Fake V-day, Kung Fu, and of course some of my cute kids

Kung Fu Fightin' and fake Holidays

We officially started our Kung Fu lessons this weekend and I have to say it was awesome! We are becoming more and more Chinese as these four months progress. We learned some sweet blocks, punches, kicks, and had some sore muscles the next couple of days. It was actually pretty hilarious because our second teacher was Korean. He brought a translator that translated what he said into Chinese which was then translated into English by our coordinator Gloria. We got a laugh out of that once we realized what was going to have to happen the entire class. They were great lessons though and I'm excited for them to happen again this weekend. We'll be Kung Fu masters by the time we come home!
Then there's also the topic of fake holidays. Yes, while living in another country away from the normal world you live in you tend to start doing different things to celebrate the day. So as of last Wednesday, Happy Valentines Day! Each of us had a secret admirer and got a card and treats for our special someone. We even had a card contest with prizes because that made it all the better! Now we didn't get to make a bunch of baked goodies because we don't have the luxury of American products but I do have to say we enjoyed ourselves anyways. We listened to love songs throughout our party and just had to watch a chick flick to call the night a success. We had a great time. Happy Fake V-Day!

Day 4, 5, and 6

Day 4 started with French Toast of course, that I could never pass up each morning while in Xi'an and then heading to see the Great Mosque in Muslim Street. It took us a little while to find the entrance but out of no where behind all these streets of markets there is a huge Mosque that has been there for years and years. The entire place was gorgeous with all the intricate details in architecture and design. I love seeing old architecture like that that has been preserved for all of us to enjoy for years to come. We had some fun spending some time there and taking pictures until we headed back to our hostel to check out, store our luggage in the luggage closet, and then go up to the city wall. Xi'an has a city wall that surrounds what used to be all of Xi'an but now Xi'an extends many miles outside the wall on all sides. The wall is probably around or more than 50 ft. tall and about 20 ft. wide and you can walk around on top of it. Eight of us rented bikes on top of the wall and biked around the entire thing. It was so fun! It was pretty funny because the wall is made of big bricks that aren't exactly put together perfectly so the surface we were riding on was pretty bumpy! We were getting jostled around as we rode but we had a blast. We then met up with the rest of our group, I went to Muslim Street with Aimee, Ashley, and Emily H. for some fruit, and then we headed back to the train station to go to Hangzhou. We were told a few days before that the train ride was going to be a 13 hour ride. We were scheduled to leave at 10 PM and get there a little before noon the next day. Well, come to find out...once we are already on the train mind you, it is a 24 hour train ride again. Luckily this time we got sleeper tickets so we had the option of lying down and sitting up if we wanted to which made all the difference! I slept through the entire night and then took another 3 hour nap later the next day. It was an easy ride compared to the first one but it was still pretty funny when we figured out how long that train ride was going to be. Five of our group members decided to stick with the cheaper price and ride in the hard seats and man, I felt bad for them! It really wasn't bad at all for us though, I could do a 24 hour train ride again easy as long as I have a sleeper!
Once we got to Hangzhou at 10 PM of Day 5 we went to buy our train tickets and found out the ONLY train back to our city would be in eight hours...yes, e-i-g-h-t. Our hostel we had booked was supposedly a half hour away but we didn't really even know since we hadn't been there yet so there was no way we could go all the way there, sleep for four hours, and then go back to the train station. You would think with a group of 11 girls (and three guys) that we would have all broken down at this moment, freaked out, or something...well, we did the exact opposite: we went to our newly found Burger King in the train station and were all super hyper/happy/care-free fanatics. We ordered a bunch of food and danced in the upstairs to the American music that was playing, and even ordered 2 ice cream cones at once! Haha, it was seriously the funniest experience ever. Normally, I would have been so upset to hear we traveled 24 hours just to be in a city for 8 hours (DURING THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT) and hop back on another train with only sitting tickets available for another 22 hours. But, no...we were seriously having the time of our lives in there! After an hour of messing around and getting free Chinese flags from the Burger King workers we left because they were closing and decided why not go to West Lake (what Hangzhou is known for) in the middle of the night?? We walked all the way there and sat by the lake for a couple hours and took tons of crazy pictures before we walked back and waited for our train. The next train ride you of course don't want to know about. I was honestly on the verge of tears getting on that bus because I knew how bad it was going to be and I just didn't want to even try to do it! This time we weren't even sitting together either since we got our tickets so late. But, what can you do. We survived!! Well barely...
Caleb ended up having to go to the pharmacy the next day because of something horrible he caught on that train and 3 of our other teachers weren't able to teach our second day back either. Caleb was hyperventilating, had a high fever, and would even stop breathing every few seconds. We would have to hit him to get him to start breathing again. It was pretty scary. He was really out of it. But luckily after a few days in bed and lots of pills and HORRIBLE cough syrup he is back to his full health and strength. The other three girls that got sick had something else and got pretty sick too but nothing that you would go to the pharmacy or hospital for. Don't worry, none of us have the Swine Flu, if Caleb did have it there is no way they would have let him leave that pharmacy haha.
It really was a great vacation though and it was a blast to see so many new things in China. I love it here and can't get enough of everything around me!! China has been amazing!

