I just realised that I haven't said thank you to everyone who made this project possible.
Let's start with the beginning.
Without RBSC I wouldn't even have known that there was a project in China.
NOCSP which made it all posible in China.
With Vicky and the others as representatives.
Lyndon and Zou Ching who made our stay in Weihai a pleasant one.
The translators, Caleb and Grace, the helpers at the club, Yewei and Spike.
And last but not least our sponsor, Australian Ice Cream.
Thanks a lot to everyone.
Philippe
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Well what do you think of this. An update out of the plane.
We took the night train from Shaghai to Beijing. It's a trip of thirteen hours.
We’ve been visiting Beijing like real “trotters”, even though we didn’t find our restaurant a few times. We’ve seen the Forbidden City, the temple of love (ahum heaven…).
The art district which was really nice.
We ended this walk around with three big beers and some coke for only 15 quay. Today, Friday we climbed the great wall. And if I say that we climbed it then we really did. We arranged the trip yesterday at our hostel, left at 7:30 in the morning, drove for 2 to 3 hours and then walked for another hour to reach The Wall. It was really wonderful while this part of the wall was situated in the middle of nowhere.
This meant that there were no ski lifts or roller coasters. This part of the wall has not been restored yet so sometimes it was really hard to get up. But we had a really great experience, I think there is no better way to visit the wall.
Back in the hostel at around 5’O clock we grabbed some beers in the nearby supermarket, popped them and chilled out till our minibus arrived to bring us to the airport.
At the check-in we tried to get into business class while we weren’t sure in which class we were flying. At the gate Eise-Jan joined us and we got on the plane. Now we just had some “delicious” dinner (at 02:43).
But now I’m really getting tired and I’m going to sleep or at least try to.
The last few days were such a great way to end a beatyful summer and a wonderful trip to China.
Manny greets from the Praeters.
(Barbara, Mathieu, Niels, Nicolas, Pieter and Philippe)
We took the night train from Shaghai to Beijing. It's a trip of thirteen hours.
We’ve been visiting Beijing like real “trotters”, even though we didn’t find our restaurant a few times. We’ve seen the Forbidden City, the temple of love (ahum heaven…).
The art district which was really nice.
We ended this walk around with three big beers and some coke for only 15 quay. Today, Friday we climbed the great wall. And if I say that we climbed it then we really did. We arranged the trip yesterday at our hostel, left at 7:30 in the morning, drove for 2 to 3 hours and then walked for another hour to reach The Wall. It was really wonderful while this part of the wall was situated in the middle of nowhere.
This meant that there were no ski lifts or roller coasters. This part of the wall has not been restored yet so sometimes it was really hard to get up. But we had a really great experience, I think there is no better way to visit the wall. 
Back in the hostel at around 5’O clock we grabbed some beers in the nearby supermarket, popped them and chilled out till our minibus arrived to bring us to the airport.
At the check-in we tried to get into business class while we weren’t sure in which class we were flying. At the gate Eise-Jan joined us and we got on the plane. Now we just had some “delicious” dinner (at 02:43).
But now I’m really getting tired and I’m going to sleep or at least try to.
The last few days were such a great way to end a beatyful summer and a wonderful trip to China.
Manny greets from the Praeters.
(Barbara, Mathieu, Niels, Nicolas, Pieter and Philippe)
Sunday, August 26, 2007
The last dinner
Yesterday was our last day of our program. So we taught we might do something fun. With the morning group we held a MSPC (massive slalom paddle competition). 
With the afternoon group we went on a big tour to the marina. We got there... Un fortunately once we got there we saw that the currents were really strong. And we had to sail upwind to get back. So we started sailing upwind with one hour left. But after half an hour we were still tacking on the same spot. 
So we tugged them back to the beach, had a group picture on the catamaran and had some fun playing with the kids. After class Eise-jan went golfing with Zou-Qing.
I stayed at the beach to go wakeboarding with Shark. We were ready to go, he tied to start the engine but the starter handle came off. So out came the tools and open went the engine. I tried to repair it yesterday but hadn't enough time so I will try again this morning. It's sunday and the end of the program, so it's time to something special I suppose. We will have a day full of entertainement at the beach. We will hand out the certificates, shake a lot of hands but the best of all is the big race. We will have three legs in which all the kids of the season will be devided into three categories. Each winner will get a special price. After the three races will be a graduation hour in which we will give the certificates. And after that there will be a bbq for everyone pluss graduation party. I heard Lyndon will take Vicky with him from Qingdao so that's some great news. Tomorow morning I will fly to Shanghai to meet the Shanghai and Xiamen trainers and the next day we will fly to Beijing. Eise-Jan prefered to go to Qingdao because he already went to Beijing.
