A rough few days

I usually keep my blog posts happy and upbeat. I like sharing the adventures and I usually leave out the day to day stuff. After all, even though I live in interesting and unusual places I still have a lot of the typical same ole same ole. Unfortunately the last few days have not fallen into either the adventure category or the everyday life category. This story is going to have a number of stages that all came together last Friday so give me a chance to introduce all the important preceding events before I actually get to the rough few days...
I move to Beijing in August and I found an apartment I really love, but the commute was rather killer. I had to walk 10+ minutes to the subway station. Take the subway 1 stop then walk about 8 minutes within the subway station to change lines. The next line was always super crowded and then when I got to my destination I had about a 15 minutes walk to the school. Altogether my commute took 50 minutes and was hot, stinky and frustrating. So in November I bought an electric scooter she was a beauty (I'll try to find the picture of her) and she changed my life. My commute was shortened to just 15 minutes! Oh, it was wonderful. I was now saving 1.5 hours off my daily commute. Unfortunately, exactly 2 weeks after I bought her, I discovered someone had stolen my wonderful scooter. I told my neighbor who helped me tell the security guard who said we needed to go to the complex's service center. They arranged for me to go to a room that was labeled fire protection but was actually all the security camera feeds. Unfortunately, it turns out they didn't have one for where I had parked my scooter. Both my neighbor and the guard were like you should park by the security guards at the gate. I replied (in Chinese of course), "If only I still had a bike." Three days later I purchased a cute red scooter and started parking it next to the gate. The guard saw me the first time and was like, "absolutely, it won't get stolen here." Each day he greets me and moves the cones for me. When there are too many scooters and motorcycles for me to park he moves them around to make room for me and life was good.

My original scooter

(In a completely different story line) three weeks ago I woke up in the early morning to terrible pain like I'd never felt before. I called in sick to work and tried to get comfortable, but I couldn't. My abdomen felt awful. I called my parents and they said I needed to go see a doctor. I got an appointment for about an hour and a half later, ordered the Chinese equivalent of Uber (didi) and bare-knuckled it to the clinic.  For a while, I thought I would never make it. The doctor diagnosed it as a stomach virus, gave me some anti-nausea meds and told me I could go home, eat (I hadn't eaten all day because I just felt like I needed to throw up and it would be fine). The meds, however, made me feel worse and the next day (Wednesday) I took them in the morning and then never again. I made it to work on Thursday, but only managed to teach my classes (first and second periods) before I had to go home. Friday I felt okay and Saturday I was back to normal.
Okay, so now you have the background. Let's fast-forward to this past Friday. I woke up a little after 12 in the morning with terrible pain. I was able to go back to sleep a few hours later, but when I woke up in the morning I was definitely tired. I was running a little slow and I got out to my scooter a little late. I bent down to unlock the U-lock on the front tire and realized something was wrong. Someone had tried to steal my scooter! They had drilled out the lock and now my key wouldn't open it. I showed the guard. He and I both tried to open it. It is now 7:30 and I start work at 8 and class at 8:15. I cannot make it to school on time via the subway. The guard suggests a car (taxi, didi, etc). I tell him, this time of day traffic is too bad. A car will stuck in a traffic jam and I won't make it to work on time. He then suggests a bike, which was exactly what I was thinking. There are these bikes all around town that you can borrow. They're very cheap and you download an app onto your phone, verify your identity and put down a deposit.

