Changsha

The next weekend (Apr. 25-27th) the school took us on an all-expense-paid trip to the city of Changsha. Changsha is the capital of the Hunan province, and the future location of a new Bond school. The reason for the trip was that Bond was having a signing ceremony with the real estate company they're partnering with to build their new school. Our job was just to do a few performances and show off the fact that Bond has foreign teachers.

Friday

After we finished teaching at the school we all piled into the school bus and some taxis and headed for the train station. Now when I say all of us, this trip consisted of my entire group (12 people), the Kayin group (14), plus the Chinese teachers (~10). It was a lot of people to keep together and the Chinese teachers were rather cute worrying over all of us getting through the train stations. They acted like we'd never done it before :)

We took a speed train to Changsha, so the ride was only about three hours. When we arrived we all piled onto another bus and drove to the hotel. That's right- a real hotel. Everyone was beyond excited for this. Several girls actually jumped on the beds. We chilled at the hotel for a while and ate dinner there too.

I'll never understand the logic behind
glass bathrooms...

My amazing room. Soft carpet, soft pillows, and
of course a soft bed!

Saturday

The next morning we got up and ate breakfast at the hotel buffet. Let me just mention that Chinese breakfast is very different. The buffet consisted of corn, fried noodles, bread, french fries, and cold cereal with warm milk.

Then we took the bus to the real estate company's venue. We were all told to wear our matching Bond jackets (bright orange) and shirts. And when we arrived we all felt way under dressed.

This party was WAY fancier than any of us expected. There were girls in fancy dresses, a harpist, some magicians, a giant diorama, and even a confetti cannon.

When we first arrived we got to mingle for a while and then we headed over to the outdoor stage to watch the performances the real estate company had arranged. They were much more legit than any of ours- professional magicians, dancers, and a fashion show (though that was a little weird).

At the end of these we were told that we were going to perform the Cha Cha slide. We knew this dance was planned, but we thought it would be later. So we scrambled to work out a few kinks on the side lines and did our best- which wasn't phenomenal.

The illustrious stage.

Then it was time for lunch. They took us to a nice restaurant and fed us some very yummy food. There was even a Portland Trail Blazers game playing on the TV :)

The down side: it started raining.

Luckily the stage was under a large tent, but it was still outside and by the time we got back the ground was very wet. On the up side this did mean there were far fewer people watching us perform. But they were a tough crowd. Consisting mostly of older business men, it was hard to get a reaction out of them. And it probably didn't help that something minor went wrong in almost every performance. But we laughed at each other and had a good time, so it was alright :)

Waiting around, pre-rain.

After taking some pictures (nothing is complete in China unless several pictures have been taken), the Bond people asked for two volunteers. The lucky winners ended up being me and Jordan (from Kayin). When we arrived at our spot we were told our job was to stand, smile, and greet any kids that came by. I think we saw a total of 6 kids, and they barely looked at us. So instead we ended up dancing off and on to the music being blasted through the entire building. It was much more entertaining for us and the adults watching.

Once we were finished at the party we went back to the hotel, had a little free time, and ate more yummy food for dinner at the hotel.

Later that night our Chinese coordinators took us all out shopping in Changsha's old town. This was way cool because all the buildings still look original and traditional. And boy was there a lot of stuff you could buy- all for a good price. It's a little overwhelming. We split up into smaller groups with a Chinese coordinator for ease of movement. I went with Mary's group which included Chrissy, Noor, Kyle, and Jordan. We everyone was finished, we met up at Dairy Queen where we ate Blizzards. I'm pretty sure we all died and went to heaven a little bit :)

After that it was time to go back to the hotel and for what ever reason we had to take taxis. The thing with taxis is they only take up to 4 people and there were 6 of us. Mary found one taxi pretty quick and sent Noor, Chrissy and Kyle off. Finding a second taxi for herself, Jordan and I proved to be much harder. It seriously probably took another 40 minutes to find another free taxi that knew how to get to the hotel. In the end, I'm pretty sure our taxi driver followed Mary's GPS... It was quite the experience and may have involved Jordan trying to chase down a taxi at one point.

Sunday

Our last day we had no official responsibilities, so the school arranged for us to go on a hike before heading home. So after another very Chinese breakfast at the hotel, we headed out for our destination, which happened to be a famous mountain. Why famous? Because the esteemed Chairman Mao wrote a beautiful poem about it while studying in Changsha.

In all seriousness though, it was a beautiful area. And being a Chinese hike there was a lot of stairs and paved walk ways.

At the top there was a Buddhist temple.

On the way down, I let my true gracefulness shine through and may have fallen. I felt rather embarrassed, but thankfully came out with only a bruised knee.

Once we were all safely down we ate some McDonald's for lunch and then reversed our journey home. On the train home there was an adorable little kid who fed Kyle chips for most of the ride. He also split his cookie with Kayryn and tried to have her take him to the bathroom :)

While that was happening, Nick attempted to converse with some Chinese men who spoke no English. When he asked if they wanted to take a picture, instead they showed us all the photos they already had on their phone from the train ride...

In the end, pretty awesome and stress-free weekend. We're all stoked to get to go back at the beginning of June!