A day at the beach

Today was quite a fun adventure! Gen, Kim, and I got up a little early to make it to breakfast and then we all headed to the bus at 9 with one of our adorable native coordinators ViVi. She teaches at the school we teach at so she helps us out there and around town and is also our Chinese teacher to learn the language! She’s very cute and always puts two V’s up by her mouth whenever she introduces herself or just for fun randomly, its her trade mark, “Vivi!” haha. Anyways, we hopped on another bus once we got into town that took us to the coast which I believe was about an hour and a half or so. The first part of the ocean we saw wasn’t really a beach at all so those of us that weren’t close to Vivi didn’t hear that we had to get on another 15 min. bus to get to the actual beach. It was pretty funny because we were thinkin, what in the world are we going to do all day at this beach that isn’t even a beach?? Haha. We took some pics and then went to find some lunch and shopping. We then went to the beach which was actually not much better than the one we first saw…we got in the water and swam for a little while. When we got out the hairs on our arms were brown. Yes, brown. And not just on our arms but everywhere. The water was filthy apparently! Me and Emily found a hose to wash off under but everyone else just sat in their gunk. It was really weird for me cuz I thought the ocean was the ocean no matter where you went but that isn’t the case. Gen told me that you can’t get in the ocean in India because that’s where they dispose of their waste. I’m pretty sure China’s water is pretty close to that dirty as well. So it wasn’t that pleasant of an experience for all of us but we had tons of fun anyways. We were only at the beach for a little over an hour and then we found an underground mall that went on forever! I was expecting it to be maybe 20 small shops but I was way wrong!! It was really fun. We all kinda got separated since our group is so big but were always with at least 2 other people and met up at KFC at 7 since our bus was scheduled to leave at 7:30. Gen, Emily, Emily Hunt, and I (I gave them the name M&M accidentally a few weeks ago by saying Em…and Em! I think it’s great though!!) were together for most of it and we found some pretty interesting stuff! We went to a sit down restaurant in the underground mall that served pizza!! We ordered two garden vegetable pizzas and guess what was in it with the veggies…apples. It was delicious!! I seriously loved it haha. It sounds so weird but it was so good! I was telling them that we’d have to go home and tell the Americans about this…they agreed. We also had a funny experience while we were there. Half way through sitting there a man was seated on the table next to us and said Hello in English to us right when he sat down. I was sitting directly next to him so I obviously wasn’t looking at him but M&M were saying under their breaths that it looked like he kept trying to scoot closer to our table and kept talking to himself. Well, can you guess what he was doing? Practicing his English to get ready to talk to us, of course! He asked us what we were doing in China, what we thought of the country, and if it was our first time there. We talked with him and introduced ourselves for a few minutes and then our food came so he let us eat. Well, about 5 minutes later he leans over again and says something that I could really comprehend but it sounded like, “No spaghetti” a couple times and then a few more words after that but I couldn’t figure it out. So I told him, No this is pizza and the Emily’s both laughed a little so I think he got embarrassed. But what he had said was, “Your spaghetti smells good!” He meant pizza but totally put the wrong English word in there so we were all a little confused for a minute haha. It was funny though. I have to give him props though because if he was telling the truth, he had only studied English for a year and was really good at it if that was the case! We also had one of the guys in the market try to get our attention and have us come into his store by saying, “Come on baby!!” This was when we were with almost the entire group and we all burst out in laughter!! He knew he was being funny…I think, if not he realized it afterwards!!

Oh vacations...

We haven’t had school the past two days with it being the weekend so we’ve had a relaxing but fun time around Zhongshan. We were supposed to be going to SanYa this weekend, which is a beach supposedly like China’s Hawaii 15 hours away from us, but there were not any available transportation options for us so we decided we’d make the best out of staying here for one of our vacations! We’re planning on going to a close beach tomorrow and maybe a zoo Monday or Tuesday but we’ll see. Yesterday we went to Walking Street where I found some cute new shoes and 3 new shirts with the total price of…drum roll please...12 U.S. dollars! Haha but seriously, shopping here is AWEsome!! Today we went and got massages at this hair salon just around the corner from where we live and it was amazing. They washed our hair which was like a 15 minute process of massaging and all that goodness and then got a full on massage and our hair blow dried straight for less than 3 dollars! That might have to become a monthly event…or maybe more wink, wink. The rest of the day was filled with trying out the Chinese versions of pastries, which most of them were really good, and trying to get good things we saw Chinese people order but we didn’t know where it was on the menu. One of us tried to ask them where it was on the menu, ordered it, and it was a drink instead of this ice cream stuff…totally wrong thing. The funny thing is that most of the menu had English on it too but obviously that treat was not on the English menu! I didn’t really care cuz I wasn’t going to get one anyways but it was pretty entertaining to watch. Other than that we just hung out and played some night games on the school grounds until we got kicked out haha…woops! No worries, the guards weren’t mad at all, that’s just their job and we didn’t know it was time to leave.

