The End Is Near

This past weekend I went to NanJing again. NanJing used to be the capital of China and there is a lot of history and things to do there. Saturday Josh, Alyssa and I went to the Purple Mountain in search of a giant Buddah. It took us all afternoon to find it and it was not easy by any means. We wandered around the extremely confusing park for who knows how long before finally finding a picture of the Buddah. We pointed at the picture and were told by means of sign language that we had to take a cable car to the top of the mountain to see the Buddah. But the cable car wasn't anywhere near where we were at that particular point in time. We had to get in a van and drive maybe 10 minutes to get to the cable car. Then we wandered around at the top for a while (We even had a map, it was pretty sad) before finding the Buddah. I climbed up and sat on it's belly to have my picture taken. This little old man came around the bushes that were kind of hiding us from view and gasped very loudly and started speaking in heated Chinese. I assumed he was getting upset over a white person debasing Buddah so I quickly climbed off. Turns out that wasn't what he was saying because his grandson climbed up on Buddah's head and had his picture taken. After grandpa left we had a photo shoot with Buddah, it made sweating and wandering around a mountain all day totally worth it.

 That Saturday the temperature reached about 100 degrees and it felt like 500% humidity to me. We made it back to the Isom's where Alyssa and I were staying and had time for a quick shower before the ladies of the Relief Society showed up for a party. That was about all the excitement for that weekend.
This week has been kind of a sad one for me actually. It was my last week teaching. In every class when I told them I was done teaching there was a stunned silence. In one class one boy asked "Why?" and that was all they said for a little bit. I am so very sad to be leaving my students. It was rough at the beginning but I've come to love each and every one of them. They are each so unique and fun. For my last class I put together some pictures of some of my favorite things in China and some things I miss from America. They really enjoyed seeing what I missed and the things about their culture that I love. They can't understand why we don't do KTV in America, I couldn't explain in because I don't understand it either. After that we played a quick game for about 20 minutes or so and then I took pictures. I would attach some pictures but it takes a really long time to do it and I can't get my yahoo account to pull up right now. I think when I get back to America (Which is too soon for comfort) I will just post pictures so expect to see lots of those later. Also, anyone that wants to sit long enough to look at pictures and hear about China I can so do that for hours.

Tomorrow I am starting a very long vacation. I am hopefully heading to the Philippines. I say hopefully because saying things are for sure in China is a good way to make them not for sure. But all the flights are booked so I better make it! I will be gone until Monday June 25th so don't expect to hear from me until then! This post is a little shorter than normal but I'll make up for it when I get back. :)

Seat Well and Hold Steadily

Wow, it's been a while since I've updated my blog. I've gotten so use to my life here in China that nothing really exciting had happened to write about.
A few weekends ago I went to SuZhou and ZhouZhuang with Rick and Sarah. They are both water towns and that area is called "the Venice of the Orient". ZhouZhuang had a sign that said it's China's No. 1 water town so that's pretty exciting right? Both cities were beautiful. We had fun wandering around taking pictures and bargaining. Our train got into SuZhou around noon and we took a bus to ZhouZhuang that day. We spent the afternoon in ZhouZhuang and caught a bus back to SuZhou early evening. Once we were in SuZhou we headed to our hostel where our first problem arose. It's very hard to get a hostel in SuZhou, we'd tried going to SuZhou during the May holiday but all the hostels were booked. We were lucky to get a hostel the weekend that we went. It's a very crowded place. When you book a hostel you have to put what time you will be arriving. Sarah and I booked our rooms on separate computers with separate cards and both used different websites to book the hostel. We were skyping all the information to each other and decided to tell the hostel that we would be there at 8:00 pm. I don't know how many of you knew this already (I didn't until I came to China) but China uses military time. So we show up to the hostel at 7 pm, so we thought we were an hour early and all was well. No, all was not well. Somewhere along the line our check in time changed from 8:00 pm to 18:00 which is 6:00 pm. Then we got the worst news of all: They gave our rooms away. I was really worried because it had been so hard to find a room in SuZhou so chances of us finding one somewhere else was probably slim to none. The lady at the front desk was nice though, after we explained the mistake she made some calls and found us a room in a "quaint" little motel down the street. It wasn't listed online because it was Chinese so no one there spoke any English. I was glad we were only staying one night because it was kind of gross and didn't have hot water.
Sunday we went to Humble Administrator Garden. It was very pretty and green. Then we took a boat ride on the canals throughout the city. Our guide was awesome. He pulled out a map to ask us where we were from. He got really excited when we pointed to America (It took a minute of searching to find America. He had it folded in half and Chinese maps have China at the center so it's not where you first expect it to be). He sang some songs for us while we were boating along. He'd always get our attention then motion for us to be quiet and listen. He was pretty good as well so that was fun.
I got to teach one class on Monday last week and that was it. They had more exams on Wednesday and Thursday. I hate it when the teachers tell me that my classes are cancelled because they always say "Oh, you are so lucky." I want to say "Okay, you take a vacation and I'll teach your classes." I really like teaching and I hate it when they take my classes from me, especially this close to the end. I haven't taught this past week either. Grade 3 (Seniors) has the big college entrance exam this week so grade 2 and grade 1 have had a holiday. The most exciting part of last week was Childrens' Day. I laughed about that one. When I was little I whined to my parents that there was a Father's day and a Mother's day but no Children's day. They always told me everyday was Children's day. Now that I know Children's day does actually exist I feel like my parents cheated my childhood! All the smart and special kids at the primary school (Yes, that is what they are called) get all dressed up and learned a song and dance that they performed. They were all so cute! I had two little kids give me rings that day and on the bus to the cinema I had little kids basically throwing food at me. That was exciting. After we got off the bus a little girl pulled me to some seats and then I had about 3 little kids putting stickers all over my face. Those were not fun to pull off later.

Last weekend Alyssa and I went to HeFei to visit two boys that came with our group. That was a lot of fun. It was about a 2 hour train ride there which wasn't bad at all. We got there Friday evening, had dinner and then chatted the rest of the night. We took a bus to Kevin's apartment and got a kick out of the sign that was on all the buses in HeFei. It said "Seat well and hold steadily". And that's exactly what we did.
 The next day we went to the zoo. Zoos in China are so much cooler than zoos in America. They don't have cages like they do in America. Don't misunderstand, the animals aren't running wild throughout the zoo but it's a lot more up close and personal in China. The best part was the panda bear. Pandas are China's national treasure, they are very important to them. The four of us were laughing about this and joking about the Chinese people crowding around pens to see them. Of course when we made it to the panda enclosure we were pushing just as hard as the Chinese to get to the front to see it. It was so adorable just sitting there eating bamboo while everyone was snapping photos of it.

Sunday Alyssa and I looked up train times and found one that would get us back to ZhenJiang with enough time to catch the last bus to our city. Everything was going great, we made it to the train station on time and the lines weren't very long to buy tickets. We made it to the front and that's when our problems arose. We had written down the train number and the stop we wanted and the time it left and everything. We were very prepared. The train that we had picked out did not exist. The lady couldn't find it. The poor lady panicked, white people make them nervous in general to be honest, so she rushed off to find someone who spoke English. We got a train home but we would not be able to make it in time to catch our bus home. So we got on the train not sure what to do because there are no hostels in ZhenJiang for us to stay at. We made a spur of the moment decision to get off the train in NanJing instead because there were lots of people we could stay with there. The Isoms were nice enough to take us in for the night. It was actually pretty fun, Anne made us pancakes and her little girls played magic tricks and puzzles with me. The Isoms have adopted three Chinese girls, each from different places in China. Eventually Alyssa and I did make it back to YangZhong and I was so exhausted and so happy to see my shower.
As I mentioned before I haven't taught this week so nothing super exciting has happened. Wednesday afternoon some of my friends from grade 2 decided to go to KTV and invited me to go with them. That was a lot of fun. They'd pick songs for me to sing and most of them were Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga or Katy Perry. The Chinese love Lady Gaga unfortunately. They even have an expression involving her that I absolutely love! It's "Oh my Lady Gaga!" After KTV we went to hotpot and Scotty ordered a very spicy dish that made me and Doris sniffle a lot. That was all fun except for I accidentally ate a really spicy pepper that made my tongue go numb. That was a very uncomfortable feeling.

Yo Ho Yo Ho A Pirate's Life for Me!

