Yang Shuo – A Most Beautiful Place

WARNING:  This is very long. There is no judgment if you don’t want to read it. I probably wouldn’t even read except that it’s all about me…and I’m a little conceited sometimes so I love it when things are all about me. But if you want to…go for it!

I got to spend Thanksgiving weekend in Yang Shuo, which is (as the title hints at) a most beautiful place. We went there on our four-day vacation and it was so much fun! We were supposed to leave Thursday night but last minute we found out we didn’t have to teach Thursday so we left Wednesday. And then we ended up at the bus station 3 hours too early because we overestimated how long it would take at the dress shop (my roommate Darci is getting her wedding dress made here). So we went to McDonalds and ordered fries. Took a nap. Ordered cheeseburgers (they tasted so good! I actually do miss American food sometimes) and ice cream. Then Jace and Max arrived at the bus station (It was us 4 that left a day early). We rode sleeper buses which were pretty fun. They were small little beds which made it hard to turn, this made it slightly difficult to sleep since I learned that I DO turn a lot in my sleep…at lease on sleeper buses I seem too. Halfway through they stopped the bus and made everyone get off to use the bathroom. I didn’t have to go but since they made everyone get off anyways I figured I might as well try. The bathrooms were not squatters (no, they weren’t western either). It  was a trough type thing where ya just squat and go…no flushing needed. It smelled really bad. Oh yeah, and there were no doors or stalls, just short little separators that came up to my mid thigh...maybe. Livin’ the dream.

Day 1

We arrived at Yang Shuo at about 7 the next morning. They had all these fruit stands set up and these oranges looked super good. So I went over and bought one. I tried peeling the orange but it was really hard. The lady I bought it from came over to me with a knife and handed it to me. “oh” I thought, “I’m suppose to cut it”. So I’m trying to decide if I should cut it vertical or horizontal (a silly thing to be contemplating I’m sure) she stares at me for a moment then takes the orange and the knife and starts to cut the peel off. WHY HADN’T I THOUGHT OF THAT?! Haha. Well  all I can say is I had just woken up from sleeping on the bus and wasn’t completely awake yet. I thanked her and happily ate my orange as we began the long walk to our hostel in which they didn’t have rooms for us anyways so we had to wander around before we could shower and feel ready for the day. Fun fact: our hostel offered free mandarin oranges all the time! It was awesome! But anyways, we went exploring and found some breakfast. It was pretty cold outside but we had fun hiking up to this pagoda thing and taking some fun pictures. We walked around the streets ate some dumplings and just had a lot of fun. We joked that we were on a double date because there were two girls and two guys but we never knew who was on the date with who (Don’t worry ILP, it wasn’t a date) If anything it was boys and girls because Darci and I had our arms linked most of the time to try to stay warm (we hadn’t packed much warm clothes because it hadn’t really gotten cold yet.) Overall it was a super fun day and it ended with the three of them getting massages (I didn’t have much money so I just hung out in the hostel parlor). It was fun because I met so many interesting people. The fun thing about traveling in China is that you met people from all over the world. Rarely do I meet people from America (unless they are with ILP). But I met this guy from England and girl from Scotland and they were so cool and friendly. They were here just visiting and traveling around. Turns out they love Utah, especially Moab (my grandparents are from Moab!) So that was cool. I met another guy from Canada who was also here teaching English but he teaches up north. I met another guy from Sweden but only briefly. It’s just crazy the places these people are from! The hostel owner Monkey Jane (that’s really what she goes by..the hostel is called Monkey Jane’s hostel) was way cool. She gave us a lot of good advice. It’s known as a party hostel so a lot of people drink. She was always inviting us to come up to the rooftop bar. At the end of the trip she noticed that we hadn’t ever come up to drink and asked where we were from. We told her and she asked if we were Mormons and that’s why we didn’t drink. We couldn’t tell her much but we told her we were. She talked about how she had tried to quit a few months ago but it was hard because of the pressure to drink by her friends and customers (it is a party hostel). She asked if we had ever drunk. Most of us hadn’t but since Jace is a convert he actually had and was able to tell her how he had to give it up to be Mormon. Sometimes Jace can be like an annoying little brother, but sometimes he’s pretty cool and I admire his dedication a lot. He has only been a member for a year but you can tell he loves the gospel. I see him bless each of his meals (even in the cafeteria which I usually forget to do) and he reads his scriptures each night. He has really stepped up to the responsibility of blessing the sacrament for our small group, even when he had to do it alone once. If you hear his conversion story it sounds like he converted for a girl, but even if that’s the reason he did he had a testimony of his own now. He is preparing to serve a mission as soon as he can (he has to be a member for a year in order to go.) He is a pretty cool kid. But anyways, lots of cool people at the hostel.