Super cute kids

The cutest thing happened in my ELE class. Gentry and I have classes in the morning with kids that don’t have normal classes with ILP teachers (us), they still take English from their Chinese teachers but don’t know as much as the kids that do ILP. Well after we finished teaching we started gathering our stuff and they all swarmed us. They all wanted to know what we like and what are names were (even though we had already told them) and tell them their names and stuff. It was way cute. Well one of the boys that was doing great at answering questions throughout our activity for class was trying to tell me something but didn’t know how in English so he was using his hands to talk like charades. He pointed his two fingers at his eyes, then pointed them at my eyes, and then made flat hands like he was wiping something off his face from his forehead to his chin. Gen and I were both trying to figure out what he was trying to say but weren’t guessing very well because he just kept doing it. Finally he told one of the ladies in the classroom what he was trying to tell me so she relayed the message that he thought my eyes are very beautiful. It was so adorable!! He wanted to tell me so bad and just wanted to keep talking to me even after that. He was way cute and such a little sweetheart. He must be used to seeing brown eyes all the time!
Gen and I also instituted a new point system in our two classes with our kids. Whenever anyone is being really good while the rest of the class is goofing off or when anyone answers a question they get a point. Whoever gets the most points at the end of class gets the prize for that day. Then, on the other half of our point chart is the “Three strikes your out” chart which means that if they get three strikes for being out of their seat or breaking any of the rules then they have to go out in the hall with their Chinese teacher. Who woulda know it would work as well as it did?? I had no idea but it seriously was TEN TIMES better than the day before. One of the girls, Bell haha, that I was ready to smack (you know I never would) the day before because she was being such a little beast almost won because she had so many points! They were all such little angels and were saying, “Teacher, I’m being good, I’m being good!” I’m sure I am going to hear that a lot in the next few months but I’m excited about it! Now that we have an incentive for them to be good class is going to be great! They are all so cute and sweet, I’m fallin in love already!

Cockroach Haven

So as of just a couple hours ago I am officially hating the idea of this whole cockroach thing. All my life I’ve been blessed with the safety of having very cold winters in Utah so we don’t really see cockroaches whatsoever. Because of this and the experience we had in California with cockroaches in our hotel room I am kind of freaked out by them. Why do they have to exist and why do they move so fast and get so big and fit anywhere and are practically invincible?? The two boys in our group were just telling us about last night while in their room how Caleb Larkin had a cockroach fall on his face while laying in bed. WHAT??? Why did they have to confirm to me that this was a possibility?? I’ve already been dreading the idea every night while I’m falling asleep. Luckily, I haven’t had any close encounters with them yet (KNOCK ON WOOD) but I think that is why I hate them so much. Why do they bug me so bad? I can’t figure it out…it isn’t like they bite or anything, I just don’t want to be anywhere near them and unfortunately China is swarmin with them haha.
Ok, don’t take this too seriously, I’m just venting a little about the whole cockroach thing just because they freak me out a little bit and I just heard about one landing on Caleb’s FACE. I think I would die… I KNOW I would scream and people from the first floor (we’re on the fourth) would think I had been killed but no, its just a cockroach. “Harmless little creature, that’s all everyone…nothing to worry about, Hilary’s just freakin out again.”
Ya…right. That’s what the cockroaches want us to think and then when they’ve got us all thinking they’re innocent they’ll pounce. I hope it takes longer than four months for that to happen because I surely don’t want to be here when it does!
I think I’ll be Raiding my room tomorrow…

Happy Labor Day! (We didn't really celebrate but me and Em did put up signs at our apts!)