My current scooter

Then you can rent the bike from anywhere you find one and ride it wherever you want. You can then leave it in any legal bike parking area and you only pay between 0.5-1 yuan (about 7-14 cents) per half hour for the privilege. It's great for short distances, but the bikes aren't very adjustable and they are fix gear bikes. Nonetheless, I pulled out my smartphone rented one and took off. I made it to school in 25 minutes (it's about 10 km or 6 miles) and got to the cafeteria just as they were closing up breakfast (which ends at 8). I convinced the worker to let me take a couple of egg sandwiches to go, ate 1 bite put the rest on my desk and went to get the lab demos I was doing that day ready. My first period went great and my day improved. Second period went pretty well. We were in the last five minutes of class and I was cleaning up and discussing things with a student while the other students were supposed to be working in their groups on their lab papers. All the sudden I saw one student on the floor in a fetal position while another was kicking and punching him! Now, I teach in a very nice private school. We have some violence like this with the middle schooler, but never with the high schoolers. I ran over and shouted at him to stop. He did not respond and was beating the snot out of the other student. I decided I had to break it off and pulled the kid off of him while sending other students for help. Two of my male colleagues arrived to help and while the three of us were standing with the two kids they went at it again (this time both throwing punches). We got them separated and took them to the office separately. I dealt with giving my side of things (today I saw the video from the security cameras and while I got the important details mostly right, I was WAY off on a lot of details. It rather amazed me, just how faulty my recollection of the event was). Meanwhile, I started to see purple spots on my arm and thought I had been injured. However, as they turned black I realized I had accidently gotten a chemical from the lab on me, but it wasn't anything serious, thankfully). After all this, I was beat. I collapsed at home (and remember I'm still not feeling really great).
The next day (Saturday), I feel even worse. I am chaperoning a field trip to a concert at the National Center for the Performing Arts (amazing, I can hopefully write a post on that later). After an hour on the subway to get there I was sick! I was nauseated and miserable. Thankfully, I recovered some while sitting in the concert hall, but then the ride home was torture. The smells aggravated my stomach. My abdomen hurt, and so many people stunk of sweat, alcohol or both. I wasn't sure I was going to make it. I didn't go to church or small group the next day. Nor did I get my lock cut off my scooter and replaced. I just didn't feel well. I was in so much pain last night I only managed to sleep two hours. Today, I still didn't feel well (and still couldn't ride my scooter to work, not to mention I'm sure the lack of sleep didn't help). I went to work, but made an appointment to see the doctor in the afternoon and was diagnosed with gallstones. At least, I now know what it is. I need to have my gallbladder removed and I need to work out when and where I'm going to do that. I will be cutting nearly all fat out of my diet (which also means I pretty much can't eat school food) to try to stave off additional attacks. Thankfully, my small group is praying for me as are other friends around the world. I'm so glad I have a support system and I know eventually it will all work out okay.