Last weekend I went to NanJing for a Young Adult party, which is basically a China Horizons party. Josh and I caught an 8:00 bus out of YangZhong Saturday morning and made it to NanJing in record time. We were meeting up with China Horizons teachers at Becca's house to watch the Hunger Games. Yes, in America this would be considered illegal. The version that was owned was indeed pirated. It was one of the bad quality pirated copies but we got the point of the movie. Obviously, the copy had been made while recording it in a theater because people would stand up in the movie and you could see their outlines as they wandered around in front of the screen. A little inconsiderate if you ask me! Josh and I made it to NanJing at 11:00. The group wasn't meeting until noon so we found a mall right by Becca's house to wander around in for a little bit. Malls in China are way more fun than malls in America. This one had 8 floors and lots of elevators and decorations all around. Josh and I wandered all 8 floors but the best floor was the one that had the little children arcade in it. There were elephants and giant ape things. I found some new friends with the monkeys, I thought I fit in quite nicely with them.

 Josh and I wasted an hour at the mall and were a few minutes late but we still beat everyone there. Becca made Mexican food for us. It tasted so delightful! She had chicken, salsa (that was the biggest novelty for me, well that and the tortilla chips), onions and peppers and tortillas. We all made two taco thingys that were too big to close and devoured them in record time. Becca also made some popcorn which was just lovely. The only problem is we put the popcorn on the cocoa table in the middle and I didn't want everyone to know what a pig I was when it came to popcorn by continually going in the middle to get popcorn so I didn't eat a ton of it.
After watching the Hunger Games we all left for the Young Adult party which was at the hotel that we have church at. We had made it all the way there when I discovered some people were getting sandwiches with Spencer, one of the guys that works at China Horizons that recently moved to NanJing. Oh man that sandwich was so delicious. After making it back to the hotel I realized something that may or may not be a problem in the near future. When I eat Western food my stomach goes into panic and I swear it's thinking "Does not compute! Does not compute!" It then proceeds to get the food out of it in any way it possibly can. Yeah, I stayed close to a bathroom for the rest of the night. Everyone was watching a movie called 17 Miracles, and I've heard it really makes you cry. I decided I'd rather do the crying in private and not in front of all my peers so I hung out in the lobby with a couple other friends. I was really glad I made this decision because it benefited more than just me. Last weekend in NanJing one of my friends had decided to grow his hair out. He's had a military cut his entire life so this was a really big deal for him. Unfortunately, growing out his head hair also meant that he was growing out his eyebrow hair. When I saw him in NanJing the weekend before the whole uni brow thing was really bothering me. I had been given wax as a going away present before I left for China and I almost brought it with me so I could wax his eyebrows but I wasn't really sure how one brought that kind of stuff up so I didn't. I really regretted it though because Brian brought up his uni brow and I jumped on the opportunity to take care of the problem. He was upset that I didn't bring the wax but consented to let me pluck. So I sat on the couch in the lobby and he put his head in my lap and let me go at it. This next moment was probably my favorite of the night. He closed his eyes and I plucked the first hair. His eyes flew open in shock and he exclaimed "Ouch! That hurt!" I was proud of him though, even though his eyes were watering pretty badly (He repeatedly denied that he was crying) he let me take care of the problem. It wasn't a perfect job, really this boy has eyebrows that remind me of a werewolf for some reason (And not the Jacob kind, can you picture that man with a uni brow problem? I don't think so). That was probably the highlight of my weekend.

I am quickly running out of games and things to teach my students so this week and next we are watching movies. I picked a different movie for each class so I didn't get sick of one movie. Class 6 got Monsters Inc., class 10 got Toy Story, class 3 got Megamind and class 5 got Tangled. When I was showing the movie in class 6 it randomly stopped playing and there was still 20 minutes of class. I quickly taught them how to play hangman and that's what we did for the rest of class. I was quite surprised because they absolutely loved that game. None of them wanted to think of the words to say so I did that part but they loved guessing. It really stressed some of them out. One of the students would start yelling "Time out! Time out! Let us think!" and then he'd stare at the board for a long period of time. One time I put up a phrase and told them it was two words. One boy barely glanced at it and then said "Ice cream." The most unfortunate part about that was he was right, I guess they know I really like my ice cream by now. All the other movies worked great though. Toy Story was a bit rough but they still seemed to enjoy it. I guess a lot of the jokes and stuff are more of a culture thing and they don't always understand. Megamind was a huge hit. The kids were laughing super hard and they seemed to really enjoy that one. I was tempted to show Megamind in class 5 as well because it was such a big hit but I decided to do Tangled like I'd originally planned. I'm really glad I didn't change my mind on that one. I'm sure most of you have seen Tangled, and if not you really ought to. There was one scene where Flynn Ryder and Maximus are fighting to get the satchel first. I have never seen anyone laugh at this scene the way my students did. Oh. My. Goodness. I was laughing so hard I was crying, but I wasn't laughing at the movie I was laughing at them. These kids were just going wild. Some of them were in tears of mirth like me, some were banging on desks, some were clutching their desks trying to breath, some almost fell off their little stools. I was afraid someone was going to come in and tell us we were being too loud. My other favorite part was when Flynn makes it to the top of the tower and Rapunzel hits him with a frying pan. One poor girl in the front row was so surprised by what happened that she let out a little scream squeal thing. I really like watching movies with my students because it's like watching movies with my sisters. Laughing at stupid parts that nobody else really laughs at. The only difference is sometimes I would understand jokes that they wouldn't so I'd burst out laughing and then they'd all look at me funny. That never happens with my sisters.
Thursday afternoon my friends Scotty, Jessie and Doris came to visit me in my dormitory. They're all in grade 2. Scotty brought some music to listen to. I was surprised by the American artists that he had. The two that surprised me the most were David Archuleta and Jon Schmidt. I told him that they were both from the same state as me. While they were there they decided to look through my photos and take some. The one that they really liked was one that was taken while on vacation in Wyoming with my family last summer. There was a statue of an Indian that was very realistic looking. My grandpa told me that he thought he saw the statue breathing and that had me all scared to take a picture with it. One of the pictures was me looking like I was about to cry, I did not let them take that one. After I kicked the statue in the shins to see if he winced or not I was able to take an okay picture with it. Scotty, Jessie and Doris really liked that picture and decided they wanted it. Jessie said something to Doris in Chinese and I responded in English with, "No, he's not real." A shocked silence fell over the room and everyone stared at me for a long time. Jessie finally was able to say "You understood that?" and I reassured her that I didn't, I'd just made a lucky guess. I'm actually getting pretty good at guessing what people are saying in Chinese. I was talking with my friends Rick and Sarah the other day and we were joking about how no one will want to play charades with us when we get back to America because we're getting good at communicating with charades.

Chinese Idol and More!

This past weekend was very filled with lots of traveling and lots of fun. Saturday there was a Women's Conference in Shanghai where Sister Siliva Allred would be speaking. I was super excited to have the opportunity not only to say that I've seen sister Allred but also that I saw Sister Allred in Shanghai, China. Not something every person can say. So Friday afternoon Alyssa and I left to go to NanJing. We spent the night there because it would have been too difficult and basically impossible to get to Shanghai on time for the conference if we left from Yangzhong Saturday morning. The conference was a lot of fun, it's always nice to get together and not be a minority for once.