With the afternoon group we went on a big tour to the marina. We got there... Un fortunately once we got there we saw that the currents were really strong. And we had to sail upwind to get back. So we started sailing upwind with one hour left. But after half an hour we were still tacking on the same spot. 
So we tugged them back to the beach, had a group picture on the catamaran and had some fun playing with the kids. After class Eise-jan went golfing with Zou-Qing.I stayed at the beach to go wakeboarding with Shark. We were ready to go, he tied to start the engine but the starter handle came off. So out came the tools and open went the engine. I tried to repair it yesterday but hadn't enough time so I will try again this morning. It's sunday and the end of the program, so it's time to something special I suppose. We will have a day full of entertainement at the beach. We will hand out the certificates, shake a lot of hands but the best of all is the big race. We will have three legs in which all the kids of the season will be devided into three categories. Each winner will get a special price. After the three races will be a graduation hour in which we will give the certificates. And after that there will be a bbq for everyone pluss graduation party. I heard Lyndon will take Vicky with him from Qingdao so that's some great news. Tomorow morning I will fly to Shanghai to meet the Shanghai and Xiamen trainers and the next day we will fly to Beijing. Eise-Jan prefered to go to Qingdao because he already went to Beijing.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Noname...
Thursday 23rd of August
First of all I want to say that we have a very good morning group. Everything we try with them becomes a success and they are really gaining a lot of experience. We had a little race were they had to go around two buoys and when I blew my whistle they had to sail to an upwind buoy. After this we made a big tour all the way to the golden bay hotel (that’s a long way). They were for the first time sailing on a straight line all the time and we were really proud of them. So they didn’t get any homework today.
The afternoon group tough is another story…
First of all half of the students were too late. But at least 7 of the 8 were there by the time we got on the water.
We started with the same briefing, the same race, we were doing the same as the morning group since we stated with this group, so you would think that they would perform the same.
The only one who was able to get to the upwind buoy was a boy from the morning group who unfortunately stops sailing today because of a roller blade championship.
It wasn’t working so we went on a tour and even then they are lying with their noses into the wind.
Because it really wasn’t working out as we wanted we just headed to the beach and let them get al the sand out of the boats and give them a thorough clean. This eventually turned out to a water fight but at least the boats got cleaned.
Friday 24th of August
With the morning group we held a competition where they had to sail around an old Olympic track.
As known they performed pretty well.
With the afternoon group we held another sort of competition. We laid 4 buoys in a rectangle shape.
Between the buoys closest to each other there was a line. So we had two lines.
And the way of competition was to pass the lines as much as possible.
They even had to sail upwind and they did very good. So we were really surprised about there performance.
We ended the day with some wakeboarding by sunset and a dinner with two Korean guys who were friends of Zou Qing.
First of all I want to say that we have a very good morning group. Everything we try with them becomes a success and they are really gaining a lot of experience. We had a little race were they had to go around two buoys and when I blew my whistle they had to sail to an upwind buoy. After this we made a big tour all the way to the golden bay hotel (that’s a long way). They were for the first time sailing on a straight line all the time and we were really proud of them. So they didn’t get any homework today.
The afternoon group tough is another story…
First of all half of the students were too late. But at least 7 of the 8 were there by the time we got on the water.
We started with the same briefing, the same race, we were doing the same as the morning group since we stated with this group, so you would think that they would perform the same.
The only one who was able to get to the upwind buoy was a boy from the morning group who unfortunately stops sailing today because of a roller blade championship.
It wasn’t working so we went on a tour and even then they are lying with their noses into the wind.
Because it really wasn’t working out as we wanted we just headed to the beach and let them get al the sand out of the boats and give them a thorough clean. This eventually turned out to a water fight but at least the boats got cleaned.
Friday 24th of August
With the morning group we held a competition where they had to sail around an old Olympic track.
As known they performed pretty well.
With the afternoon group we held another sort of competition. We laid 4 buoys in a rectangle shape.
Between the buoys closest to each other there was a line. So we had two lines.
And the way of competition was to pass the lines as much as possible.
They even had to sail upwind and they did very good. So we were really surprised about there performance.
We ended the day with some wakeboarding by sunset and a dinner with two Korean guys who were friends of Zou Qing.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
To the hairdresser!...
Monday 20th of august
To the hairdresser!...
Today we taught the children how to go around a triangle where they had to tack once.
The morning group did pretty well in the beginning, but after an hour they were tired of going round the triangle. So we made a tour where they had to follow the motorboat.
With the afternoon group we did pretty much the same but now we let Grace (the female translator) give the briefing. It seemed that they understood everything.