Kristin goes to Phuket

So I want to start this post off by letting my readers know that while there is no defined standard way of converting the Thai script to the Latin alphabet a "ph" combination does not indicate an "f" sound like it does in English, but rather a hard p. So now that you're not accidently sounding really vulgar let me tell you about my awesome trip to Thailand.
I arrived in Phuket pretty late. I think we landed around 11:15 pm and I'm not sure whether or not the clock had rolled past midnight when I cleared immigration, but I suspect it had because my passport was stamped with the next day's date. Most of the people in line were Chinese, Korean (my flight came out of Seoul) or Russian (I didn't know ahead of time, but it was very apparent that the majority of the tourists in Phuket were either Chinese or Russian) and a lot of people seem to have some trouble. They all got cleared, but it took a long time. I had no problems at all.
After clearing immigration I exchanged some money and bought a SIM card (it was very useful and only about USD 12) and then used maps on my phone to find my hotel. I had booked a hotel in walking distance from the airport since I was arriving so late at night. Obviously it was after dark and as a result,  it had cleared a bit, but I was dressed for winter. I had on jeans and a sweater as was carrying my winter coat. The walk to my hotel wasn't long, but I was dying by the time I got there. The first words to the gentleman at the front desk were, "I'm not dressed for Thailand."
The next day I got in touch with some friends and we met up in Patong beach. We were able to find a small hotel which was able to accommodate them and me in a quiet part of Patong beach (known for being quite the party spot) that wasn't too far from the ocean. We had originally thought we might hop around to different hotels, but it was such a good price (less than USD 25/night) with great people and in a quiet area that we stayed there the whole time I was in Phuket and then my friends, who were staying longer, went to another island and then came back to the same hotel.
While we were there we explored the markets, went to the beach, went elephant trekking, went snorkeling and I took a cooking class. It was all so much fun and I estimated that excluding my airfare my 10-day vacation cost me about 500 U.S. dollars.
Our first big adventure was to go elephant trekking. At first, I wanted to go swim with the dolphins, but as best as I could figure out you had to first pay to watch a dolphin show and then to swim with the dolphins and it was all incredibly expensive and I had no desire to watch a show. I had simply seen a billboard advertising swimming with the dolphins and thought it would be cool. My friend T wanted to go see the tigers. We looked into that, but it seemed kind of ridiculous, especially since you only got to stay with the tigers for 10 minutes. Then we asked about the elephants and we knew that's what we wanted to do. The elephants were MUCH more reasonably priced and we quickly narrowed our choices to a 45-minute trek through the jungle or an hour trek through along the cliffs. D and I voted for the hour along the cliffs, but we were out-voted. I don't think it would have mattered which one we did. It was so awesome! T and I rode on one elephant and D and the kids rode on another. After a while our guide (who like the rest of the guides was wearing jeans and a sweater because even though it was in the 80s, it was winter for them) offered for one of us to move out of the seat and directly onto the elephant's back. I jumped (not literally of course) at the chance and carefully climbed down from the chair and onto the elephants back. It was so much fun! I had a bit of a struggle at first because I felt off balance and felt like I was shifting every time the elephant walked (I could feel his back moving with his legs). After a while, I got the hang of it and enjoyed it. I rode for about 20 minutes on the back before the guide stopped and offered T a turn. She didn't want to take one, but I was ready to return to the easy seat of the elephant (it was from this seat that I posted the picture of me riding the elephant onto facebook).
The next day, my friends and I went our separate ways for the day and I did something that I loved; I took a cooking class. My class was relatively expensive, but an absolutely awesome splurge. I took a 3-hour cooking class where you got to make three dishes or your choice. In addition, we learned about the four basic flavors in Thai cooking (prio - sour, wan - sweet, kem - salty and pet - spicy) and the typical things used to achieve each of these. We also learned about the herbs for different types of dishes, how to make both green curry paste and red curry paste and finally about sauces. The food I made was amazing and I picked up some dried herbs at a local store (obviously I couldn't carry fresh ones over the border) and I hope to start trying to replicate the dishes soon.
On another day we took a full day snorkeling tour. The first stop was near an island, but she just jumped off the boat into the ocean and went snorkeling. That was my first time ever snorkeling and it took me a bit (maybe 5-10 minutes) to get the hang of it. I love to swim and even swam on a swim team last year, but using a snorkel is just a bit different. After about 45 minutes we left and went to our next stop an absolutely gorgeous island. We spent two hours here swimming, snorkeling, having lunch and just enjoying the beach. Then we went to another gorgeous island for two hours and here I had the most awesome time. Here there were some amazing coral that I even saw opening and closing, incredible diversity in the fish. It was so amazing I never wanted to get out. Unfortunately, at the same time I was feeling myself burn (I left my shirt on this entire island because my back was already burnt, but my feet, legs, arms, everything was getting sunburnt by this time and so after a while, I left the ocean to find some shade. I will share a few photos from the beach, but unfortunately, I didn't have an underwater camera so I can't share with you the most amazing part.
The rest of my trip was filled with eating experiences, market experiences (we went to the gigantic night market) and just enjoying the beach and swimming in the ocean. After this trip, I can see why a friend of mine told me, "for some people Thailand is like a drug. You can never get enough of it."

Mom and I first saw something like this in Copenhagen and I had
no desire to have little fish nibble on my feet. This time, however,
I gave in to peer pressure. 

At first we both sat up on the seat, but when the
opportunity to ride bareback arose, I took it.

Outside of the touristy areas we stayed, this is some of the housing
I saw.

Good 'ole feet in the sand picture.

Me at my awesome cooking class.

More or less an action shot.

My tom young gong soup

This was the day we went snorkeling. I didn't take
the phone in the water though.