 After the conference the NanJing China Horizons teachers took Alyssa and I to a Music Festival near a university. That was a ton of fun! It was basically like an American Idol except Chinese. They picked one girl winner and one boy winner. We met up with two boys from Africa that the NanJing teachers knew at the festival and they were a lot of fun as well. One of the boys told me that I looked like I was British. He told one of our other friends that she doesn't talk much and then informed me that I look like I shouldn't talk much because I wear glasses and don't wear make up. I informed him that I had a cornea infection and since he was a medical student in NanJing he understood.
My lesson this week was probably the best lesson I've taught for a long time. First I taught my students "Soft Kitty" from the Big Bang and even had some awesome actions to go with it. They loved it! After that we played bingo with minimal pairs. I didn't know what a minimal pair was until coming to China so I'll just give a quick definition just in case some of you are like me. A minimal pair is two words that sound and look a like but are different by just one or two letters. The ones that my students really had a hard time with were tail and tell and bat and bad. I had them all draw a square with nine boxes inside. They put a word that I had on my PowerPoint in each box. I also had them practice yelling Bingo because that seemed to be a tricky thing for them. I informed them that I am American and therefore I am loud. My family can attest that this is true. In one class I randomly shouted bingo and one boy in the front looked like he had a mini seizure and wet himself. It was hilarious! I went around the room to make sure that everyone had done their bingo card correctly. I would alternate between words like yes, awesome, great, lovely, wonderful, amazing etc. One boy that I came to beat me to it and said "Awesome, I know." After the student yelled bingo they came up and I would check to see if it was right. If it was right they got a Starburst. If it was wrong they sang "Soft Kitty". It's funny because when the students would come up the other students would start chanting "Sing, sing, sing, sing!" hoping that they were wrong and had to sing "Soft Kitty". After playing bingo for a couple rounds we moved on to blackout. I had one  class where not a single person had gotten all the words right. We sang a lot of "Soft Kitty" in that class. In Class 5 the boy that bought me ice cream last week got a blackout and he got all the words right. I told him great job and gave him his candy. As he left he said "Oh thank you teacher! I will buy you ice cream!" I told him to not buy me ice cream but to buy himself ice cream because he did such a great job. Then I announced to the class that he was the best student because he bought me ice cream and no one else has. After class was over, this boy came up to me with his friend and said "Teacher, he will buy you ice cream." I laughed and thanked him but told him I might get fat so maybe later. The boy nodded thoughtfully and said "Yes, after you have lost weight he will buy you ice cream." Yeah, that one backfired.

Since I live in China I have heard more fireworks than in my entire life put together. That isn't too big a surprise considering the Chinese invented fireworks. They light them off for every occasion: a birth, a birthday, a wedding, a new building whatever they want. And the time of day doesn't matter. In fact, it is 10:13 am right now and I have a lovely chorus of fireworks right outside my office window. This being the case Josh decided to buy some fireworks and last night we decided to light them. It was just firecrackers, nothing that went in the air or anything so we went out to the street by Josh and Alyssa's school to do it. Alyssa and I stood on the sidewalk while Josh laid out the nine foot string of them. He got the lighter counted to three and lit them. After that things get a little fuzzy. My mind registered that there was a stinging sensation in my legs and it also registered a look of panic on Josh's face as he tried to stand up and get away. I then realized I was screaming and running and the next thing I knew I was in the middle of a field bent over with Alyssa. Josh finally made it over and for the second time in China he insisted on a group hug. I was still in shock so I didn't stand  up straight and my face ended up squished against Josh's stomach but I don't think anyone noticed except me because we were all kind of hyperventilating still. After a minute we tried to figure out what had happened. It turns out the Chinese keep the good fireworks for themselves instead of shipping them off to the West. Josh had lit the fireworks and they immediately started going and the poor kid was getting hit by fireworks everywhere. Alyssa and I were not standing very far away so we were also getting hit (Obviously not as bad as poor Josh). By some miracle none of us sustained any serious injuries. Oh, I neglected to mention that white people already get stared at by Chinese people but white people that light fireworks and then go running and screaming into a nearby field attract a lot more attention.

Suicidal Frogs and Justin Beiber Cheating on his Girlfriend?!

This week was really good for me, last week and weekend I was starting to feel like China would really kill me off between the bugs and the heat. While I still have bug bites and I think I might be permanently scarred with giant red dots the bugs have been much better this week. Also, I took the remote to my AC and pushed buttons randomly to fix it and somehow it worked! I actually get a little cold at night sometimes now. I think I'll be able to make it, thank heaven! Supposedly, May is the rainy season but it's been so sunny so I'm not sure I completely believe that. We did have some rain Monday night and Tuesday morning but that's been it. I've been laughing about how much things have changed. When I first got to Yangzhong and the sun came out everyone got so happy and we'd go out and sit in the sunshine just because we can. When it was cloudy everyone sulked inside wondering why it wasn't ever sunny here. Now when it's sunny we sit inside and sulk with the AC on full blast and eat way more ice cream than can be considered healthy. Then when it's finally cloudy we venture outside. China has some really amazing ice cream. Now that it's warmer they have little coolers about every two feet and it's only 2 yuan for most of them. I have my favorites and lots of places that I frequent are probably are thinking that the stereotypes about Americans being fat is true.
In my classes I've started threatening my students a little bit. Since they're still okay with hitting students in China my threats really aren't that serious. When my students don't follow the rules with whatever game we're playing I tell them they must buy me ice cream. I've never actually enforced it but it's still funny and they get a kick out of. On Wednesday I was walking from the canteen to my office during lunch break so all the students were out in this little courtyard thing. It was really sunny so I was staring at the ground when suddenly I heard "Teacher! Teacher!" I looked up and my favorite student was running towards me. He came up to me and said "May I buy you ice cream?" I bet you can't guess what I said to that! I started laughing and told him that I would love for him to buy me ice cream. There's a little treat shop on campus that he ran to. I was expecting something small but he came over with a huge cup of vanilla ice cream with something purple and jelly like on it. It was delicious. I felt a little guilty about it but it's really a culture thing. I've had stuff like this happen multiple times and they always say that China is hosting me and it is their duty. And really, as I was enjoying the ice cream I wasn't feeling too guilty about it. Later, Andy was giving me crap about it, in a joking manner I'm sure, and one of the teachers in my office said "Your students don't give you things?" and she sounded quite shocked about it. Some of Andy's students were in the office at the time and she told them that they must buy Andy ice cream next time he taught class. That helped me feel less guilty about it.
I'm starting to lose enthusiasm and ideas for classes so this week wasn't as exciting as some other weeks. I taught them about storytelling. I told them the story of Cinderella and when my family went to Yellowstone last year. They really liked the picture of the buffalo that I showed them. Afterwards we played the story game. I wrote two different starting sentences on a piece of paper and then passed them around the room so each student could add a sentence to the story. That's where the suicidal frogs come in. One sentence I started with was "Once upon a time there was a frog who wanted to be a man." During the story he tried really hard but my students decided he was so depressed that he committed suicide. That was pleasant. But don't worry, after he killed himself he woke up and realized he was still alive and king of the country and lived a happy life. The Justin Beiber one was probably my favorite one though. The starting sentence was "The boy looked in the mirror and thought to himself "I am so handsome!"". Sadly, this handsome boy was killed in an accident but when he got to heaven he married Lady Gaga who I didn't know was dead. Must have missed that one... They had a little girl who fell in love with Justin Beiber who in their words is "A really handsome boy is very shy". Not the impression I was under but nobody asked me. He rudely decided he didn't love the girl and she went away. At the end Justin Beiber realized he did love the girl but she didn't love him anymore. Such is life. They are completely obsessed with Justin Beiber and Lady Gaga here. In fact, one expression that just makes me laugh everytime I hear it is "Oh my Lady Gaga!"

