The Great Wall

Yesterday was our big day at the Great Wall. It was pretty awesome. I uploaded pictures to facebook and have opened it up and posted the link below so that you should be able to click and view the photos without having a facebook account.

Click For Great Wall Pictures

It was pretty awesome. I was very suprised by the complexity of it. The whole wall has a slight slant to it with a drainage ditch on the downhill side to help clean the run off when it rains. It's not too much that it throws you off or that I've ever noticed in pictures. But it's pretty smart thinking if you ask me.

We got to the wall about 8:15ish am. and left about noon to get back. We got to see a good bit of it and kept moving the whole time. I was hoping that the fog would clear out throughout the day but it was more of rain clouds that settled in.We got sprinkled on a few times but nothing major. We were suppose to take this slide/ride type of thing down off of the mountain, but due to the rain they shut it down, so they transferred our tickets to a ski lift. Not quite as exciting but saved lots of steps back down.

At the Great wall there were Chinese and French and Germans and Americans and all sorts of people there. It kind of got me excited about my school and all of the different nations that will be represented there too. I also learned that Tom one of my teammates is very very afraid of heights. In a few pictures, you'll see him holding onto someone or even holding on to a back pack strap because he was so sick and nervous of being up that high. I didn't think it was that high but he doesn't do too well with heights.

On the way back after walking around all morning and in the rain, I fell asleep on the hour bus ride back. I woke up to most of the bus singing "A Whole New World" from Aladin. It was the most magical alarm clock I have ever had. Jordan asked how it sounded when I woke up and I told them my room number and what time I wanted to get up if they wanted to come sing to me and wake me up everyday. haha. Apparently, somehow a sing-a-long got started based off of our cultural understanding from the Disney movie, Mulan. Then it just transpired into every Disney movie song they could think of. Pretty awesome.

The teaching yesterday went well. I know different places that I can improve on and different things that I think went well. Classroom management needs some improvment and being able to write substance filled lesson plans and instruct well could be improved. We did have good participation and interest in the students. They seemed to enjoy it and focus in well as to what we were discussing. I'm still waiting on Him to give me a teachers mindset so that I can be the best I can. I know He will get me by, and I know that He's going to make sure I admit to myself and to others that it's Him giving me the ability and nothing on my own.So that will be good.

I know this is a long post, so I appreciate you reading through it and checking out the pictures. I'm sorry I couldn't get them up earlier. I love and appreciate you all and your comments on the posts too.