Today was a good day, with once again…a new twist to the schedule! Haha :). We decided that our kids are not quite ready for the level they are scheduled to be at so we will be teaching them the level below which is SPE’s again. This isn’t bad news because I do feel like I know what I am doing better with those levels. It’s just funny though cuz I’ve been stressing the last few days about the textbook material and trying to get used to the new stuff and we aren’t even going to be teaching that stuff at all. It will be good though! So, after this next month you are going to be able to call me the Arts & Crafts Queen because we are supposed to do the same SPE for the entire first month! On that same note, if you have any cute arts & crafts ideas for seven to eight year olds let me know! I really am excited and very relieved now that we know what we’re doing and that the kids are going to understand what is going on much better. And, you KNOW they just loved the caterpillars and butterflies we made during the first week of school so we’re just bound to have a blast! I started hanging up the caterpillars in the grass on the wall for decorations today and still need to get those butterflies and other cute stuff up there to make our room more complete and exciting to come to.
Speaking of my kids that I teach, if you ever need a self-esteem boost just talk to one of them and they’ll put you in your place haha…During the kids ten minute break between classes I was in the hall and a few of my girls were out there messing around and came over and were playing with me. Well, I was wearing my new dress today that goes down to my ankles but has an empire waist (so no distinction of curves at the waist whatsoever) and one of the girls puts her hand on my stomach and says, “Baby…baby!” The other girls all agreed and did the same thing while laughing, hahaha. It was seriously so funny. I heard the Chinese people would tell us what they thought of us without worrying about offending us but I was just expecting it from the older people we ran into on the streets, not my kids at school! But I really didn’t care because my dress most likely could fit my 6 month pregnant sis-in-law Aubrey but I don’t really know because I haven’t seen her since June! So yes…if you ever want to hear what little Chinese kids really think of your appearance let me know and I can find a picture of ya and show them and see what they say! Haha :). They are such goof balls.

"First week of school, first week of school!" -Finding Nemo with a little revision

We finally started school this week! And wow, has it been crazy! It was a hectic week of trying to figure out our schedules, preparing for lessons, and getting used to everything. I am teaching the second graders which means they are around 7 to 8 years old and oh, are they adorable. The first day of school they were all little angels on their best behavior so I was thinking, “Great, this is going to be awesome. They don’t take my eyes off me they listen so well…This is gonna be so great!” Haha…nice thought jk. The second day I think they were more themselves and were a little off the walls. We were making butterflies out of tissue paper, popsicle sticks and a few other things and they wanted to do everything themselves so it got a little out of hand. I think they were just excited about what we were making so they were harder to handle. But, luckily the third day I knew it was gonna be a better day and it was. For the first week we were all supposed to just do “SPEs” which include kitchen, arts & crafts, shop, games, gym, or drama. I was in charge of arts & crafts all week so one of the projects was butterflies and the other was caterpillars. Yes, very similar but I figured they’d be fun to make one after another and they were! The kids loved them. I am planning on hanging them up on the back wall of our room before class tomorrow with some grass and trees maybe if I have enough time haha. The kids are so funny sometimes when they are trying to communicate with me. They aren’t allowed to speak Chinese in the classroom so half the time when we’re talking we are miming too! We’ll all laugh when we make funny noises acting things out. Like one of the classes I was making the butterflies with we had the tissue paper and had it folded in half and taped there so it would stay. Well, one of the kids made the usual comment to grab my attention, “Teacher, teacher” and I looked over and she had it on top of her hair like a hair bow. So then I said the English word for them and put it on my head and we laughed about that for a minute then I asked them what else it looked like and I put it up to my neck (like a bow tie if you didn’t catch on to that one ;) ) and walked around like a man with my fist