Darth Vader Lives In China

Ni Hao!
It's funny how different life in China is from when I got here. At the beginning I wore more clothes than I have worn at one time in my entire life. And I was starting to think that I was never going to sweat again. Boy, was I wrong about that one. I think I've sweat more than enough to make up for the two months of never sweating in the past two weeks. I wear lots of dresses and skirts now because they're much cooler than shorts. Another weird phenomenon that has showed up recently that I just don't know how to handle is humidity. I like living in a dry state and having to put on lotion fifty times a day instead of never. I constantly feel sticky and wet and just all around gross. At the beginning I was showering twice a week. Now I shower twice a day. In the morning when I actually shower and in the evening when I'm just using the cold water to cool me down for bed. Oh, that's another plus I forgot to mention. Last week I realized that I've been kind of dumb. My water heater has worked this entire time I just didn't figure it out. It plugs in in two places and one of them wasn't plugged in tight. So, now that I want freezing cold showers I have hot water! Lucky me. Another new thing is the mosquitoes. Did you know that they are actually nocturnal and are forcing me to be the same. They come and buzz in my ear all night. When they're not doing that they're drinking my blood which judging by how many bites I have must be absolutely delicious. Really, I look completely diseased, like I have the chicken pox again. It's great. I've started jumping from bed to bed at night wielding my Chinese Mandarin phrasebook and destroying every mosquito stupid enough to come anywhere near me. That phrasebook has served me better as a mosquito killer than for actually learning Chinese. Before I left for China my mom bought some anti itch cream to bring to China. I thought it was a good thought but I didn't really think I'd ever use it. Boy was I wrong. I'm hoping it out lives the mosquitos! One of the pluses about things getting warmer is people have traded their nose muffs for Darth Vader masks. Alright, so they don't actually breath funny but I still think it looks like loads of Darth Vaders on the loose. They wear these masks on their electric bikes to shield themselves from flying bugs. It's a really smart idea but I don't think I'll be jumping on that band wagon as easily as I did the nose muff.
Classes last week were really good. I split them into two teams and assigned each student a number. I'd then write the beginning of a sentence on the board and call a number. Those two students would then have to come to the front of the room and finish the sentence. It was a lot of fun seeing what they would come up with. I always started with 'The Chinese are...' and it was amazing how much they struggled with that one. I mean really, they are Chinese you think they'd be able to think of something to say about their own culture! They did much better with 'Americans should' ironically. One of my classes wrote 'Americans should lose weight'. I stood at the front and pretended to be offended. I asked the student if he really thought I was fat but all he did was giggle which didn't help my self esteem much. After class I was out on campus and my favorite student from that class came up to me and said "Teacher, I don't think you are fat. I think you are sexy!" Unfortunately I had just taken a sip of water when he said this and having a student from class tell me I was sexy did not help the water on the way down. I started coughing and laughing and told him thank you but he probably shouldn't use that word in that way. But I really did appreciate the gesture, he's a hilarious kid. One of the sentences I used was 'I think dogs should wear trousers because...' and that one was a lot of fun. I got quite a few 'because they get cold in the winter too' and 'because they would look lovely'. My favorite was one boy who wrote 'because then they could attract a male/female dog.' In a couple classes I did 'A fork and knife are used for...' and they apparently think we are barbaric because we use a fork and knife to kill people. I tried telling them that I have never killed anyone with a fork and knife and asked them how they possibly thought anyone could use a fork as a deadly weapon. They actually had answers and some of them acted out stabbing people with forks. Yeah... that's one of those things that I just let go.
Before I had them complete the sentence I tried to get them warmed up with using lots of descriptive words and such. To do this I showed them a couple pictures and had them describe things about the picture. One of the pictures I showed was me hugging one of my younger sisters at my uncle's wedding last year. One of the girls in the class stood up and said "It is a picture of you hugging your mom." I started laughing and exclaimed "That's my little sister!" The girl started blushing and hid her face in her hands. The whole class started laughing and were completely blown away when I told them my sister was only 17. After, one girl asked how old I was and I had the class guess. Most of them guessed 20 but one boy shouted out 25! I made fun of him for the rest of class and I don't think he'll be making that mistake again!
This past weekend our friends from Zhenjiang, Katie, Aaron and Alicyn, came on Saturday to visit. It was a lot of fun to see them and show them around Yangzhong. I picked them up at the bus station and showed them my school and dormitory before heading to meet Alyssa and Josh to get lunch and then go to a park for a picnic. This was tricky for two reasons. The Chinese don't really understand the concept of food to go because they don't do that here so it takes a couple minutes to convince the waitress that you do in fact want to take the food out of the restaurant. The other tricky thing is people here don't understand what a picnic is. They don't really sit on the ground here and even though we had a blanket it stressed some passerbys to see us sitting on the ground in such an undignified manner. One lady got really upset and told us that there were park benches over there. We were just spreading out the blanket and opening the food up when this Chinese man on a bike pulled over, parked his bike and came to squat next to us (I should mention that when I say squat I mean literally just squat not take a dump or anything. All the Chinese do it when they don't have a seat. I haven't been able to get that one down because I can't keep both feet flat on the floor). Alicyn speaks pretty good Chinese but she couldn't understand what this guy was saying to her. We offered him some food but he refused and just sat to the side while we had our picnic. He stayed for the whole time just staring at us. After we finished he got up and rode off on his bike without a word. I yelled good bye (In Chinese I just don't know how to spell it) and he waved and that's the last we saw of him. It was really weird. After our little picnic we wandered around the park and then headed off to the cheap market. We wandered around there for a while and then the Zhenjiangers told us they understand why we watch so much TV because we were all fairly bored and none of the Yangzhongians knew what else to do because there just isn't anything else to do. Rick and Sarah met up with us and I'm sure that made us the biggest group of white people many people in Yangzhong had ever seen. The nine of us sat outside the cheap market on stools, a nice lady brought us, for a while and it was funny to watch everyone double take as they went past. Yangzhong isn't a tourist spot at all so there really are not white people here and it makes us a bit more of a novelty. After sitting outside the cheap market for a little bit the 9 of us went to dinner where we overwhelmed the poor people working there. We go to that restaurant a lot so they know us pretty well but they were having another large group of people so I don't think they knew what to do with us at first. They pushed together two tables and being forced to sit at a corner I realized why square tables are stupid and that round tables are a much better idea. It was not easy to reach the middle to get food without knocking over something that belonged to Katie or Aaron who had the misfortune to sit next to me in my pathetic corner. One of the little workers there picked up a spinner to put on our table. She picked it up over her head and we all felt that deserved a round of applause. The last bus to Zhenjiang leaves Yangzhong at 6:50 and by the time it came around no one felt like our time was cut short or we had so much more to do. We all had a good time talking with each other and good byes were sad and such but no one felt cheated in the slightest.

