june 21. 2016

Living in China and teaching English at Bond kindergarten  was been such an incredible experience! I have learned a lot from the kids here and have become more confident through this whole experience. These kids at Bond can always make me smile and laugh! They are always the best part of my day. Not only are the kids amazing, so are the people of China! Chinese people are so kind and so thoughtful. Being here in China  has given me a glimpse of the incredible Chinese culture and people that live here. Traveling to Yangshuo and Beijing i have been able to see some incredible things. For example, the Great Wall of China, and the Forbidden City. I loved Yangzhou and the beautiful mountains there. I'm so grateful for this opportunity and all that I've learned here.

May 29, 2016 update

May 29, 2016

It's weird to think that I only have 29 days left in China! I'm not ready to leave and don't want to say goodbye to my kids😭 a week after I got home from Beijing I got a visit from Lexie's best friend Taylor Stacey!! She's so awesome and we had to much fun together! She got into town around 5 so I took her to my favorite noodle place. The next day we had parent day where the parents came and watched us teach, which was kind of intimidating but my lessons went good! Then after school Taylor, Leo ( her boyfriend) and I went to the park near our school then I took her to get waffles as Mann Coffee (this great coffee shop near my apartment) then we went and did 2 escape rooms! They lock us in a room and we have to figure out the clues to get out! It was so much fun! One was a prison theme and the other one was an ancient tomb one! That was so much fun!! The Saturday before Taylor came we went to a barbecue at that the teachers at our school invited us too! It was so fun and we got to go swimming! This Saturday we went to a tattoo shop to meet up with my roomies friend who work there, we hung out there for a while then one of the guys found out we liked KTV so we took us there! We had such a blast hanging out with them!

Bond School for English

Beijing Trip Update 5/12

May 12, 2016 (Beijing Update)

One Saturday April 30th I headed of to Beijing for an 8 day vacation! Since I wanted to see the terra cotta warriors, I went with a different ILP group. I took a bus to meet up with them. Our flight was pretty late so we didn't we to our hostel till 3 in the morning. We slept in then meet up around 11 in the morning, where we headed out to the pearl market and the temple of heaven, but first we got food at this cute little Chinese restaurant where I got yummy dumplings! The pearl market was so fun!!!!! I like to barter cause you can things really cheap, I've learned to enjoy it. We then went to the temple of heaven, it was such a beautiful temple! My favorite part was this band was playing music and everyone (except us: we just enjoyed the music) was singing along to the song that was being played. We also played this hackie sac type game with some Chinese people for an hour! It was so much fun even though we weren't very good 😂  Afterwords we went to the shops near our hostel and a dinner of yummy chicken and vegetables! Then I got to the hostel and crashed. The next day I had an awesome hamburger and hot chocolate at a nearby hostel, then we headed to the Olympic nest and Water cube where the olympics were held in 2008! It was so amazing to see where it all took place and it was the perfect day for it since it was pouring rain outside! Both stadiums were enclosed so we could escape the rain. In the cube near the Olympic pool, there was another huge pool area with slides. Almost like and indoor water park! After that we went to the night mark and I tried fried ice-cream and this grape drink with dry ice that was good! The other girls tried scorpion but I was to much of a chicken to try it! Then we went back to the same place for dinner, where I had a yummy strawberry crepe!  My hostel roommate was so cute! She couldn't speak English very well but loved to talk to me! It was her birthday so at midnight I sang her birthday and she was so excited about that! One of the other girls there gave us all keychains from her hometown, mine was a camel and i love it so much!!! The next day we went to the forbidden city, which was so cool! There was a couple different Throne rooms for different purposes, and of course we left through the way mistresses would enter into the city😂 We took a hike up a hill after and at the top we could see the city in all its vastness, and let me tell it was huge! We then made our way over to the summer palace, which was so beautiful! There was a variety of buildings  and the view around the palace was so amazing! Not to mention the view of the actual palace! We then went to dinner at the same hostel as we did the other day! I got a great egg and cheese sandwich! We then walked around the shops some more. A night before we meet this nice shop owner and every time we passed by the waved excitedly to us! We crashed early since we had to wake up early to head to the Great Wall! In our tour group we had so many people from all over the world! There was a cute girl from England named Abby, a guy from California named Bobby, people from Italy, a guy from France, one from Ukraine, and a couple from the United state but the women was originally from Eastern Europe! The wall was amazing, but quite a butt work out since we were almost always climbing up! We went to a less crowded place on the wall and we same maybe one to two other people beside our group! The view was incredible! Once we got back to our hostel we got our stuff and headed to the train station to catch our overnight sleeper train to Xi'an! It wasn't bad at all I just read a slept the whole time, and I had a bed where I could sleep so that was nice! Once we got of the train we got breakfast at McDonald's, which made me so happy! Loves the hot chocolate, hash brown, and egg mcmuffin! Once we got to the hostel we just relaxed, which was nice since we so much in Beijing. At around four we went to a pagoda and when got some food and wandered around the Muslim market here! Plus we found some frozen yogurt and doughnuts which made me so happy!!! The next day we saw the Warriors, which were so amazing! We took a tour and our Tour guide was so cute and told us the history of the Warriors and how to tell the difference between each  rank of the warrior! She took us to this place where we were showed how the Warriors were made, Which was way cool! A buffet lunch was included with our tour guide. It was so fun to try so many different Chinese foods, like Chinese hamburgers, rice, noodles, a bread with a sweet filling, a dessert that tasted way better than it looked, and lots of other things! Needless to say I was stuffed afterwards! After the buffet we had a tea ceremony where we tried different types of tea, jasmine was my favorite! There was this little boy teapot and when the water got poured out it made it look like he was peeing 😂 After the Warriors we went on top of a wall that surrounded the city, then to a bell tower which is in the center of the city, and the drum tower ( which are so pretty at night!) we then ate street food and shopped at the Muslim market where there was this a amazing band performing. The next day we didn't do much, we went out and got dumplings for lung and dinner then we watched some street performers and went to this really cool water show! The next day I went to the oldest Mosque in China, it was so peaceful (especially for there being a market outside) there was a sundial there which was 1 out the only four in China. We then hung-out at the hostel until we left for the airport. I stayed the night at the groups and got to experience their cafeteria the next day. I took a bus and finally got at 8 at night on Monday. The trip was so amazing and I meet so many incredible people and saw so many incredible things, but it was nice to get back to the kiddos that I missed❤️

Beijing Trip Photos