But once on the water they were all sailing in the opposite direction.
We relieved the children from lying with their sails flapping by let them follow the motorboat and going with them right at my tail around the track for a couple of times.
One girl however didn’t want to go on the water because she was so scared of the giant jellyfishes. After her dad speaking courage into her she went sailing with Eise-Jan in the opi.
Suddenly the wind fell away, just like that. And what do you do when there is no wind?... You play some water games, like capsizing or a water fight etc.
Because of the jellyfishes we couldn’t capsize and we already had a massive water fight on Saturday so we just lay still hoping on some wind to appear.
Our prays had been heard because after a quarter of an hour the wind came up. For every student this was really welcome because it took some of the heat away. The girl however became hysteric after she nearly capsized and you could hear her screaming and shouting along the whole coast. So we took her out en Eise sailed the opi back to the beach.
Because we knew that the group wouldn’t be able to sail upwind back to the club, I let them follow me again, and we came ashore in one nice line.
Right now Eise is getting a haircut at the Shangdong university grounds. This means enough time for me to write this update.
After this we will go to Liqun to get some chocolate and some ingredients to prepare some pancakes for dinner.
This afternoon we also heard what the plan so far is for the graduation day. You will have to be patient however because I will keep this for another update.
Tuesday 21st of August
Today we taught them how to sail around two buoys where they had to sail upwind to one buoy and downwind to the other.
The morning group did this very good and after one hour we went on a tour, a round the marina and back.
After some time I looked at my watch and saw that it was already 11:30 and we already sailed away for one hour. So that meant that it was impossible to be on time at the beach club.
We tight the opi’s to the motorboats and brought them back to the beach.
For the afternoon class we planned the same track, but there was no wind..
Only the amount of jelly fishes became more and more. The fishermen were really close to the beach (and to us). We saw how the fishermen pulled the jellyfishes out of the water, really disgusting.
During our lunch break we went with our Chinese friend (shark) to liqun (a big shopping centre) he wanted to buy deodorant, he didn’t know what it was until yesterday evening when he met our toilet bag.
Did I already tell you that we are actually getting darker than the natives.
The temperatures are getting every day around 30° today it was even 42° in Lyndon’s apartment so our t-shirts get off quite frequently. Even when we walk to the club at 8:30 in the morning we were obliged to take them of. Otherwise we would melt away and just go down the drain.
This evening we had some lovely bbq with Lyndon’s family. Afterwards we went on the bumper cars and had a really nice milkshake. We had really big amounts of fun and it was a great way to end our day.
Tomorrow evening we will be having dinner with Lyndon again we will make them some nice pancakes.
Wednesday 22nd of August
Morning
I’m writing this part on the beach with my feet in the sand under a big umbrella not a cloud in the sky.
With our morning class we tried to go on a big tour again but unfortunately the wind and currents were not very favorable.
The kids also had a hard time getting trough the (branding). But once they got trough they had a great time.
Afternoon
we a bit disappointed in the afternoon group today because only 4 of the 8 kids showed up.
We waited till 14:30, we gave our theory and then we tried to get on the water but the (branding) was too big to get trough. I (Philippe) could get trough but okay you can’t compare me to an eight year old.
The release pin of one rudder was broken so we just told the kids to unrig the boat. Afterwards I’ve put all the kids in my rib and went with them to make a tour to the marina. It seems that they all had some fun. Even the little girl was screaming of joy.
This became one massive update but now I'm really going to post it.
Many greets from Jan and Philippo.
To the hairdresser!...
Today we taught the children how to go around a triangle where they had to tack once.
The morning group did pretty well in the beginning, but after an hour they were tired of going round the triangle. So we made a tour where they had to follow the motorboat.
With the afternoon group we did pretty much the same but now we let Grace (the female translator) give the briefing. It seemed that they understood everything.
But once on the water they were all sailing in the opposite direction.
We relieved the children from lying with their sails flapping by let them follow the motorboat and going with them right at my tail around the track for a couple of times.
One girl however didn’t want to go on the water because she was so scared of the giant jellyfishes. After her dad speaking courage into her she went sailing with Eise-Jan in the opi.
Suddenly the wind fell away, just like that. And what do you do when there is no wind?... You play some water games, like capsizing or a water fight etc.
Because of the jellyfishes we couldn’t capsize and we already had a massive water fight on Saturday so we just lay still hoping on some wind to appear.
Our prays had been heard because after a quarter of an hour the wind came up. For every student this was really welcome because it took some of the heat away. The girl however became hysteric after she nearly capsized and you could hear her screaming and shouting along the whole coast. So we took her out en Eise sailed the opi back to the beach.