The whole family including the dog on the motorbike.
They caught be taking the picture and smiled and waved.

Everynight these trucks came around blaring advertisements
for the Muay Thai boxing.

One of several beaches I went to.

Peking Opera Photos part II

So I know I am trying to update my blog on my recent travels. So far we've only made it as far as the Seoul Incheon airport and more will come soon, but I got the professional photos from my Peking Opera session and they are just too awesome not to share. Enjoy!

I've learned that this character is called 贵妃醉酒 （gui fei zui jiu)

My favorite airport - Seoul Incheon

Recently, I took a vacation to Thailand and Hong Kong. I had been waiting to get some specific dates and locations for an exam that I needed to take so I couldn't book my trip until mid-December and since I was traveling during Chinese New Year that meant that my options for fly from Beijing to Phuket were more limited than if I had booked earlier. As a result, I knew that I would have to have a long layover. The Seoul Incheon airport has long been my favorite airport so I figured that my best bet was to take my layover in Seoul. I googled tours of Seoul and found transit tours out of Seoul Incheon and thought, "awesome, that's what I'm going to do." Unfortunately, I booked my flight into Gimpo and then out of Incheon and discovered when I got to Incheon that this made me inelligible for the transit tours, you have to fly both into and out of Seoul Incheon on the same day.
Nonetheles, I had a pretty good experience. When I boarded the plane in Beijing the flight attendants passed out landing documents. Two of the documents were trilingual (Korean, English and Chinese), but one of the documents was only in Korean. I couldn't even figure out what the document was. Without thinking, I asked the flight attendant what this document was in Chinese. She replied in English. I didn't realize it until the end of the conversation, but my whole side of the conversation was in Chinese and the flight attendant's was in English (being blonde people always assume, correctly of course, that I speak English). She told me it was a customs document and she would get me an English copy. A few minutes later she returned and told me they were out of English copies so

There was a man accompanying who took
pictures for people with their phones.

she had brought me a Chinese copy. Maybe I could read this one. I told her I could read it better than the Korean one. I did my best to read the document as was pretty proud that I figured the document out (later I found an English copy at the airport and filled it out again, but that's how I know I filled it out correctly). The document was written in Chinese, but I filled it out in English.
I landed in Seoul Gimpo and since the connecting flight was out of Seoul Incheon I had to go through quarantine inspection, passport control and customs. Quarantine was first. All of the documents I had filled out on the plane had asked for my address in Korea. Since I was leaving that evening, I didn't have one. I think I had written on the form, none and the woman at quarantine questioned me about this. I explained that I was transiting and at first she looked confused (I should have gone another way for transit passengers) until I explained my connecting flight was out of Incheon. After I explained, it
was no problem. She wrote something on my form in Korean and told me to continue. I always seem to pick the wrong line and with passport control that was no exception. I was one of the VERY last people to make it through passport control, but I wasn't in a hurry so it didn't matter. Customs was just a matter of turning in my form.
Now that I was officially admitted into Korea I exchanged a little bit of money, found the Airport Express train and took the train to the Seoul Incheon Airport without any trouble. When I got to Incheon I discovered that I couldn't take a transit tour and was saddened, but I did watch some Netflix in the airport (a big deal because China is one of the few countries without Netflix) and found a really good burger for lunch.

Beautiful classical music

After I went through security I discovered several really cool things. In addition to all the shops (Incheon has quite a collection including Prada, Gucci, Michael Kors and every other haute culture brand name you can think of) they had live music and this cool walk through the airport of people in historical costumes. Then I found this really cool free cultural event for foreigners. You got a choice of two traditional korean crafts. I made this art work with an interesting stamp. I can't really explain so I'll let the pictures do the talking on that one. It was funny though because as I was working I was speaking to the two women who were working my craft and I accidently let the paint thingie go and out of my mouth came, ”哎呀!“ (aiya - a Chinese sound that means oh no!, ahh! etc.). The two women were like, "you speak Chinese!" One of them spoke really well because she lived in China for nine years.