May Day And More

This past week has been pretty good! Because of exams I didn't teach Monday and I don't ever have classes on Tuesday. Luckily I still had training for the company last week so that kept me kind of busy. Last week of training went really well. The three girls that were 'regulars' told me facts about certain lights and then I wrote out something for them to say about the lights. It sounds boring but it was actually quite fun. We all got along very well and were able to laugh about things. After training Remy would take me to her house for lunch which was a nice change from eating in the cafeteria every day. One of the days after lunch Remy took me to an unused bedroom and had me take a rest. I didn't think I'd be able to sleep at all because it seemed a little uncomfortable but I actually did sleep and had a very nice rest.
I also started tutoring Remy's mom last week. She takes me out to dinner every night and we eat and I try to tell her what foods are. She doesn't speak any English and I don't speak any conversational Chinese so sometimes it gets a little awkward. Remy tries to come with us but she can't always make it, she has a family and such. One night we went to the coffee shop here for tutoring (I got a smoothie for those of you who might have been wondering). I taught her numbers 1-10. She did really well on all the numbers except six which is really close to the word sex in case any of you haven't noticed that one before. So, we were sitting in this cute little coffee shop that has nice French music playing in the background and is just a lovely atmosphere and Remy's mom is yelling (And she is a loud woman so it really was yelling) "One, two, three, four, five, SEX!" And I'm trying to say "I i i i!" and she's just not getting it. This goes on for probably five minutes before Remy stepped in and helped out. She said six once and her mom got it. Then on Friday we went out to dinner the two of us and then back to her house for some tutoring. There wasn't much tutoring that went on there. I'm sure most of you know that in China the son and his wife live with the son's parents and this is the case here. So the only one's home were Remy's mom and Remy's dad's mom. I'd met her before she's quite nice (At least I think so, it's hard to be sure when you've got a language barrier). Well the two of them were talking and then the next thing I knew a huge fight had broken out. They were yelling at one another going on and on and I was sitting there awkwardly wondering what they were fighting about and what exactly was protocol here. It ended with grandma picking up some beads and waving her hands and then walking into the other room. Remy's mom went into another room too and I was wondering if maybe I should just slip away quietly. Eventually Remy's mom came back and we did a little tutoring (She could not say light all she could say was night).
For classes I played two truths and a lie. It was a lot of fun actually. I was trying to teach them about being creative, not exactly something that can really be taught, especially in high school. For my two truths and a lie I did I have never broken any bones,  I really am married but my husband works for the government so China wouldn't let him in, and when I was little I cut open my forehead on a slide and had to go to the hospital to be sewn up. Every one of my classes was able to figure out that I was not married. For one of my classes I changed it to me and the Scottish man were secretly dating but no on bought that one either. Not sure why... The answers they gave were pretty good too. Some of my classes took a while to get the hang of it but eventually they all got it. I told them from the beginning that if anyone said "I like to play basketball, I like to sleep, I like computer games, or I don't like to study" they would buy me ice cream because every single student gives those answers. Sad to say no one had to buy me ice cream.  One class tried really hard to get me my ice cream though. Whenever they felt the person hadn't given creative enough answers they would yell "That wasn't creative! They must buy us all ice cream!" My favorite was class 5 though. For some reason they decided to write their answers on the board and things got crazy from there. It was really like watching a soap opera there was so much drama going on in that class that was revealed during those measly 45 minutes. The students would come up and write some names on the board and say that they were in love or dating. My favorite was one student wrote that two other students talked on the phone from 10pm to 11pm and that was a huge scandel. I'd realized I'd been in China too long because I really did feel like that was scandelous behavior! There was one moment that was slightly awkward, one of those moments where I really am just not sure what happened. I think one of my students might have come out of the closet if you know what I mean. He volunteered to go first and I was all excited because he's one of my favorite students and I knew he'd have funny answers. Well he wrote them on the board and one of them that he wrote was "I am a gaye". I was assuming that was going to be the lie but he picked something different. Then I asked him "By this do you mean happy or... the other thing?" He got this funny grin and answered "The other thing." He started muttering something and I'm pretending like I didn't hear what he said. I really really REALLY wasn't sure what to do after that so eventually I patted his shoulder, thanked him for volunteering, had him sit down and quickly called up someone else. I've talked about this boy before back at the very beginning. The first week of school he was the boy that said he didn't think any of the girls in his class were cute if you remember that story from way back in February. The rest of that class went well though. I didn't even have to ask for volunteers they were running to the front to take their turn.
This past Tuesday was May Day which is China's Labor Day. So the students in grade 1 and 2 got Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off of school. Grade 3 only got Monday and Tuesday off. Since I teach grade 1 I got the longer holiday. This does mean that we had make up classes on Saturday. Yes, I don't really understand it either but that's how China works. So Saturday I taught Monday classes. So I taught Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday last week and got Friday off which was lovely. I'm having the hardest time keeping track of the days with all these breaks! Since I didn't teach my Monday class on Monday I did my two truths and a lie lesson which was lovely. It was kind of a rough class because I didn't really want to be teaching on Saturday and they didn't want to be in class so neither me or the students had any sort of motivation to do much. We played for a little bit and then we all lost interest and some of my students sang songs for us instead. Not sure why but the Chinese love to sing songs, especially in class and such. Probably why KTV is so popular here. One boy came up to the front and had me scoot over so he could use my desk/podium thingy as a drum it appeared. He starts banging on it and singing "We Will Rock You". I was super impressed with it actually. He knew all the words and sounded pretty good. One boy stood up and sang a song with words that sounded like absolute nonsense. For any Arthur fans out there it reminded me of the Crazy Bus song with all the fake sounding words. After he finished I said "Can I ask a question? Was that Chinese?" All the students started laughing and said no and I was thinking that for sure it was made up then. But then they told me it was Japanese as if that explained why I thought it was fake. That class finally ended and the holiday was upon us!
I wasn't traveling anywhere far this holiday. I had planned on going to Suzhou but there was no place to stay and even if there was all the prices were jacked up because it was a holiday. Instead I was going to hang out with my good friend Alicyn from Zhenjinag. She hadn't been able to get very many days off to travel anywhere either. Sunday our plan was to meet at the train station in Zhenjiang and head to Nanjing for church. I made it there just on time but Alicyn had problems with the bus system. She waited for a bus 19 for a half hour before one finally showed up. She saw plenty of bus 19 going the opposite direction so she knew they were running but none came her way. By the time she got there it was 9 and the line to by train tickets was out the door and we knew it'd be at least an hour before we'd be able to get tickets. So we decided to just hang out in Zhenjiang for the day. There was a really cool park by the Yangtze River that we went to for the afternoon. For lunch we went to the best dumpling restaurant I've ever been to. I got boiled dumplings and fried dumplings for 9  yuan. To put that in perspective it's about $1.50 US dollars for lunch. For dinner we went to the best fried rice restaurant I've ever been to and I think it was only 6 yuan which is 1 US dollar. Yeah, don't think I broke the bank with food that day and it all tasted delicious! I went home that night because Alicyn couldn't have people stay at her apartment. Since I wasn't spending the money I'd planned on spending May Holiday with big stuff I didn't feel too bad about it. Monday we had planned on going to a hot spring/spa in Nanjing. Sunday night Alicyn was doing some research on it and realized it was a place where you get a hotel room and spend the night there because it's more of an all day thing. So on Monday we ended up shopping all day. Sadly, we have little to show for our shopping. All the cheap markets don't open until night so it was only the expensive stores open. But we had a good time wandering around and looking at the clothes. The thing I really like about Alicyn is there's never an awkward moment where you worry about what to say. The conversation just flows and it was nice to walk around just chatting. Tuesday I was super lazy. I did go to the Suguo and buy some groceries but that was about it. The exciting part about that was to celebrate May Day I bought peanut butter and as a treat I dipped some really good cookies in the peanut butter. Oh it tasted like Nutter Butters. Then I got really crazy and finished up a Symphony Bar with peanut butter and these delicous cookies. That night I went over to Rick and Sarah's, who also didn't travel anywhere for the holiday, and we went out to dinner. I just want to pause in this story to say I have the best mom in the world. Here's why: (Any of you who know me well will either A. Agree that my mom is the best mom in the world because of this or B. At least acknowledge that I would think that because they don't want to get in trouble with their own mothers) she sent me popcorn. Popcorn is a staple of life for me and not something you get in China. Oh sure they sell stuff that says "American Style Popcorn" at the grocery stores but then you eat it and wonder who told them this is American style popcorn. So after dinner the three of us went back to their place where we watched "Hitch" and ate popcorn. It was the best night of my life! So, I didn't do anything spectacular for holiday but I had a really good time relaxing a bit more and I don't regret not traveling farther than Zhenjiang.

