Streets of Beijing

Another day at Xinxinyulu. We had breakfast on the streets before going to work. Actually I am beginning to notice that my biological clock is now really keeping the right time. I woke up just before the teacher we live with came to wake us. And I was quite surprised to notice that I was already hungry and wanted to have breakfast. The first few days, I didn't feel hungry at all. So I am really getting used to my live in China.

Work was fine. Communication is difficult, but the children are great. In gym-class I tried to help. I only help the children that do not cry. If they are crying I will not force them to do anything, so I am keeping a little bit of distance. Parents do expect me to help I think, because I am a teacher.
Today one of the parents even asked me if she could take a picture with me and her son. I thought it would be oke, the boy didn't. The moment his mother backed out to make a picture, he ran away :P

In class I had fun with the children. I try to play with as many as I can. At one point I had two children sitting on my lap (one on each leg) and one playing with my hand. I think it is so much fun to play with the kids. I did some handgames (like: I put my hand on your and you on mine and then we go on, and on, and on) and hide and seek with a toy. I had a toy in my hand and pretended to forget where it was. When the child opens my hand to get the toy, I made a surprised face and the kid was laughing rather hard. It was so much fun. You don't really need anything to play with children.

The difficulty of this is I don't really know what is expected of me as a teacher. I hope to hear tomorrow, cause we have a meeting with the headmaster.

After work we went home by bus. With "we" I mean Kaho and me. Normally the teacher goes home with us, but she had another place to go. So Kaho and I went by bus with another colleague who told us were to get off (because we took another bus that we normally do). We went to the supermarket together and bought dinner on the streets again. But this time on our own, without the help of the teacher. We were so proud of ourselves that we've managed to do so. We bought a really nice dinner. Even asked them if they could make a fresh one for us. We used our hands to make a few stuff clear, but we also talked some Chinese. The people behind the stand were wondering where we were from and what we are doing here. So we tried to tell them. They told us in the best English they speak (which was quite good actually) that they thought we are beautiful ^^
So we had dinner at the apartment and spent the evening talking to people at home and preparing our meeting tomorrow.
Ow, and I am also doing some laundry tonight. First one here.. Chinese washing machine. So my fingers are still crossed.


In the picture you see the streets near the school/Autism center where I work. I think it is probably more typical Beijing then the others streets you see. Because this one has no tourist at all.