Caolaoji

The school that I am at is on a little country road between the large Bengbu city and a small town named Caolaoji. The first week here we mostly explored this little, impoverished town and we’ve gone there quite a few times since and even made a few friends. Here’s one of the days we went to town:

The streets are filled with all these little shops (everything is so cheap!) that we spent the day looking through. I bought a backpack and a much needed watch (each under $5).

For some reason everyone likes to show us to their babies. Everywhere we go, people will just bring up their babies to say hi.

We went into a wedding dress shop (just to see what their dresses look like—don’t get any ideas!) and the owner started filming us. He was just following us around, filming us…it was actually kind of awkward.

Then the next day my friends were walking past his shop, he motioned them in, and showed them a commercial for his shop—with us it! I’m in a Chinese commercial! How funny is that!? Sadly the commercial isn’t that great, but I still think it’s hilarious. My friend filmed it on her camera while they were watching it (so just ignore the voices in the background haha).

We found a restaurant along one of the streets with the most delicious noodles. Every time we visit this town—we stop and see the noodle man (plus a huge plate of noodles cost less than a US dollar). The plate below is some beef, some peppers, some bamboo, and one giant noodle—which he makes in less than a minute! I included a video on how he makes the noodle, because it is seriously cool!

To get back to school, we decided to take a ricochet with a sweet, old man instead of going on the bus. Driving in China is crazy! There doesn’t seem like there’s any defined rules and it’s perfectly normal to drive into head-on traffic (just make sure to honk first). Needless to say…we were a little nervous driving home—but it was really fun!

I love that little town!

Walking around campus

I’m not sure what the other ILP schools are like, but I feel like mine is very nice and I’m lucky to be here. The campus is huge and houses over 1000 students; they have a running track, tennis courts, ping pong courts, basketball courts, a gorgeous lake with a bridge, and lots of buildings. On Sunday afternoon us girls decided to walk around the campus and here are some pictures I took:

We live on the sixth floor of this building and have to walk up these stairs multiple times a day.

The view from my bedroom and the stairwell window. 

Braving our first cafeteria meal, complete with a chicken foot (I wasn’t ready to try it though).

       A statue and the ping-pong tables.     

                    Inside one of the buildings.   

               The track field and a model of the campus.                

I can’t believe I live here!

A playground on campus--which turns out to really be exercising machines.

These are the buildings the students live in. The school doesn’t have any dryers so everyone has to hang up their clothes to dry.

Throughout the day we met a lot of students; everyone knows us as “Teacha” and will yell and wave at us whenever they see us.

In the evening we got our first chance meeting some of the kids we get to teach as they were playing on their playground. This little one came right up to me, grabbed my hand, and insisted I follow and play with only him. We called him my boyfriend--then found out later he’s a girl! The kids were so adorable that it made me excited to start teaching.

The school’s library (with two English books) and fireworks going off at night.