Not Just a Hair Wash

Not just a hair wash:

            Before we came to China, and as soon as we got here, we have been told that we have to go get a hair wash. So tonight, we finally did it… and it’s an experience that I have to share with you! Ps. Julie Outhouse, please do not take offense to this, you are still the best hairdresser I know J

            Before going to get a hair wash, me, Kate and a girl named Megan from St. Stephen went out for Sushi (jealous Mel?) it was delicious! We have shrimp, salmon, California rolls, etc… but for some reason my chopsticks skills were really bad tonight (I have come to the conclusion that it is because I hold my pencil different than a lot of people, so when people try to teach me, I am trying to do it the normal way, but my way of holding my chopsticks is not normal, but I’m sticking to it!)

            After the Sushi, we headed to the hairdresser (take note that both the sushi and hairdresser is three buildings away from my hotel room. Uh-oh I can see where my money is going to go) We walked up the stairs where we were met by a lady, and instead of saying anything we motioned a hair wash (put our hands on our head and acted like we were washing our hair, get it?:) ) she took us into a room where we all laid down on a massage bed that had a sink at the end of it. The three people came in who were going to wash our hair, one woman and two men. At first I was kind of nervous and thought it was awkward because the guy that I had kept mocking mine and Kate’s laugh and saying random words in English that we were saying. We would laugh and say “oh my God” and he would do the same in between his Chinese words. He then started singing Lady GaGa and when he stopped, I continued the song and he laughed. Funny little things like this kept happening and I kept laughing because I thought it was so funny, so then he yelled, “Relax!” and I realized that he could speak English and most likely knew what we were saying. He then brought his iPhone over and put it beside my ear and all it was, was chinese with English translation. The English translator would say things like “What is dry-heaving?”, “Tom really turns me on”, “How do I get to the restaurant?” and random things like that! I was loosing it laughing. Anyways all this is besides the whole point of this point. Yes I had a hilarious guy who made it hard to relax, but made the experience that much better, but what I want to tell you about is the experience of a hair wash in China.

            He first started off by massaging my head for about 10 minutes. It was AMAZING. He then washed my hair while continuing to massage my head, my neck and my upper back (I didn’t know until tonight it was possible to have that many knots in your neck and upper back. I have to start taking better care of my body!!) After he washed my hair, he did a little facial on me with cream and massaged my face. Next he washed the cream off of my face with a face cloth and set the cloth on my face and rinsed over it with hot water. It felt so good! After he was done this process he went back to massaging my head, neck and upper back while conditioning my hair. During this he also took his finger and put them to my lips and made a kissing sound! Haha! Once he was done this, they wrap your hair up and move the massage to your arms, hands and shoulders. It wasn’t like a normal massage though, but it’s hard to explain. After they are done with your hands, arms and shoulders, he cleaned my ears. YES, he cleaned my ears! It wasn’t normal. Hahahaha! Finally, he said..”how do you say…” and motioned for me to flip over with his hands and I said, “flip over?” and he repeated it until he got it right! It was cute. Lastly, he finished with a back massage! It did not feel like hands were being used at all through this process. I thought he was using tools during the whole thing, but it was only his hands. I wish I could explain this better. We were all laughing so hard during this, and kept saying I can’t wait to tell people about this. Picture yourself laying down surrounded my three Chinese people who keep mocking you, and then saying something in Chinese and laughing while they have their hands on you. It is truly one of those experiences you have to have, or one of those “you had to be there” experiences!

