I Can Do China

I don’t even know where to start! This past week has been absolutely crazy! And I loved it! I always feel like I get easily bored when blog posts are really long, so sorry but this is gonna be a super long one! I’m trying to play catch up. Haven’t had internet for a couple days, ya know? And sorry, I have a bunch of pictures to upload but its taking super long. I was able to find a way to get on Facebook so maybe I'll just have to put them there.

Day 1/2 (Monday/Tuesday) – The Longest Day of My Life

Every year for the past 3 Augusts I say goodbye to my family, but this time it was a little bit different. It is one thing to be on the other side of the country…quite another to be on the other side of the world! It was hard saying goodbye to Abish who will be gone by the time I come back…two years before I’ll get to see her again. I’ll miss my family.

Got to the airport and embraced me mum one last time. My first flight was just a short one to Chicago. I sat next to a gentleman. He was heading to Fort Knox for a meeting or something, he was in the army. I told him about going to China, he asked if I knew Chinese. I hate answering this question because it makes me feel less credible. But no, I don’t, but I know English! We ended up talking the whole time about different countries we had lived or visited. Turns out he was stationed in Germany the same time my family was but we were at a different base.  He also lived at Mountain Home in Idaho and kept asking if I knew or had been to certain places and I had to keep reminding him I had been like 4 when we lived there, haha. I mentioned that Corban and Abish went to BYU-I and I went to BYU and that Abish was going to the Philippines on her mission. He said he had heard that only guys could go on missions, but I cleared it up and told him that I wanted to go on a mission too when I turn 21. Turns out he does a lot of traveling and has been to about 20 different countries. Pretty cool, huh? He kept talking about this KATY Trail that’s in Missouri that I’ve never heard of…its like a bicycle/walking/running trail that goes along the Missouri River. Sorry, this is all probably very boring to you all…you want to know about China, right? Of course right!



BUT, before you do, I have to tell you about the Chicago airport. There is a place that you ride the escalators down and then go across this place on moving whatever-they-are-called and there are these rainbow lights on the ceiling and then you ride escalators up. I didn’t actually need to use them, but Sister Standifird told me about it so I had to go check it out while I was waiting. Then I met up with Kelsee who is also with ILP, I recognized her from Facebook, haha, how creepy! We talked while we waited to load.

The plane was HUGE, there were 2 floors! I really wanted a window seat but instead I got a seat on the end. Luckily there was no one between me and the other guy so it wasn’t too bad. The guy was from Columbia (the country) and he was headed to Hong Kong for a dentist conference. His mom and sister were members. His mom lives in Colombia, I think he was saying there were quite a few church members there (His English was a little hard to understand). His sister came to the states to go to school and married a member and lives in Salt Lake now. He was pretty talkative too (I feel like I never get to sit by the talkative ones but I got them both flights these time!) Unfortunately, the tiredness was starting to catch up so I fell asleep soon after we go on. However it would be 2 hours before we would actually take off because a lady had a medical emergency – but good thing it happened on the plane because there was no place to stop once we took off. We flew up over Canada, Alaska, Greenland(?) and over China. It was a 15 hour flight (17 with the 2 hour delay). I slept a lot and watched movies, so it didn’t really seem that long. But at the same time it was literally the longest day of my life (get my Day 1 title now?)…well at least it looked that way. I left Monday morning and flew “all night” my time but it was actually light outside the whole time. Remember that Book of Mormon story about the day with no night? Yeah, it was.

All these details and I’m still not in China yet? You’re probably getting ready to stop reading soon if I don’t land or something. Bahaha.

The flight had all kinds of Asian things. The soap was scented green tea. Half of the movies were in Chinese and lots of stuff has Chinese subtitles. Our meals were rice and pot stickers too. Well, they offered turkey sandwiches too but I figured I was going to China better start eating like it. Hindsight bias…I should have eaten that turkey sandwich.

Also, little detail about eating/drinking on the planes…both flights the people sitting next to me ate/drank the same thing. Not that they ordered the same thing but literally said “I’ll have the same”. Maybe they had already decided on that, I don’t  know. But I choose to think that they just thought I was such an expert and valued my opinion as a frequent flyer…HA!

Okay, okay, I REALLY better start talking about China soon because I’m getting tired and I’m not even to the real stuff yet!

HONG KONG

We landed, went through customs, got our luggage and managed to find that desk that helped get us to the bus. There was a group from Australia there and while we were waiting we talked to this man and he wife and told them why we were there. They were there on vacation. They were so nice! They kind of took us under their wing even though they didn’t really know what was going on. I loved their accent and was sad to see them go. They drive on the left side of the road…takes a little getting used to. It kind of makes me want to try driving here, but I probably won’t get to. We had so much fun just looking outside at different things and stuff though.

Once they dropped us off at the Hotel we had to cross the street. It took us like 10 minutes to figure out how to get our luggage over because Kelsee had a carry on that rolled and I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to pull 3 carry ons, but its hard! I tried helping and we eventually got across. Meanwhile we could see this taxi driver laughing at us. And I don’t blame him, I would be laughing too (oh wait, I was!) We probably confirmed every stereotype about stupid Americans to him. It took us even longer to make it down the street, but as soon as the hotel people saw us they rushed how to help. Why didn’t we ask them earlier…I don’t know. We were the first ones there (only one other girl had already come). The others wouldn’t come till later.

Day 3 (Wednesday) – First real day in Hong Kong

I’m making this way too long. To summarize, I took a shower went to bed. Woke up and was laying down looking out my window before I remembered I never heard anyone come in last night. Turned over and there is this girl sleeping in my room.  Her name is Andrea and she is WAY cool! We went to get breakfast together in the morning with Kelsee and her friend. We got some delicious bread things at 7 Eleven (they are EVERYWHERE here and they sure became our friends! Haha) Darci and and bunch of other people had gotten delayed all night and didn’t arrive until that morning. It was CRAZY! I didn’t get to hang out with Andrea as much as I would have liked, she was way cool. I could tell we would get along really well. First we went wandering around the city and found lots of cool stuff. There was this park palace full of kung fu and exercise stuff...it was sweet.

