Shanghai

Walking on water, raft riding, sitting on a water buffalo, and surviving a typhoon are all things that I can check off my bucket list.  Another one would be to arrive home from vacation only to be there 3 days, to pack up, and head out for another long vacation.  We weren’t even prepared to leave because we just wanted to bum around from the extended one we just had.  However, we put on our big girl panties, and set out on another adventure.  Our first stop: Shanghai.  

It started out with a train ride.  Now I have never been on a train, and was super excited for this opportunity.  However, I will give you the best possible advice for when you come to China.  Never, ever, ever, ever, evereverever, take the train if you don't necessarily have to.  It was 16 hours of torture.  At first it was ok, but then like the paparazzi, the Chinese swarm you to where you feel like a toy doll with no where to go.  "You beautiful." "Can we be friends?" "What is your telephone number?" "Where are you going?" "Can we take picture?"  It was also very, very crowded. 

 Some people had to stand in the aisle for the whole 16 hours, but were smart and brought a small stool.  The boy in blue, and the elderly man in the center had these standing seats (with lots of others.)  They sat and slept on the floor beside us.  The elderly man was on his way to Shanghai to see the doctor.  The woman across from me said that he was going to get his Tuberculosis checked out.  I was kind of scared for my health at that point, and around 3 in the morning, I woke up to find him standing next to me speaking to the lady across from me. Every time he would talk to her, he would lean in and rub against me.  I tried to move over, but the guy on the other side of me probably didn't want an American rubbing up on him either.  Finally though, 10 am rolled around and we were free from that place; of course not without asking to get pictures first. 

The girl in the red jacket on the far right asked when we got off if she could kiss me.  Honestly speaking, I have never been asked this question before so it took me by surprise, and the first thing that came to my mind was, "Where???"  After she assured me it would be on the cheek, she kissed me, and I got out of there as quick as possible.  (There was also this little girl at school this week who asked if she could kiss me...that was cute.  This was not cute.)  Oh the memories.  

Getting to Shanghai was not what any of us expected, but we made it back to our hostel to rest and clean up.  Later that day, we went out to see what Shanghai had to offer.  It was huge! 

Day 1 with all the smog and pollution in the air.

Day 2 when the smog wasn't as bad.

Not sure who this guy was...

There are so many different stores in Shanghai, but it's different because most of these stores you would see in America like Forever 21, GAP, and Rolex stores galore.  They are very expensive too!  But we came upon this one little shop that had Bibles in the store window.  We were kind of shocked to see a Christian store, mostly because Christianity is not well known here, but we went inside to see what they had.  

 

They had lots of different paintings, and Bibles, and Christianity material.  It made me happy to see the guy thumbing through the Bible he had in his hands.  He was the only one in the store, and even though it was empty, it made my heart feel full to see that he was gaining a base to his testimony.  Go him!!

After our shopping experiences, we decided to visit the Old Water Towns of Shanghai.  It is amazing how old and new Shanghai can be, and look so different.  We took a raft ride through the town, and it was a very peaceful, beautiful place.  

This place was so cool!

It's kind of like Venice, yeah?

I'm really grateful for the life I was given.

After rafting we visited some of the markets that lined the river.  We decided to dress up like Asians, and take pictures.  They have these shops all over, but usually you just put on some clothes and they take a picture of you.  Well this particular shop would do your hair and makeup, and give you a full photo shoot with a variety of different items, all of it costing a little over $4 USD each.   

 

Alleyway of shops

After a fun day, we headed back to get a view of city life at night.  I loved the lights!!  Overall, Shanghai was cool, but not our most favorite place while vacationing.  One day would have been enough, instead of the three that we planned.  Great stories were made in the making though!!  :) 

New Town.

Old Town. :)

Guilin & Yangshou

So it has been a LONG time!  I have felt like a chicken with my head cut off this month, and haven't had much time to write, and if I did; I was sleeping.  Much needed sleep I might add.

So we had a vacation of 4 days that we decided to go to Guilin/Yangshou on.  These are small towns that are about an hour apart from each other, but both have amazing things that you can only find in China. 

We traveled there on a bus, but not just any bus, on a sleeper bus.  It was one of the oddest, yet greatest inventions I have ever encountered.  It was two stories, and very crowded, but I enjoyed my 12 hours on that thing.  

Sleeper Bus!!

 We arrived early morning in Guilin, and just chilled at our hostel until check in time.  It was a pretty sweet place!