The paper was put down on this stamp like thing.
Then it was sprayed thoroughly with water.
After that, the excess water was blotted off.

After my arts and crafts, it should have been about time to board my flight, but there was a delay. During that delay I found a Victoria's Secret and was able to buy some of my favorite lotion using my Chinese bank card (this is significant because when I use my U.S. bank cards I have to pay exchange my money to U.S. dollars and transfer it to the U.S. and then pay the foreign transaction fee. Using my chinese bank card means I still have a foreign transaction fee, but not the transfer costs. I also can only exchange 70% of my salary so when I can use my Chinese accounts in a foreign country it is much appreciated - an not all that easy to do).
Then I was off to Thailand. My adventures in Thailand are coming in the next blog installment!

After the excess water was removed a hairbrush
was used to tap the paper down onto the stamp.

Next the thing in my hand had ink applied to
it from the one to my right. The excess ink was blotted
off on scrap paper and then I tapped it on the paper.
When the ink ran out one of the two women would
repeat this process.

The two women. There were also two stamp choices.
I'm making the one of the left and the one on
the right is the Korean alphabet.

All the Tea in China

One of the cool things about teaching in an international school is the exchange of cultures. My school only has a few different cultures represented because the students are all Chinese (the staff are Chinese, American, Canadian, British, Australian and South African), but the school tries to give the staff, especially the international staff opportunities to learn about Chinese culture (see here for the coolest Peking Opera experience). One of those opportunities was given to us last week during our weekly meeting time. The Chinese department organized a traditional Chinese New Year meal (with delicious jiaozi - also called Chinese dumplings, pot stickers or gyoza), a presentation about the history of the Chinese zodiak and for a parent to come and share with us about tea.
Introduced as Dora's dad we had a parent who was really passionate about tea come and share with us about the history of tea, and the types of teas. More importantly, we go to sample the teas (and he gave us both an ornate tea disc and a sample of the tea in the disc so that we don't have to destroy the beautiful disk to sample it). As we sampled each tea he explained how to brew the tea (yes, the different teas had different procedures), and showed us different equipment we could use in different situations for making the tea.  He spoke some English so sometimes he presented in English and sometimes in Chinese. The funny thing was a Chinese member of the social studies department was translating, but when Dora's dad spoke in English he would just automatically repeat it in English. Sometimes, I would translate it faster than he could and he would stick the microphone in my face for me to take over translating, but there were too many words I didn't know for me to take over translating.

This is tea wrapped in painted wrappers. I actually got some interesting shots
Of the tea and the tea "ceremony," but the just won't upload....

It was really cool seeing Dora's dad (sorry that's the only name that was used) present about tea, because his passion was so apparent. When we tried to ask about how much some of the really good teas cost we were told that there was no price, because they weren't teas we could buy. They were from his private collection!

 

According to legend the order of the Chinese zodiac is the result
Of a race. This is an illustration from that story. 

The history of the Chinese zodiac was explained using a YouTube video.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find the same video or I would have shared the link here. 

They served lots of yummy foods including three different types of
Chinese dumplings (a traditional Chinese New Year food). 

The quick turnaround

Our route from Beijing to Detroit
- flying time 12 hours 33 minutes

When I lived in China before, one of the most difficult things was missing every Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. Nowadays I usually only see my family at Christmas anyway so it might not be as bad as before to miss all three holidays (not to mention most birthdays), but thankfully I don't have to. I was really excited when I was applying for jobs to see that even though Christmas isn't really celebrated in China, most International Schools have Christmas off. Originally, my school was supposed to have two weeks off for Christmas. Unfortunately, because we are a new school, construction was not finished on time and we had to push the start of the school year back by two weeks. This resulted in the calendar being altered and Christmas was shortened to only 7 school days off (Thursday the 22nd - Sunday the 1st). Nonetheless, I was able to get good connections (less than 20 hours from Beijing to Greensboro) at a good price (about $750) and so I decided to go to the U.S. for Christmas. I figured this will help me to not get so homesick (and it probably did). I'm glad I went back, but unfortunately, I picked Influenza A somewhere along the way and got sick on Christmas Eve morning.

