Rainy, gloomy days really suck in China.
Until you walk into your classroom and your student is wearing a batman poncho, that is.
Until you walk into your classroom and your student is wearing a batman poncho, that is.
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Rainy, gloomy days really suck in China.
Until you walk into your classroom and your student is wearing a batman poncho, that is.
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On September 8th, China had a national holiday called Mid-Autumn Festival, or Moon Festival. Chinese legend has it, there used to be a bunch of suns in the sky, making China hot as balls. A dude called Houyi (Ho - ee) was like, hey, you know what can stop global warming? Archery. So he pulled out his arrows and shot down all but one of the suns. Wahoo! But being the badass he was, he wanted to live forever, and bought a potion to do so. He was kind of douchey, so his wife was like, nah bro, I’ll drink that for you because no one wants to see your ugly ass for all of eternity. And then she turned into a rabbit and floated into the moon. I’m not making any of this up. Sounds pretty ridiculous, but then again, American holidays have children believing in a magical bunny that leaves eggs filled with diabetes, which is equally stupid. Anyway, the most important thing is that because Houyi was a dick, now we have a day off from work. Thanks, Houyi, for your dickishness! The day after, my kindergarten students dressed up in traditional costumes. They pretended to be store owners and sold moon cakes to pretend customers (the younger aged students). The little ones gave them each 一元, or 1 RMB coin (around 16 cents) and the older ones "sold" them a moon cake. What are moon cakes? I don’t know where they came from in the Houyi story, but I’m about 98% sure they’re not actually made of moon. Mostly they’re just made of gross. For shits and giggles, I'll leave you with some more pictures of my kiddos being absolutely adorable.
Though I lived in Suzhou last year, I found a much better job in Shanghai for the next school year. The section of Suzhou I lived in didn't have a lot of expats or things catered to foreigners, whereas Shanghai is incredibly foreigner-friendly in terms of restaurants, bars, and things to do. It seemed an easy choice to move from Suzhou to Shanghai. At the moment, I am hoping this will be my last year in China, but it's too soon to tell what my future will bring. I moved into an apartment in the French Concession, an expensive but centrally located part of Shanghai. I share the place with three others: a Spanish guy, a South African girl, and a Chinese guy. We live on the first floor and have this as a view outside on our little veranda: I have the master bedroom, and here's a picture of my room: So far, I am enjoying Shanghai more than I did Suzhou. Though Suzhou was less crowded and cheaper in some ways, Shanghai beats Suzhou in most other ways. There's more expats here, much more to do, the locals are more used to the foreigners and don't treat us quite as poorly, and it's a better location for leaving (there's no airport in Suzhou, and there's plenty of expat tour groups that operate out of Shanghai).
I got knee surgery back in May, so for the following months I had to stay off it. In the beginning of August, it felt strong enough that I could do some slow, light jogging. The friend who went with me to New York, Jessica, and I signed up to do the color run. If you have been living under a rock and don't know what the color run is, watch this video: Basically, you show up in white t-shirts and end up a colorful, awesome mess. Each kilometer, they throw a different color at you. At the end, everyone has color packets that they throw up during a massive dance party. The Grand Rapids run had sold out, but there was luckily a second run the next day we could sign up for. Here we are beforehand, still clean. Aaaand after, completely filthy. We ran in tutus, shown below. Next to us was a group of runners running in hot dog costumes, so during the entire race we kept hearing people yell, "HOT DOG! HOT DOG!" As I wrote before, afterwards there's a huge party filled with breakdancing unicorns and conga lines. It was an incredibly fun experience that I would 100% recommend if you can afford the steep race price (around 50$). Never have I found running so fun! In fact, it inspired me to join a running club in Shanghai and start training more seriously. Even if you're a complete beginner, you can enjoy yourself running at the color run. Here's some of the professional race photos:
On our final full day in New York, we saved the most iconic landmark for last, the Statue of Liberty. There were multiple tour boats that could have taken us there, but we decided to take the free Staten Island Ferry instead. We spent the rest of our last full day wandering around the parts of New York that we missed earlier, such as Wall Street. Our last thing we did in New York was to visit the diner with the famous orgasm scene from Harry Met Sally, Katz Delicatessen. This was one of the lowest points of my trip - the service was terrible and the food was overpriced. However, I almost changed my mind once I saw a photo of these celebrities eating here: 98 Degrees? Heck yes!
I flew back early on the fifth day in New York. All and all, a fantastic trip! I consider myself a fairly flexible traveller, and on day three, Jessica and I woke up with a rough plan for our third day. Upon entering the subway, we realized Coney Island was at the end of the line we were currently on. We looked at each other and decided to throw our plans away and spend the day on Coney Island instead, something we originally figured we didn't have time for. After eating our (expensive) Coney dogs, we wandered around the beach. It was perfect weather to enjoy a stroll along the beach, and I particularly enjoyed seeing beach, then an amus We decided we'd try one of the rides since we made it all the way out to Coney Island, but when we saw the 7$ price tag for the Ferris Wheel, we noped right out of that idea. I decided on Zoltar instead (Big, anyone?) With our afternoon free, we decided to spend the rest of our day in Central Park. We wanted to take a horse-drawn carriage through the park, but the price was too much to split between two people, so I had to settle for just taking a picture instead. We smelled weed and followed a path to find a bunch of hippies singing along to "Imagine" in the John Lennon tribute. We walked the entirety of the park and fully enjoyed the escape from the hustle and bustle of the city. Yet another enjoyable day in New York City!