Day 2:

Friday we woke up early and went kayaking. We went through the hostel so they arranged the ride and everything. I thought it was going to be cold so I wore a jacket and stuff on top of my swim suit (I figured the water was going to be too cold but I wanted to be prepared!) It actually was pretty warm that day and I ended up just wearing my swimsuit anyways. It was so fun. The scenery was AMAZING. I love the mountains there. They are unlike any other mountains I have ever seen. Each one is different and unique. I can’t even describe. Just look up some pictures or something. I tried so hard to capture the beauty with pictures and videos on my own camera but none of them do it justice. I just loved riding on the water and being surrounded by so much beauty. I’m so glad Heavenly Father has such an eye for beauty. The boys were ahead of us most of the time (Jace and Max) us girls (Darci, Katrina-she saved us from our continual date-and I). At one point Darci had to pee really bad so she was going to jump into the water and she figured while she was in she might has well skinny dip. I’ve never been skinny dipping but I figured, hey I’m in China, why not? So I jumped in too. Let me say that was some of the coldest water I have ever been in.  We spent about 3 hours kayaking and we had meant to eat breakfast before we left but we woke up late and then Monkey Jane said we needed to wait at the hostel for the guy coming to get us. So after awhile my arms/shoulders were sore and I was starving and cold. Fortunately right around then we finished, they put us on a bus and we made it back to the hostel and were able to take delightfully warm showers. Most everything to do in Yangshou is outdoorsy and once it gets to be 5 or 6 they all close down. But don’t you worry! They are pretty famous for their night life as well with bars everywhere in the street and rooftop bars for almost every hostel. But there are a lot of shops and fun stuff open late so we wandered around again and had some dumplings.

Day 3:

Saturday we went to the mud caves. We entered the caves by boat and then we had a guide lead us through. It was pretty cool. She showed us formations that looked like tigers, Jack and Rose form Titanic and other cool things. Then we got to the mud caves and played around in the mud. It was cold mud but once you got covered it wasn’t that bad. They had a slide we went down and then we mud wrestled a little bit. Took some fun pictures and then went to rinse off for the hot springs. Our friends had gone to the mud caves the day before so we thought that they had gone to the same ones but they said the hot springs were nice and fairly big. Our hot springs were a puddle. Literally. A puddle.  We asked if there was another hot spring but she said that was the only one. So that’s when we realized they had gone to a different one. So, we sat in the puddle for a little bit and then left the cave. Outside the cave was a swimming area with a place to jump off so we played there for a little bit. The water wasn’t too cold. We got out and changed and left to wander around looking for the bus. Finally we found it and made our way home. Once again the hot shower felt amazing!

After our showers we left to go rock climbing. It was super fun. The only other place I’ve ever been rock climbing outside was in Provo Canyon so compared to that the rock here is pretty different. It just seems a lot more grainy…more likely to scrape ya…and I did get a couple scraps on my leg. Those in addition to the one I got climbing another random rock-I’m getting quite the collection on my right leg. It seems to be the one that keeps getting cut. I had the unfortunate opportunity to catch the heel of my foot on the gate right before we left on vacation and it took a good chunk of skin off…right where my shoe rubs against…so that was real fun. It also made rock climbing a bit more difficult not to mention WALKING. But it was super fun getting to experience rock climbing in China. I guess Yangshou is suppose to have some of the best rock climbing in China (maybe the world…I can’t remember what the guy said). But yeah, fun stuff.

After rock climbing we met up with the other group and just went wandering around. I don’t know what it was about it but it reminded me of college and late night adventures doing random things and how everything seems so much more funny. We found these sweet jumping stones by a waterfall that led to this bridge thing and a walking area near the river…super cool, right? We joked around, took funny pictures, and squatted (yes, you read that right, squatted. It’s the cool thing to do here…everyone’s doing it.) But yeah, we found a park…and a HUGE bloody rat. We tried to balance ourselves on teeter totters and then on a ping pong table (they are everywhere here!) Just some fun stuff. Then back to the hostel for nighty-nighty.