             After I was done with this process I was taken to another room to get my hair styled. Before I got my hair styled I had to pee though (of course) and used the public washroom, the ones where you have to squat and pee in a hole in the ground. I’m pretty sure the “water” that was on the floor was pee, and I got pee on my new toms, but o well, they were only 10$ and I’m sure ill buy another pair! haha! The stylist straightened my very curly hair with a brush and a blow dryer. I have never seen my hair look like this without a straightening iron. So overall this process took about 1hr and was totally routine for getting your hair done in China. Oh, and did I mentioned this cost 5$ CAN? Yes, its crazy cheap, and was an experience I will never forget. I think ill be getting a hair wash many more times before I head home. Sorry if this post is a little boring, and doesn’t interest you at all, but if you ever travel to China, please please please go get your hair washed. It is an experience that is awkward, uncomfortable, weird but completely amazing at the same time! I now understand what everyone was talking about!

Heritage Fair, Hiking Shekou Mountain, and Being a Dare Devil

This past Friday was Heritage Fair at the school. Each class picks a country and does a huge project on that country, the parents come in and see the work and there was also a Food Fair (my favourite part) we spent the whole day getting ready for Heritage Fair. The kids finished up their projects and then left school early and came back at 5:30. While the students were gone the teachers set each classroom up with all of the work they did on the specific country. My class did Brazil. They have been working on learning about Brazil way before I came here, and they have learned so much! The Heritage Fair was suppose to be outside but it was really windy on Friday night so they moved the fair inside. The best part of the whole night though was the Food Fair. Each nationality at the school was asked to bring a plate to the fair. There was a table of Korean food, Chinese food, Japanese food, Romanian Food, Canadian food, Indian food and food from France. It was so cool to see all the different foods from around the world. I have to say that the food from France was my favourite (lots of sweets and carbs, just what I like HAHA) The students were so excited about Heritage Fair, and now I can see why. It was a great time with lots of food, entertainment, prizes etc. There was over 1000 people there! it was insane. 

            Saturday morning we woke up around 8am to hike Shekou Mountain. We decided to go along with Sarah ( a teacher from Hampton) and her Grade 10 class. They are preparing for an adventure in Malaysia so they had to bring backpacks with 6L of water, food, etc. I was a little bit nervous at the first but it wasn't so bad once we got going. When I first heard that we were hiking a mountain, I actually thought we were hiking a mountain, but all the way up the mountain were stairs and that is what we were climbing! I think that someone said there are almost 2000 stairs all together. 

This says "South Mountain" (I think) 

 first part was the worst because it was super steep.  Once we got to stair 1000 the students all thought we were done because there is a lookout that we climbed up, I looked at my watch though and realized that it had only taken us around 25 mins and I had heard that the whole climb was around 45mins to an hour so I knew we werent finish.After the first 1000 stairs there was a decline that we went down and then a steep climb up to the finish that I decided to run by myself (I think all that stair training during my basketball career helped with ambition) Although it nearly killed me I did finish and reached the top! Once I got to the top I waited for a few other teachers and then we took some pictures and looked around. While I was standing there stretching, an adult man came up behind me and "sized me up" he stood behind me and put his hand to he was probably 3-4 inches shorter than me. I didnt even realize he was doing this because he was behind me, but a couple of the teachers let me know. He then got his little boy to come up to me and Kate and say..."you tall, bye bye" haha! it was cute though. The stares and the pictures and the pointing hasn't really bothered me yet! it's kind of funny when men stop and stare and you and say hello hello. Me and kate keep joking that when we get back to Canada we will miss the stares and the "hello beautiful" :)

1/2 way up I stopped to take a picture, then I looked at my watch and realized we weren't finished! 

          After our hike we came back and headed to Louhu which is a 5 story shopping center. As soon as we got off the metro people were coming up to us saying.."Missy Missy come looky looky...you want nice watch, you want nice hand bag?" one guy goes..."missy, you want birkenstock?" I said..."look at my feet, I have birkenstock" I felt bad, but I learned quickly at Louhu that you have to be a bit of a bitch or they wont leave you alone. Finally we just started ignoring them and eventually they went away. I ended up buying a pair of Toms for 10$ and a dress and tank for 10$ I will definitely have to go back to Louhu!! 

