Night on the Town

Last night we had our first night out on the town.
It was so fun. First Chad played basketball with 5 other teachers at the school. He was defiantly the tallest out on the court. After the game the whole ILP group of us and 4 other girls went to eat dinner because the meals here at the cafeteria just weren’t cutting it the last few days and we needed substances. We went to a little hole in the wall restaurant where we just wanted Kung Pow Chicken and fried rice. In the translation books we found Kung Pow translation but no such luck with fried, and the menus don’t have any pictures and are completely in Chinese. So we ordered 4 plates of Chicken.
A few minutes later a group of engineers from General Electric came and sat at the table next to us and they spoke English. So we had him order us some fried rice and he soon became our friend. He got Chad’s email address so that he could practice his English some more. It was an interesting experience. We left with full stomachs and happy faces.
Next we walked to the market and got to experience a nightly ritual that was possibly may favorite thing so far.
Every night the older generations go to the market and dance! It was so much fun. On one side is couples dancing and on the other the ladies do line dances that are rad! I couldn’t help but think of my mom the entire time. Mom I know you would have loved it! I must say I was pretty good at all the line dances, I must have dancing genes in me.
It was so much fun.
We have videos of it, but the internet isn't quite fast enough to download them so we will keep trying

Love you all

We Made it!!

We are here in Changzhou China and very happy. We started our trip with very long plane rides, equaling out to 18 hours, only to get to Hong Kong. We stayed in a hotel for 2 nights and got a half day tour of Hong Kong. It was amazing. We really had no idea that so many people could coexist in one place. It was crazy!
On Sunday we left and flew to Shanghia, where a teacher at the school, named King, came and picked us up. We rode on the bus for 3 hours to Changzhou. I didn't know cars could get so close to each other without crashing. But we made it safe. We went to a resturant that was way awesome. King ordered about 5 different dishes that he knew we would like and he was right, it was like American Chinese food. So good.
We got to the school and into our apartment room and there were two big suprises. 1) We were told we would have a western toilet.... but suprise we don't, so we now need to get use to squatters. 2) our bed is a 1/2 inch pad on a wood slab... the biggest complant so far is that you wake up with a dead arm and leg because blood circulate gets cut off.
Oh and one more thing... The food is ok but still needs a little getting use to.
Chad has 2 hard core points. first for trying Chicken Foot.... second for eating Pig Lung.
JoAnna has 0 hard core points. I couldn't even bring my self to get a plate of dinner last night cause it didn't smell so great. But Breakfast is good/ok (atleast for me, Chad isn't such a fan). It is rice oatmeal stuff. Rice poriage. Stuff. I don't know how to explain it. I took a picture of it but we left our cord to get pictures off our camera home so we may need to get that shipped to us :)
Anyway we are just trying to get teaching stuff figured out. I will keep you posted on how things plan out.
Love you all

We are on Our Way

This is a picture of the tallest pagoda. Located in Changzhou.

So after a few set backs... Changing our city twice and the possibility of a few days delay... We have a destination and a time to leave!
We leave February 4, 2009 at 9:05 pm, Mountain Standard Time. We will fly to San Fran then to Taipei, Taiwan then to Hong Kong. We will stay a few days there then fly to our final destination.... Changzhou.
It is about an hour away from Shanghai, and looks way cool.
We are very excited ( see below) to finally be on our way! Wish us luck and the next time you here from us we will be Chinese :)
Loves

China here we come

The Newest and Greatest information.... (not really that exciting but here it goes)
We leave for China on February 4, 2009 at 9:05 pm.
We leave SLC Airport on Delta and fly to San Francisco then fly China Air to Taipei then on to Hong Kong.
So the countdown is on as 2 weeks from today.

Also Chad and I got new glasses, I haven't had new ones for about a 7-8 years so I was a little overdue for new ones.
Here are some pictures of our new frames :)

Change is Coming

Just to let everyone know. We will be changing our blog address, it has been submitted and the change and has been approved by the committee. So starting later this week or the being of next week Chad and JoAnna Bischoff's blog will not be found at chadandjo.blogspot.com.
It will now be located at

www.chadandjoanna.blogspot.com

Sorry for the switch but we don't want this blog to be confused with a blog of two males.
Hope everyone has a fantastic day and can follow our trail of blogs :)

My fun weekend

So it is currently 7:30 one Friday night and since a little before 8 today I have been in the Engineering building at USU mainly in Room 103.
Before every Fall and Spring semester USU Math Department offers a wonderful class called the Math Refresher course. It is usually a week long course where there are 4 different classes of Math 0900, 1010, 1050/1060, and Calculus, in these classes you quickly review all the material in the corresponding classes. Although since classes start so early this year we got to cram all the information into 2 days right before school starts.
This is the reason for my pounding head ache right now and my extremely restless legs. I have been the TA for the Math 1050/1060 review course and am very tired of wasting time on my computer. I have gotten on Facebook about 6 time today and don't have anything to do!
In this boredom I did find a new fun game. It is located at http://www.coolmath-games.com/0-gravitygrid/index.html It is really fun and kept me busy for about 2 hours of the 12 for the day.

Tomorrow should be just as good as today is because everyone (about 110 people) get to take the placement exam and hopefully show that they learned what they needed to in able to get into the class they wanted. And it should be fun because school does start on Monday and I am expecting everyone to be a little mad if they don't place in the class. Well only 20 more minutes until I get to go eat dinner.

Maybe you get to read more rambling tomorrow while I waste more time. :) Here is a picture to express my boredom.

~Happy Birthday Emily~

Today is my oldest sisters birthday, I just want to leave a little note to tell her how much I love and appreciate all that she does for me. And allow everyone to see her at her best :)



Thanks for all the meals and food, and always being there to listen to me. You are the best oldest sister I could ever ask for :)

Love you much