Now to play catch up: Yesterday was Monday and that means my teacher training class and it was a fun one. The teachers all read there homework which was for them to describe a room in their homes but not to use the name of the room in the description and have the rest of us guess what the room was. It went very well as all of them gave lots of detail in the descriptions, going in that same vein of thought I then had them describe things that they would see in a park. We all took a virtual trip to the park and described something that we saw. I mean we all did this, my assistant, Ted, called on me first to describe then my son who was visiting the class yesterday had a turn. My son also read to the class but the class was unable to understand him which was fine with me, I wanted to make a point that sometimes you might not be able to understand what a speaker is saying, don’t be afraid to ask that speaker to repeat themselves, talk louder, or explain what a word, words or phrase means. We then played telephone so that Nate could get the experience of playing it and so that my class would get used to hearing other people speaking English.
Today no bus rid to the new campus instead Nate finished most of his school work and then we went to Wanda Plaza for lunch at Starbuck’s. However, today it was rainy, not a heavy rain, but a light one, so we got to use our new poncho’s that cover us and our scooters or bikes as we drive in the rain. Remember, a bike or scooter is not just for enjoyment but it is a mode of transportation. Anyway we rode up to Starbuck’s and we saw two other foreigners. Surprise, the ladies we met were from Canada, it was so nice to talk to people who understand English that I was tongue tied at first. They also live in the area and teach at a public school here in Zhengzhou. A friend of theirs that they were waiting on works at one of the local businesses, their friend was an American. It was nice to see some other English speakers today.
We stopped by a local store, chain by the name of Uniqlo and got Nate two t-shirts and me a pair of leggings. I will be back to get more leggings, they fit and I suspect it was because there are no feet involved and you just pull them up to where you need them and for summer they have something called crop leggings so I want to get a few pairs of the regular ankle length and also a few pairs of the cropped versions too. After that we happened upon a display by the Coca-Cola company that looked like the World of Coke from Atlanta, just on tour here in Zhengzhou, China. It was neat with all the history of the company right from the beginning in 1886 through today. Chuck mentioned that Coke is getting ready for another sales drive in China and we wonder if this is just the first step, whatever the reason it was nice to see something that we were familiar with and even though the displays were in Chinese we could still understand lots and remember from our tour of the World of Coke. Something rare once we got home and got ready for dinner, I cooked. Chuck was tired from teaching today and I steamed some veggies and made dinner. I know how to cook, just don’t like to and gladly hand over cooking responsibilities to Chuck as he enjoys cooking.