Because we knew that the group wouldn’t be able to sail upwind back to the club, I let them follow me again, and we came ashore in one nice line.
Right now Eise is getting a haircut at the Shangdong university grounds. This means enough time for me to write this update.
After this we will go to Liqun to get some chocolate and some ingredients to prepare some pancakes for dinner.
This afternoon we also heard what the plan so far is for the graduation day. You will have to be patient however because I will keep this for another update.
Tuesday 21st of August
Today we taught them how to sail around two buoys where they had to sail upwind to one buoy and downwind to the other.
The morning group did this very good and after one hour we went on a tour, a round the marina and back.
After some time I looked at my watch and saw that it was already 11:30 and we already sailed away for one hour. So that meant that it was impossible to be on time at the beach club.
We tight the opi’s to the motorboats and brought them back to the beach.
For the afternoon class we planned the same track, but there was no wind..
Only the amount of jelly fishes became more and more. The fishermen were really close to the beach (and to us). We saw how the fishermen pulled the jellyfishes out of the water, really disgusting.
During our lunch break we went with our Chinese friend (shark) to liqun (a big shopping centre) he wanted to buy deodorant, he didn’t know what it was until yesterday evening when he met our toilet bag.
Did I already tell you that we are actually getting darker than the natives.
The temperatures are getting every day around 30° today it was even 42° in Lyndon’s apartment so our t-shirts get off quite frequently. Even when we walk to the club at 8:30 in the morning we were obliged to take them of. Otherwise we would melt away and just go down the drain.
This evening we had some lovely bbq with Lyndon’s family. Afterwards we went on the bumper cars and had a really nice milkshake. We had really big amounts of fun and it was a great way to end our day.
Tomorrow evening we will be having dinner with Lyndon again we will make them some nice pancakes.
Wednesday 22nd of August
Morning
I’m writing this part on the beach with my feet in the sand under a big umbrella not a cloud in the sky.
With our morning class we tried to go on a big tour again but unfortunately the wind and currents were not very favorable.
The kids also had a hard time getting trough the (branding). But once they got trough they had a great time.
Afternoon
we a bit disappointed in the afternoon group today because only 4 of the 8 kids showed up.
We waited till 14:30, we gave our theory and then we tried to get on the water but the (branding) was too big to get trough. I (Philippe) could get trough but okay you can’t compare me to an eight year old.
The release pin of one rudder was broken so we just told the kids to unrig the boat. Afterwards I’ve put all the kids in my rib and went with them to make a tour to the marina. It seems that they all had some fun. Even the little girl was screaming of joy.
This became one massive update but now I'm really going to post it.
Many greets from Jan and Philippo.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Killer Jellyfishes
The new group is really doing well.
The first day we thought them the parts of the boat and the knots and they performed pretty well.
The second day we showed them how to tack and Celeb did a really good job showing the moves.
This day we also had a swimming contest and a game of football till the moment that I(Philippe) got some sand in my eyes. From this day on we also have a new translator.
The third day they went for the first time on the water with their boats and the first hour they were scattered around the beach but after some time they began to enjoy it and they could more or less stay on the track.
Today (Friday) they were reaching pretty well… The only bad thing is that we’re having really big jellyfishes (1,5 to 2 meters span) and the kids are scared of them that they don’t want to sail nor swim.
We even had one girl who just ran of and we had to search for her.
So no wakeboarding anymore. That’s a pity because we were really getting good at this.
Today we prepared some nice spaghetti for our host family and they liked it a lot.
Tomorrow we will try to make them sail close hauled.
That’s it for today
Many grtz from the Weihai team
The first day we thought them the parts of the boat and the knots and they performed pretty well.
The second day we showed them how to tack and Celeb did a really good job showing the moves.
This day we also had a swimming contest and a game of football till the moment that I(Philippe) got some sand in my eyes. From this day on we also have a new translator.
The third day they went for the first time on the water with their boats and the first hour they were scattered around the beach but after some time they began to enjoy it and they could more or less stay on the track.
Today (Friday) they were reaching pretty well… The only bad thing is that we’re having really big jellyfishes (1,5 to 2 meters span) and the kids are scared of them that they don’t want to sail nor swim.
We even had one girl who just ran of and we had to search for her.
So no wakeboarding anymore. That’s a pity because we were really getting good at this.
Today we prepared some nice spaghetti for our host family and they liked it a lot.
Tomorrow we will try to make them sail close hauled.
That’s it for today
Many grtz from the Weihai team
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Big storm #2
As you can see on the picture below, we had some waves of around 4 meters, and this on a Sunday, a free day. So Shark took us to the city and drove around with us with the taxi which is extremely cheap(1 yuan per kilometer). He brought us to a computer hall where he wanted to show us his CS skills (shooter game) which was also extremely cheap (2yuan per hour)...
