Update: November Edition

Hey everyone! Figured I would update my blog since it has been awhile! It has been quite busy around here and my vpn service has down due to the international exports and general messy time with the internet! I should be up and running for a little! 

I wanted to share my past few weeks in a quite blurb! Between my Shanghai Disneyland trip (posted on facebook because the sheer number of photos would make a blog post impossible!) and working 5 days a week. I find my off days to be relaxing and a time to recoup before spending my week with children and parents teaching English. 

Over the past few weeks, I was apart of a Team Building function at work that took us to this awesome orange farm in Chongming Island! It was a blast we got to pick oranges too! Please enjoy my pictures...

After walking around awhile, we got to learn how to make local dumplings. These are not pictured due to where I was sitting! However, please enjoy some of the other yummy food I got to eat. All of the food was from the farm we visited! We had everything from daikon radish to lamb!

They had mini crabs with these type of rice noodle called Niangao! They are just glutinous rice pounded together. Really easy to dress up with pretty much anything! 

Below are some pictures of me picking oranges and the groves!

We had to do a scavenger hunt for part of our team building! Our team won!! 

Here are some leftover pictures of me from our school Halloween party for the kids! 

I met this wonderful woman when I went to Shanghai Disneyland! She spoke Chinese with me and was all around very sweet! I added her on wechat and she talks with me every so often to check in about my studies and work!

Lastly, I made breakfast for my center again! I kept the tradition of pancakes! Maybe next time I will branch out and buy something or cook something else! We will see :)

All in all, my experiences have been pretty amazing so far! I am getting more confidence with teaching and being in China I cannot believe it's been nearly 3 months since I've been in China!! I will have more adventures to explore despite it has been getting a little colder! Still not cold enough to put on a jacket, but slowly moving into putting on long sleeve shirts! I look forward to more adventures and letting you all live life through my posts! Until next time!!

Teacher's Conference and the Chocolate Factory!

It's been a long week and half! This post is pretty late coming. Everything in this post was from October 9th-11th! On the 9th, we had a Teacher's Conference 2 hours away in another district of Shanghai. It's only a 45 minute drive, but by train it's much slower. It is cheaper by train though! Probably the difference of 100 or so rmb. Please enjoy my experience at the conference! We had a few sessions to attend, but outside of that it was fun filled with fruit decorating, scavenger hunts, and a wild after party! Here are some pictures from my day! Our theme was Light Up! Light up Shanghai!!

We all had groups for our hunts, this was mine We had to take a picture on Daxue Rd. Here is the Pho shop! 

I ended the day going to the after party and danced my heart out until it was time to return home with one of my coworkers! She and I took a cab back to our area and split ways. 

A few days later, October 11th, I had previously signed up for Teacher Events (TRT, still not sure what the R stands for!)  I got accepted into one! I got to go to Zotter's Chocolate Factory in Yangpu District in Shanghai! It was so cool and very chocolately. I feel like I overdosed on chocolate. You could say this post took an extra 7 days to do because it took everything in my power to not nearly puke at that thought of more chocolate. It's all good though. 

Please note, this is a picture of underwear. Supposedly, after doing this factory tour, some people took off their underwear because it didn't fit anymore. Ha! 

Neat spoons you get to use and keep during the tour! I still have mine!

Raw cacao

Ingredients offered for to put in the chocolate!

"Fine Bitter" 60% Dark Chocolate! (My Favorite type!)

I made my own chocolate: 80% Dark Chocolate, 50% Milk Chocolate, and Coffee Chocolate. With Raisins, sesame seeds, and extra chocolate bits with all the flavors I used, just on opposite sides. I call it: Yin Yang Yong. 

The Mixing Bar! Where they made our chocolate!

Below are a ton of chocolates we tried!! I stopped trying them after some point because chocolate overdose!!

Below are really amazing drinking chocolates! They had: cinnamon banana, chili &chocolate, green tea and sesame (really yummy), ginger coconut, and one other I can't remember ;-;. 

The end product of Yin, Yang, and Yong :P 

The outside of the theatre, pretty! 

One of my new classes had a kid named Dusty! Made me happy!

I made some curry to remind me of home and Dustin! 

A very nice plate of sushi my friend Kelly ordered! 

There is a lot of oily food in Shanghai, I've taken to eaten a few salads here and there lol. 

Just wanted to wrap up this post, my probation period ends on October 20th! Only 2 days from now! This week is super busy between our road show event (student retention and promotion) and my end of probation. Next week we are doing Halloween parties for our students! I will show off pictures if I manage to take some! At the end of the month, I've planned a Halloween trip to Disneyland Shanghai with my friend from my onboarding group! My first time to a Disney park!! I can't wait~! More soon!