A Little Catching Up

Life has picked up in China! I plan out a part of my day to send an email to my mom to post on my blog and then something happens that prevents me from doing it. So I have a little bit to get caught up on!
Last weekend I went to Nanjing. One of the couples in our ward invited Alyssa and I to Nanjing to take us to dinner Saturday night. We left in the morning to meet up with some other China Horizons friends that live in Nanjing. There was a group of about 8 or 9 people and we grabbed some rice and headed to the Purple Mountains for a picnic by the lake. It was really nice, the rice tasted fantastic. I got pineapple fried rice and it was delicious. Afterwards we decided to play a game called Swedish Footsy a fun but invasive game. For some of you who might not have played this game before let me explain how it works. You stand in a circle and one person begins by moving their foot to touch the foot of the person to the right of them. That person must then move the foot that is being touched to touch the foot of the person to the right of them and so on and so forth. The result is a big jumble of people that are trying to not fall over. One of the boys that came with us was a Chinese boy named Tony and he was the one that was touching my feet. He was really nice but I'm pretty sure he thought Americans were really weird for playing this game. It's not anything new for white people to be stared at by Chinese people but when you play a weird game like this you get even more people staring. Tony explained what we were doing to one Chinese man who then thought it'd be funny to try and play the game with us as well. He came up behind me and pressed his body against mine and tried to work his way into our knot we had made. It sounds really weird when I write it down but at the time we were all laughing about it. Brother and Sister Powell took us to a nice Chinese restaurant by the International housing so the menu was even in English! It was so weird being able to read everything and pick out what we wanted to eat. The restaurant was so crowded that we ended up sitting outside. It was pretty warm out though so that was okay. During the dinner one of Brother Powell's students (Oh, I forgot to mention they both teach English at a University in NanJing) came up to talk to Brother Powell. He ended up pulling up a chair and proceeded to interview Alyssa to see if she was worthy of marrying him. She did pass by the way. She doesn't drink or smoke and she eats healthy foods. She was saved by Sister Powell telling this boy, Success, that Alyssa had a boyfriend. We finished our meal and ran off pretty quick. As we were leaving Brother Powell apologized and said "When you sit outside you are exposed to the elements."
I left NanJing right after church because my new friend Remy (I can't remember if I mentioned Remy or not yet. I met her coming out of the hospital. She wanted an English speaker to come to her company and prepare them for a light show thingy that they were doing in the West) had invited me to dinner at her house that night. Remy and her husband live with his family and have a nurse for the baby. On the way to her house Remy told me that we would be eating the famous puffer fish. I pretended to be excited while wondering what I'd done wrong that I would have to eat puffer fish three times while in China and everyone tells me I'm so lucky and that foreigners rarely get to try it once. The other food was pretty delicious, but of course I was forced to eat way more puffer fish than I wanted because I'm white and should eat much of it. Then, they brought out delicious homemade noodles to finish up the meal and grandma decides that the best way to eat them is by dumping fish juice in it and that the poor little white girl who just wants to eat the noodles must eat hers this way. Afterwards Remy decided that I am her little sister, her mei mei and Remy is my big sister, my jie jie. To show our new found sisterhood she stopped and bought me some fruit on the way home. It was a wonderful evening.
This past week I did a heroes lesson in my classes. I taught them about superheroes and then heroes like Robin Hood and Zorro. Afterwards I had them make up their own heroes and turn them into me. They really liked that. They really like Spiderman and Superman but don't really care for Batman. They'd never heard of Wonder Woman but went crazy over her outfit. Yeah...I should have just put a head shot on the power point. I talked to them about the Scarlet Pimpernel and then decided to show them a clip from the movie that I had on my computer. That was not thought through. High schoolers here are fairly immature. In fact quite a bit immature. So, imagine that this is a show you frequently watch and one that you enjoy quite a bit. You enjoy it so much that you decide to watch it with your five year old child. Only then do you realize how very violent it is. Obviously, it does take place during the French Revolution so this shouldn't have been such a surprise for me. I never really realized how many heads get chopped off and waved around until I was watching it in class. Some of the girls looked like they were either going to vomit or cry or go running from the room screaming. Even the boys were uncomfortable. Yeah... I only watched it in one class. It only took once to realize how bad an idea that was. I only got to teach two of my classes this week and I covered one for Andy so three total. My other two classes got cancelled because they had exams. Luckily I started training at the LED light company so I still had some things to keep me busy.
The training is going pretty well. At first it was kind of hard because I don't know anything about lights so we kind of had to struggle through that one. There's four girls that come and they are all very nice.
This weekend I stayed in Yangzhong because I had training on Saturday. After training Remy took me to her house for lunch and then the two of us and Remy's friend, Psyche, went shopping. Psyche lived in England for one year and she had pretty good English. We went all over the place and Remy bought pants and Psyche bought a skirt that I was eyeing but she beat me too. They also took me to a bakery and bought me some chocolate ice cream cake. It was Chinese chocolate so if they'd bought it for me at the beginning of my stay in China I would have thought it was nasty but now I thought it was delicious. Afterwards the three of us and Josh went to hot pot. This is where the most exciting part of my day occurred. We had duck as a meat in our hot pot and they put everything in there. Psyche really enjoys duck tongue and gave one to Josh and I to try. Yes, it still looked like tongue and you could see exactly how it would have been attached in the mouth. Psyche popped two in her mouth and devoured them before Josh and I got the courage to eat ours. Josh counted to three and we bit in and then I screamed because tongue is not soft and couldn't be bitten in to. You could see my teeth marks but that was it. I eventually was able to pull a piece of meat off and decided it was nasty and left it on my plate. Josh never ate his.
There's 13 Koreans living in Yangzhong, they live at a hotel here and work at a Korean factory. We've met a few of them and one named David took Josh, Andy and I to dinner. We had some really delicious foods! We had sweet and sour chicken, shredded pork, onions and eggs and shredded potatoes and green pepper. Oh it was so good. David was so amazed that we could use chopsticks so well.

Being Sick In China

This has quite possibly been one of the weirdest weeks since I've come to China. (Yes mom, I know I say that a lot!) On Sunday I went to bed, nothing was new there, but I woke up around 2 in the morning and I couldn't open my right eye because it was glued shut with gunk. I started panicking because I was 99.9% positive that I had managed to get pink eye. I wasn't sure what to do and I was really scared. I ended up skyping my parents at 2:30 in the morning and ended up sobbing through most of the call. The next morning I got up bright and early and asked Molly, one of the English teachers, if she could take me to the hospital. They don't just have regular doctor's offices here you go straight to the hospital. She didn't have time but Elaine, one of the other English teachers, did. So at 2:30 we headed off to see the doctor. Hospitals here are similar to Western hospitals. The two biggest differences I saw were sanitation and privacy. I was taken to an eye doctor who looked at my eyes right at the front desk. All the Chinese people already in the office sat and watched and apparently word spread that a white girl was at the hospital  because pretty soon the whole room was full of people watching, completely fascinated by what was going on. After looking at both of my eyes and putting some drops in them the doctor took me to the back room and my fan club followed us in there. He looked at my eyes in a machine that eye doctors in America use. Then he had me go to the machine that blows puffs of air in your eyes. I'd done this before and knew that it made me jump and that I didn't really like it much. I guess jumping at this machine isn't allowed in China because he had a nurse come over and hold my head right up against the machine. That was embarrassing because I still had a crowd of people watching me! In the end he concluded that I have an infected cornea and gave me two different kinds of eye drops to take. I was also told I cannot wear contacts for one month. I guess I fit in with the Chinese people in my glasses now. It was really fun to see how fast word gets around at my school. I had so many teachers come up to me and ask about it and stare at my eyes for long periods of time.
This week for my classes I taught about April Fool's Day and Easter. I began my class by telling my students that their Chinese teacher came and talked to me because they were not happy with the spoken English in the classes. I told them that I had to give a test next week on the PowerPoint I was going to do today and all the other power points I'd done that semester. In my first class some of the students looked as though they were going to cry. I then proceeded to teach them about April Fool's Day. They actually have April Fool's in China so they knew a little about it already. I told them about my April Fool's last year (My uncle got married) and they got a kick out of that. I showed a picture of the wedding cake and in one class they told me it was beautiful and wanted to know how much it cost. Naturally I had no idea and they found that to be hilarious. In China you talk very openly about how much you spend on things so it probably did seem weird to them that I didn't know. After that I taught them about the Easter Bunny and Easter Egg Hunts. I mentioned that it's a Christian holiday but told them not to ask me too many questions because I am not allowed to talk about it at all. I showed them a couple pictures of me as a little kid with Easter baskets and they loved that. They oohed and aah ed over both the pictures. They even told me I looked beautiful during my awkward looking phase of life which I appreciated immensely. After talking to them about it for a few minutes I pulled up a slide that said "Now, about that test..." and told them we had to discuss a few things and then we would go out and have an Easter Basket Hunt. I then told them the test was an April Fool's joke! I have never seen so many relieved faces in my life. It was absolutely hilarious. None of my classes have ever listened so well in class before, I might have to threaten them with tests more often. My first class didn't get it at first. They sat there and stared at me in shock. After I explained it was just a joke and there was no test there was an audible sigh of relief. After a few more minutes they kind of chuckled. I really had them going on that one and it was awesome.
For the Easter Basket Hunt I filled a bag with goodies that my wonderful mom sent from America. We went outside and I had one person hide the bag, one person be blindfolded to find the bag and one person direct the other to the bag. I went along to make sure no one got seriously injured, and luckily no one did. One person almost fell in a fountain and I had to step in but other than that there were no real big problems. One of the students in my class came up to me and said "Teacher, this game is not very safe." I just told him "I know." and we kept playing. One poor boy reached out to grab the basket and got a pine tree instead, but he laughed that one off luckily. They got really excited about the treats. One boy got a push pop that was stuck. He came over to me exclaiming "Teacher! It's broken!" I took it and looked at it, then I pointed out that on the label it said you must be 3 years or older to use this and gave him a funny look. He took the push pop from me and walked away blushing. I eventually gave him an Air Head because he kept whining about it. I saw the sweetest thing during this. One girl got a package of Air Head extremes which had lots of long strips of Air Head inside. She ripped every single piece up and gave each of her friends a piece of candy. It was very sweet to see.
During the week I went to one of Josh's classes. We colored pictures of Easter eggs which was a lot of fun. The little kids got excited over mine and were so eager to show me their eggs. They never got tired of showing me so I saw the same one multiple times before class was over. Josh and I were sharing a desk with some of his students when apparently a spider decided to disturb the peace. I had no idea what was going on. One second Josh was sitting next to me coloring then next thing I knew he gave a little squeal and was running to the other side of the classroom. The teacher came and got rid of the spider and all was well. Josh wouldn't come and sit by me anymore, he moved his chair to the other side of the room and colored with those kids. The little boy I was sharing a desk with thought Josh's reaction was funny and kept reenacting it for me and the girl sitting by him. It was pretty funny to watch.
I still don't have a camera so there aren't any pictures to go with this post. One day I'll work that one out and send pictures again!

Adventure Is Out There!

Guilin was the craziest vacation I have ever been on. Every second was an adventure and filled with activities. We would wake up early and go to bed late with no moments of boredom at all!

