Penglai - PART 1

last weekend dale jess and i went to Penglai and it was soooo beautiful there. so i of course took a ridiculous amount of photos that i can't wait to share with you. But since i took so many i figured i would spilt them up into 2 separate posts. Oh, and I wanted to give a big "Hello" to all the 1B students at Corpus Christi who have been visiting my blog and learning all about china!

it was great day to visit because we had bright blue skies but it was CRAZY windy!!!
Penglai is known mostly for a "magical mirage" that occurs every so many years. Sometimes it last only minutes, and once it lasted 8 hours. Bulidlings and roads will suddenly appear in the distance. We watched a video of it thatw as filmed during one of the longer mirages. it was pretty cool. It is also assicated with a story about 8 immortals crossing the sea.

This was our adorable tour guide, Jeff.

This little guy was my favorite
People try to toss coins at this old geezer of a tortoise, and if it lands on his back it's good luck
Dale gives it a try....unfortunetly he wasn't so lucky.

Sorry this picture is so dark. this was one of my favorit parts of the trip. A tea tasting room
This is a table made especially for drinking tea. Someday when i'm really rich i'm gonna try and talk andy brehm into making me one.
These are the 8 Immortals
They represent North South East and West
I have a special place in my heart for the crazy eyed guys. they always look like they just seen the most shocking thing ever.
If you want to become better at Kung Fu the guy on the right is the Immortal you walk to talk! The Guy on the left is known for helping people become better students.
This is a statue of the high heavenly goddess
The God of WineAll of these pictures are from the tourist center at Penglai. The next post will ahve pictures from the actual Pavillion

yesterday i taught my first real lessons. My first class, listening was a diaster!!!! mainly due to technical difficulties. I have to use the computer to teach the class....but it kept freezing!!! UGH. it was a mess...god knows what the students thought. after that i was sooooo nervous to go to my next class. It was a writing class, i decided to do a day on Figures of Speech. Similes, metaphors, personification, and alliteration. It went so well!! the stduents really seemed to have a good time. After explaining each figure of speech to them I put them in groups and passed out an english newspaper in different sections. i had them look through it and try to find examples of each. they seemed to really like it. after a while i had everyone come bakc together and each group shared what they had found. so i asked the first group what they found...a girl stood up and says...."we found personification, 'my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard'." HAHAHAHAHA i nearly died. i start cracking up and they had no idea why. they had no idea what a milkshake even was...let alone that song. so i explained it to them,and they got a pretty big kick out of it.

Ohhhh!! and i've managed to get a chinese tutor for free!!!! Penny asked me if i would help her friend Maggie practice her english. I said i would so Penny introduced us. We actually get along really well and she has offered to tutor me on thursdays!! i'm really excited. Last night the two of us went out together for BBQ, and i tempted fate and ate some delicious BBQed fish. no worries though i woke up feeling fine this morning. We also went out for a drink they call Milk Tea. It's very very tastey!! Here in china, if girls are friends they walk around holding hands, or they walk arm in arm. When i met maggie last night she immediatly grabbed my arm and held it while we walked....i think it is their international sign for "We are friends now".