On Monday the weather became better but there were still some pretty big waves. So we couldn't sail with the newly arrived group. Wath we did instead was: Take three mooring lines, knot them together and then tie one end to the OP and the other end to your rib. Take the sail out of the OP and tug it around. Like this they can learn how their rudder works en they can get used to the sea.
With the afternoon group we held a regatta with two legs and one final leg.
They al performed very good but there can only be one the winner.
Today we have seen the knots with the morning group and we learnt them to swim. We even had a competition in swimming.
With the afternoon group we made a big tour and they had some great fun .
Tonight we went to eat some bbq with the friends of our host Zou Qing (our host) and we ate some chick (not very good).
any grtz from the Weihai team
On Monday the weather became better but there were still some pretty big waves. So we couldn't sail with the newly arrived group. Wath we did instead was: Take three mooring lines, knot them together and then tie one end to the OP and the other end to your rib. Take the sail out of the OP and tug it around. Like this they can learn how their rudder works en they can get used to the sea.
With the afternoon group we held a regatta with two legs and one final leg.
They al performed very good but there can only be one the winner.
Today we have seen the knots with the morning group and we learnt them to swim. We even had a competition in swimming.
With the afternoon group we made a big tour and they had some great fun .
Tonight we went to eat some bbq with the friends of our host Zou Qing (our host) and we ate some chick (not very good).
any grtz from the Weihai team
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Never thought that shopping would be so great fun...
So today no class again due to some heavy rain, and that is really a pity because it was our last day with this group and now we will never see them again (snif,snif,...).
The weather forecast says that their is a big storm coming with waves of 4 meter and a lot of wind.
That's why we wanted to prepare ourselves to spend some long days inside and we asked Fred (a really nice guy from the club) where we could find an s-video cable to connect our laptop to our 40" tv so we would be able to watch some movies with proper sound (stupid dvd-player).
Fred took us to a 2 floor building crammed with computer stuff. You could really find anything there, from the tiniest vice to the biggest flat screen and all for very little money. But okey most of it is fake like the Samsung hard drive with an apple logo on it.
Fred guided us to a little store which was really full with all sorts of cables you could imagine and there we found our cables(wheee happy).
After that Fred had to leave and he told us take a taxi back because it was quite far away.
We wanted to send some postal cards to our home front for several days and on the way to the computer stores I had seen the China Post office. So we were on our way...
Apparently the post office had no postal cards or stamps so off we go again...
Then we decided to walk till we were fed up just to see some of the city. The computer store was on a hill and as we descended we saw the streets disappearing and wild water rivers growing.
We were already walking with water up to our ankles. Then we had to cross a street and I(Philippe) sunk in some sort of hole up to my waist and my feet weren't even touching the ground. So I showed some climbing skills and crawled out.
After this incident we searched for a stick because we had to cross the main road from Weihai and we had no idea how the bottom looked like. In the middle of the road we were both standing up to our waist in the water. Really amazing.
A bit after this crossing we passed a supermarket and we couldn't resist to go and search some Lays ribbed paprika chips. It seems though that paprika is not a Chinese flavour, So we just chose some onion rings and headed home.
Next to the beach we helped a man pushing his drowned car to some higher ground and he was really grateful.
When we came home we found out that we had been walking for more than three hours while it only felt as one.
So, what did we learn today: never do deep water crossings when you can't see the bottom
if you see brown water and clear water, choose for the clear unsmelly
Many grtz from the Weihai team
Friday, August 10, 2007
Raindrops keap falling on my head...
No class today due to the heavy rain wich started at 6 a.m. and didn't stopped since then for more than half an hour. the only thing which we were doing today was watching some movies on our 40' flatscreen and a litlle bit of wakeboarding during some dry time.
Yesterday(thursday) we were having diner with Lindon and his family and our hostfamily and some friends of our hosts. We discovered already a lot of special dishes but everytime we go out for diner we get something new in front of us like french fries with melted sugar all over it or potatoes which were mashed so many times till they became some sort of jelly (realy weird). We can't put pictures of this on here because Eise-Jan didn't brought the cable for his camera. Afterwards I (philippe) went with our hosts to their friends appartment on the Shangdong campusgrounds. There are over a thousend teachers living on the campussite, realy amazing.
