Beautiful, Breezy, Beijing..: Spring has Sprung

Everyone always says it but I forget how true it is -- when you are in school (especially college), Spring semester always seems to go by so quickly. Despite this being one of the longest Spring semesters of my life, it is still flying by.

Since going to Tianjin, I started a new job so I think that is part of what is making the weeks pass so quickly. At the beginning of the semester, I had lots of free time. Now, I don't have a single day "off" from work or tutoring. I like being so busy but sometimes I like to just slow down and take a breath. My new job is really interesting, though. Maybe not so much substantive-wise -- I am tutoring two high school students to prepare to take the SATs. What's neat is that I get to spend so much one-on-one time with them and get to know them very well. They are both so smart. I really enjoy helping them with their critical thinking skills since I really just get to pick their brains. It has already been such a great experience. Plus, the pay I get from doing it just a few hours a week is more than doubling my salary from the school. Win Win!

One of the first things we did after our trip to Tianjin was have Greek Easter at a Greek restaurant. We went with some of our Israeli friends. I have to say, friends here in Beijing have been doing a great job of keeping my expectations very low for Western food -- regularly, my expectations are exceeded. The moussaka was so good! As were the lamb kebabs. Of course, I had to take some photos of the food =)

As April wore on, the weather got better and better. Here are two photos taken about a week apart. You can see the leaves starting to come in on the trees! The sky is so blue… Sometimes, there are so many days in a row where the sky is grey and gross, I forget how blue the sky can get here. We had quite a few of these days in April.

At the beginning of May there was another national holiday in China, May Day. I learned that during the May Day holiday there are many music festivals in the city so we went to a folk music festival. This one was aptly named the Dong Party Music Festival. Yeah, that never got old. Ditan Park was already so lush and green.

Another notable event this month was saying farewell to our friend Ethan who left for a six week trip to Nepal. For his going away party we went out for all you can drink and all you can eat Japanese teppanyaki. Homerun on both counts. This night was definitely the drunkest I have been in China so far. I didn't even realize how many photos I had taken until tonight when I unloaded them =)

Here we are with Wun and her fabulous friend visiting from Korea, Henry.

Ethan and Ana with Itay and Ethan's other friend (forgot his name) in the background.

Cheers!

Ana and I.

Itay and Chris at Migas (rooftop bar) after dinner -- you can see the "egg" pod like things in the background.

Last week was my final class with my senior students. The seniors only have two classes during their last term and they are both with foreign teachers. So Jack (my fellow foreign Economics teacher) and I joined forces and had the two senior classes come together for the last day to have a little party. I baked brownies and cookies and made salsa, Jack's wife made cinnamon rolls (so good!). The students showed videos and photos on the overhead and giggled and reminisced about the past four years. It was cool to watch -- although I was a little bit lost, not just because of the language barrier but the fact that all the jokes were "inside". Still, it was cool to see them get excited about their memories.

I love this picture my student sent me, with the sculpture of the first president of the school superimposed in the background of the classroom =)

Now it's time for random pictures.

Our friends Grace and Mike (from Tianjin) came to visit and we went to a Middle Eastern restaurant with our friend who is an Egyptian diplomat. Here is Grace trying shisha for the very first time =)

Here is my friend and fellow teacher, Jessica, with our neighbor's baby, Pierre. Pierre is a little half Chinese, half French baby and he is just entering that amazingly adorable phase.

Ok I will apologize in advance for the language in the below photo. But in fact that is why I felt the need to take a photo of it. This little blurb was in an English TEXTBOOK in one of my classrooms!!! Can you believe this? This is what they are teaching these kids!!! I was appalled. I mean, my jaw was open for many minutes. I still can't really get over it…

A couple of weeks ago I went with my friends to this kitchen market across town and there were baby chicks for sale in a brown box…?

Do you remember Magic The Gathering? Maybe it's still "a thing" in America, but I sort of thought it was a nineties thing. There is a shop near Ethan's house that kids hang out at and play these card games. It's quite a tween scene.

Here is a picture of a sign with the word "hold". Our Chinese teacher told us that the Chinese love to use the English word "hold", especially when referring to a sale at a shop, etc. For example, there will be a sign about a future sale, all in Chinese, and it will ask at the bottom, can you hold? But the only thing in English is "hold"; the rest is in Chinese. It's such a random word to have somehow integrated into Chinese, if you ask me.

Ok I had to include this one. This is a taxi stopped at a light. I think there is some kind of game in America, something like a Chinese red light? I think we have all played that one before -- when you stop at the red light, everyone gets out of the car and runs around it one time. In this case, at this red light this guy is not running around his car but he's definitely rearranging something in his trunk.