church//china//chaos

China is just a roller coaster of smells...most of them bad...

As I mentioned before we got street meat that was so repulsive this week and that just had this smell that now whenever I smell that smell I throw up a little in my mouth. Sorry for the nasty image

We found this one restaurant that is a life saver with the food cause its like decently good. Definitely not something I’d pick to eat at home but its way better than anything else we’ve found. They have these garlic lo mein noodles that are actually delish which are only 12 yuan which is like $1.50. They have dumplings too so I figure if I eat their dumplings once a week I’ll have enough meat to last me till I go home and pig out on all the foods I’m craving right now. No way im eating the mystery meat grossness they serve us. I bought soy sauce so I can just eat rice and soy sauce for lunch and dinner. I don’t even like love rice. But can you say HELLO RICE CHEEKS??? As if my cheeks weren’t already chubby enough. Cheeks only a mother could love hahaha

Did you know that Chinese people have absolutely RUINED ice cream? Like hmmm ice cream that sounds delicious and should be a treat to look forward to on a hot summer day. NOPE. Theirs is like thick, thick, thick and wayyyyyyy too sweet whipped cream with air in it its so weird. 

People here ask to take pictures with us all the time. Or another favorite...they try to sneak pictures of us in a totally obvious way haha.

Church here is either a 2 hour drive each way or we Skype in. Today we Skyped in! It felt so short! I'll probably go to the actual branch once a month to take the sacrament. Apparently they can still ask you to give a talk even via Skype. 

After church we went to the Zhongshan Hot Springs which is this way cool/totally relaxing resort with natural hot springs that they have infused with like teas and wines and coconut milk. In one there were minnows that would eat at your feet. It felt SOOO weird and ticklish. I had this to die for fresh squeezed OJ/mango juice while relaxing in the hot springs in some jungle in Southern China. Isn't life crazy?!  We even managed to get to the hot springs via taxi with no real verbal communication without getting lost! That's a win if you ask me! 

Guess what??? I hand wash my clothes and air dry them for the world to see. Everyone does it here but since its so dang humid it takes days for even light shirts to dry. Jeans…like a week! Man America is great with its washers and driers. 

I bought my own blanket and another towel this weekend and man I'm already stoked about it. 

Trying my best to have a good attitude in this crazy foreign place! 

walking street

Mom look! I'm being safe with my bag!!

Stairs up to the Pagoda

Pagoda/Temple

Kim and I

this street was a roller coaster of smells. most of them bad

post mcdonalds. fat & happy

I'm a teacher?!

I just have to come out and say it. Asian kindergartners are adorable.

Throughout the day I teach about fifty 'Kindy' kids in five separate rotations of ten kids. We have five subjects that we teach which are gym, kitchen, shop, arts & crafts, and drama. Right now I'm teaching gym. It's surprisingly hard to entertain 5-6 year olds for 25 minutes. When we teach we use what are called BMCs which are basically you pick like a sentence or phrase that you try and get the kids to repeat back to you. For example we bowled today and the phrase I needed them to understand was "We are bowling," which is a concept of action in progress. When the kids relay this back to you they get a token and at the end of the week we have store where they can pick out prizes based on how many tokens they got during the week. The reward system is supposed to work really well but right now the kids don't know us yet so they think they can do whatever we want. They told us to assert dominance haha. Also I now have pity on those teachers that could never remember the student's names because these kids are so dang cute but they all look the same.....

The first day of teaching was good for the most part. I kind of felt like I was a chicken with its head cut off cause I had no idea what I was doing. Fake it till you make it is a real thing out here. The second day of teaching was a disaster. I tried to teach kindergartners who speak minimal English how to play 'fruit basket' and they all just stared at me like I was crazy. So I improvised and just let them run around on the playground haha. There are Chinese teachers who watch us while we teach and take notes and its so stressful when something goes not according to the lesson plan and you see them mark something down in their journals. Speaking of the Chinese teachers...I feel like they're so mean to the kids. If they aren't listening they hit them really hard on the head with a pen or yell at them in Chinese. Yikes. "1,2,3, eyes on me," has been a lifesaver.

The teachers keep all the doors and windows open so by the time I'm done teaching for the day my hands are numb. There's no insulation in the walls here.

One of the little boys in my group who usually ignores everything I say and is a total pill looked at me today and said "Thank you teacha," and I about died it was so cute. They call us teacha instead of teacher in their tiny little Chinese accents and its freaking adorable.

The other teachers here with ILP are great. My group is awesome! Get this. This poor girl in my group got a kidney stone...we've only been here for five days.

The fruit here is so good. Some of it is weird but the things I do recognize are delicious. The grapefruits here are like the size of my head!

China is crazy green. There are palm trees everywhere which I definitely wasn't expecting. Also fireworks randomly go off all the time. Sometimes even in the middle of the day. Guess they're really proud of their invention.

Everywhere we go people take pictures and videos of us.