Day 4:

We rented mopeds for the day…this was seriously so fun! I don’t think I quite realized what I was up to when I hopped on that thing. I imagined driving through serene China on rural roads (don’t worry, we got to that) but what I didn’t realize was that to get to that you have to drive through the city first. I don’t know if I have told you about China driving yet but…they have traffic laws but at the same time they don’t. If you want to drive on the opposite side of traffic, that’s cool! Just make sure you honk and stuff. People drive really close to each other and pedestrians just walk in. BUT unlike in America, pedestrians don’t have the right of way so just go for it. Back when we first got here I thought it would be cool to drive here but didn’t think I would ever get the chance too but lo and behold here I am on a moped driving in China. It kinda felt like a video game. Weaving in and out of traffic, avoiding people crossing the street and getting points for hitting the stars (haha, just kidding-there were no stars!) But seriously-a video game. One life. There were quite a few times that I think I probably would have crashed if not for divine intervention. I was praying pretty hard during that city driving. The girl I was with (Emmaline-she is hilarious!) didn’t want to drive so I was like SWEET! I’ll drive with her so I can drive more (I actually ended up letting Max ride with her because he wanted to drive the whole time and Darci wanted a turn and she was with him) but anyways, she said she really only trusted Max and I to drive and I was like, that’s cool she trusts me. And then I was like, oh snap! She trusts me. So I drove pretty safe but still had fun. Some people in our group were not as fortunate. Laurissa and Ashley got into an accident and Ashley’s knee got scraped up pretty bad and Laurissa got some bruises. But then later Katrina got in an accident and banged up her foot really bad. She is still kind limping around. I’m just so grateful not to have gotten hurt and that those who did get hurt are alright and nothing was too serious.

I really wanted to jump off Dragon Bridge. I’ve never been bridge jumping and these seemed like a pretty epic place to start. But everyone had already done it the day before and I figured they probably wouldn’t want to do it again. Plus it was really cold. But I really wanted to so I wore my swimsuit under my clothes should opportunity arise (yeah, this is the 3^rd day in a row that I’ve worn it…no judgment) and I brought some dry clothes to change into afterwards. So we drive over there and I mention how I really want to jump in and their like okay-did you bring a swimsuit or something? To which I respond my lifting my shirt a little to reveal…I’m already wearing it! So then they were like “yeah, go for it!”. So they all wait at the top, I strip down to my swim suit and walk up to the bridge. Everyone else is below watching and I get to the middle. I look down and suddenly it seems a lot higher than I remember. But I can’t back down now! Everyone is watching. So I climb up to the edge and stand there for a moment. I make sure they are ready and watching. I know I have to jump soon because if I think about it too much I’ll chicken out. So before I can climb down I do the first thing that comes to my mind and spread my arms yell at the top of my lungs “FOR NARNIA” and jump.  After I jump I brace for impact but realize I’m still in the air so I let our another short scream before I hit the water. The water is cold…surprise, surprise. But the weird thing is that when I got out of the water it seemed warm outside. So I changed clothes we had some hot chocolate and left. I had some delicious food from some street vendor. It was this sticky rice dough type thing with smashed peanuts or something inside (it tasted like peanut butter) and it was delicious. We hopped back on the mopeds and this time Darci drove and I got to ride. I like that because then I got to look around more and let me say, Yangshuo has some mighty fine scenery. Did I mention that I love it here?

Speaking of delicious things though, there is this crystallized honey stuff that is SUPER good. I love it.  Its been rainy this whole weekend but especially while we were waiting for the bus which meant we were all wet when we got on. I felt so gross (I hadn’t showered since bridge jumping) and I was wet from the rain and we were in the back of the bus under other beds and it was so humid and stinky from everyone’s wet feet. Poor Katrina’s foot was hurting a lot. She shared her ipod which made time go faster for me. I eventually fell asleep and we eventually got home. And boy did it feel good to be home and take a shower and then finally be dry again. But boy was it cold. We left here when it was warm and was surprised by how cold it was in Yangshou but then we came back and it was cold. I think winter has finally hit. Looks like I can’t wear shorts anymore…but I guess it is December now so I should probably get used to the cold because I’d bet my bottom dollar that it’s going to be cold in Missouri!

Well that is all (I know what you’re thinking… “’bout time!” haha, ah well)…fare thee well!

Halloween in China

This week has been pretty fun…what did I do…? Oh yeah, I remember…HALLOWEEN!! Now you may be asking yourself “but wait, do they celebrate Halloween in China?” The answer is no, for the most part but yes if your teaching at Bond schools!

Instead of teaching that day we played games. Our students brought costumes and changed into them. They were SO cute. Two of the boys I teach are best friends, they are always playing together, even when we see them out of class with their parents and they dressed up as spiderman and superman. It was great. We did face painting and got ready for the parents to come. The parents arrived and the older class performed some songs. Then us teachers did the monster mash…it was great. For the rest of the day we played games. In our group Jace did trick or treating, Darci did this feel the body parts game where the noodles were brains, peanuts for teeth etc. and then I played the cake walk game but with candy instead. We used the monster mash song and invited the parents to play too. It was so fun!

