First day of teaching = done! It went better than expected, I really, really enjoyed it! The kids were great, and everything fell into place quite easily. Both kids and parents are really respectful of teachers in China. The children eagerly say "lao shi, lao shi!" (teacher, teacher!) when they know the answer to something. Started teaching at 8:00am, and finished at around 17:30. After school myself and Tim went for a quick walk to get some ice cream from McDonalds, our friends were skating outside. One offered us some duck which was cut up like pieces of beef jerky. Unfortunately it was the guy who spoke zero English. It was very hot and very chewy. I chewed on it for a while and spat out the bones on the floor as is custom, leaving my mouth on fire. I later found out I'd just been chomping on duck neck!
In the evening myself and Tim met Dumi at the gym. They have a free one-month friend-referral pass, so I took up on that, and had about an hour work-out before I had to go meet my skating friends, so at 8pm I left Dumi and Tim in the gym and headed down towards the square and thats when the day became a whole new type of awesome.
For days they'd been asking me to come out at night and skate through the streets of Weinan with them, and finally I got the chance. It was every bit as crazy as I imagined. Dodging between traffic on crossings, overtaking cars while racing each other flat-out on the roads, trying to avoid light-less mopeds, etc. All with zero protective / reflective gear. We started with a skate up to the university. Maybe a mile up the main street. We then skated around the university campus for a while before heading back down main street. We went up a dead-end road at one point for a few 400meter races. It was a real adrenaline rush. We then skated back towards the center of town, and headed to the duck stall that one of the skaters owns and a few of them work at. We hung out there for a few hours. I was introduced to the owners of some of the surrounding shops, one of them had a very cute baby daughter! I headed home at 11pm, totally exhausted and quickly retired to my bed.
a really enjoyable evening!
Yeah,that's a great day!It seems that you're an excellent skater because you can skate on the street.Which also inspires me to learn skating again.Hey,you adjust the local life so quickly!Life for you there is so colorful.Congratulations on your success in your first day's teaching!