Well let's leave it at this, hopefully there will be another update tomorow(well hopefully not actually because that means that we're kind of bored then)
Grtz by Philippe and Eise-Jan
Yesterday(thursday) we were having diner with Lindon and his family and our hostfamily and some friends of our hosts. We discovered already a lot of special dishes but everytime we go out for diner we get something new in front of us like french fries with melted sugar all over it or potatoes which were mashed so many times till they became some sort of jelly (realy weird). We can't put pictures of this on here because Eise-Jan didn't brought the cable for his camera. Afterwards I (philippe) went with our hosts to their friends appartment on the Shangdong campusgrounds. There are over a thousend teachers living on the campussite, realy amazing.
Well let's leave it at this, hopefully there will be another update tomorow(well hopefully not actually because that means that we're kind of bored then)
Grtz by Philippe and Eise-Jan
Thursday, August 9, 2007
We are realy suffering here in Weihai.....NOT
This is our first update since we arived here at Weihai becouse we had some problems with the internet.
Today(thursday)we started the day with some heavy weather, thunder and lightning, and it was raining so hard that you couldnt see for 20 meters. So this morning we finaly found some time to write something.
As usual the morning group is way better than the afternoon group. How this comes is realy strange but it seems to be always like this.
Yesterday we went with the morning group on a tour towards the marina but becouse we had a little competition beforehand we didn't get there but it was realy great and the kids realy enjoyed it. The weather was realy great and it stayed like this the whole day so we tried to do the same with the afternoon class. The little competition where the kids had to reach an upwind buoy as fast as posible was a bit too hard for them except for David who is realy a great sailor.
We have been going from one party to another. First some sort of goodbye/welcoming party for the trainers. Then the wedding of Stu which was a mixed Chinese/western wedding.
Overday after class we spend our time mostly at the beach wakebourding and we're realy getting a hang of it.
Lindon took us one night at a typical Chinese bathhouse where we were cleaned properly and had some great diner and massages.
Many grtz from Eise-Jan and Philippe
Monday, August 6, 2007
Change of trainers
Some time ago, we left the Weihai beach club. It was a wonderful time and compared to Qingdao and Rizhao, I think, one of the places closest to our western world.
Certainly, I want to thank Zou and Lyndon for their hospitality.
We handed over our logbook to the new trainers, and headed to Qingdao for the weekend. There we had a dinner with the XII-hoven family and the morning afterwards a meeting about the past and future of NOCSP.
I’m staying now in Rizhao, having lots of new surprises…
Certainly, I want to thank Zou and Lyndon for their hospitality.
We handed over our logbook to the new trainers, and headed to Qingdao for the weekend. There we had a dinner with the XII-hoven family and the morning afterwards a meeting about the past and future of NOCSP.
I’m staying now in Rizhao, having lots of new surprises…
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Huge storm...
But before telling you about this…let´s go through the whole ´closing´ day:
It the morning there was no wind. It was really hot, so we played some games with the kids in the water. ´Waterpolo´ was a big success. We had big fun! After some more games we went on a trip with one of the new ribs to swim in the “deep” sea. But once we were there, we saw lots of jellyfishes. The kids loved them. These jellyfishes don’t bite and kids play with them all the time at the beach. Anyway we decided not to swim but have a look for more jellyfishes and there were lots… so the kids had fun, unfortunately without any sailing. We closed the morning with an ice cream and congratulations… they will get the certificate at the end of the whole summer program. Some kids wanted us to sign there books, after that we made a picture together and the kids jumped back in the water because it was too hot.
So hot that during the lunch we placed a table with umbrella in the water and cooled down.
As always the wind arrives at 2.30pm. There was not a lot of wind but enough to make a nice big tour.
It was quite difficult for the kids to sail with that less wind, but they did great! Also here we closed the afternoon with some congratulations, extra advices, a nice cold drink and of course a picture.
Everyone started to enjoy their weekend. We had a nice BBQ on the beach. The beach was crowded. It became dark. We had some nice fireworks to look at. Some guests went wakeboarding.
And at one point… the nice weather changed really fast in storm, rain and thunder… I would say in two minutes. Everyone reacted really quick. The wakeboarders came straight back and everyone who was hanging around the beach club helped to put all the boats and stuff inside. It is difficult to describe… but the wind shifted 180 degrees, waves started to raise, white caps came, wind became 10 bft, rain came pooring down the sky with great force and every minute there was a really big big thunder. It was real hectic. One of the catamarans at the beach blew away. After saved our own stuff and people we tried to help other people. The beach was empty in 5 minutes, so it was only us with 15 people and all fishers who had problems to get save on the beach. One fisher boat with 4 people had difficulties to come back to the beach. The other already got there, but couldn’t get the boats on the beach because they were too heavy. After half an hour of action... we were all save in the tent. The wind get a bit less, so we decided to go back home. Once home and showered the weather calmed down and we decided to go to a night club. The babysitter, a really good swimmer, told us that she saved 3 people and unfortunately 10 people died! Most of the Chinese people can not swim and are wearing those floatable rings around their upper arms or the big ones around their upper body… those things the kids in Europe wear when they cannot swim or when they want to play.
