2/16/16

I'm glad you got the pictures I sent you. You might check Skype once in a while if you can. It's easier than email when I'm in a hurry, and I can no longer use the phone. Sunday was tour day. We rode a bus to the Great Wall. There were lots and lots of stairs, and it was really steep. And cold! Luckily, I wore layers, so I didn't feel that bad. Going downstairs hurts a little now. But, it was fun. After the Wall, we went to lunch. In order to get to the restaurant on the second floor, we walked through a shop that sold lots of fancy, beautiful ceramics and fancy, expensive things. So beautiful! After that, we went to the Olympic Stadium. We didn't go inside it, but we walked around the grounds. When I was there, a woman came up to me and said, "Excuse me, can you take a picture with my mother?" It made me feel really cool. Next, we went to a market that had a lot of restaurants and food stands. It was on a beautiful street by a frozen lake. I wish I could send you the pictures from that! The last part of our day was the Chinese acrobat show. They did crazy stunts, and it was really fun to watch. It was in a beautiful threatre. As we left there, the people on the next bus looked at us through the window, and they all waved at us. It was like we were celebrities or something. Then we ate at a buffet restaurant and came back to campus. That night, we found out our placements. I'm going to a school in Suzhou, in the Jiangsu province. It took me a while to realize that this was the same place I had read about before, but when I was in Twin Falls reading books about China from the library, this place stood out to me. I even thought to myself that if I could pick any place in all of China to go to, it would be Suzhou. We just signed our contracts, and we leave for our schools tomorrow, although the Suzhou group actually have an orientation in nearby Hangzhou. I will be about half an hour away from Shanghai, and in Suzhou itself, there are lots of famously beautiful gardens and lots and lots of history. So excited! On Monday and Tuesday, I had a TEFL class. (If you don't know already, TEFL stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language.) It was a good course. It was mostly stuff we'd learned on the online course, but it was good to learn it all again, in a more hands-on setting. Now, I feel better about teaching a class. By the way, I was originally being sent to a primary school, but they had to move us to a middle school. There is one other girl in the same school as me, but there are a whole bunch going to Suzhou. I don't have a working phone anymore. It's a really boring story. I was going to do laundry, and it just fell out of my pocket. At first the top of the screen was black, but by morning, most of the screen was black. It still turns on, though, so there should be a way to get pictures off of it. (Really sorry, Mom!) I heard you can buy a phone here, though, so, when I have a little extra money, I will look into it. I did buy an adapter so I can plug in my laptop, though. It's a really snazzy one that works in any country of the world. This is getting really long, so, I'm sorry. I love you all. Happy birthday, Benson! Good luck with school and kids and the play and whatever else. Love, Chelsey*:x lovestruck