The Real China High School Experience and more fun!

Family selfie in front of our school

China High School.....We are in YongZhou Number 4 High School. From multiple sources that we have encountered (they are not from the school, so no there is no bias that we can tell) this is the best High School in the city of almost 6 million (Check out this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yongzhou, we have been on that path of the River and across that bridge pictured on the right of the link! How cool is that!)

6:00am Students have to be at the school and breakfast is served at the Canteen (the schools 4 floor cafeteria)

6:20am A song is pumped through the Speaker System EVERY Morning (it's the Chinese National Anthem I think)  It's loud enough to be heard by all and it awakens us every morning.

7:00am Self study time. Students are in the classes doing homework and other work.

8:05am The 1st 45 minute class of the day is started. After each of the 45 minute classes there are 10 minutes "passing" periods or breaks. Since there are close to 6,000 students they do not move rooms, it's the teachers that move rooms.

9:45am Students have a 30 minute morning break and go to the field (if the weather is nice) to do morning exercises.

10:30 to Noon - 2 More classes and then Lunch at noon.

Noon-2:10pm - Lunch and NAP Time!

2:20pm-5:40pm Students back in class. There are another four 45 minute classes and then they get out for dinner break.

7pm-10pm- Finishing up the day with classes and self studies. All the students are in their classes through this time.

So this is basically a normal day for them Monday-Saturday 6am-10pm...yep you read that right 6 full days a week till Saturday and then on Sunday they go to school in the morning and have the afternoon/evening off.

There are dorms on the school property a girls dorm and a boys dorm. All together there are close to or around 3,000 students in the dorms. Specialty classes like ours, Practical English, P.E. and Music are only done once a week for the students.

On Friday this week we found out that there was no classes in the afternoon for the grades that we teach due to Civil Exams that the government employees were taking in our classrooms so that opened the afternoon wide open for us!


Everest, Ethan and I went exploring in the morning while Jami taught her morning classes and Elijah did some school work of his own.

With one of our favorite treats before crossing bridge found on the wiki link I put above...pineapple on a stick!

In the afternoon one of my students, Echo, wanted to show us around town some more and her and a friend, Wendy, took us Roller Skating and then showed Jami and I where to get our much needed foot massage. While we did that they took the boys to their 1st Chinese Cinema! They saw Furious 7 in 3D and loved it!

Getting down roller skating!

Ethan going on a roller coaster type

Instead of spray to clean skates....just where plastic baggies

Boys going to movies!

Ahhhhh....a much needed foot massage!

Boys with Wendy at the cinema

Enjoying some good Hunan food!

Dinner with Echo, Wendy and Chaz (he's also a teacher here with us)

After the movie we met up and we out to dinner and ate some of the common food here in the region. It's delicious and spicy.






Last week we had met a lady (or girl in her 20's) on the bus, Deng. She wanted to take us to a city called Ling Ling this weekend. So we met up and went on an adventure to Ling Ling. It is a 45 minute bus ride south of where we are. It had 2,000 year old streets and buildings and a Buddhist temple on the mountain we hiked.

The old roads by Ling Ling

A view of the River

Family pic with Deng's Nephew

About to climb a mountain

View of the Ling Ling country side from the top

Buddhist temple at top of mountain

Beautiful views by the canal just behind old street we were on

Man making sword/spears just like they would in the old days.

So pretty!

Enjoying the views with Chinese junk food....La Tiao...yumyumyum

A cute Chinese pavillion

While waiting to meet our hosts/guides people found us and wanted pictures. Everyone was pretty happy to see us.

SUPERSTARS!

1-2-3 CHEESE!

"YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL!" I know right!

Everyone thinks Ev is soooooo cute!

The boys are getting into Ping Pong and like playing it. Also, in the beginning we started just throwing the football around. Now we have a good following that play with us and we have little pick up games of touch football. The kids really enjoy it.

Ethan getting his shoes cleaned

Having fun with our boys and Echo and Wendy. Shadow pictures!

The sun setting as we walk off of campus. We LOVE YONGZHOU!