Anyway 10 people who were wearing those things, stressed out untied their selfs and drowned or were blown against the rocks. Horrible!
When we went out last night… we saw that all the little shops and tents were damaged or totally ruined. Amazing/horrible to see what Mother Nature can do in 30 minutes!
To finish with a ´happy´ end… we are save and the beach club is still there. Today all the shops and restaurants are tied up again. And we are looking forward to start the next course tomorrow.
Cheers,
Jan and Barbara
ps: extra fotos on this site.
It the morning there was no wind. It was really hot, so we played some games with the kids in the water. ´Waterpolo´ was a big success. We had big fun! After some more games we went on a trip with one of the new ribs to swim in the “deep” sea. But once we were there, we saw lots of jellyfishes. The kids loved them. These jellyfishes don’t bite and kids play with them all the time at the beach. Anyway we decided not to swim but have a look for more jellyfishes and there were lots… so the kids had fun, unfortunately without any sailing. We closed the morning with an ice cream and congratulations… they will get the certificate at the end of the whole summer program. Some kids wanted us to sign there books, after that we made a picture together and the kids jumped back in the water because it was too hot.
So hot that during the lunch we placed a table with umbrella in the water and cooled down.
As always the wind arrives at 2.30pm. There was not a lot of wind but enough to make a nice big tour.
It was quite difficult for the kids to sail with that less wind, but they did great! Also here we closed the afternoon with some congratulations, extra advices, a nice cold drink and of course a picture.
Everyone started to enjoy their weekend. We had a nice BBQ on the beach. The beach was crowded. It became dark. We had some nice fireworks to look at. Some guests went wakeboarding.
And at one point… the nice weather changed really fast in storm, rain and thunder… I would say in two minutes. Everyone reacted really quick. The wakeboarders came straight back and everyone who was hanging around the beach club helped to put all the boats and stuff inside. It is difficult to describe… but the wind shifted 180 degrees, waves started to raise, white caps came, wind became 10 bft, rain came pooring down the sky with great force and every minute there was a really big big thunder. It was real hectic. One of the catamarans at the beach blew away. After saved our own stuff and people we tried to help other people. The beach was empty in 5 minutes, so it was only us with 15 people and all fishers who had problems to get save on the beach. One fisher boat with 4 people had difficulties to come back to the beach. The other already got there, but couldn’t get the boats on the beach because they were too heavy. After half an hour of action... we were all save in the tent. The wind get a bit less, so we decided to go back home. Once home and showered the weather calmed down and we decided to go to a night club. The babysitter, a really good swimmer, told us that she saved 3 people and unfortunately 10 people died! Most of the Chinese people can not swim and are wearing those floatable rings around their upper arms or the big ones around their upper body… those things the kids in Europe wear when they cannot swim or when they want to play.
Anyway 10 people who were wearing those things, stressed out untied their selfs and drowned or were blown against the rocks. Horrible!
When we went out last night… we saw that all the little shops and tents were damaged or totally ruined. Amazing/horrible to see what Mother Nature can do in 30 minutes!
To finish with a ´happy´ end… we are save and the beach club is still there. Today all the shops and restaurants are tied up again. And we are looking forward to start the next course tomorrow.
Cheers,
Jan and Barbara
ps: extra fotos on this site.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Jan and Barbara are working in Weihai now for some days. We took over the kids of Sebastiaan and Martijn, 8 kids in the morning and 8 in the afternoon. For the moment we have had no wind in the morning and a good breeze in the afternoon for the last 3 days. We see a big difference between the morning and afternoon kids. Sadly enough we can not change this.
Today we made a kid's life easier...he was so afraid of the water, that he started to scream and cry during the capsize exercise. After 15 minutes, trying to calm him down seemed impossible, we forced him to make a choice between swimming and capsizing. Finally he choose to go for a swim. At the end he wanted to capsize the boat and found swimming big fun. It was great to see the kid being transformed.
Cheers, Jan and Barbara.
Compared to Qingdao we have less kids but the kids we have, are learning much slower. This might have to do with the pre-selection in Qingdao. Enough about comparing these cities, both are lovely.
The beach here (The Weihai International Sailing Club) is very clean and it has a real beach club atmosphere. Really nice people are hanging around, Qingdao beer is available and music is playing before and after our trainings. And staying at Lyndon and Rachel's place is lovely and gives us a good idea about the ins and outs of starting a beach club / sailing school in China. So we are sharing Sebastiaan and Martijn's opinion about their experiences here in Weihai.