We also performed at the evening party. We did the thriller. Classic, I know. But it was super fun. We didn’t practice a ton, but it worked out and looked pretty cool. We zombie-fied ourselves and got our hair all ratted up. We looked good! The other bond teachers did the Gangnam style dance…it was so legit!! We had people come up to us afterwards to take pictures with us.

They also put us in charge of a haunted house and told us to make it scary. Let me tell you, it was scary! I also happen to be a pansy when it comes to stuff like that so maybe I’m not the best judge but I definitely screamed a time or two. Emmaline and I were tour guides that would lead groups through. There were some kids that we literally had to push through or else they would have just stayed there screaming. You walk in and Max is hiding behind a cardboard wall grabbing ankles or scaring people as they pass. Then you get to a tunnel where Liam and Michael were in there making noises and grabbing ankles or putting a light on their face and coming at you. Scary stuff. Then you come out of the tunnel to see Teal sitting on a chair being grudge girl (I’ve never seen it) and she can contort her body so it was creepy. Then you see Ashley chained to a table with a sword and she would shake it at people as they passed. That was one room we had some people who ran out after that point but if we could get them past that part we would go into the next room where the twins Ali and Katy were witches stirring a pot. Then we got to Laurissa laying on a bed with dolls around here and a mask on her face. She would creepily get up and come towards the kids. The scariest was Jace. He would be up on this ledge thing and jump down and scar people half to death. Sometimes if there were young children I would walk closer to the kids so he wouldn’t have room to jump down. There was one time I stayed close to the young kids so Jace just stroked the hair of the dad walking behind his son, the dad jumped and it was so funny! Then there was Darci and Katrina who would scare them and act super creepy. It was a crazy haunted house. Before we started when everyone else was in their spot Emmaline and I were outside waiting and so many Asians came up to us to get a picture. It was great fun!

This was probably the best Halloween I’ve ever had. I’ve never gotten so into it and done so much for it. Yeah, it took more work but we made it fun and got into it. I loved it!!

So, I think it's time for me to tell you about my kids...

My homeroom kids. There are adorable. They make my heart happy. Sometimes I giggle out of sheer happiness when I see them around campus. I love them.

Ella: Ella is the cutest little girl ever! When she smiles her whole face lights up and it is adorable. She is so well behaved! We have all the kids’ names on the floor in their spot where they are suppose to stand for opening. Usually all the kids are running around when they get there and we have to round them up. But Ella is so good! She goes to her spot and stands there, I love it! She has been gone a lot this month but I love it when she is there.

Ben: Ben is Ella’s counterpart, they are my quiet sweet little kids. Ben is ADORABLE! I can’t remember who started it but the kids play this game where they will come up to me during breaks and put their clenched hand near my mouth as a microphone so that I’ll sing. (They’ve pretty much learned the Baby song by JBieb.) The game has now morphed into where they get me singing and then turn their hand into a gun and shoot me. But Ben still just has me sing. He is such a sweetheart. He is also super chill. Sometimes the other kids will steal his tokens or hit him or something and he never gets upset. He has the cutest smile and loves calling me “techa banana”. I love it.

Angel: I first named her Wendy. It seemed the perfect name. But then a month after teaching (a month!) her parents wanted to change her name to Angel. There was nothing I could do about it so I made her a new name spot on the floor. And I don’t know if it’s just me but is seems like ever since her name got changed she has been less of an angel and more prone to acting up. But she is still a sweet little girl. She doesn’t speak a lot of English (none of the kids really do, they are 4 years old and this is their first year). She gets along really well with the other kids (even Tim who is a little bit of a bully.) She is smart too. She always reminds me to get the token bags when I forget and knows where they are. She’s a good kid.

Marcus: The best way to describe Marcus would be like a punk-gangster type kid. He just has swag when he walks. He doesn’t get upset and cry about things, he turns the cold shoulder like he is too cool for you. But he is sweet at the same time, he always comes and takes my hand to bring me to the table when it is time for me to go to his group. He loves to have his picture taken and will get you to take the  picture but as soon as the camera is on him he puts his “cool” look back on, like he doesn’t care or anything. He is so funny. He loves whispering Chinese into my ear and I don’t know what he is saying! So I just whisper “don’t speak in Chinese” in his ear. Then he whispers in my ear again like we’re communicating or something, but truly, neither of us has any idea what the other one is saying. I love him.