I figured out how to email pics onto my blog! ha:)

 

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Day 3

Our next venture in Xi’an was to find the LDS branch there because it was Sunday! It was kind of a weird experience for me because it was actually General Conference going on at home and I didn’t have access to watching it while everyone else was for once. The night before I was getting in bed and had my Ensign from April’s session of conference and was reading one of the talks when I realized that the first session of Saturday morning was going on right then because of the time difference…and I was in Xi’an in our hostel no where near the prophets and apostles speaking…but I also thought it was really cool that I was in fact reading talks from the apostles and that was good enough for me at that moment. Anyways, after we enjoyed French toast again for breakfast that morning we got with Megan’s group which made it so there were 19 of us and got in 5 separate taxis hoping we would all end up at the same place after we showed them the address. Luckily, each time we did so that day it did work because without cell phones there really isn’t anything you can do about it to figure out where the rest of your group is. We met one of the branch members outside the university where they hold church and headed to the classroom. It was a good thing we were there that Sunday because if not they would have only had 5 people there since everyone was out of town touring or visiting other cities just like we were. It was a really cool experience to get to have church with them. The two older women in the branch had such strong testimonies of the gospel and knew without a doubt that they were in China for a reason even though they can’t talk about the church with any of their citizens. We just had testimony meeting and Sunday school and then we went out to lunch at…once again, a place that wasn’t Chinese food. Amanda, one of the ladies in the branch, told us she would take us to this restaurant because it had Mexican and lots of western entrees so we were really excited about it and it was for good reason. I got a chicken quesadilla with chips and salsa and a banana milkshake and it was delicious. We all enjoyed our lunches and then we caught some more taxis to head to the orphanage Amanda owns. The babies there are not adoptable yet because of physical impairments such as cleft pallets, heart problems, exposed bladders, malnutrition, or other things. Once Amanda finds the doctor that can do the surgery for free or for a small price they are able to get the operation taken care of and then eventually the babies are finally adoptable. She has about 40 or so babies there that she takes care of with some American volunteers that are living with her and then probably about 5 or so Chinese nannies that are hired to work there. The babies are so adorable and we just couldn’t get enough of them. The first one I held was Carmen and she was just the sweetest little thing. We had a lot of fun together and she was intrigued by every little thing I would do for her. One of the little baby girls name’s was Libby and a couple of my friends named her Monster Baby because she is soo big!! She is such a little chunker but that is how we’d rather them be than have them be malnourished! We played together for a while on the floor with a ball until she started getting fussy so I walked around with her for a little to calm her down and she fell asleep. I had to sit down to support her weight because she was so big. Haha, she was so adorable. I couldn’t talk while she slept because she would start to wake up every time I did but I didn’t mind just sitting there holding her. I could have gone and put her in her crib but I didn’t want to. I’m sure with the amount of nannies they have the kids get enough attention when they need it but I’m pretty sure they don’t ever get held while they sleep so I couldn’t resist. I think we were there close to three hours, no one wanted to leave but we eventually had to because some prospective parents were visiting and it was getting a little crowded since our group alone filled the room. It was so fun to see those kids though and spend some time with them that they don’t usually get. That night we went to Muslim Street again and bought a couple souvenirs. I didn’t buy much at Muslim Street because of the train ride and just having my backpack to store stuff I didn’t want to buy things that could get stolen. But I did find some cute, small things I had to get. One being a watch because the last one I got accidentally got tossed on the floor because it was on my bed. This happened a few weeks ago and the glass was starting to fall apart, the watch still worked, but I was nervous about the glass breaking somewhere I wouldn’t want it to like in my skin so I got a new one. I bargained the lady down to a pretty reasonable price and then went on my way. Shantel, Caleb, Emily P, Gen, and I went to McDonalds for some cheap ice cream cones and then I realized my watch wasn’t working. So we went back to Muslim Street which was right around the corner and the guy put a new battery in it. I figured that would work so we went on our way. Well, come to find out in the morning it was still only 3 A.M. according to my watch so we had to go back again and fight the lady for a new watch with a new battery and got some of my money back. They weren’t very happy about it but they were honestly just trying to rip me off with the first one. But after we got the battery fixed the night before we went to a couple more stores and then decided we were done for the night. We decided that if we went out the back instead of heading to the entrance of Muslim Street that we’d actually get to our hostel much quicker and it would lead us right there. So we went that way and after about ten minutes of walking down this road we realized we had no idea where we were and were actually in the ghetto of China. All the people were staring at us like we were very out of place. I mean, stares are a normal accurance here in China for us Americans but these people definitely didn’t see Americans going down that street very often. It wasn’t creepy whatsoever since we did have a boy with us but we didn’t know where we were that was for sure. I finally voiced my opinion in that we should probably just turn around and back track but someone else thought it’d be a good idea to go down a new road instead because it probably led out to the main road. Yes, it did lead out to a main road, we weren’t in the slums anymore, but still…nothing was lookin familiar. Haha, after about 2 hours we were totally on the opposite end of the city we were supposed to be on. We didn’t want to get in a taxi because there were 5 of us so that would split us up and who knows if they’d take us to two different locations and we didn’t know which buses went where so we didn’t want to get on any of them either. Luckily, as we were nearing midnight we finally got into two taxis, told one to follow the other, and told the first to head straight down the road to the opposite end of the city which is exactly where our hostel was at. After a long voyage of hysteric laughs and irritability at the same time we made it to our hostel in one piece. After staying up for about another hour at the two hostels we crashed and awaited the next day!