We started out day two in New York by checking out the 9/11 memorial. We then set off to see the thing I was most excited about doing in New York - seeing a Broadway play! We first put our names in the lottery for Aladdin tickets. Check out the video for this new musical - doesn't it look amazing? We didn't win the lottery for Aladdin, nor did we win the lottery for Wicked, which we tried to enter a few days later. We settled for Cinderella instead. I fully enjoyed my first broadway play, but let's be honest - nothing will EVER beat the Brandy version. Broadway, shmoadway. We then wandered around NBC studios, where I constantly had the tune of the 30 Rock theme song stuck in my head. We also entered yet another lottery to get tickets to the Letterman show, but were unsuccessful. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the city some more, finding ourselves at the St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Trump Tower, and in front of the LOVE structure. Another busy but successful day in NYC!
Since turning eighteen, I have visited the following countries: Dominican Republic, Spain, Italy, France, Ireland, England, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Ghana, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, India, China, Thailand, and Cambodia. Yet, I've hardly explored my own backyard. I've never been to the upper peninsula of Michigan, I've never been to Canada (a measly three or four hour drive away from me), and I've never been to quite a few big cities in the US. I decided to work on that and visit one of the cities at the top of that list: New York. From the time we boarded the airplane in Grand Rapids to the time we left, this song played on repeat in my head: The first photo I took in New York was one of the most iconic photos of the Big Apple. No, not the Statue of Liberty. No, not Times Square. No, not even the picture of the bull's balls. It was a photo of me being afraid to leave my stoop. 90s Nickelodeon, anyone? Stoop kid's afraid to leave his stoop! We found all these stoops on our way to the Seinfeld diner. No soup for you! After that, we went to the bar that inspired the How I Met Your Mother Bar. We tried to find a yellow umbrella to pose outside with, but were not successful. Unlike the Seinfeld diner, which was pretty much just a normal diner, the How I Met Your Mother bar played up the HIMYM references. Check out the drink menu: I got a "Robin Sparkles" drink. Then we wandered around Manhattan / Times Square. We then jumped on one of those tour busses with the open tops to get a good view of the city. Here's the Empire State Building (which we did not go up, because it's way too expensive). And the New York Library: The flatiron building: Then we walked over to the Brooklyn Bridge / Manhattan Bridge. Then we took a photo with the bull's balls, because why not. To end off the day, we found a cheap pizza place. Probably the best photo taken during our trip happened here. I'm thinking of selling it to a modelling place. I tried to pose with the pizza in my mouth, but it was too hot, and then that sexiness happened.
Let's hear it for New York, New York.... damn that song. Chicago is the closest big city near my hometown of Holland, Michigan, and it had been four years since I last visited. I have a few friends that have moved out there and since I had six weeks off, I thought it would be perfect timing to take the train down to Chi-town for a few days. First up: revisiting the bean, the best place to take selfies. Before I met up with my first friend, I wandered around Millennium Park, stopped near the amphitheatre, and soaked up some sun while listening to a free concert. A different day, I met another friend and spent some more time wandering around the city. I then tasted my first Chicago deep dish pizza. I'm not sure how I've gone all through life without tasting this. On my final day, my friend got me in to the Chicago Art Museum for free (he's a member there) and I spent my last few hours in Chicago checking out the art. The most artsy art I saw was a looped video of a clown pooping, which definitely belonged in a fancy museum. After he wiped, I took the train up to Michigan City, Indiana, to go to the Blue Chip Casino with my dad and sister. My sister had just gotten back from Switzerland and brought me a gift: Mmm, katzenzungen. Then we went down to the casino and gambled. It's never a bad week if it includes clown poop and katzenzungen!
Next on the list to visit while back home was the beach. This is an obvious choice for us western Michiganders, but people who haven't been to Michigan often tell me, "But, that's a lake. That's not a beach." IT'S A FREAKING BEACH, PEOPLE. An awesome, awesome beach. I happen to live between two public beaches in Holland, the Holland State Park, and Tunnel Park. Here's some photos of Holland State Park: Many people take wedding photos or senior pictures here, and as you can see based on the following picture, I'm well on my way to the path of professional beach photographer. Besides my home town of Holland, I was also able to go to the Grand Haven beach (a nearby city) for the Coast Guard Festival, a ten-day event honoring the Coast Guard with parades, carnival rides, and fireworks. The beach is overly crowded, but it's worth a wander for the carny food. Nothing says 'Murica more than deep fried diabetes.
My night at the Coast Guard Festival finished up with a perfectly-timed jump picture in the sunset where my friend Krystal and I missed the high-five. Typical. |