Sami: She joined my class a couple weeks after we had started but from the very beginning she seemed to be older (she’s not) and just more advanced. She loves attention being in pictures. She strikes me a someone who is used to getting her way. Whenever there is something she wants or she is upset she automatically goes into this cry thing that will immediately stop once she has what she wants or attention. It drives me crazy. But she is such a good student. She is a quick learner and continues to show a lot of progress. She is also very helpful with the other students and loves helping the teacher.

Joey: Joey is a quiet little boy and oh how I love him. Whenever he sees me he runs and gives me a hug. And by ‘gives me a hug’ I really mean he hugs my leg, he wraps his little arm around my thigh and just holds on tight. Its real adorable. And I love how he just giggles and giggles at the silly things I do, it makes me feel like I’m funny. Sometimes he likes to scatter the tokens when other kids are trying to count them which makes my life more difficult, but I can never stay upset. He has these big eyebrows and squished little face, he looks kinda like an old man in a little body sometimes. He makes me happy.

Tim: Tim is rather infamous. All the kindergarten teachers knew who he was after the first few days and even the Primary teachers have heard of him. He is bigger than most of the other students and has this thing for hitting people (teachers and students) and he likes to run away. Yet when you see him outside of class he is the first one to see me and smile and wave, and he won’t stop until I see him and wave back. Even then sometimes he just likes to smile and wave at me. He has a lot of ability and does really well in class…when you have something he wants such has a snack, craft or toy. He is so excited to see us in the morning. He, like Marcus, could probably be a gang leader. Sometimes I feel like I’m teaching little gangsters. Tim is cute though, and I do love him.

I wish you all could meet them, but hopefully you will be able to reconcile yourself with pictures instead. I will try to post them on Facebook sometime. We’ll see if THAT happens. J Also, there are so many other kids in our group A that I shall have to tell you about, not to mention the other (older) group. But I’ll save that for another day.

I love China!

First week back from Vacation

Some highlights from this week:

We had a grilled cheese party! Yes, you read that right, a grilled CHEESE party!! We found cheese! It was in this deli/import store. I got a block of cheese for 37.5 yuan which is about 6 US dollars…but it was worth it. A bunch of us in the group got together and made grilled cheese. We had a pan and an iron. I tried cooking mine both ways and I prefer the iron. It was fun. Emmaline and Teal brought cream cheese…it was SO good in a grilled cheese! Ahh, best day of my life. I love cheese. And the cheese was melted and perfect, I’m sure Cindy Evans would have LOVED it! Haha! (She hates melted cheese).

Kung Fu was a BLAST! We’ve been learning all these different moves and found out that they all go together in a sequence and yes I feel so cool doing them. We’re all getting Kung Fu outfits and I cannot wait! We’re gonna be so legit!

We watched the Relief Society broadcast on Tuesday which was sweet. Darci and I watched the Saturday morning session of General Conference live because we had slept all day (no sleep on the train remember?). It was super cool to think about how I was watching conference the same time as everyone else…except it was midnight for me. It was super cool! The change in missionary age announcement was crazy! I was definitely very excited, Darci recorded the happy dance I did because I was so excited. There were a lot of different emotions I felt thinking about that announcement. I’ve thought long and hard about some things this past week. Maybe I’ll post them on here someday. Maybe not. I don’t know.

Some crazy stories from this past week:

I got bit. Hard. By my little student Tim. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned him before.  But he often hits us teachers as well as us students. We were starting classes so I was taking a toy away from him and he sure didn’t like that. So he grabbed my hand and started biting. I didn’t really know what to do, I didn’t expect him to bite me for that long or that hard. But after he finally let go, I realized it actually hurt. I showed our head teacher and she showed the Chinese teachers. I probably would have been fine but the Chinese teachers looked at it and took me down to the nurse. She cleaned it, had me ice it and then put something on it. Then I went back to teaching. Luckily our head teacher had been there so she could cover for my class real quick. They made him apologize to me. Then life goes on. The mark lasted for a couple days though. You can still see where his front two teeth bit down though. Even though he is a violent child, I still love him.

That was pretty much the only crazy story, unless you count the fact that everyday I’m living in China as a crazy story.

Peace!

Living out of a Backpack : 10 Days Around China

Ok, so my journal entry is taking way too long to write out and I’ll probably bore you with details anyways…so here is the short and sweet version. And yes I know, that even for a short version..its still pretty long.

Train: hard seats – 32 hours – that is way too long to be on a train. Not very comfortable. Lots of smokers because we were near the back. Squatter bathrooms smelled awful. Just laughed at everything, that’s all you can do sometimes to handle it.

