Picture Dump

View when leaving work my first day. Quite pretty that day, isn't always this clear. Building on far left you can only see half of is the hub of one of China's biggest financial institutions. 

Super Bowl Sunday 7 AMish

Special at 'Frankie's', which is the Western bar we watched the Super Bowl at. Western bars are nice to get a little more familiar cuisine and experience, but really over priced and I always kinda feel like I'm sitting at Applebees in Boise when I go to one so I don't go often. 

Just after the game a candid of 3 co-workers. Two girls are from Florida and the guy is Canadian. He was very drunk and thought it was appropriate to buy the girls flowers, it was strange but highly entertaining. Despite this maneuver he's actually a nice, normal guy. 

First time playing tennis in Shenzhen.

This is "K" he is my translator and tennis fanatic. He owns a hotel in Shenzhen but lives in Hong Kong. He's helped me a lot so I've given him a few mini-private lessons. 

Me with the two club pros. The lefty swinging is the better one and pretty fun. We went out to the bars last night and had fun. He doesn't speak any English so good Chinese practice for me. Him and I are playing again tomorrow. And then his mom has flown down from north of Beijing for Spring Festival and is going to cook us some lunch after we play because I guess they own a bunch of restaurants in northern China. I suspect something was lost in translation though because the story was confusing. 

Fun story about 淘金 (this guy's name which literally translates as 'Searching for Gold'). He is from basically as far north as you can be from in China which means he has a ridiculously strong accent. Imagine trying to learn English from a Scotsman or an Irishman. Highly difficult. 

Balling in Shenzhen!

Lunch with "K" and the two female club pros after the first time I played. We ate at a Sichuan（  四川  ）restaurant because that's the region where these girls are from. Sichuan food is famous for being really spicy but this was the best food I've eaten so far. 

This is a bar I've been to a few times. It's a great bar, though very dive-y. The owner is this 28 year old Chinese guy who taught himself English by watching sitcoms so he has very strange vocabulary. But free pool and $2 drinks, you can't go wrong. Guy in the picture is Tom from Virginia. He works with me and is the guy I hang out with the most from my company, really nice guy. 

Bathroom at the aforementioned bar one night. Toilet was broken. At least they have a Western toilet though. Lots of squat toilets at bars and local restaurants here.

Paige and Claire at our Spring Festival party. Such a strange party. 

This is Korey, head foreign teacher at the other Shenzhen center. But more importantly notice the chicken head on the plate. For some reason they include the heads on all the platters in case somehow you forgot what you were eating. 

Late night shot of the dinner party. This is probably only 1/3 of the people who had been there. Tall-ish Asian guy on the left with the grey jacket owns both Shenzhen centers and Asian guy in black directly across is the principle of my school, and also apparently gay which is super taboo here. 

Me and one Chinese teacher were the only people at work for the last two hours the other day and nothing was happening so I built a big block tower. Pretty impressive.

Today I went hiking with Dakota, 50ish year old teacher from Louisiana who has led quite the life. I think she was living a normal American life until she had a stillborn baby, her husband dropped dead of a heart attack, and then her mom died soon after. Ever since she's been traveling the world teaching English ever. Two of the Chinese girls who work in our office also came along. 

First just some scenery. The hike/park was much nicer than expected. But also very, very Chinese.

Towards the top of the hill, other side of this little plaza is a big ol' statue of Shenzhen's creator and China's former president Deng Xiaopeng.

The statue! He kind of looks like the Monopoly man to me. 

The view from the top of the hill. Today was probably the smoggiest day since I've been in Shenzhen.

Really tall building you can make out in the middle of the picture is still under construction.

When finished it will be the tallest building in SZ and one of the tallest in the world. 

And because they're Chinese the girls took like 500 hundred selfies and sent a few to me. 

And on the way down from the hike...stereotypical Chinese temple!

One last picture of us racing across traffic to get on the subway and head to work for the day.