Day 1

Well.. I am here! My roommate and I arrived in Macau at 10:30AM Sunday morning. Travles went well and my roommate and myself are settled in our little apartment. We live on the twelfth floor of an apartment building which is approximately three minutes walking distance from the school, which is goregous by the way! After we got settled a little bit, our host took us out to an authentic Portugese restraunt for lunch. We quickly learned that dining customs are very different in China than in America. For example, instead of ordering what you want to eat, you order about four or five dishes for the whole table and everyone shares. At this meal some of the dishes that we ate included short ribs, piella, curried rice noodles, and cabbage and corned beef. It was extremely filling!
After lunch, my roommate and I went back to our place and continuesd to pack and rest up until 6pm when we met the other student and went to the school where we got on a bus and headed to a ceremony of all the students who have gradauted from the elementary school and are now in high school. This was so much fun! We had a chance to meet all the teachers we will be working with for the next four months. This dinner was another example of how their dining customs are different from ours. When we first arrived, we went to an adjacent room to the large banquet room where the ceremony was being held. This room was still getting set up so we just chatted with each other for a while until we were seated. Once we were seated we didn't eat for at least another hour because of all the speeches and awards going on in the banquet room. The awards ceremonry was very fun! They had lotto tickets and Bingo cards along with recognition from the Principal and Assistant Principals from the school. Once everything was wrapped up, we were treated to an exquiste 12-course meal! The dishes served in this meal consisted of steamed cod fish where you could still see the whole fish, stir-fried mushrooms and brocolli, deep fried fish and cream cheese, and many others! I found that I became full very quickly! I had to stop eating after about the sixth course because I was so full! After the dinner we all got back in the bus and went back to our respective homes (as it turned out, a few of the other teachers also lived in the same apartment building we live in!).
Since we had only just arrived that day, we were both SO exhausted! I boiled some water so I could rince my retainers since we have been told to stay away from the tap water and went to bed as soon as I could.
That concluds my first day in Taipa. It is so lovely here, I can't wait to walk around and really experience the culture.