Xi’an: super fun city. The weather was awesome (aka NOT humid!). My favorite part was biking around on top of the city wall. Darci and I rented a tandem bike, it was AWESOME! Did some fun bargaining. Katrina is my favorite to watch bargaining. We pretended we were sisters at one point. We were starving students. Got called “my dear” every other word by this one vendor. One of the vendors let me sit while he bargained with Katrina and gave me this book call “You May Find You Chinese Name Inside this book” and it was written on a paper and taped on the book. But to my surprise, I actually DID find my name in this book, Solana and Curtis. Found this awesome taro ice cream that I fell in love with. Ate it twice in one day…What? Who said that? Moving on. Tried octopus at the Muslim quarters, didn’t get to go into the mosque. Bummer. But the octopus wasn’t that bad. The seasonings were good (cumin, I think.) but the texture was weird.

Train: hard sleeper – 21 hours – it felt like heaven compared to hard seats. There were so many more people who knew English so we made so many friends. Iris and Eric had the bottom sleepers and were so nice to let us sit on their beds. We gave this one friend we made an English name. We wrote down names we thought were cool and all our brother’s names. We put down Corbin for my brother’s name even though its spelled differently and that’s the one he picked. This guy Evan helped Kelsey and I on the train and his brother and he sat with us for awhile. They have 4 kids in their family. We asked how that was possible and it sounded like they just have to pay a fee. We played Uno with them and some other people that joined. It was an awesome way for us to learn the colors and numbers in Chinese and we helped them learn them in English. It was great. There were a lot more families on this one it felt like. The whole atmosphere felt very friendly and there were no smokers around us! We actually got to sleep which was so nice! We met this kid William who is super good at chess. Him and Teal were best buds. Victor was my little friend and let me tell you, this kid is so cute! I love his voice! He helped me practice my numbers. He sure stole my heart. This train ride went by so fast.

Beijing: Our first day in Beijing (Monday), Darci, Jace, Katrina and I went to Insect street to try some new things. We ended up eating: scorpion(surprisingly good), snake(not bad), starfish(hard and gross), ostridge(pretty good), eel(I didn’t like it), deer kidney(not bad but not good either) and those were the crazy things we tried on sticks. But we also had this sugar comb stuff, coconut milk, this nasty milk yogurt thing (dairy is just not good here, unless its ice cream), cotton candy made to look like a flower, and this dried fruit stuff. Pretty fun stuff.

The next day (Tuesday) we went to the Temple of Heaven there was beautiful rose gardens, this circle of old people hacking sacking like you’ve never seen it done before! They were tricksters fo sho! There was a beautiful moment when everyone else was taking sweet picture of this spider but across from the bushes beyond us was this group of people dancing. There were wearing traditional costumes but one lady was also wearing sunglasses on her heads. They looked so happy and they danced with each other. It was a tender moment for me to be able to watch these modern people celebrating a culture rich with traditions and history. America is a relatively young country with a blend of many cultures. I was happy for these people who laughed and danced and enjoyed their culture.

Then we went to the Summer Place, we didn’t have a lot of time but it was a beautiful place and probably the coolest summer home I’ve ever seen! It was just before sunset so all the colors seemed to be a little more vibrant. I love how all the buildings are fully of such colorful artwork and architecture.

The next day (Wednesday) we went to Tiananmen square, there were so many people. I wore my red and white striped shirt and had some fun taking “where’s Waldo” pictures. We had so many Asians ask to take pictures with us. Jace went to go do something so Darci and I waited for him and we had all these people take pictures with us and give us their kids to hold and take pictures with. It was fun and we didn’t have anything better to do, but it was hard to get away. Then we went to see the Forbidden City that was pretty cool and we hiked to this hill thing over looking it. Pretty cool stuff. Then we went to the pearl market. It was so fun and there were some great deals and fun stuff. They would also call you beautiful girl. And when you bargained they would give you the “low price” but only because you so beautiful, or you so nice, or even just, because I like you. Such fun!

Our last full day (Thursday) we went to the great wall. We woke up early to take the subway to a bus to a van. The van got a flat tire on the way (I feel like I’m always getting flat tires on road trips!). We were suppose to go on this long 6 hour hike. But they dropped us off at the wrong place so it ended up only being the last hour or 2 of the hike. Emmaline and I were pretty excited about that because we are not super fast, strong endurance hikers like everyone else. Even with the shorter one we were bringing in the rear. But it was way fun. The Great Wall is super legit. There is a good reason why they call it great. The stairs leading up to it are death though. They are steep and there are many. But we made it! I hiked the Great Wall, jumped on the Great Wall, ate Oreos on the Great Wall, did a cartwheel on the Great Wall, did the worm on the Great Wall (the guards nearby chuckled heh heh), and yes, I even KISSED the Great Wall. The one big disappointment was that we wanted to zip line off the great wall but that part of the wall was closed for reconstruction or something. Sad day. We were really bummed.