Kate and me with our "chinese" pose 

        This morning (Sunday) we had it planned that we were going to go on a bike ride with Ross through Shenzhen. I wasn't too sure about this because I have seen the traffic and I have seen the bikes in the middle of the traffic but we SURVIVED! Kate was super sick last night all night with food poisoning (we think) although we shared the exact same food and I wasn't sick. I was sick on monday night though and she wasn't so I guess our bodies just react differently, either way, I don't think we will be back to the restaurant we ate at last night, and I have decided to stay away from meat here! Kate was a trooper though and still came on the bike ride. She was fine until the end when she starting puking again. As I write this she is asleep and resting. I hope she feels better very soon! 
Between dodging the traffic. the sunburn and dodging the 1000's of people, the bike ride was fantastic! We biked for almost 3 hours with Ross, Leon and Dave and made it to the waterfront again and now know how to get there! It's bad to say but I felt really free biking through traffic on a bicycle with no helmet (sorry dad) haha! we tried to stay away from the main streets as much as possible and it helped with the traffic. We felt like royalty biking around because the men kept yelling HELLO HELLO HELLO! too funny! 

The walkway! it was so hot and I got a burn, but you can see the smog in this picture! I love the walkway with all the palm trees and the hot weather! I constantly find myself feeling like I am not in China, who knew that China had palm trees and hot weather like this! 

the bike mechanic on the side of the road we came to that gave us a new tube for my tire, raised Kate's seat and fixed Leon's gears for 30 RMB.. that's like 5$..crazy! PS... repping the UNB VREDS water bottle! 

Last thing I want to write about is my trip to the supermarket today. I decided to go alone since Kate is not feeling well and it was my first time alone anywhere in China (the stares seem worse when you're alone I have realized). It was my mission to head to the superstore and find some peanut butter. Although I didn't find any (I think it is only at the international supermarket) I did manage to find some things I recognized. Along with the dozen apples, bananas and grapes I bought, this should hold me over for awhile. Oh p.s I also found some chinese Peanut M& M's. Everyone that knows me knows how much this means to me! :) I could write lots more but my computer is about to die and the woman at the front desk didn't know what I meant by a converter or transformer to charge my laptop! Hopefully I will find one soon! :) I also start teaching this week! I am starting with Language Arts and we are going to do a unit on Procedural Writing, next week I will be teaching LA and Social Studies and keep working my way up from there! I am excited! :)           

Chinese Gatorade, Peanuts and Mutigrain Lays Chips. 

First Full Day in the Classroom

            I thought that I would be a lot more nervous than I was today going into the classroom. I think having Jessica as a cooperating teacher is helping calm my nerves cause she’s young and we are very similar! I bought the students some pencils that say Canada on them and some Soccer Canada stickers (thanks Heather!!) They loved them! We played a game to get to know each other. They had to stand up and say their name, where they are from, and then three interesting facts about them. Most of the kids speak very good English! I would say only one of them is struggling with English. It’s funny how you can tell the personality of a child even by something as simple as them standing up in front of the class and saying three interesting facts about themselves. Some rushed right up there and spoke loudly and were silly, and others slowly walked up, spoke softly, and only said their name and where they were from. I never knew this before, but the students at the International School aren’t allowed to have a Chinese passport, so a lot of them have Russian, Canadian, Malaysian, Korean and Indonesian passports, although they only lived in most of these places for 2 months after they were born just to get the passport, and both their parents are Chinese. After each student went up I stood in front of the class and it was a question panel. I think they asked me question after question for 25 minutes. These questions ranged from “where did you go to school in Grade 5” to “Miss R, if you were in a zombie apocalypse, who is the person you would want with you and what weapon would you use?” (Yes they actually asked me that!) It was a lot of fun, and it definitely helped them to get to know me. They know that my name is Miss Russell and some of them call me that, but a lot call me Miss R, which totally sounds like “mister” when they say it!

