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.

My Weekend in Changsha

So, remember how I was PERFORMING IN CHINA…in case you missed the last post I went and PERFORMED IN CHINA. I was pretty excited, did you pick up on that? I PERFORMED IN CHINA. Kind of exciting.

We got picked up in Zhongshan (our school) right after we were done teaching on Friday. I managed to eat real quick at the cafeteria and hurried to grab my bag to catch the van driving us. From our school we had Max, Jace, Laurissa, Ashley, Aly, Katy, Darci and I. We then went to the other school and picked up Heidi, Karissa, Micah, Justine, Savannah, Ashley, and a couple other girls. We then took a 40 minute train ride in first class seats, they were pretty nice. Then we took a 3 hour train ride in regular seats. It was pretty fun. We arrived in Changsha and they took us to dinner and the food was SPICY! We didn’t really know what we were eating. I was just trying a little bit of everything. I ended up eating frog without even realizing…it was interesting. There was all kinds of fun things to try. We ended up eating there for all our lunches and dinners while we were there (breakfast was at the hotel). My favorite food from there were these little sweet potato things that were super good with these meatball things. I loved it so much. Everyone else did too. They were gone so fast every time! I also tried duck and pig feet/knees/legs/something(not exactly sure what). Overall I liked the food.

Saturday morning we went to the place we were performing. It was a really fancy place with all this nice architecture, fountains and stuff. They had us walk around outside while these 2 chinese people with nice cameras took pictures of us. It was so fun. We would just walk around all casual like trying not to seem like we were posing but totally posing the whole time… and they would follow us and take our picture. I felt famous! Haha, it was super fun! Then we went to lunch.

We came back and while we were waiting for it to start we would play with the kids and stuff. Then the show started. First we did the cupid shuffle with all the teachers. Then it was our shining moment where we performed My Heart Will Go On. Even though none of us are ballerinas we all totally acted like we were legit. We did our rapping in the middle. And when we lifted Jace in the air they started clapping. It was great! The whole thing was kinda a joke. But we acted serious the whole time too. And they didn’t laugh. So basically, we were real ballerinas. It was great! Between acts there was speeches and games that we helped with. Oh I forgot to mention, these whole thing was for the opening of a new Bond school (Bond is the school that we teach at, there are about 7 of them). Max did the Cha Cha with 3 girls from the other school (Justine, Micah, and Karissa) and that was really fun to watch. The twins Aly and Katy played a song on my ukulele. The other school did a skit and a song.

I think they have another performance thing in October and I really want to go to that one too! But they only let 8 teachers go this time and there are 15 of us so I wonder if they will let the other teachers go next time. But…they might not want to…so maybe I could go again!

Saturday night they took us to see some fireworks. We were suppose to ride taxis but none were coming by so we took a bus. Something you have to understand about China is that they drive CRAZY! Imagine the craziest driver ever and then times by 60 then take that number and double it and that’s about how crazy they are. They’ll drive on the wrong side against traffic so you feel like you’re playing chicken. People just cross wherever they want despite the traffic that is going on all around them. It was quite the experience…I kind of loved it. But anyways back to my story, we were riding the bus to the fireworks and everyone got off and crossed the street but there were a couple of us that got off last because we were in the back and right when we got off a bus pulled in front blocking the way to the sidewalk and the bus closed the doors and started moving forward so there we were between 2 lanes of moving traffic being the calm cool Americans that we are we huddled together and screamed. It was tender. We eventually made it across the street. There we so many people! We had to keep close to avoid losing each other. The fireworks were pretty cool. They do them every Saturday. Someone told me that they are the providence that manufactures fireworks. Plus it’s China! They invented fireworks!

So our hotel rooms were quite interesting. We think maybe they were the honeymoon suites or something? You walk in the room and there are the beds but instead of a wall between the bathroom and the wall there is a window. So you can see the shower and the bathroom. Kinda awkward. Luckily there was a shower curtain that you could use to close it off, but still. It was a little weird.