Friday morning Rick, Sarah and I caught the 8:30 bus to Zhenjiang. We got there with enough time to have some lunch and then go to KFC to order ice cream and a Pepsi to try and satisfy a root beer float craving. It worked actually! We found out our train to Shanghai had been delayed almost 2 hours and we probably wouldn't be on time to catch our train to Guilin, which was bad. We ended up having to exchange tickets and take a G train to Shanghai and race to the subway to get to Shanghai Nan (Nan is south) Station grab a sandwich from KFC and race onto the train where we would hang out for the next 20 hours. We ended up being in compartments right next to each other which was really nice. All three of us had bought hard top bunks. The hard part is nothing new and I really didn't think it was hard at all. The top part is where I started rethinking things. There were six bunks in one compartment, three on one wall three on the other wall. The bottom bunk you could sit up in and most people used it as a couch during the daytime. The middle you could sit up in as well, just not as comfortably. The top...yeah you'd have to be a midget to sit up in that one. I didn't spend very much time up there. Basically I just slept there, it was a little too confining. Our train left at 4:30 and got in on Saturday at around noon. So we stayed up talking until 9:30 (lights go out at 10:00) went to bed woke up and had only a few more hours on the train before we arrived in Guilin. All in all it wasn't too bad of a ride, I was expecting something really horrible.

Josh was going to Guilin with us as well but decided he wanted to get there earlier so he was taking a different train to Guilin. It was a good plan in theory but didn't work at all. He ended up being told the wrong bus to get on and the driver dropped him off somewhere random and had someone pick him up and take him to Zhenjiang. Long story short he missed his train to Guilin. He tried to get a ticket on our train but it was full and he ended up getting a ticket on a K train (We were on a T train) that left not long after us. But it gets even better. They didn't have any sleepers or seats so he stood for the entire trip and the K train took a couple hours longer than the T train. Then to top his day off he had no idea where we were staying and none of our phones worked in Guilin so he had no idea how to get a hold of us. Luckily for him the three of us were on top of things. As soon as we got off the train we checked to see what time his train got in. We decided we had enough time to try and find our hostel before his train got in. We thought we had good enough instructions to get there but they weren't good at all. Three girls took pity on us and helped us find our hostel. We were so worried about missing Josh that we sent Rick back to the train station to watch for him. Sarah and I found the hostel thanks to our new friends and made it back to the train station in plenty of time to find Josh. During the wait we planned out the best places for everyone to stand to make sure we didn't have any chance of missing Josh. We decided that I would stand right in front of the gate because I stand out the most, Sarah would be to the left in front of the other gate that no one else was using. Rick would be standing at the top of some stairs over looking the entrance so if we missed Josh he could yell or run after him. All of our planning was not necessary it turns out. Josh saw me and almost burst into tears. He was so happy to see us that he insisted on a group hug. After Josh had gathered control of himself we all headed to our hostel to check in and get settled before going out. Our hostel was right next to the Li River and there were some amazing things to see there. We ended up spending all night taking pictures there and got some really awesome ones. It was all so beautiful!

Sunday morning we were taking a river cruise along the Li River to Yangshuo. That was absolutely beautiful as well! It reminded all of us of Utah and then we all realized how desperate we were for something familiar because it wasn't really like Utah at all. We took a Chinese cruise so everything was in Chinese. One guy that we made friends with spoke a little English and would translate to tell us what sights we were passing at that time. At one point we pass a rock and we all started yelling “The cliffs of insanity!” I have no doubt that the Chinese people on the cruise were a little concerned about the white people. When we first got on the boat a girl ripped our tickets and then helped us find our seats. During the ride the girl came and asked for the part she ripped off our tickets. We kept trying to tell her that she'd already ripped them off and that we didn't have them anymore. Then at the end Josh pulled out his ticket and realized he hadn't had his ticket ripped. The girl got super excited and looked like she was about to burst into tears of joy when she finally ripped his ticket. I was so grateful that my mom had sent me a package that I got right before I left with sunscreen because we used a ton of it on this trip. We all got a little pink but not nearly as bad as it might have been without sunscreen. We probably used about half the bottle this trip.

When we got off the boat we went along the dock to an empty spot to take some pictures. We got there and Sarah said “Oh good. We won't be bothered here.” It wasn't even half a second after she said this that we heard in a thick Chinese accent “Hello! Where are you from?” We busted up laughing and talked to this boy for a minute before running for it.

While in Yangshuo someone decided that we needed to try some of the bricks of tofu they were selling on the streets. They had it on a grill thingy and had put seasonings on it. It was super spicy and nasty and all around awful. I was not thrilled with the person that made the decision to eat it, although I can't remember who it was now.

After checking into our hostel we hit the streets of Yangshuo for some serious shopping. Yangshuo was the best place for shopping that I'd ever been. There was also some serious bargaining going on. I was really worried about the bargaining bit but it came quite naturally to me. I was able to get the price I wanted for everything but one item, but even that item I'd gotten way down. Bargaining worked like this every time: You would show any sort of interest in the stall and the person at the stall would attack you and say “You like? Handmade! For you very cheap!” Then you would ask how much. Even if you don't really want it (They will chase you if you don't follow these steps. If you don't want it you say a ridiculous price they get mad and let you leave). You will then proceed to laugh at the price they say and tell them no. They will then hand you either the pad of paper or the calculator they are using to show you the price and say “You say price!” After saying your price they gasp do this funny eye thing and exclaim “No money! No money!” and act really upset. They say another lower price and you laugh again and either stick to your original price or go up a little bit. This passing goes on for quite some time until one of you budges. My favorite is when they don't come down to your price so you start walking away and they yell “Okay okay! Fine!” and act like you insulted them and their ancestors and they got cheated out of something but in reality you are still getting ripped off. One little old lady would not budge and I wasn't going any higher than 50 yuan. She came down to 52 yuan but I still wasn't moving. Then she started yelling at me and pointing at her throat saying “Tumor! Tumor!” I really don't think the extra 2 yuan would go anywhere to helping even if she really did have a tumor. She finally came down to 50 but she was sure ticked. We avoided her stall from then on. Sarah showed a little interest in these red things that you would put on your rear view mirror in a car. Neither Rick or her really wanted it but once you show any interest you just can't escape them. The lady named the price 120 yuan. We all started laughing pretty good at that one and Sarah said she'd only pay 5 for that. After lots of arguing Sarah purchased the stupid thing for 6 yuan. We put in on their backpack as a trophy and a little reminder that you can always get your price. The purchase I'm most excited about is a dress that I bought. During training one of the girls that was teaching wore this super cute dress that I coveted throughout training. I found it at a store and couldn't resist buying it. It's amazing! They also had some cotton candy in Yangshuo. It was kind of a maple syrup flavor but super good none the less.

We called it a fairly early night that night because the guy at our hostel was taking us to hike a peak at 5 the next morning. We had asked the hostel guy how to get to the peak and he told us that he knew a way to sneak us in so we wouldn't have to pay. He reassured us that his government was a if you don't get caught you won't get in trouble. Free sounded amazing to us so we decided to go for it.

The next morning when we woke up to go to the hike we were kind of rethinking it but there were people waiting so we got up. During the trip whenever we had to get up early or something looked like it required more energy then we possessed we'd say “Adventure is out there!” and do it. It actually worked quite well. We went with a group of other English teachers that were ironically from Utah as well. The hike was really difficult. It was straight up, no joke. We were all breathing super heavy and dripping sweat. By the time we finally reached the top we all collapsed on the ground. We had also left that early to see the sun rise but it was too cloudy so we didn't see that. That was a bummer but okay because the view from the top was beautiful anyway. Hiking back down was a joke. I thought I was going to die a couple of times and did end up falling once. I bruised my poor little buttock. One time I slipped and was going down but a tree branch saved my life. I was so sore and tired that I hugged the branch enthusiastically for saving my life.

After the hike the four of us rented mountain bikes from our hostel to bike to Moon Water Caves. It was a beautiful bike ride right in between huge Chinese style mountains and the Yuyong River next to the road. The caves were amazing too. We had to wear hard hats and at first I thought it was kind of stupid but I took my head out on so many low spots that by the end I wanted to hug my hard hat enthusiastically as well. To get into the cave we had to take a little raft through the cave first. It felt very Phantom of the Opera to me. Part of the cave was going to a mud pond and getting really muddy and then going to a hot spring and getting not so dirty. There were three levels of springs. The first level all we did was dip our toes in because it was so hot, the second one was occupied by a Chinese couple (the springs weren't very big) so we didn't really try that one. The last one was just the perfect amount of warm. We finished Monday up with some shopping and then caught a bus back to Guilin.