Our Week Long Vaca! Day 1 and 2

Alright, we are back from our vacation and into the rhythm of things so now I’m able to finally blog about it! Our trip was quite the adventure. It started on Thursday with a two hour bus ride to the train station where we got on a train and rode for 26 hours…yes, more than a day. The train station was so crowded with people sitting on newspapers on the floor because they know how dirty it is. I mean, we saw a little kid pee on the floor in one of the train stations and was it cleaned up after? Nope! His parents didn’t do anything about it except act a little embarrassed and neither did anyone else the whole time we were there. Once we got on the train time practically came to a stand still because we all knew we would be there for so dang long, sitting up right, on a train, for 26 hours…not cool! We talked for a long time, ate all our snacks, studied Chinese/English with a bunch of Chinese people that gathered around when we pulled out our flashcards and started speaking Chinese, watched a few episodes of The Office, tried really hard to sleep through the night which included sleeping pills and only 20 minute increments of sleep, played Sudoku, got our pictures taken on camera phones multiple times by multiple people, watched more Office and Seinfeld, and listened to a lot of music. It was a very long day if you can’t tell and because I had only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before I was feeling like I was going to die around 1 or 2 A.M. My body was aching from sitting for so long. Let’s just say it was definitely not my most favorite experience of my life. It was such a relief to get off that train and move on in our lives! We went to our hostiles and got checked in. We actually had to hustle there hoping to get there right before 5 P.M. or else they wouldn’t have our rooms reserved. But after running the last couple minutes while trying to find the place we made it just in time. Afterwards, we found Emily, Emily (a.k.a. M&M named by me), and Charlotte who had arrived the night before because they flew instead of riding the retched train and all headed to Muslim Street while the boys (Caleb Larkin, Ray, and Young…our two Chinese friends for the trip) and Ashley went to buy our train tickets to Hangzhou. Muslim Street is a market with tons and tons of people buying and selling whatever you can think of. It was the national holiday so oh, were those streets packed each night. We tried “Chinese Pizza” and just walked around for a couple hours, got some amazing ice cream cones at one of the stands, talked in McDonalds for a while about the Terra-cotta Warriors we’d be going to the next day, and headed back to our hostile. For most of that adventure it was just me, Emily P., Gen, and Shantel because the streets are too crowded to stay in a huge group and get any shopping done. Anita, Natasha, Aimee, Sierra, and I were all in a separate hostel than the rest of the group. Our room had four bunk beds so…of course, we had three guys in our room with us each night. Two of them were there during our entire stay, one from the Czech Republic and the other from Germany. They both said they were there because they were on a “World Tour” but not with a group, just on their own. The final bunk was occupied by a different guy each night. The first night he didn’t come into our room until midnight which was just for literally five seconds and then not again until the sun was about to rise. The next guy was Simon from New Zealand and he was actually really fun to talk to. The last night Tony was our roomie and he is from the states and is here teaching English too but through a different program. He was funny because he did not want to stop talking…even when it got to about 1:30. I finally had to ask him to turn off the light and made a joke out of it because he was so awake, I had been lying in bed for twenty minutes and I was on the top bunk. He and his girlfriend are on a one year contract to teach here which would