May 4-7th

Tuesday- An interesting day because I had to teach at another Ding Ding Dang branch that was about 15 minutes away from our school. I didnt have to be there till 3:30 so I didnt know what to do with myself. Woke up around 10:30, went to the gym, then to the grocery store, and then came back to our scorching apartment. I dont see how people lived in our apartment before us and never bought a fan for our living room. We have A/C units in our bedroom, but nothing for our main area, so it is a hot box during the day. Finally 3PM came around and left for school.
Arrived at the DDD and immediately noticed how much nicer our branch was. The lighting in the school was gloomy, the teachers were not as nice, and the students were not as fun as ours. Even though I was livid to find out that I had to teach seven in a row it made me appreciate our school that much more. It is really easy teaching another teacher's class because you dont have to do anything. I realized that the students were not comfortable around me and that I should not try to make them learn the material, but rather just converse with them and find out what they enjoy doing. It was a pretty easy day and knowing that Wednesday we had no school due to Childrens Day, made it that much better.
After work, met up with everyone from my branch including the Korean teachers at a Restaurant. It was a bitter sweet evening. Bitter because it was one of our Korean teachers last day. She is pregnant and about to explode, so she needs to rest and prepare for that. Sweet because we all had a really good time bonding together. Ate at the restaurant then went to a bar, and finally to a karaoke room.

Wednesday
Children's day, just like father's or Mother's day, they celebrate the child and give them gifts. Everywhere we went it was a packed house. Max, Evan, and I met up with some of our friends and went to a park, just to enjoy the beautiful day. The park was very crowded, full of families and lots of children. This particular park had a zoo that had a wide variety of animals locked up in these very mundane cages with nothing to play with. It was very sad and none of the animals seemed to be enjoying their time. In addition to those animals, it also seemed like we were part of the zoo, because family after family, child after child kept starring at us as if we were behind a cage. It was fairly comical, but has also agitated me that these people are not culturally diverse and every time they see one of us it is as if they are looking at an alien and they want to say 'hello' just to make sure we are real.
After the park, we walked through the herbal market, which was pretty interesting and I had no idea what they were selling and what any of the products could be used for. Next, we ate some dinner downtown and then realized that it was 'cinco de mayo' and had to celebrate. Went to "Thursday Party" which has now become the new hang out for expats because of its excellent location and patio. Had a few beers and then went home.

Thursday and Friday flew by like flying colors