While we were walking back from dinner the first night we stopped because our coordinators were getting fruit and some people in our group were getting ice creams. Laurissa, Ashley, Darci and I started playing the mirror dancing game where one person does a dance move and everyone else follows. Usually you just play with 2 people but we were playing with 4 standing in a circle, it was way fun. One of the times it was my turn I did this dance move where I jumped and faced the back and come to face to face with some Chinese person recording us on his phone. It was funny. We noticed some others taking pictures. I feel kind of famous here. I kind of like it. I think its fun for here. I wouldn’t want to really be famous. But sometimes it fun to pretend that you are.

I loved the train rides! It felt like I was going to Hogwarts! We would just pass lots of trees and on the first train there were 4 seats facing each other 2 on each side, almost like their own little compartment. Then on the 2^nd train the trolley lady passed by selling food. Laurissa and I lamented that there were no chocolate frogs that we could buy. The scenery we passed was just absolutely beautiful. But I’m glad it was a relatively short train ride (we rode a fast train, there are also slow trains that are cheaper). Our train ride to Beijing will be over 24 hours…that’s a long time to be on a train. That’s in 2 weeks, super excited!

On the way back while we were waiting for our next train home I had to pee really bad, bad enough that I was willing to use a squatter. I have successfully avoided it thus far. But that time of bliss had come to the end. It was…interesting. I think I want to try a few more to compare. For being squatters they were pretty modernized. There was  flush and there were sinks and soap. But no toilet paper. You just squat down and pee. Not much to it. Hey, when in China…do as the Asians.

Performing in CHINA!

I wish I had more time to type all this up, but there is just so much to do all the time. But these are some highlights from my week so far. 

CHURCH

I can’t believe I forgot to tell you about church! First of all, let me tell you this; there a bunch of people that came to China through ILP…probably over 100…not sure. But of all of those, only 4 boys (yes this is a female dominated thing is seems, but it doesn’t have to be!) and all 4 of them are in our school. BUT only 2 of them are active members BUT that means we can have the sacrament as soon as we get permission. I feel so lucky to be in this group! Know that we have the priesthood 2 doors down and that they could give us a blessing if we needed is actually a huge comfort. As first I was just thinking about being able to take the sacrament but realizing they could give blessings too. I love it. Jace is a recent convert from Canada and he is way sweet. Max is a super funny guy from Idaho who actually served his mission in part of Missouri (but not my mission). They are both superb  young men.

Okay back to the church part. Since it was fast Sunday we had a fast and testimony meeting. It was really good. It was our school and the school that is just across the street and then another school traveled 2 hours to come meet with us! I was way impressed. It was really good. We sang songs, bore testimony, and then got to visit afterwards. I’m not sure when we’ll be able to have the sacrament, we’re still waiting for permission. We might be going to stake conference here in a couple weekends which I think will be sweet! But not this weekend since we’re performing in China. Yeah, you read that right. I’m PERFORMING IN CHINA. Super stoked.

PERFORMING IN CHINA

So the first full day we were here our foreign coordinators told us that there was a talent show next weekend and we needed to get 3 acts together. The twins in our group are borrowing my ukulele to play and sing a song. Max, one of the guys is salsa dancing with 3 girls from the other school, it’s pretty great. There are a couple songs and skits from the other group. Darci, Laurissa, Ashley, Jace and I are ballet dancing to the heart will go on song from titanic and we break into rap in the middle. Its pretty amazing. We lift Jace in the air and everything. It’s pretty legit. I hope someone gets a good recording I can put on here or something. But yeah. We leave tomorrow. It will be a 12-15 hour journey to get there and we will be there all weekend. But the awesome part is I’M PERFOMRING IN CHINA!! I don’t know if you caught on yet that I’m performing in China. Also, I’m pretty excited.  