Today after school we went to this place called Walking Street which is about a 45 minute bus ride from our school. The driving in China is nuts....people just go wherever they feel like. It gives me anxiety to watch the bus driver drive. I swear the lanes aren't big enough for the cars...Anyway, back to Walking Street. It's just this huge place with shops and such but then up this huge staircase is a Pagoda. It was so cool! Just right there in this shopping area is this old temple up in the jungle.

We found a McDonald's on Walking Street. I don't even like McDonald's when I'm in America but fries and a Sprite have honestly never tasted so good. Nothing here is salted either so that was the first taste of salt in nearly a week. We ordered Mcflurries too but they only had Pink Flower ice cream. It tasted like lotion. Bleh! The McDonald's had packets of salt so you best believe I swiped like 20 to bring to school and put on my rice.

I got this sweet pair of New Balances for $8! Everything here is insanely cheap. Dad, you'd be proud. I bargained for them. Even walked away the first time!

When we were leaving Walking Street we thought we missed the bus so we all booked it to the bus (which turned out to not even be the right bus haha). It must've looked like quite the scene. All these white, blonde, college girls running at full speed with backpacks down the streets of China. Coming home I nailed my head on the ceiling of the bus...Asian people are so short so some things are so dang low haha.

I was reading a talk the other night and one line was from the hymn "Lead, Kindly Light." It read "the night is dark and I am far from home, lead Thou me on," which was just totally fitting because I'm 6,000 miles from home in the most foreign place where people don't understand me when I speak and I look nothing like the people. And the food. Have I mentioned how weird and gross some of it is?! Anyway I just got a huge wave of wow America is awesome and I miss my mom and my bed. And my friends and family and basically everything that's back in America. Everyone back at home enjoy some pizza and Sodalicious for me. Isn't it funny how much more you appreciate something when its not easily accessible anymore.

I have never loved peanut butter more than I have in the last five days. Only source of protein since there's not a chance I'm eating Chinese cafeteria mystery meat. Yesterday they served intestines.....

I don't think people understand the concept of being quiet at night.....it sounds like someone is trying to hammer something into the cement walls all night long...please just let me sleep!!

This is totally random but one of our Chinese coordinators, Marine (the nicest lady ever. I thought she was like 20 but apparently she'd 30! Gotta get my hands on whatever face lotion she's using!), told us that one semester these girls didn't lock their balcony door (keep in mind we're on the fourth floor) and thieves climbed up the gutters and snuck into their room and they woke up with strange Chinese men in their room!! Yikes! For those of you who have seen Miss Congeniality, I need to freshen up on my attack skills if anything happens like that haha. I would've been on the next flight home no joke.

Things I wish they had in China:
Dr. Pepper
Pizza that isn't gross
Raspberries
Cereal
2% Milk
Cheeseburgers
Reese's
Salt in their food

i will survive

So I just realized that I forgot to say where I actually am in China. Its a city called Zhongshan in Southern China across the bay from Hong Kong. We are teaching at a school called Kaiyin.

We start teaching tomorrow! I'm teaching Kindergarten and I have 10 kids in my class. If the kids speak English during class we have to send them to the Chinese chair. Its like the black hat chair they had in the 1800s.

Random thing about Chinese people...they think cookies and peanut butter cause sore throats.

so China...all my OCD things I've ever had about things being clean are making themselves known here.

My jet lag finally came in handy...I got to email Spencer at 2 am!!! Hopefully soon though I'll be able to sleep through the night though because I'm getting real sick of waking up for hours in the middle of the night.

In my room we can hear literally everything going on outside and everywhere in the building. I think I've been blessed with only being able to hear in one ear haha.

Like I said before we live on the fourth floor and we teach on the fourth floor of the school so I walk nearly a million stairs everyday. Its like taking the RB stairs ten times a day.

They only give us chopsticks to eat with at every restaurant and at the school. Chopsticks are impossible!! I can't tell you how many times I've put the chopsticks up to my mouth only to realize the food has fallen back on my plate. How am I supposed to pick up tiny pieces of rice with two sticks?!

I took my first shower here and it was um interesting to say the least haha. There's no sure thing as just jumping in the shower here. You have to turn the water heater on at least an hour before you want to shower if you want it to be warm. Also the water is either scalding hot or lukewarm. Guess I won't be taking any luxurious showers here.

Also nothing ever dries cause its so dang humid. The bathroom is constantly wet because there's just a shower curtain and you shower just like openly in the bathroom right next to the toilet. Its really weird. My towel is already starting to smell like mildew because it doesn't dry haha. Mom send another!!

So last night I accidentally ate tofu from this little store off the street.....it was disgusting. When I was trying to order the man working there kept laughing at me because I had no idea what he was saying and he couldn't understand me either. Rachel got this noodle and meat thing and they felt like worms going down my throat....We promptly threw that in the trash and found this restaurant where someone actually spoke English (!!!!!) and we ate this really good fried rice and garlic lo mein. At the restaurant we met this really nice Chinese woman who taught us how to say "check please" in Chinese.

I bought a blue Gatorade at the super market and I take a sip of it every night when we get home. Gatorade has never tasted so good.