            As the day went along I got to know each student more and more. It is funny to hear their “English” names, and it is funny to me that we do that. If I moved to China, I would not be given a Chinese name, so I wonder why we change these children’s names just to make it easier for us, and make it more Westernized. I don’t know if I agree with this. Here is a list of the student’s names in my class. You will definitely laugh at one of them:

Dennis

Grace

Jessica

Melanie

Selena

Lawrence

Lisa

Kev

Goldie

Aileen

BMW – yes his name is actually BMW his mother gave him that name and it just stuck, and for some reason is doesn’t feel weird at all to call him that. He asked me if I owned a car. When I said, “yes, I own a VW” he said “WHY NOT A BMW?” hahahaha!

Joanne

Kevin

Dalan (pronounced Doll-in)

Linda

Christine

Rachel

Vincent

Oscar

Sharia

That was all from memory! Pretty good for the first day eh?

Some of them are quite funny names, but they fit each one of them! Dennis is Korean and he is quite the character, he made me laugh all day! Jessica said she tries not to laugh too much because she knows he is just being silly, but you can’t help but laugh at him sometimes!

The kids go to school from 8:30-3 and then they have an activity from 3-3:30, and then head home. Their breaks are just like the breaks at any NB school. At dinner time me and Kate tried to eat in the teachers cafeteria (although we were warned not to) and I definitely wouldn’t recommend it. It saves me money to eat there, but I can’t see it happening again! Hahaha

After a great day at school, Kate and me headed to a district called “Futain”. We went with a few other teachers and took the metro there. Right now it doesn’t seem to hard to figure out the metro, which is good cause I think we will be taking it a lot.

First Full Day in Shenzhen!

            After falling asleep around 3am Shenzhen time, we woke up to a wake up call from the front desk at 7am. After we laid there for about 10 mins we decided it was time to get up and so that we could try and get on a good sleeping schedule. The first thing we did this morning was take a long walk to find some food, although the smell of the city when I first stepped out the doors made me lose my appetite, but I found that as the day went on the smell went away, or I just got used to it, either way..it was better.  We walked for about 2 hours this morning just looking around and trying to figure out a bit of the city. As we walked we saw children pooping and peeing on the sidewalk, had many men say “Hello Beautiful” or stare and point at us, we even had people take pictures of us, but it was more funny than annoying! We searched for food for a bit but couldn’t really decide on what we all wanted then finally I noticed a little corner store that sold bananas and apples, and Gatorade. Well at least I think it was Gatorade! Shenzhen seems like an awesome city so far. The population is around 14 million although we were told today that they suspect the population is actually 20 million and people just aren’t registering. I also read that the average age in the city is below 30 years of age, which you can definitely see why when you are walking around! There are so many babies, and children and young people everywhere! I swear out of all the people I saw today, I would say 20 of them were above the age of 40!

            After we found some fruit we walked a bit more and decided we needed something more to eat. We came to a little restaurant on the street where none of the waitresses spoke any English. We decided that we would order one thing and all try it together to make sure we liked it. Avery took our a receipt and drew various animals and put a X through them, and then drew various vegetables and put a check mark beside it. Luckily the waitress understood and brought us a delicious bowl of noodles with peanuts and vegetables and some kind of sauce that was good, and also four sets of chopsticks (I promise that I will eventually master these) With the language barrier, there are definitely times that you have to innovate to get what you wanted. But the pictures of the vegetables and animals worked and we ended up sharing an awesome meal.
            When we came back from our walk we went to the school. Luckily there was a teacher already at the gate or else we probably wouldn’t have been let in by security. We met a lot of the teachers who are all foreign (mostly from NB, NS or Australia or England) and young! This day has made me realize how small this world actually is. There are so many connections made between people I know and people that they know it is unbelievable! A lot of the teachers are from the Maritimes so I guess that helps, but the world just keeps getting smaller and smaller!