KUNG FU

Yes, I went to a Kung Fu class. Yes, I am a Kung Fu master. Yes, I sing Mulan songs in my head pretty much the whole time. We started by running around and then doing all these stretches. Then our teacher (his name is Spring, not like the season but the water, his Chinese name is something about water so he picked it) taught us the moves. It was so fun. It reminded me of the beginning of the Mulan 2 movie… “like a rock, ha, ha, we must be strong, ha, ha, hi-ya”…because we say “ha” all the time.  I love it, it makes me feel so legit. We do it outside on this basketball court. Chinese people stop and watch us sometimes. Its kinda funny. I kind of love it here.

There is more I wish to tell you all, alas, I REALLY need to go to bed because I keep staying up late which is no bueno! So goodnight!

Life in Zhongshan

Well, I have been living in Zhongshan for about 4 days and I don’t think it has really set in that I’m living in China. I heard it might take a month for that to happen though. We’ll see.

MY APARTMENT

It set up dorm style. You walk in and the bathroom is immediately to your right. It has a sink, toilet (western style-thank goodness! I have not had to use a squatter yet and I am fine with that, I know the time will come) and a shower head. The shower curtain runs between the toilet and the sink with the shower head on the toilet side. So imagine taking a shower with your toilet just chillin over there in your shower with you. It’s weird. But nice for shaving legs purposes. I think I’ll get used to it. The whole bathroom floor gets wet when you take a shower though because it’s just not separated.

The room has 2 beds, Darci is my roommate. She’s great! We have so much fun together! Random dance parties, pity parties, freak out moments, “late” nights out on the town, food adventures, and just all kinds of fun stuff. We have a mini fridge which is super nice because it means we can make our water nice and cold! There is actually a 3^rd bed but it doesn’t have a mattress. But by mattress, I mean box spring. That’s what it is. We sleep on box springs. Not the most comfortable things ever but it’s all part of the experience, right?

At the end of the room is the door to our balcony where our washers is. No dryer, you just hang your clothes up. We haven’t done laundry yet though. That’s an adventure for another day. But another day soon. Just off the balcony is a small room that is our kitchen. We have a water container with purified water, a microwave, a toaster oven (I used for the first time last night to prepare muffins for my 1^st lesson today) a sanitation thing (like a dishwasher maybe?) and a little skillet thing.

Overall our apartments are pretty nice. We have air conditioning and everything (I don’t know how I would survive without it!)

FOOD

I don’t even know where to start. The first night we arrived our coordinators had brought us food for dinner and breakfast. The fried rice was alright but it tasted a little funny. The rolls they brought us for breakfast were so good! For lunch we ate at the cafeteria. Cafeteria food…is…interesting. Ok, I’ll admit. The food is hard to eat. I didn’t think I would struggle because I’ve never really been a picky eater. But this food is so completely different! Rice is the most constant thing in my life. I’ve had some super spicy food here too. My recent encounter with a jalapeño helped a little bit (in my summer job back home after work one day we all decided to eat a whole jalapeno, seeds and everything and you had to chew it too-my mouth was on FIRE). So the food was spicy but not THAT spicy. Some of it is delicious; you’ll get lucky and just love what you picked. Some of it is…less than delicious and it’s hard to finish.

We ate there Friday and Saturday. But by Saturday night I just really didn’t want to go, I would almost rather just not eat. And anyone who knows be and knows how much I love food should have a pretty good idea of how much I didn’t want to go. So we were talking to the foreign coordinators and they told us about this Muslim noodle place that a lot of past ILP students have loved (I’m not sure if this is the one Wendy told me about). It was just down the street from where we lived. I do not think words can express how amazingly delicious that food was. They were the best homemade noodles (we literally watched him make them) with this meat, not sure if it was lamb or beef and it had cumin and some delicious sauce. It was a huge plate of noodles but I was so hungry and it was so good…long story short, I ate all of it. I think that was the first time I felt full since I’ve been here. I think the meal cost me about 2 American dollars but it was so worth it!