I'm working on lesson plans today. Its interesting how simple it all seems and they apparently learn how to speak English fluently. Simple yet actually really complicated. We have to have three key words/phrases everyday and then we give the kids tokens when they use them properly.

China is crazy!

we made it

3 A.M. Saturday morning was a rude awakening...but the journey was just beginning.

After a 6 hour layover at JFK and a 19 hour flight to Hong Kong followed by an hour ferry ride across the bay and a 2 hour bus ride to our school, we made it. I haven't been so exhausted since I hiked Mt. Timpanogos last semester.

After a 19 hour flight, our first stop in Hong Kong was the bathroom. I was washing my hands and this little boy was staring at me in the mirror and when I looked up at him he yelled "hello," giggled, and ran away. Also, I said excuse me when I bumped into someone and they looked at me like I was crazy.

When we arrived in Hong Kong we met up with some of the other teachers after we wandered around for an hour trying to figure out to get upstairs to get McDonalds. We tried and failed for those nuggets. We were still starved because the plane food was nasty so we tried to get fried rice from this restaurant in the terminal. I pointed to the food I wanted to order and several people behind me yelled what I wanted in Chinese at the cashier. Then I didn't have any cash (this country is all about the cash, so different from America) so she glared at me and said something in Chinese so I just left. I may as well have had a sign on my forehead that flashed "AMERICAN" in neon lights. We gave up after that and went to wait for the ferry. Rachel and I passed out on the ferry only to be woken by yelling Chinese ferry workers. We got off the ferry at our port and waited for the luggage. Then we had to carry the luggage to Immigration and then from there to the bus stop a quarter mile away. Yes mom, you were right. The 50 lb. duffle bag without wheels was a horrible idea. I still can't feel my forearm. We all loaded onto the bus for the most bumpy, rickety bus ride I've ever been on. Two hours turned into four hours and we finally made it to apartment building at 4 A.M. We live on the fourth floor (no elevator) and the building is up this hill so it was a sight for sore eyes watching us all struggle to get 4 months worth of luggage to our rooms.

We unpacked all of our stuff  at five in the morning because we were way jet lagged. Jet lag is so real. Waking up at 7 A.M. tomorrow will be rough. 6 A.M. if I want to take a hot shower.

You'd be surprised at how little stuff fits in two 50 lb. suitcases and two stuffed carry ons. I'm going to be real sick of these ten shirts by the time I get home.

We woke up this morning freezing cold. We didn't realize we had a heater...so hopefully tomorrow I don't wake up with numb toes.

Today we met our group and we explored the school a bit. We ate lunch at the school, where we will eat all our meals. I'll just say three quick things about the food....Chinese food in America is nothing like Chinese food in China, I'm going to get real skinny if I just eat rice for the next 4 months, and thank goodness I brought snacks from America.

Later we went into the city to exchange some money and to go to the supermarket. This place had everything from fresh fruit (best mangos I've ever tasted) to electric vacuums. It was like a Chinese version of Walmart. I bought my first pair of shower shoes there. I had to get the men's shoes because my feet are too big for the women's shoes.

The currency here is called Yuan which is worth 6.50 to every American dollar. It totally throws me off when I buy something before I realize my water bottle isn't actually $34 but $8.60. Kind of a ripoff for a water bottle but after drinking filtered water that looks suspiciously like milk, the Evian was well worth it.

We missed dinner at the school because we were in the city so we had to go out and find something. We tried to find this Muslim Noodles place but gave up after 20 minutes because we were all starving. We settled for pizza. Word to the wise, don't eat pizza in China. It will make you nauseous and it has the funkiest smell.

Few quick things I've learned about living in China so far:
-people eat with gloves at restaurants so they don't need napkins
-its surprisingly cold
-its rude to wear sandals/flipflops outside your home
-a lot less people speak English than I was expecting
-it feels very unnatural to brush my teeth/wash my face/only drink bottled water
-I'm pretty much going to have to hand wash everything because the washers here apparently will ruin your clothes
-sleeping bags are a totally foreign concept

It still hasn't sunk in yet that I'm staying in this totally foreign place for 4 months. I'm sure China has a lot of awesome things to offer and I can't wait to embrace it all. And yes mom, I'm glad I brought my own pillow.

after a very long day of traveling

my bed

the whole room

the shower. we have to turn the water heater on 2 hours before we want to shower 

finally sleeping!!! (check out those flyaways. the humidity is unreal)

here we go!!

Last year around this time, my friend Rachel and I decided we wanted to do a humanitarian trip of some sort. We did some digging and stumbled upon the International Language Program. ILP for short. This program works with schools around the world bringing volunteers to teach English to their students. Its such a great program. Go check it out!

People have asked how we decided to take the semester off and go teach English or why we picked China or how we even found this program. To be honest I don't really have an answer. One thing led to the next and now we head out in just two short days!

Bags packed. Visas and passports ready. Camera charged.

I can hardly wait to see what adventures China will bring!