They weren't selling bus tickets to Guilin because so many people were going there. There was just a huge line that you stood in and when a bus came you pushed and shoved to get on. So it wasn't really a surprise when I got on the bus and realized that my camera was no longer in my front pant pocket. The most ironic part of me being pick pocketed was that during Hong Kong and Shenzhen I was the most paranoid about it. I was the one cradling my bag protectively and everyone made fun of me for it. We got back to our hostel and I sat on the bed moping and eating chocolate that Sarah provided when Josh came into our room and chucked strawberry Oreo s (My favorite flavor. We NEED these in the US) and milk juice at me and said “I'm sorry about your loss.” It was super sweet of him and I was really grateful. Unfortunately I didn't seem very grateful because the milk juice took out my knee and it was painful.

We slept in for a little bit the next morning because we were just planning on going to the Dragon Backbone Rice Terraces. It was about a 45 minute bus ride to the bus station and then a 3 hour bus ride after that to the Terraces. During the bus ride to the terraces the bus stopped and everyone got off. We then proceeded to climb into the forest around a giant rock slide blocking the path. As we were trying to figure out how to get down rocks started falling and we all screamed and just ran down our only goal to get as far from the rock slide as possible. The best was the old ladies with huge bags across their shoulders booking it towards the buses. We rode the bus for a little while longer before it pulled over and they started speaking in Chinese to us and gesturing outside. One person who knew a little English said “Get off bus.” So we did. I showed my ticket to the bus attendant just to double check we were in the right place and she nodded and herded us off the bus. There was not a single rice terrace in sight except for the one random billboard that had a picture of it. The billboard was basically the only thing around except for Chinese people trying to sell us hotel rooms. Across the street there was a white guy who came and explained the situation to us. Apparently the rice terraces are not just a day trip, which explained everyone trying to sell us hotel rooms. It was about 3:00 and the last bus to Guilin was at 4:00 which was an even bigger problem because it was another 1 to 2 hours to the terraces. He got there and was waiting for a bus back to Guilin (Side note: he was from New York). We stood there trying to decide what to do when two other white people showed up looking just as confused as all the other white people here and they were carrying around the Lonely Planet travel guide (They were from Spain). The seven of us put our heads together and decided to bribe off one of the mini vans to take us to the terraces and then drive us to Guilin. It was 420 yuan total which was 60 a person and we all thought that was a great deal and hopped into the mini van to go to the terraces. They were amazing and we were all so glad we went! I had a run in with a horse while we were there and made friends with a cute little pig. I purposely did not eat pork there after that.

We got back to Guilin around 9 and we were starving. We all wanted Chinese food so badly so we found a little restaurant and ordered food. They'd brought out a couple of dishes when something really traumatic happened. Our cute, tiny, young waitress went over to the fish tank that was by our table. Rick and Sarah's backs were turned to it but Josh and I were facing it so we had a perfect view when she caught a fish in the net and began beating it senseless against the floor right by our table. I guess Josh and my face was priceless because Rick and Sarah started laughing hysterically, they were smart enough not to turn around and look. It just got worse after that. I guess the fish just wasn't dead enough so the waitress grabbed the fish with her bare hands and continued beating it against the ground. Every time we passed a picture of a fish or a tank of fish Josh started groaning, he's vegetarian so it really bothered him. We wanted to hike one last peak before heading home the next day and the hostel had told us that we if got to a certain peak before 7 we could get in for free. We were going to call it an early night but at 12:30 we realized just how late it was and went to bed exhausted.

Because of the holiday the peak opened at 6 so we had to pay but we decided it was worth it. Maps in China really stink so we got super lost and ended up deciding to climb up some rocks to the top. Rock climbing isn't really my thing so I was super scared but lack of sleep made me decide to do it. The view was worth climbing up and we saw that we had made the right decision because we were at the highest peak. We met some nice Chinese people who used us to practice their English (You get used to that pretty quickly) and they were really worried about us getting down. For some reason they think white people are strong but fragile and worry more about us. We made the decision to not go with them and stress them out as we got down the mountain. As we were heading down we saw a rainstorm on its way and started hurrying. The rainstorm was quicker than us though so we got caught in it on the way down. Not only we were soaked but the rocks were too which made them more slippery. I was so scared but we made it to the bottom by some miracle where it immediately stopped raining.

We walked around the park some more and found some monkeys in trees. We all thought they were cute and fed them some peanuts that some nice Chinese people provided for us. Sarah wanted a picture next to a monkey eating a banana but he kept hissing at her. She eventually got the picture but she's super far from the monkey and you can tell she's a little worried about being so close to it. We got up so early we didn't have time for breakfast so I pulled out a piece of raisin bread I had in my backpack. This mean monkey decided it was tired of bananas and that raisin bread sounded really quite tasty. It came to me and looked at the bread. It stood on its hind legs which somehow made it more intimidating. It also had a bad eye which made it look deranged and scarier. Thinking I was so smart I ripped off a corner and threw it far away from me. The monkey glanced over at the piece I'd thrown and then looked back at me with an expression that said “Do you think I'm stupid?” I don't really remember what happened after that but Rick, Sarah and Josh said I started screaming...I do remember that I quickly just chucked the entire piece of bread at the monkey, who grabbed it and ran away from me. As soon as the threat was gone I got really angry. I was hungry and that stupid monkey stole my bread! After the loss of my bread I was sick of monkeys and ready to move on. We went and saw camel rock and then decided to head home.

China is a very slippery place. Even dry. It was very wet because of all the rain which made it even more slippery. I had already slipped on stairs that day but because of my mad ninja skills I caught myself on the step above the step my poor already bruised bum would have fallen and avoided disaster. On the walk back to our hostel we ran into the people we met at the top of the peak and they were happy to see that we made it safely down. We decided to walk along the river on the way back to the hostel and that's where tragedy struck. We were walking down the stairs to get to the river path when Sarah slipped and fell down quite a few stairs. She started screaming and my mind went blank. I had no idea what to do, especially since we don't really know a ton of Chinese. Rick and I made eye contact and I said “What do we do?!” He thought for half a second and then starts yelling in Chinese and I started yelling “What are you saying?!” Turns out he was yelling the word for phone. We had quite a crowd around us watching and one of them pulled out a phone and started calling for help we assumed. Our friends from the mountain found us and did a little translating to let us know that someone indeed did call the hospital and an ambulance was coming. Then one of them noticed the gash in my leg from climbing down the mountain and got really concerned. I was kind of thinking “Really? That's what you're concerned about right now?” but I did think it was sweet she was concerned. We heard the ambulance before we saw it and the crowd ran over to the side of the road to call it over. Being white has it advantages in China. We were worried about how to communicate with the doctor when he came over but the first words out of his mouth was “What's wrong?” and we all exclaimed “That was English!” You'd be surprised how necessary it is for us to tell each other when someone is speaking English, often we don't catch it for a few minutes. He felt Sarah's spine to make sure he couldn't feel anything obviously wrong. Rick shooed the crowd away to give Sarah some privacy and they all groaned but left. Rick and Sarah went to the hospital to get an x-ray and Josh and I were left standing there wondering what on earth we were supposed to do. We had to be checked out of the hostel by noon so we went and packed everything up. We sat and stared at nothing for a while too scared to do anything and finally decided we had to get out or we'd go crazy. We ran into Rick and Sarah on our little jaunt and were so relieved to find that nothing was wrong and everything was fine. Sarah was really sore so we didn't do anything super adventurous and caught our train to Shanghai that night with no problems.

Nothing exciting happened on our travels home. We made it back to Zhenjiang Thursday night and had to catch a taxi to Yangzhong. Our taxi driver spoke very little English but when we told him we were American he said Obama and Bin Laden and then made a gun with his hand said “Pew, pew” and said very good in Chinese. Apparently he approves. Then we saw a taxi next to us at a red light and the taxi driver was able to communicate that this taxi was also going to Yangzhong. Still not sure how he knew that. So we started chanting go in Chinese and fast and the race began. I think we won.

We made it home safe and sound. Everyone was sore and exhausted with wallets containing a lot less money than we began with. It was so much fun and so beautiful!