on my hip. They thought it was so funny and were all laughing and had theirs at their necks too. Part of class is doing that stuff because it introduces new words like bow and bow tie that aren’t usual words for the classroom so it’s a great way for them to learn new things. Its so fun to just laugh and try new things with them already. This upcoming week we aren’t doing SPEs anymore though and my grade is under a totally different schedule that we didn’t learn about at training because ILP thought we just had the youngest kids so I feel nervous like it’s the first day all over again. I know it’ll be fine but I’m just nervous about some of the things we teach that they might not understand. I’ll let you know how it goes though!
Today was Sunday and we went to the closest LDS branch to us here in China for the first time which was almost 2 hours away. It was so great to see so many strong LDS people together even though it has only been two weeks since we were at home attending wards with 200+ people in them. The branch here is all foreigners though living here for business or other types of things and surprisingly many of them included young children. It was English speaking though since most of them were from the states and was a full 3 hour block which was so great to go to. We are going to get the opportunity to have church here at our school though with our two priesthood holders in charge of it and got permission to do it that way. We will still go to the branch about every month but couldn’t go more than that because it would be too expensive. We rented a bus to take us there and back which was nice because we didn’t have to worry about catching the different buses from one city to the next and worry about getting lost or being way late. We were actually the opposite, an hour early, so we just sat in the chapel and waited for everyone else to get there. It was cool though because the building it was in is just a house on the outside. It doesn’t look like a church whatsoever but does have a piano in the main room and then extra seating upstairs in case they have a lot of visitors like they did today because of us! It was a great experience though and I was really glad we got to go. The Spirit was very strong there and you could tell everyone wanted to be there and it wasn’t just something you do on a weekly basis because its there. It was great.
Saturday night we got to see a little bit more of the city we live in! We went to this area called Walking Street that is a bunch of shops which you know we all loved. We hung out and shopped around there for a couple hours and had some fun! I got a new dress for less than 10 US dollars! I love shopping in China! Haha. And of course we went to McDonalds because they are everywhere in the bigger parts of cities in China. There is even KFC’s and I saw a Subway on our way to Walking Street! That was surprising! I’m sure its very expensive for Chinese but probably similar to the same price it would be in America. Don’t worry, that’s not what I’m eating here, we do like hunting for sweets every once in a while though. But the food is pretty good. We get fed in the cafeteria of our school for every meal and that is really nice. There is always rice with every single meal, even breakfast, but it is usually more of a rice pudding for breakfast. But there are tons of veggies and meats and that’s about it in the cafeteria. Breakfast is pretty much just breads or rolls and sometimes eggs but usually not. I really am enjoying it more than I thought I would even though it is pretty repetitive compared to the variety of foods we eat in America. But, we do have a pizza shop just right behind our school that has other foods there too that are American that will be our refuge on days we feel like we’re all Chinese-d out! I’m not planning on that happening but it does have some good stuff there! We also went to town Friday and Saturday and found a DVD store that has tons of English movies that are awesome. I got Hannah Montana, the Harry Potter series and 17 Again! Haha we were pretty excited about that. It has been so much fun finding new things throughout the city and getting the “stop and stare” everywhere we go because we look so different! It’s pretty hilarious. In fact, before school had even started we were in the little super market up the street from our apartments and a little boy came up to us and said, “Teacher, teacher! My name is Robert.” Haha he was so proud of himself and it was funny because school hadn’t even started yet but he was happy to introduce himself! But it really is like everyone told me it would be…everyone just stares at you! And it isn’t conspicuous either its extremely obvious, haha, it cracks me up! I’m glad we entertain them though!

