Site Visit Review

A total of 50 hours in transit (via train, bus, cab, minivan) in five days. And now I am back in Chengdu.

Our waiban (Foreign Affairs Officer) picked us up at the Lanzhou train station and took us to the campus located in Lanzhou. We checked in to the Guest House and had a nice meal. Lanzhou University has 8 campuses - the one where we were staying was the Masters/PhD campus. Our campus (yuzhong) is for Bachelor's and is located 50 kilometers north of Lanzhou. The next day we arrived at our campus. Two fourth year students (Malina and David are their English names) gave us a tour of the campus and surrounding town. The campus is lovely - surrounded by NM like mountains, clear blue skies and dry sunshine. Our apartments are in the foreign teachers building. Downstairs are two Japanese teachers - across from us will be two German teachers. The apartments themselves are gorgeous - hardwood floors, airy and comfortable. The previous PCer left some winter coats, boots, bowls, utensils, movies and a guitar for me to enjoy.

We spent the rest of the day just enjoying our own space. To sit and space out. My campus also will be opening up the brand new indoor swimming pool this semester. And I am just down the hill from it.

I will be teaching 4 classes of Oral English to sophomores and 2 classes of Writing to juniors. The writing class is more formal - CVs, essays, etc. but I am looking forward to it. The writing classes will have around 50 students and the Oral English classes will only have about 26 students. We will also be having at least 2 office hours and 2 1/2 hour English Corner every week. Not a bad schedule. Also, they are working on finding us Chinese tutors.

We also inherited an English language library that the previous PCers started. Our job is to expand its hours and inventory.

David and Malina both said that most students think the University is amazing in terms of teachers and education, but the common gripe is that there is nothing to do. They're right. The town consists of 2 streets with fruit vendors, salons, small stores, restaurants and one small supermarket. To me this is heaven. The best part is that it only costs 6 RMB to take the bus into town. AND! As teachers we can stay at the guest house for free. So, if we want to hang out with the other PC people in Lanzhou but don't want to take a bus home, we can stay in Lanzhou.

The next day we went back into Lanzhou to meet our counterparts - Chinese teachers who teach English. Lucinda and Alice are wonderful. They gave us textbooks, our schedule, answered all our questions and then some. Very personable, sweet and eager to work together. That night we got together with some of the other PCers (12s and 13s) for pizza and beer gardens.

Thursday came as did Lucinda and Alice to take us hiking. Lanzhou runs along the Yellow River of the Mother River of China. On either end of Lanzhou (population 3 million) rests a mountain. One mountain is GauLan Mountain - a place of many Buddhist temples, a zoo, aquarium and tea houses. This is a popular place for many retirees who practice their Tai Chi, fan dancing, or impromptu opera performances. I love this place. This will be a great place to unwind.

Then we hit the next mountain, the White Pagoda temple mountain - Daoist temples with some amazing natural stone museum and gourd crafts.

About 1 in every eight Lanzhou-ian is Muslim. The food up there is not as spicy but oh so good in its own right. The lamb skewers bbqed and put into grilled flatbread is my new favorite. Or the beef noodles are known as a Lanzhou specialty.

We move back to Lanzhou in early September - just two weeks. Two weeks and I begin teaching again. I cannot wait. Now it's time to study - our final LPI (language proficiency interview) in Tuesday. Wish me luck! Be good, Katie