We went to the Pearl Market one last time get some things before going back to the hostel. Packed everything up to leave in the morning.

Next day (Friday): woke up and went to the train station. Ran to get on the train first so we could put our luggage up (we were last, last time so we had to sit with our luggage on our laps, but we didn’t have seats this time so we needed to make sure our luggage made it in the luggage area.

Train: Standing seats – 20 hours – yes, we didn’t even have seats. We bought these stool things and newspaper to sit on. Darci bought this car window thing that you use to keep your car cool in the summer. My stool broke within 30 minutes of the train leaving. It was awesome. Luckily since we were first we got the back of the train..or not so luckily because we were near the bathrooms and the trash in the smoker area. But since we were the last cart on the train the trolley people didn’t go past us so we could spread out some. It was a long ride. We took turns sleep on the floor on the newspaper and mat. The bathroom smelled atrocious and we smelled it every time the door open. We had people throw up in the trash bag next to us and we had mothers hold their children over same said trash bag to poop. It smelled so bad constantly. When we got off the train we thought the smell was haunting us, but no, it had just sunk into us and we felt sorry for anyone who had to get near us. I think most of this train ride I have just blocked from my mind. But hey, I got to experience 3 different forms of train rides. I just hope I never had standing tickets on a long train ride again.

But we made it home! Went from train to train to bus to bus and up the stairs where we could shower and wash our stuff. I was going to try to stay up so I could go to bed at a regular time but ended up falling asleep almost immediately.

Overall it was a super fun vacation that went by so fast. Lots of adventures were had! Hope you enjoyed the abridged version of it. Peace!

My Life as a Superstar

I love walking into the cafeteria (not because I love the food or the smell) but because I love seeing all the kids and even better, all the kids love seeing me! My kids are starting to learn my name and will call out to me when I walk in. It makes me feel like a superstar. Fact.

Ok, funny story about my name. I was with one of the groups of  kids (they are divided into 6 different groups – three 4-year-old groups and three 5-year-old groups) and I was trying to teach them my name. I kept having them say Teacher Solana, which sounds more like techa Solana. As they were saying it one kid realized that Solana sounds like Banana and he switched to calling me Techa Banana. It caught on pretty quick. So now all the kids call me Techa Banana. And I love it.

But back to the cafeteria, so they are calling out “Techa Banana, Techa Banana” and it just melts my little heart. They are so stinkin cute! Even the kids that I don’t even know love to wave and call out “hello” or “good morning”. They are adorable. And I can’t help but stop and give high fives to them. Warning: once you give an adorable little Chinese kid a high five, everyone else will want one too…and I can’t resist.

Besides high fives, the kids love holding their hand to my face like a microphone to make me sing. It started in class when I would pretend a cup or a banana was a microphone. So then they started using their hands as microphones in my face during breaks and such. They love when I start to sing. And I love when they giggle because I’m singing into their hands. It’s a win-win situation.

It not always just the kids either. The adults love to use whatever English they know on us too. I love it when they get so excited to say hello as they pass in the hallway or cafeteria. But is goes both ways, they giggle at us when we try to use Chinese and say Ni Hao…I’m not sure if it’s because we pronounce it wrong or they just think it’s funny to see Americans speaking Chinese or if we have a booger on our face…not sure. But then again it makes me giggle sometimes when they say hello too. But mostly, I just love it.

Another perk to being a superstar is having your picture taken. Haha, it’s so fun! At first people would just take pictures of us whenever we got together for group shots (I was warned that this would happen a lot). Then we have random people just come up and ask to take a picture with us. One girl walked up to my friend Heidi and asked to have a picture with her. She didn’t bring a camera or anything, she just wanted a picture. So Laurissa took the picture. It was super funny. Some people don’t ask and will just sneak pictures of us. Or like that one time we were dancing and I turned around to see an Asian with a camera. Well, I figure that since I am bound to be in pictures with Asians anyways I might has well embrace it. As such, I’ve developed a new game that I love to play when we go out. It involves jumping into group pictures with Asians at every opportunity. This is how you play: you walk by, notice them taking a picture, jump in doing the Asian peace sign (it means happy), and boom. You win. And like I said, I’m a superstar here so they love it! If you’re ever in China you should try it too. It’s actually a lot of fun.