Our First Vacation!

Alright, first I gotta say that this blog is for you and for me…it’s going to be my journal while I’m here so if you get bored with how long some of these posts are I apologize before hand. I just want to remember everything but want you guys to be able to read it as well! So here goes!...Our first vacation was actually before school started which we were all very surprised about but we totally just went with it and had a blast! We get a four day vacation each month and then a week long vacation in October. We decided since it was so last minute that we would follow another group of ILP volunteers that live up the street from us to a city called Yongshou. It is about a 12 hour drive there from our city, Zhongshan, so we hopped on a "sleeper" bus and slept most of the way there. Never heard of a sleeper bus? Well...it doesn't have seats but beds! They are very miniature which works for most people here but let me tell you, it isn't the most comfortable little thing, but it definitely worked! I had my rain jacket on the whole time with my hood on because I am my mother's daughter and don't wanna know how many other people's heads have been there or any other mysterious things :). It really wasn't as bad as I was thinking it would be though and we arrived safely the next day at 6 am. From there we took a ride to our hostile to drop off our stuff and head back out on the town. We walked around for a few hours until we had our bus tickets home for the next night (we were planning on staying until Sunday night but since we have 15 people in our group that bus was too full so it wasn't possible) and had found a tour guide place to take us to the places we wanted to visit there. We rented bikes from him and followed his lead on about a half hour ride to a river where we went on a bamboo rafts. It was seriously so amazing! We couldn't believe the sights. We rode 2 people per raft, they were really small, and then had a man on the back steering and pushing us down the river with a long stick. Our guy was really funny, he didn't know any English, but he would say, "Hello, hello" to get our attention and then motion us to splash the other rafts we would come up upon. He was quite the bully! Luckily, most of the people he would say it about were the other people from our group so they just thought it was funny too and would jokingly get mad at the guy. There were also rafts on the water that were floating stores where you could buy water guns, cold water bottles, some kind of animal cooked on a skewer...beer, you name it! Our guy also tried to get us to buy him a beer but we wouldn't. haha, if only they knew that we didn't drink at all they would've known why wouldn't but oh well! Even with all that fun stuff which we just laughed at and enjoyed, we had a great time. A lot of people got very sun burned, Emily and Kim being some of them, that they were hating themselves for later. The next thing we had our tour guide take us to was the "Water Cave" which is aka the mud caves. We took a rickety old bus that was probably from the 1800s down a gravel road to get to the cave. The entrance to the cave is by water so we got in a couple boats and had to duck our heads down low to make it under the clearance of the cave ceiling. Once we were about 30 feet into the cave we could finally sit up straight and then eventually get out of the boat and walk around the entire cave into different rooms and such. We had an English speaking man that worked at the caves show us around the entire cave. It was probably about a 3 hour tour which included a "nature-made swimming pool", a "hot spring" that was actually really not hot at all and what we were most excited about was the mud. We saw awesome pictures of people just covered in mud from head to foot and it looked like you kinda swim in the mud and go down a river of mud or something like that....oh, were we mistaken. This so called "nature-made" mud was actually just about 15 feet wide and about a foot deep, yes...a foot. Oh and don't you worry, we were expecting pretty thick mud kinda like a nice relaxing mud bath (not that I would know what that's like but still) that you could just float in...I went down this tiny painful (scratched my knee and hand while landing) slide into the mud to find the smell DISGUSTING and the mud was so milky it did NOT feel like mud. I was seriously freaking out inside. Ya, I know, pretty flippin hysterical but I didn't think so at that time! I was the last person into the mud of our group and the first person out! Everyone else was sitting in it like a little kiddy pool not knowing what to think of it. They eventually all got covered in mud so that they could take some cool pictures but I wouldn't have let someone do that to me for a hundred bucks haha. I was so grossed out and I only had mud up to my knees and elbows. Haha you woulda loved to watch me. I wasn't making a scene whatsoever but I snuck out of the mud so fast and then showered off under this hose before anyone else in my group even knew I was gone. But don't worry, I then became the photographer for the remaining 13 with another girl that hopped outta there quick and even got a shot of us "cleaned off" out of the mud haha. It really was so funny and disgusting that I honestly loved it. I would NEVER get in that mud again but it was fun :). After that we rode back into town, got some dinner, and worked on our bartering skills while shopping. I'm not the best at it yet but luckily Caleb Larkin was helping all of us and would help us from getting ripped off. It’s pretty fun though! The next day we woke up early and headed back to the same tour guide to see if we could rent his bikes again so we could hike up Moon Hill. He gave us a great deal and we headed back to the same area as the mud caves and bamboo rafting river and got lost on the way but found our way not too much later. It was very hot outside though so we were all pretty tired and very sweaty before we even got started on this hike. Then out of no where all these ladies are surrounding us trying to get us to buy cold waters from them and telling us that they'll give it to us for 3 yuan if we bought it now but 10 yuan if we waited until we were at the top of the hike to buy it.... Yes, they followed us up the mountain! haha we couldn't believe it. We told them from the start that we didn't want any and that if they stayed at the bottom we would buy some when we got back but they still persisted and followed us! We were all really annoyed because they were bugging us the whole time and weren’t walking at the back of our group but throughout it trying to sell us stuff every time we stopped for a break. Most of them only knew a few English words like the ones they needed to sell but there was one behind me that actually knew more…How do I know this? Well, I was walking up the trail with Kim (and don’t you forget, everyone was very annoyed with them at this point) so I said something to the effect that they were being idiots by following us. Ya…she wasn’t too happy after I said that, and I had no idea she was listening. She stopped there and said something in Chinese and then started yelling at us, “Go away, go away! Go Away!!” I felt bad but then Caleb Larkin said from a few people ahead of us, “Well…1 down!” haha it was funny. The rest of them still persisted because they didn’t know what had happened and one of them was honestly 70 years old! And she hiked the whole mountain with us! We couldn’t believe it and thought she was gonna die as we climbed the mountain. When we finally got to one of the top points most of the group kept going but about 5 of us stayed there and the 70 yr. old stayed with us. She came up to me and asked if I would buy a water and of course I said no because we told them that we weren’t going to buy any at the top and she said, “Old lady tired, tired.” They try to make you feel so bad! I hope you don’t think we were being jerks…that is there tactic…make you feel bad and harass you until you buy. We did buy some once we got back to the bottom like we told them we would. It was a great view though and the reason it’s called Moon Hill is because there’s a huge half moon shaped hole in the middle of the mountain. That doesn’t really make sense but hopefully I got a good picture of it that would make more sense. After that we biked back into town and then relaxed the rest of the day until our bus at 8 pm. We went and got some food and went shopping at the market again and played some Maufia in the hostile. It was a very fun trip and we get to go on vacation again in two weeks already! Since we had to come home a day early we decided we would have a “get to know you holiday” the next day. We all went out to dinner at a pizza place that was actually pretty decent! We then played some games together at our apartments and told each other about our families and stuff. It was a great weekend. School wouldn’t start for two days still so we’d been away from home for a week and a half and hadn’t really been at the school yet but we weren’t complaining! I'm excited to meet all the kids and get started though!