I finally got my teaching schedule!! By October 8th I will be one busy girl! Well, in comparison to the one class I have been teaching for the past three weeks :) 

Monday:
10:20am-12:00pm Freshman Secretary English
2:30-4:10pm Freshman Electro/Mechanical Technology --Oral English

Tuesday: 我不上课 No class!

Wednesday: Busy day - 忙
8:20am-10:00am Freshman Tourism English
10:20am - 12:00pm Freshman Secretary English
2:30- 4:10 pm Mold and Design Manufacturing- Freshman Oral English

Thursday:
8:20am-10:00am Freshman Tourism English
2:30pm-4:10pm Mechanical Design - Freshman Oral English

Friday:
10:20-12:00 Sophomore Tourism English

Bring out the Moon Cakes! 月饼

Next week is Chinese National Holiday as well as the Mid-Autumn Festival (or Moon Festival - zhong qui jie - 中秋节). So, we get a whole week off of school! I will be going to Nanchuan, about four hours south of Wanzhou to see my host family! (Pictures to come).

The Moon Festival is said to date back to the Tang Dynasty (618 AD) and celebrates the harvest moon. There are many different versions of the legend of zhong qui jie, the one I have been taught says that during ancient times, one day, ten suns appeared in the sky. The emperor ordered a famous archer to shoot down the extra nine suns. He did and a godess gave the archer a magic pill as a reward. Unfortunately, his wife, Chang E, took the pill without telling her husband and was thus banished to the moon, where she continues to live. Only during the Mid-Autumn Festival, when the moon is brightest are they able to see each other. Pretty tragic, yet romantic right? Anyways, during the Moon Festival, Chinese people head home to their families, have dinner, appreciate the moon and eat lots of moon cakes!

Moon cakes are hard to describe. The outside is dough and then the inside is really sugary. Some have nuts I am told, others even have meat. But I have only eaten the ones with really sweet flavored stuff inside, for example, one I just ate was peach flavored. 

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! 中秋节快乐

One of my favorite things about China: The amazingly cute note books, with terrible English on them.

If you can't see the writing on this one, it says....

 "When I feel lonely, I will go to the street and cat for friends." 

They make me smile every time. 

Gong Bao Ji Din - One of my favorite dishes :) 

The food here is very different from what I expected. Much more oily and salty, but you cannot go wrong with gong bao ji din...ever :) in my opinion. 

A couple of my students students and I studying Chinese and English!

Exploring Wanzhou!!

Wanzhou is divided by the famous Yangzi River. It is the longest river in Asia and the 3rd longest in the world. It has been central to China's shipping and transportation throughout the center of the country. It stretches all the way to the Pacific and yes it is muddy :)

 

The English teachers, as well as my host family took us up to a scenic view point up in the mountains above Wanzhou. Once we got up there, we ate snacks, and then lunch and then played mahjong for about 5 hours :) .....so Chinese. Below is a mahjong table. As far as I can tell from playing for several hours, mahjong is somewhat like poker but with tiles. It originated in China and is a major part of Chinese culture. Each player gets 12 tiles and you need to make straights or three/four of a kind with them. I think it might have been beginners luck, but I somehow won like seven times. Usually you gamble with money, but we used peanuts :) And at the end I had the most peanuts! 

Chongqing, Wanzhou, China - My new home for the next two years :) 

I arrived two weeks ago to Wanzhou and just started my first class yesterday. I like the city a lot. It is small for China, a mere 700,000 people and it is built into the mountains with the famous Yangtze river flowing through it. It is beautiful and the people are lovely. I live about a 30 minute bus ride outside of downtown on campus at Chongqing Three Gorges Vocational College. Out here it is very small, there is one tiny main street with a few restaurants, an open air market and some clothing stores. But, I like it out here. It is small and quiet and peaceful.

I have only one class as of now, until the freshman finish with their mandatory military training. In a couple weeks, I will be in the full swing of things!!