I only have a toaster oven, but I baked sugar cookies and
took them home for Christmas. They survived my checked
luggage unbroken.

My flight home was quite enjoyable. I was sitting next to a lady from Xian and we had a good time chatting. I also chatted in the Beijing airport with a man from Inner Mongolia (both of these conversations were in Mandarin). One of the flight attendants who covered my section couldn't speak any Chinese and my neighbor couldn't speak hardly any English so I did a lot of translating and rather enjoyed it. Like I said it was a nice flight. I changed planes without incident in Detroit and made it to the Greensboro airport in about 19 hours from the time I departed Beijing - not bad, but exhausting.

Santa's workshop - at Pilot Mountain
Lights

I got to see the Pilot Mountain Christmas Lights. I'm including some of the photos in here. The Pilot Mountain Christmas lights are done by a family that used to live in Florida and moved to North Carolina about 12 years ago. They've been turning their yard into a Christmas display for 50 years (in three different locations) and it is so cool! They have all kinds of music playing, a synchronized Christmas tree, just too much to even begin to describe and it is all free (they do have a donation box), they even give out hot chocolate. Unfortunately, they decided this was going to be their last year. I will greatly miss their display, but I'm so glad I was able to make it (I couldn't go until my last night in NC because I was just too sick).

I texted this picture to a friend of my who lives
in North Pole, AK

After going to the lights I went home and finished packing. I got about 4 hours of sleep before I had to wake up (at 4 am) to drive to the airport for my 7:25 am flight. I crossed the International Dateline somewhere in the flight and since it was December 31st, I missed midnight and suddenly jumped into 2017! I landed in Beijing around 3 pm (having been traveling again for less than 20 hours) on the 1st. Because of my jet lag, I only managed to sleep about 4 hours that night and then went to school to teach.

At Pilot Mountain Lights

I can only show a fraction of the things they had there
(even a lot of the trees have been given faces, but those
don't photograph well in the dark)

Unfortunately, having had the flu (I still had a cough), taking an international trip and then going straight to work ended up being problematic. I taught 3 of my 5 classes that day just fine, but then in the 4th class (7th period), I had some horrible health problems and ended up going next door to get help. One of the guidance counselors covered the rest of that class (actually I think I heard three of them did) while it was decided I needed to go to the hospital. The only other math teacher (yes, I'm a chemistry teacher, but I have been teaching 4 math classes since October) covered my 8th period class. The school driver drove one of my international co-workers (and friend) a woman from the HR department (it was her first day on the job) and I to Oasis International Hospital. We picked this one because it is an international hospital so it has a high level of care and cleanliness (a real issue in Chinese hospitals) as well as an English speaking staff. Unfortunately, January 2nd was a public holiday. Because it was a public holiday the hospital was closed. Yes, closed! The only portion of the hospital open was OB/GYN and pediatrics. Luckily there was another international hospital, Beijing United Family nearby. We did go to Beijing United Family at first because even though it is considered the best hospital in town, it is also the most expensive. At Oasis (and every other hospital except Beijing United Family) my health insurance will cover absolutely everything. At Beijing United Family I have a 20% co-pay.
I saw the doctor and we ran some tests. He determined that what had happened was apparently just the result of having the flu (I had a fever when I arrived at the hospital in addition to the cough) and lack of sleep (I had had less than 10 hours over the previous three days combined). I definitely do not recommend sticking an international flight in the middle of your recovery from the flu.
I am happy to announce that I have fully recovered and since we celebrate both Christmas and Chinese New Year we have another holiday coming up next week (we only have 3 weeks of classes between Christmas break and Chinese New Year break) and I am going to Thailand and Hong Kong. Stay tuned for further "kapers."

Me!

Of course they have to have Pilot Mountain represented.

Mom!

The reason for the season.

It did snow quite a bit about a week after I left.