Two days ago we went with the whole family to the "Bath house". Nice experience to be scrubbed, massaged and just spend some time in a relaxing environment. (This just for 120 rmb, dinner included! We LOVE China...)
Yesterday we went on our one into the city, and did some sight-seeing. We visited some local market, bought some fake "puna" slippers ;-) , had a beer at a nice fishers beach, and had a dinner that involved a walk around all tables and a lot off sign language to get food that was not too spicy.
Today we made a kid's life easier...he was so afraid of the water, that he started to scream and cry during the capsize exercise. After 15 minutes, trying to calm him down seemed impossible, we forced him to make a choice between swimming and capsizing. Finally he choose to go for a swim. At the end he wanted to capsize the boat and found swimming big fun. It was great to see the kid being transformed.We just sticked the NOSCP-logo on the boats, tomorrow will be the last day of the first course here in Weihai. We will try to sail in a straight line and make some nice pictures! Also a detailled plan for next weeks will be made tomorrow, so that monday we can have a fresh new start with the new kids! And it will be easy for the next 2 trainers continue the training in the second week.
We will try to get you updated regularly.
Cheers, Jan and Barbara.
Monday, July 16, 2007
First day of sailing classes
Today was our first day of teaching the kids since we have been in China. The weather was in the beginning a bit bad because of the strong wind and huge waves but it turned out to be a lovely day with loads of sunshine, actually no wind and still the big waves.
This was excellent for our first day of sailing classes.
We had in total 20 kids, 9 in the morning and 11 in the afternoon.
We started with an introduction (duh) and taught the kids all the parts of the Optimist. It was really good because they've learned the chinese names and the english names at the same time.
The local trainers/translators did a very good job so we've helped each other in all kind of ways.
The kids learned to do a proper tack on the beach with lots of fun!
The waves where all day pretty big so we came up with the plan to anchor 2 optimists without a sail just out the beach in deep water.
The kids had to swim to the optimist and the moment they've had arrived they had to climb in.
For some kids it was quite easy but for some of them it became a pretty hard job to show us their muscles.
Martijn had for the first time the oppurtunity to go wakeboarding at the end of the day and he had very good fun doing that! Or at least trying;)
We had some dinner with Zou Qing and his friend David (who is a english teacher) at the Shangdong University of Weihai! Great food, nice beers and good laughs!
After we went to the observatory on top of the snakemountain on the campus. It was pretty amazing to watch the telescope which was build in Germany and was installed in May 2007.
Unfortunately he didn't work, but we good view over Weihai!
Hope u all having good times, we def. have!
Martijn and Sebas
P.S
We've tried to study some chinese in the university, check the pic!
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Weihai paradise
Hey all!Finally some news from Weihai! Sebas and Martijn have arrived in Weihai on tuesday the 10th of July after a car trip from Qingdao. Sebas already stayed in Qingdao for 1 week and Martijn just arrived in China, coming from Amsterdam-Beijing, Beijing-Qingdao.In Weihai the project is held on the international beach which is a very clean and excellent to launch the optimists, RIB´s, Catamarans and surfboards from. As you can hear, the sailing club here gots loads of good stuff. The whole project is managed here by a real cool guy from New Zealand, Lyndon Twemlow. He and some friends started a sailing club and hence came the idea to join the NOCSP program. As accomodation we´ve got a beatiful tent on the beach with a refrigerator filled with all kinds of good things (eg. Tsing Tao Pitsao :p).Instead of staying in a hotel or other unpersonal accomodation we are staying at Lyndons and Zou Qing (another member of the sailing club) place. This is much more fun than staying in a hotel because we get into the family lives and learn so much more about their (chinese/new zealands) habits.This week we will do the training of the translators which are actually the local trainers. They are very enthusiastic and learning as quick as a child of 4, they soak all the information right into their brains and are having so much fun at the same time. The weather here is sweet: only sunshine, no fog or smog so both of us get burned although Martijn looks like one big tomato right now.Yesterday we did a big promotion and advertising for the project. We took four opti´s behind a car and drove into the city center. Everybody was watching us and staring at the opti´s. In the mean time we were giving advertisements with information about the sailing program and even the same evening the phone of one of the local trainers rang for an application of a kid to start sailing classes!Next week we will start the sailing courses with the kids, looking forward to it!Right now we will check the nighlife of Weihai, have fun so do we :)PS: if you are used to a normal QWERTY keyboard, try to avoid the French ones zhich we are using right now, it´s horrible...
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