be scary because what if something happened to their relationship? Hopefully they survive it! Anyways, the next morning we got up and headed to the Terra-cotta Warriors which is what Xi’an is known for. There are thousands of these warriors that were discovered about 30 years ago that were buried more than a thousand years ago! Each of these warriors was individually made so they don’t look the same as any other and apparently there are still a lot more that are still buried. It was really interesting to see and we loved it. About 13 or so of us were waiting for a couple more people from our group outside the Terra-cotta Warriors when we were bombarded by one Chinese person after another to get their picture taken with us. It was so funny! I mean it does happen a lot that you get people that’ll take your picture and then every once in a while you get someone that will ask to take a picture with you but never yet had we had so many people do it in a row. We were honestly posing for pictures for five minutes straight. We were cracking up. I finally said to a group of them, “wu kuai” which means five dollars in Chinese and they all busted up laughing, it was funny. We ate lunch at a Subway that we happily discovered was just outside the Warriors as well. There are tons of McDonalds and KFC’s anywhere you go in China and we really don’t ever go to those places except for when we want an ice cream or something sweet but Subways and places like Pizza Hut are far and few between. Because of this it really is so nice to get an American meal every once in a while which actually ended up happening quite a bit in Xi’an because our hostel also had American entrees like French Toast which was SOO good haha. Anyways, enough about food, we also went to a pagoda called the Big Goose Pagoda and took a bunch of pictures there as well. That night we bought some calligraphy pieces and drawings from our friend Hwong that we met and had taken us to all these places throughout the day so we wouldn’t get ripped off by the tour groups. He had some great paintings and really cool sayings and even taught some of our friends earlier how to do some of the calligraphy. Later, a few of us just had dinner at our hostel and talked for a couple hours until we went to bed after a long day. I’m going to split days up in my posts since this is obviously going to take a few words! : )

National Holiday Celebration!

Tomorrow is the start of our week long vacation in which we will be traveling to Xi’an and Hangzhou. It will be awesome but I will have to tell you about that after it happens! Wish me luck though for the 26 hour train ride I will be on tomorrow and the next day!! Ah! Haha. Anyways, today we didn’t have any school because the kids had their Friday class schedule and we don’t teach on Fridays so it was a nice, relaxing day. The best part was the end though and you’ll never guess what we did. All the teachers at the school were getting together for a celebration since they are celebrating this national holiday and they invited us to come. Well, that also meant that they wanted us to perform too like the rest of them. So, we pulled together a great routine that some of you may know…it is from a movie that came out recently, it’s called the Hoedown Throwdown. Hannah Montana Movie…ever heard of it? Haha. Well, if you haven’t, you should go rent that movie from redbox and see the great dance we did for all the Chinese teachers! It was hilarious and they all loved it! It was funny though because everyone else was singing songs that were almost ceremonious and then we come along, “Jump to the left, stick it, glide. Zig zag, cross the floor, shuffle in diagonal, when the drums hit hands on your hips, one foot hop one eighty twist.” It was great. We all wore black shirts, jeans, and then those of us who had bandanas spiced it up with that! It was a fun night even though most of the time we had no idea what was going on in the rest of the performances because we don't know Chinese! We loved it!