yes, I have long legs 

            After a little tour around the campus, me and Kate went and got some workout clothes on and headed to the water front with a few of the teachers. It’s amazing to me that they have been here for 7 months and have never gone where we went today! It was amazing! We ordered some egg fried rice and took the bus down and sat along the water while we ate our food (with chopsticks of course. I am getting better at using them!) After we ate our food we walked back along the water on this concrete path that went forever! You could see Hong Kong across the water as we walked along the path. It was awesome. The teachers that we were with kept saying that coming to the water front has changed their whole perspective on Shenzhen. I can’t believe they had never been there; it was only about a ½ hr trip away from the school! It is definitely a spot I will be back to! But next time I will remember to wear sunscreen! As I write this it is currently 8:30pm here and I am falling asleep! Trying to get my body on schedule hasn’t been that bad at all. I know that 8:30 is a little early, but I need the sleep so goodnight! 

We Landed in Hong Kong!

We FINALLY made it to Shenzhen after a long day.. or two days.. or day and a half… im not sure im still confused about the time change! Hahaha  but overall we were travelling from 4am Friday until 11am Saturday (New Brunswick time) Shenzhen is 11 hours ahead of New Brunswick so we ended up getting here around 10 pm after an 8 hour delay in Toronto (but we got a $250 voucher for Air Canada).

Flying over the Arctic 

             The plane ride wasn’t to bad! Me and kate got lucky because no one sat with us so we took turns laying down and sleeping! I probably got 5 hours of sleep all together, which is definitely more than I had planned. There were many friendly Chinese people on the plane so we chatted them up a bit and asked them about China. I wish it wasn’t dark when we flew in, but as soon as I wake up and the sun is shining I will be able to see everything!  As soon as we got off the plane, we could feel the humidity! Our initial plan was to get off the plane, buy a ticket for the ferry to Shenzhen, claim our bags and go through customs and then someone would meet us. Because of the 8 hour delay, we missed the last ferry so after asking a few of the workers at the airport and following all the signs (thank god they were in English) we made it through customs, found our bags, bought a ticket for a “limousine” ride which actually was a van, whose driver kept almost falling asleep while driving on the wrong side of the road! Well we thought he was falling asleep anyways cause we could see him in the rearview mirror and his eyes kept closing, so Avery made conversation with him to keep him awake! The van took us through the border of Hong Kong to Shenzhen Bay where we saw lots of Palm Trees and it got everyone excited!  Thankfully there was a young Chinese lady in the van with us that let us use her cell phone to call the school and let them know our original plan was scratched and we would actually need to be picked up at Shenzhen Bay. She spoke Chinese on the phone, and when we got out of the van all she said was stay here. So that’s what we did. We stayed there and waited to be picked up!

First "toilet" I used in China 

            Anyone that knows me knows that I pee A LOT so of course while we were waiting for someone to pick us up I couldn’t wait until we got to the hotel and decided to pee at the port. I walked into the bathroom and this is what I found! Haha! Welcome to China! Thankfully, there were hooks to hang my bags on though while I used the washroom because I really didn’t want to set my things on the ground (if you think the floors in Canadian bathrooms are gross, think again!) From now on I will remember to take toilet paper with me wherever I go!
            Once we were picked up we were brought to the hotel where we are living for two months! We weren’t sure before this if we would be staying on campus or at a hotel, but the hotel is now our home for two months! It is just a very short walk to campus so it all worked out! As soon as we got to our rooms we changed into shorts and sandals (YESSSSS) and went downtown to a pub called McCawleys Irish Pub as its St. Pattys day! There were a lot of young foreigners there from all over, but we were exhausted so just grabbed something quickly to eat and headed back to the hotel!
            Right now it is 2:13 am and we are going to try to go to sleep and wake up early enough to try and get on schedule here as we are in the schools starting Monday! It is giving 27 and sun tomorrow so I plan on going on a long walk and getting acquainted with the area around me! There is one Internet cord in our hotel room so I will be on the Internet as much as possible! Hope you enjoyed this post! There will be many more to come J