As for meeting and getting to know them, Darci and I made a new friend, Isabella. I think I mentioned her briefly before. We first met her when Laurissa, Ashley, Darci and I were practicing My Heart will Go On. We were hot, sweaty, tired and thirsty. She was with a friend and they were introducing themselves. She is a new teacher here as well. She teaches piano. I think we met another girl that same night whose name was Rachel and I got them mixed up and called Isabella Rachel for the first few times we met. She told us we danced so well and that we were all so beautiful. Her English is pretty good. We see her all the time in the cafeteria now. Sometimes we go over and eat with her, we usually just miss her though. We went and talked with her in her piano room one night. Just asked questions about her life and such, it was cool. Another time we went to her apartment to show her how to do a twist thing in her hair and chat some more. We brought her a gift of cookies because we know gifts are a big thing here. A couple nights ago she brought us some moon cakes. It’s big holiday thing for the Mid-Autumn festival coming up. There were 4 of them. The first one we tried was really good. The last one we just tried was…interesting. We enjoy learning some Chinese words from her and she loves practicing her English with us. She is so happy all the time. She is such a sweetheart.

I love the people here. They are so great! I cannot wait to make more friends and get to know people better. The language barrier is a little bit tough but when both sides put forth efforts it is well worth it. I love feeling famous! I love China! 

Church and Cheese

So today we left at 7:00am and rode a bus for 2 hours to arrive in Shenzhen at 9 for District Conference. I slept most of the way there. Conference started at 10 so we were an hour early. It’s an international district there were not that many Chinese people, the only ones there were spouses of foreigners. We sang Joseph Smith’s vision for our opening song. It was amazing to be in China yet singing about something that happened in America with people from all over. They read a statement about how members of the church are not allowed to share the gospel with Chinese nationals. BUT as one of the speakers talked about in her talk about missionary work, we are allowed to talk with other foreigners about the gospel. Its quite an experience living here.

For our middle song we sang “I’ll Go Where You Want Me to Go Dear Lord” which was kinda fun because we were all here in China for one reason or another for whatever reason. The longer that I’m here, the longer I feel like this is where I am supposed to be right now. I’m not sure why exactly yet.

Elder Jui Chang Juan, an area 70 spoke to us last. He is so funny! He talked about a lot of different things, but I just really enjoyed it. He made a lot of jokes but made some really powerful analogies and some experiences. I don’t know. I feel like being a better person now.

After church we went to President Colin Robinson’s house for lunch. It was divine! We had Hawaiian haystacks. I can’t remember the last time I recognized everything on my food. It was so good! There was delicious cheddar cheese. I have not had cheese at all since I’ve been here and I miss it so much! All you people in America go right now to your fridge and eat some cheese. Right now. Do it! Just kidding, but seriously. You are so blessed! I can’t wait to eat cheese all the time when I get back. We asked them where they got the cheese and they said you can get it at an import store. But talking to one of the girls from the other school she said it’s pretty expensive. So maybe for special occasions and holidays? ALSO, Isabella, one of my Chinese friends said she knows a cheese store and I’m hoping it’s cheaper. It might be different cheese or taste differently, but hey, I’m in CHINA, I do what I can. And now that I just spent a whole paragraph talking about cheese…moving on.

We had a short fireside following lunch and talked about church in China. Since we are pretty far away we won’t be able to come every week so we are going to meet with the Shenzhen branch via skype. And since we have priesthood we will be able to pass the sacrament as well. Basically we are going to be a twig. Twig = a branch of a branch. The Zhongshan Twig. I love it. They sure are taking care of us. They got us speakers so we can clearly hear and a hot spot thing so we have internet to skype. They are great! I love our district leaders! Also, after the fireside they had cookies and fudge for us. I love me a good down to earth chocolate chip cookie.

I love that even though I am far from home, in another country, halfway across the world, the church is the same. Where 2 or 3 are gathered, there will I be also. I loved meeting with other faithful saints and feeling the spirit. I hope I get to go a couple more times while I am here. But I am so grateful that I will be able to receive the sacrament each week while here. I am grateful for my Savior who died for me and everyone else in the big world. I am beginning to realize more and more just how many people there are. I am grateful for a people who love to serve and even though they don’t know us, they are so welcoming, letting us come into their home and feeding us delicious food. The Church is true wherever you go! I love the gospel. I love my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I’m just feeling so blessed today!

Tender Mercy: Cold watermelon here tastes as delicious as cold watermelon in America. I love it.