We ate lunch at this little shop we found. The food was…interesting. I’ve never been much of a picky eater so I didn’t really think I would have problems with the food here. Uh, wrong. Chinese food is very different. Alyssa (girl that was with us) I ordered this Wonton with noodles thing and Darci and Katrina ordered fish dumplings with rice noodles. Katrina did pretty well. She’s our head teacher and has been to China before. The rest of us struggled. I tried 1 wonton and was super grossed out. The noodles weren’t much better. I tired Darci’s too and it put me over the edge. I’m not a very throw-uppy kind of person. I just don’t. But I was gagging pretty hard and trying to swallow. We were all freaking out and being dramatic, sayin we were going to starve and all that. After our honeymoon morning (4 stages of cultural shock: honeymoon, horror, humor, and home) we in horror. But by the end of the meal (after putting random sauces and seasoning in our noodles that was on the table) we were feeling ok. Our motto had now become “I can do China”. So whenever we freak out or just have those moments we always say to each other “I can do China”. We still didn’t finish our food. I tried hard and got close, but not quite. I had McDonalds for dinner. Boy oh boy, they told me the food would be different…and they were right.

We went on the later tour of Hong Kong. We went to this peak where you could see off of Hong Kong, took a picture for these people visiting and when we said we were from Utah (we’ll Darci, did) they asked if we were members of the LDS church, I was way surprised that they knew. They were from Brazil but are living in Hong Kong. We also went to this market place. We also went to the original Hong Kong which is this little fishing community.

Heidi, Karissa, Darci and I were going to join a group going to the temple but somehow we missed it. Darci fell asleep and didn’t end up coming with us. So the three of us were going to try to go to the temple but decided to just go the next day and went to the pier instead. We were super tired, our feet hurt and it was a long walk but it was worth it! The view was beautiful and I’m glad I got to see Hong Kong at night because it really comes to life. It was sweet.

I got back to the Hotel and got to talk to Andrea for a bit. I was about the take a shower but I was waitng for her to finish in the bathroom and the next thing I’m waking up in my bed with my clothes still on, my travel bag still wrapped around my waist stuck down my shorts and my teeth not even brushed. Andrea was getting ready to hike to the big Budda so I took a shower and then napped before our group left for the temple.

Day 4 (Thursday) – Temple, Elders and Going to China

We weren’t entirely sure how to get there but we had a map and headed to the subway. As we were loading on to the subway who should we meet but the elders! I didn’t even know they had missionaries in Hong Kong! Lucky for us, they were going to the temple too! So we just decided to follow them. But, as we were switching trains some of the girls were further back and the doors started closing! Darci, another girl and I made it on with the elders but the 7 other girls didn’t make it! Luckily they had the map. We waited for them at the next stop and Karissa and Heidi made it but I guess the other girls decided to take a different train? But they had the map so we figured they could find it. There were 4 elders and 1 of them was from Sandy. I asked which school he went to (after hearing Breezy ask this question like a million times I feel like I’M from there haha). He went to Alta but knew Breezy from Middle School. Breezy, if you’re reading this his name was Matthew Liu. I’ll try to attach the picture. Anyways they were way cool and helped us find our way.

I was taking to Elder Liu and I guess Hong Kong is a pretty small mission. I’m not sure how many missionaries we have in the Independence Mission but they only have 120. With only 5 zones, I forgot to ask how many districts. The elders that are over the international branch have church every day! I guess there are a lot of women that are here doing social work or something and they only get 1 day off, so whatever day they get off they will go to church and then the elders are there to pass the sacrament because there isn’t really any priesthood there. Also, another fun fact, 6 of the missionaries actually live in the temple! How cool is that?! That would be the best.

The temple was gorgeous and I loved every minute of it! Everyone was so nice and so helpful. They would do it in English first but then they would do it in Chinese too. There was such a special spirit there. I love how the church is the same wherever you go.

Afterward we went to go eat in this mall place that the elders had recommended. We didn’t end up finding what they had suggested but found this wonderful western Chinese food that tasted amazing. It was soo good! I devoured it..with chopsticks! Which is sayin something, because chopsticks are not easy to use! Darci and I decided we are going to go on the CCD diet. The Chinese Chopstick Diet, because it can be so hard to eat with those things! Also, it was called Pepper Lunch and there is a location in the Philippines, so Abish, you will have to see if you can find it and eat there, its good!

We went to the Ladies market after that which is a pretty big thing here in Hong Kong. Ton of these little shops set up. Buying anything in China is such a bargaining game. I wish I had more time to tell you about it. They are just funny. They are very insistent but so willing to bargain, especially if you start to walk away. Or they get totally offended if you go too low. It a funny business but there was lots of cool stuff.

We made it back to the hotel to get our luggage, take it to the ferry, load in on the ferry, ride the ferry, unload the ferry, go through customs at China, and then finally buses came to take us to our schools. It was so hard getting our luggage up to the 4^th floor…I never want to do that again. Funny fact, Chinese people hate the number 4 so they always skip it. On the elevator it will go 1,2,3,5,6…12,13,15,16..and then even though we are technically on the 4^th floor all the numbers say 3. It’s funny. We were super exhausted but we unpacked most of our stuff anyways.

I’m super tired and I’m going to bed but I will try to catch you up on the rest later. Life in Zhongshan is pretty crazy. I still have so much to tell! Ahh! Oh well. Goodnight America! You’re probably just now waking up! Maybe.