It was the perfect place for my early morning scripture study.

Later that day we got to walk on water…I’m not lying!  We were walking across this bridge and saw people walking on water.  Well we wanted to too, so we headed down the bridge to find ourselves elated at our finding.  It was a great experience to have.

This girl helped me across the water because it was super slippery, and let's face it she saw I was strugglin'.  Thanks beautiful girl!

The next day, we got to see the mountains that are supposedly seen in the movie Avatar.  I was in heaven for a couple hours while I got to raft down the river to see these mountains.  They were absolutely breathtaking! 

We bought flower crowns for a dollar.  Score.

Love this girl!

After our raft ride, we ate some yummy lunch and headed for the mud caves.  The cave was alright.  I say alright because the lady leading the tour in the cave said, “Look, this is the ice cream cone rock.  Use your imagination, and you will see.”  Haha I was like alright if that is the case, then I think it looks like an apple on an upside down mountain…..The mud bath was cool though!  It was really cold, and I couldn’t think of the germs and nasties in it because it smelled bad, and felt kinda slimy.  There were also naked children in it…eeeek.

After that experience, I got to sit on a water buffalo.  It was fun, but the man who owned the buffalo was the humblest of men.  

The day before we left we traveled up to Yao Mountain.   We took a cable car up to the top, and it was some view!  However, because of the smog and pollution, pictures weren’t the greatest.  

At the top of the mountain there was a place for prayer flags.  You buy a flag and put your prayer on it, and it was supposed to bring good luck.  There was SO many of them. 

After we soaked up enough of Yao Mountain, we tobogganed down for a fun 3 minute journey.  

Our vacation was supposed to be 4 days long, but if you remember, there was a super typhoon Usagi that was scheduled to hit the area where we lived the day we left.  Our coordinators in Utah sent out a mass message to all the head teachers advising us that it would be unsafe to travel home the day as scheduled.  We were kind of bummed, but excited we got to spend an extra day on vacation.  We didn’t do much because of the rain, but it was a restful day and got caught up on sleep.  The next morning, I received another email telling us that we couldn’t leave until the following day.  Now things got somewhat frustrating because we were broke at this point, and didn’t have any plans for the extra days that we were there.  We also found out we would have to teach on Saturday because of the days that were missed.  We longed to be home in Nanlang, but when we got on the bus to leave, I was sad that I had to say goodbye to such a beautiful place.  On our way out, I couldn’t sleep because of the memories these places left indented in my life.

 ONE Day in China. :) 

   

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The first week have teaching has proved to be a challenge for sure, but it has been yet another fun filled, adventure taking, and “I’ve never met so many people in one week” kinda experience.  Let’s start with the good.

The Good:

Good news should always start out with good food, friends, and family.  This week we had the opportunity to go to a seafood restaurant with our “headmaster” from the school.  Her friend from America came to visit and she wanted all of us American teachers to meet her, so we did so with TONS of food.  This restaurant proved to make all of us teachers chuckle, and wonder what the heck we got ourselves into.  When we walked into the restaurant, we looked to the right and a huge aquarium that looked like this appeared. 

Ugly fish

Something fishy, and some squid.

Shrimp

When we got inside, the girl from America said pick something from the menu, and pointed to the aquarium.  We were like, huh?  She then pointed out crab, snails, oysters, a stingray looking fish, pig intestines, duck, chicken, and an assortment of other creepy crawlies.  We were like yeah, uh huh, looks good I suppose???  When we told her the things we wanted to try, she told this guy who came over with a bucket and a net, where he then fished out the fish we were soon to eat.  It was on the table a few minutes later.  Check out the menu.

The shrimp.  Definitely one of my favorites.

Snails.  Not as bad as you think, but I won't be craving them anytime soon.

Pig intestines.  Believe it or not, this was my favorite one!

Chicken, and so much more! 

Half of the table

It proved to be really good food, and eaten with great company.  I am glad that the Chinese are so nice to us, and choose to give us the biggest plates with the most food on them.  J

The second good thing that happened this week was attending a tutoring center open house.  It was a center where English will be taught as well as other subjects for afterschool kids.  It was again filled with so much food, and great company.

 

Stephanie.  A cute girl who wanted to be our friend.  :)

Both of our headmaster's, and her friend from America.

