwood stole from my friends store that one time (shoutout to Anna)

Yeah. Thankfully we got a new teacher the other day to start teaching more math and science-based things, so I can take a bit of a break from my physically based classes and get some rest before I die from whatever this persistent sickness is.

It's actually crazy that I've almost been here for a month already, I still feel like a complete noob and that I wouldn't last 5 minutes outside the apartment by myself. But babysteps. I still got a long ways to go.

Ayo

Aight, so blog number 2. I've been sick for the last little bit (prolly too much crazy Shanghai livin') so I'll try to take it easy for the next while, cuz this place is mental.

Like take a few days ago. Me and my teaching friends were coming home late trying to get in the Subway and there was honestly an insane crowd of people like as big as the population of my hometown (1400 people Burford represent) also outside trying to get in. Then something was said in Chinese over a PA system and everybody started screaming and surging forward and cops were shouting and me and my friends were separated like instantly and folks were sprinting into the station, like people weren't paying just flying through. I just kinda went with the flow hoping I wouldn't die or end up stranded an hour from home in Shangai without a working phone, and we all eventually found each other again. So that was an experience. I've never encountered Burford rushing a subway station before so that was something unique

Yeah, anyway. It's interesting trying to communicate with people, It's kinda like a game. Like, try to figure out what I'm trying to say to you. I have this interaction with store clerks and cashiers like all the time, and it always feels good when we figure it out. Like I pointed to chicken wings once, and held up three fingers, and he billed me 80RMB which is the equivalent of 16 dollars, and i was like that can't be right, and eventually he realized I didn't mean three boxes of chicken wings. Or like when I needed a comb and went to a convenience store and was trying to show what I wanted with my hands, and he kept offering me shampoo, and we were both confused. But these things always seem to work out in the end.

I'm in a coffee shop right now trying to come up with a lesson plan for this week. Lowkey, a few of my kids are kind of divas, but I'll get them to love drama (or Public Speaking. Or at the very least gym, cuz those are the things I'm teaching).

We also were told that we wont have any electricity in the office tomorrow, which is where the classroom is also, so that means no AC. Shanghai is blistering hot, so hopefully I live to blog another day.

Stay cool (or whatever the weather is like over there) ✌