I ended up starting my fast on that meal. However, we were suppose to tell the cafeteria when we weren’t going to eat there because they didn’t want to waste food. Wasting food here is a big no-no. But we forgot. So breakfast and lunch roll around and we haven’t gone to eat because we were fasting. But I guess on Sundays none of the other teachers are there so they only cook for us, at least I think, the schedule is not really sure yet because weekends are different that weekdays with meals. But no one showed up and I guess the kitchen staff was upset. So even though we wanted to keep fasting they had set out plates of food for us so we went and ate it. I feel like they had put huge mountains of food on our plates. And it was the less than delicious kind. But they were sitting there not watching us eat…but kinda. It was so hard. But we wanted to please them so we ate as much as we could. Our motto for that moment was “we can do hard things.”

Breakfast this morning was really good though. They had these pastry things. China can make some pretty good bread. I ate dinner at a pastry shop and it was delicious and cheap. I love, love, love bread. AND I love that its cheap.

Cafeteria food is just hit or miss. Like I said, sometimes it’s delicious, sometimes it’s less delicious. But it’s getting better and I’m learning what I do and don’t like. So that’s good. Muslim noodles are AMAZING. And I’m super excited to try dumplings. I hear they are pretty good.

WEATHER

It is so hot and humid here. Well, pretty hot…mostly HUMID. Its hits you every time you go outside, literally. I’ve always been a shower in the morning kind of person….my whole life. But since I’ve been here I love taking a shower at night because it gives me a few hours to actually feel clean. I’ll feel gross once I go outside. And it seems especially worse if my hair is still wet. So, imma showering at night now. It’s been pretty hot these few days too. I think its suppose to be really nice next month though. I can’t wait!

TEACHING

Today was my first day of teaching and it was pretty crazy! We start with all the kids in opening and sing some songs and talk about the weather and stuff before we divide up into classes. We have the younger kids (6 of us teach Kindergarten ages 4-5-the other people have 8 people teaching primary ages 6-8/9) some of which have never done ILP. So they don’t know any English. It’s hard to communicate but the challenge makes for some fun times. Of the kingergarten group, my group (3 of us) got the 4 year olds. So we pretty much got to name most of ours. Darci and Jace (the people in my group) and a few that already had names but NONE of mine (my homeroom) had names so I got to name all of them. There are 6 kids, 2 girls and 4 boys. There is Wendy (Kinda after Wendy Smith, but mostly because I just love that name). She is adorable, she was crying when we was first dropped off but was pretty happy by the time I had her to teach again. Ella is cute little girl who is really smart. The first boy is Marcus. He was the first one I met, he is a talkative little fellow who likes to make the other kids laugh. I have to keep reminding him not to speak Chinese. Ben is a little sweetheart who doesn’t talk much but likes to participate. Joey is just a little guy who just sits there. It’s hard to get him to participate but I think once he gets more comfortable he will talk more. Tim is a little boy full of energy, kind of destructive energy he kinda likes to hit things. The other teachers playfully call him the ‘devil child’ but his energy just needs to be channeled better. He will be a fun little challenge. The kids are adorable though! I love them so much already!!

GENERAL

It’s so interesting being the minority. Everywhere I go I see Asians (big surprise, huh?). All around me, in advertisements, just everywhere. I can’t understand Chinese at all. I remember listening to conversations in Spanish and having at least a clue of what was going on. But here, even when I kinda know what they are talking about, there is just no way to understand. I love people watching. When I’m on the bus, walking on the street, waiting for the bus. You just learn so much!

The people in my group are great we have so much fun. I just spent a couple hours practicing a choreographed dance to “My Heart Will Go On” because we’re in some talent show that they told us about when we got here and we perform on Friday. It’s gonna be awesome! We just have so much fun with everything we do. I think we’re gonna be a pretty close group. We’ll at least I hope so.

I can’t really think of much else right now, plus I really want to go to bed…so goodnight!

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.