life in china: zhangjiajie

We finally got to travel after being here for 3 weeks so we headed up to Zhangjiajie in Northern China!

The trip started off a bit on the rough side when we discovered just how nasty trains and train stations in China are. I used my first public squatter and might I add it was quite possibly one of the grossest things I have ever done. Worse than mulch delivery and port-a-potties in DC in the summer. We were all super dehydrated this trip because we didn't want to have to use the squatters.

People in the train station were all taking pictures of us from afar. Rather creepy if you ask me. If you ever want to be a celebrity just come to China. They love white people even though we definitely don't understand the fascination. And people will just whisper about you in Chinese and stare right at you. Its really annoying because you know they're talking about you and you have absolutely no way of figuring out what they're saying.

The bathroom was literally a hole in the train car that you could see the train tracks moving underneath you and smelled absolutely vulgar. Men were hacking loogies and spitting them on the floor and smoking packs and packs of cigarettes. The train floor was wet and dirty and the seats has food basically ingrained into the fabric of them. There were loiterers and beggars walking up and down the aisles the whole time at all hours of the night. This one beggar in particular had one leg and he was crawling up and down the seats and through the train car. He was singing this Chinese song really loud at 2 am and would hit our arms begging for money. He hit my arm when I was asleep and it scared the absolute the crap out of me. This other guy sitting across from my friend Malia was super drunk and kept head butting her when she would lay down. It was soo weird and creepy.

After 14 hours on the train we finally arrived in Zhangjiajie where we met up with our host, a Chinese woman named Jane who hardly spoke any English. The family we stayed with was so kind and hospitable. They didn't speak a lick of English so there were lots of smiles of gratitude and using our very limited Chinese to communicate. By limited I mean we can say 'thank you' and 'hello.' It was probably four or five generations of a Chinese family living together in rural Northern China. The grandma made us dinner every morning. It was pretty much a feast of rolls, different kinds of dumplings, noodles, and boiled eggs. She just kept bringing out more and more food and we couldn't communicate to her that it was already plenty. They didn't have power the first night and they felt so bad about it. Every night they would give us a few grapefruits which were delicious. The grapefruits here are the size of a toddler's head, its nuts. One day when we were going hiking my friend Syd was wearing Chacos and Jane thought she didn't have any shoes (sandals here are considering shower shoes)so she tried to give her the socks and shoes off her feet. Its humbling to see that they have everything they need, although still much less than we have, and are still so willing to give. The driver we had this weekend was someone from the village and I swear I saw my life flash before my eyes a few times when he was driving.

On the first day we got there we headed to the host's house and then we went to the Yellow Dragon Cave. Totally overrated. It was a cool cave but I could've been in there 5 minutes rather than 4 hours. It a freaking maze and everything was lit up with these weird colored lights. It was like a rave in a cave. I'm willing to bet money that we hiked 20,000 plus stairs all straight up in the humid cave. We were all super bundled up because it was cold outside and by the end of the of the cave we were all drenched in sweat. We also didn't shower for 4 days because the house we were staying in was so dang cold haha. We all got real snuggly at night to stay warm. "It feels like we're camping. The house is freezing and Hadley has french braids in her hair," Syd. Anyway the rest of the park we were in was pretty but we knocked in out in a solid 30 minutes.

Our second day there and the only full day we were in Zhangjiajie we went to the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park or better known to those of us that can't pronounce that as the Avatar Mountains. And yes it looks just like the movie. The mountains just shoot out of the ground in random spots and its so cool. Its unlike anything I've ever seen. We saw a few wild monkeys and one was super close so we were trying to take a picture with it when this dumb Asian lady decided to grab the monkey and it slapped her and swung away. Funny but annoying. To get to the top of the park we had to take the world's longest or largest or highest (can't remember) glass elevator which was 369 stories high. We were standing against the glass inside the mountain flying up when all of a sudden you shoot out of the rocks and you're so high up in the air. It totally took my breath away. To get around the park we took these free buses and this one tour group in particular LOVED us. They swarmed us asking for pictures and shouting 'I love you!!" Then on the bus they would cheer anytime we said anything so my friend Kimberly yelled 'I'm an idiot,' in a really excited voice and they would all cheer and laugh and take more pictures.

Funny story from that day. So people here have absolutely no sense of personal space so we were waiting in line for the bus and the bus doors opened and these elderly people started throwing elbows like savages. Well of course we didn't want to miss the bus with half of us on it and half of us left at some random bus stop so we started throwing some elbows and boxing out these people. All those basketball practices as a kid finally paid off. It was totally insane and hilarious and something that would only happen in Asia.

At the end of the day we had to take this cable car down for about 10 minutes and you got the most spectacular view of the mountains. After the park that day we went to this restaurant not knowing what to expect. No one spoke any English so we were basically playing cherades trying to get them to understand what we wanted. Elli tried to type in fried rice into our translator app but it translated to "'we want to have sex' Thai slang translation.'" We didn't notice for a minute though until we had been pointing and saying 'we want this,' and the restaurant owners were all laughing really hard. It was hilarious but so embarrassing. Luckily we got the point across though and had some of the best fried rice. Tasted almost as good as the shrimp fried rice at P.F. Changs.

On the third and final day we only had a few hours to go to Tianmen Mountain so we bought tickets, waited in line for 3 hours, took a million pictures with all the people in line, and then had to bail out because we were only halfway through the line and we were going to miss the train. So that was a total bummer that we didn't get to see that park. Then we headed back to the train station for another disgusting 17 hour bus ride.

Now we're home and back to teaching again tomorrow.

All in all pretty impressed that we navigated China on our own though! (with the help of the translator app and Jane of course)

I know I say this literally every time but I really lucked out with the girls in my group. We get along great. Some of the other groups in Zhongshan do not like each other at all which totally sucks,

Funniest quotes from this weekend:

"I think Taylor Swift and I were friends in the preexistence." @maliamonks

15 minutes into California Speed and Kj says "wait am I supposed to be getting rid of my cards?" hahaha