We also went on a few home visits to meet some of the babies in our English classes.  The parent’s love to feed us and give us hot water…they always serve us hot water to drink at night. 

Mark who is in our baby class.  :)

We had a parent meeting where all the parent’s got to attend, and learn more about our program and what their children will be doing in class.  They like to show off their American teachers and put us in the front…for the whole two hour meeting, in tiny chairs.  It was good putting parent faces to their children though. 

The last thing that happened this week I think is better than good, so we will say the most amazing thing that has happened this week was the opportunity to go to church in Kaiyin.  It is about a 30 minute bus ride, but since the directions were a little vague I took my team on a little bit of a detour.  We ended up going the wrong direction, so we had to back track a tad.  Also, we had to change buses about 15 minutes into the trip so we got off to get on our next bus, but ended up getting the shaft on that one because that bus only goes by every 30 minutes.  We got there at 10 o’clock.  30 minutes of boiling in the hot sun later our bus shows up and takes us to the school in Kaiyin.  We walk to their apartment where about 30 people were smushed into a small living room.  We were all huddled around a computer where we watched a church meeting via skype.  Even though we missed partaking of the sacrament, it was a great opportunity to see the testimonies of those who are also living in China teaching English.  We sang, I Believe in Christ, for our closing hymn, and it gave me a refreshing feeling to start my new week.  Needless to say, I am grateful that I have a Savior who loves me, and I know is watching over me and my family.  I am one blessed girl that is for sure.
 

The Bad

So I feel bad talking about the bad in China because honestly, there is not much “bad” that I see here.  But I do feel it important to tell you my story because you never know you may end up here one day!  So after teaching on Thursday, we all decide to go get a Washy Washy.  Now if you don’t know what this is, let me explain.  It is a hair salon, and a Washy Washy consists of a head massage of about 20 minutes, and they blow dry and style your hair all for about 3 or 4 American dollars.  Super cheap, yeah?  Well we heard such great news and rave about these here head washes, and wanted to find out for ourselves…so we went.  We walked in and the people were super nice, and trying to talk to us, but then one of the guys calls me upstairs to start the washin’.  Long story short, Chinese guys hitting on you, wanting to ask you out, and saying that you have stolen thier heart all within 5 minutes of meeting each other, and all while they are awkwardly washing your hair was just really weird.  The massage turned out to be a 20 minute head scratch, and me telling guys that I had no interest in them.  In the end, it was an experience I would care not to have again…but on the positive side the girls were hilarious. 

The Ugly

So this part of the story is interesting.  You see the Chinese people are very insistent on things that they want you to do.  You can tell them you don’t want any more food, but they just plop another big pile on your plate anyways.  Well this was kind of a situation like that.  We were invited to sing karaoke at a KTV, and even though it was late we accepted, and thought that it would be a fun time.  Now those of you who know me, know that I do not sing…especially in front of people, but I planned to go and be a photographer.  I think I accomplished my goal.  J 

Emily, being Emily :)

Emily and Kaytie rockin' out.

The ceiling. Super cool!

After much insistence and pressure on me to get up to sing…I still didn’t do it!  HA.  However, I was happily listening to the music, and watching others sing, and was entertained for sure.

Anna and one of her friends.

The food.  Chicken feet, peanuts, and lots of fishy stuff...these snacks were rather gross.

However, the later it got, the more I started to notice things.   The room started to fill with smoke (they love to smoke here) and I noticed that many middle aged men had hard times standing up because they were so drunk.  They would come over to us, and have a million cheers with the American girls, (we drank water) but they just kept drinking, and drinking, and drinking.  The biggest turning point was when a guy started throwing bowls at the walls, and then started fighting another guy.  It was actually scary, and we were all ready to go home at that point.  We talked to our coordinator, and she talked the family into driving us back home. 

Even though we were caught in an uncomfortable situation, it just empowered my testimony of the Word of Wisdom.  Why would anyone want to waste away a night with alcohol, and filling their lungs up with smoke, when you can have just as much fun on fruit juice?  Seriously people!  Not to mention you will remember the good times you have, and not have them in a blur.  I love that I have chosen to abstain from alcohol, tobacco products, coffee, and tea.  It helps me to have control of my life and spirit, and not have worldly substances take it over.  I am again blessed with the knowledge that I have of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
 

So my tips for the week: Have fun, eat good food, love friends and family, go to church, serve others, and don’t forget to wash your own hair. ;p

<3 Sophia