Children's Day

Children's day was on June 1st, and we celebrated all week. There were balloons and streamers all over the school. That Thursday, we had a really cool experience! For Children's Day our school donated a bunch of new supplies and books to the special education school, so we got to go and meet some of the students there. When we first got there there were a lot of students in the auditorium. There was a little boy with Down Syndrome that caught my eye once I sat down, and he pointed right at me and smiled, and I waved back. It was adorable. Most of the students left right after we got there, but some of the students with less severe disabilities stayed, and some students from our school showed up with their parents.

We played games up on the stage, and we did a performance, and then the students did a performance. Their performance was awesome! I think most of the kids that were dancing were deaf, but they had some serious rhythm. They were the coolest.

Then one of the teachers from the school taught us some Chinese sign language. Then we had a card exchange. I gave a card I made to a little boy. I'm not sure what disability he had, but he had the craziest blue eyes I've ever seen. He was awesome. he gave me a card too! It's in Chinese, but I think it says "Happy Children's Day, happy every day." SO cute.

The next day was the big Children's Day celebration. We performed a routine our kung fu teacher taught us. I was originally part of the actual kung fu part, but when we needed an extra person to wave the flags I volunteered to switch to being a flag girl. I thought it would be easier... I was wrong. Those flags are dang heavy, and we had to run around a lot. But I think it looked pretty darn cool! My favorite part of performing was seeing our students sitting in the front row cheering us on. They kept giving us the thumbs-up and encouraging us. They looked like tiny parents watching their kids at a dance recital. 

The kids' performances were far better than ours. My class is did a dance to "We Will Rock You." It was the cutest thing ever, and their costumes made them look like Lady Gaga backup dancers.

Me and Windy backstage

Pumped for Kung Fu!

Larkin and I love these outfits!

Post-performance shots with Jack and Allie

Beijing & Xi'an

So... I went to Beijing! It's been a while... but it was awesome. I loved it. I highly recommend it. Here are the things we did there!

The first day consisted of a 21-hour train ride, so that was fun. I slept for a grand total of maybe 3 or 4 hours, and the rest was spent having lots of fun conversations with my train friends, laughing until I cried, and beating Shawna at card games.

We finally arrived in Beijing, got to the hostel, and got settled in. We explored the markets and shops that were across the street. Then we headed to see the Olympic nest, where the 2008 Olympics were held.

The next day we woke up super early and headed off to see the Great Wall at 6 am. It was a long bus ride to get there, but the wall was amazing! 

We spent a few hours on the wall hiking and taking pictures. Then we ate some lunch and got back on the bus. By the time we got back to our hostel, it was dinner time! Then we walked around for a bit and checked out the area near Tienanmen Square. It was after dark, and everything was closed down, but it was cool to walk around the city!

The next day, we went to the Lama Temple first thing in the morning. It was beautiful, as most Buddhist temples are!  

Then we headed right on over to the Temple of Heaven. It was a temple-hopping sort of day. 

Then we went to the Pearl Market, which is a giant market where you can buy pretty much anything you could ever want for really cheap. I bought more random stuff than I probably should have, but bartering with those crazy people is just too much fun!

That night we went to a Chinese acrobat show. Our hostel provided transportation to the show... which turned out to mean following a stranger down a dark alley, and then getting in his sketchy van. Good news, I survived! And the acrobat show was awesome! 

There were guys balancing on poles, and girls contorting their bodies in impossible ways, and 12 people riding on one bicycle around the stage. The grand finale was a guy in a motorcycle in a circular cage. He was going around and around and upside down. Then they added another guy, and another, and another... and another! That's five motorcyles. I have never been so stressed out in my entire life.

The next day we got to explore Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City!

Tiananmen Square

Outside the Forbidden City

 

After exploring the Forbidden City and the surrounding area for much longer than we intended to (we got a little lost), we made it to the metro and headed over to the Silk Market to buy more junk.

That night we took a 13-hour sleeper train over to Xi'an. We took our time that morning getting ready at the hostel, and then we did EVEN MORE shopping in Muslim Quarters. 

After shopping, we visited the mosque that was just around the corner. It was really interesting to visit! We've seen a lot of Buddhist temples, so it was fun to explore another side of Chinese religion. 

The next day we got to see the Terracotta Warriors! It was amazing! 

                                                

We learned a lot of super cool history about the warriors and the emperor who made them. If you're ever bored, look it up. It's some crazy stuff. 

This is the first warrior they found. He is completely intact, and he even has some of his original coloring, which none of the other warriors have. They call him the Magic Archer. And we have matching hair.

This is the guy that found the warriors back in the 70's. He was just a farmer digging a well, and he stumbled across our friend the Magic Archer! He was signing books. They said no pictures, so I had to be sneaky.

After seeing the warriors, we drove over to the hill where the emperor is buried. They can't dig into the tomb because it's booby trapped with mercury and stuff. Truth is, it's not that cool looking from the outside. 

See the hill? There's an emperor in there!

That night we went out on the town!

We went to an awesome park and hung out for a while. There was a water show that we watched. Xi'an is a pretty cool place!

 

Water shows are always cooler in person.

The next day we ate ice cream and hung out at the hostel before flying back to Guangzhou! The end. 

Changsha

This weekend, the school we teach at took us on a free vacation to Changsha! It was pretty awesome to get to see a new city, go on adventures, and get to know the other group. It was also pretty awesome to not spend any money on anything!

So right after school on Friday, Sparky and Bob drove all of us to the train station. We had all 12 of us Shiqi girls, plus all 14 of the Kaiyin group, plus about 6 coordinators, so we were doing a lot of head counts and attracting a lot of stares. But we made it through security, boarded, and after a couple of speed train rides we were in Chongsha!

We got on a tour bus and went straight to our hotel. We had a break before dinner, so we went to our rooms to "rest". Mckenna and I were roomies for the weekend, and Larkin and Emily were right next door. It was a party! And the rooms... oh, the rooms. I don't know if it was a really nice hotel room, or if my standards have decreased dramatically since the last time I stayed in an actual hotel, but it felt like we were living in luxury.

First of all, the beds. We walked into the room and immediately flopped on our beds. And they were so soft. I can't remember the last time I slept on a bed that can be described as "soft". (Actually, I can. It was January 14th. In my own bed. In America.) But these beds were an absolute dream! I was literally crying tears of joy. Judge me if you want, but it may have been the happiest moment of my life.

Second of all, the carpet. When is the last time I felt the feeling of carpet on my bare feet? (You guessed it. January 14th.) I think the only thing that got me out of that wonderful bed in the mornings was knowing that I got to walk barefoot on actual carpet.

Third, the shower. There were two shower heads: one on the wall, and one straight above your head so you could feel like you were in a warm, clean waterfall shower. It was steamy and wonderful, and best of all, it didn't smell like a giraffe like our bathroom in our apartment always does!

We had dinner that night in our hotel. There was pork, beef, eel, tofu, pumpkin cakes, fish balls... you know, the usual. I ate way too much. Then we went back to our hotel room and had some good old-fashioned sleepover fun! There was jumping on the beds and dancing and singing and embarrassing-picture-taking... all the good stuff. Then I remade my bed and crashed for the night.

The next morning was the signing ceremony. We knew that Bond was signing with a real estate company to build a new kindergarten, and we had to perform at the ceremony, but that's pretty much all we knew. So we showed up to this place in our matching orange jackets and I immediately felt out of place. There was a full on red carpet. There was a girl painted gold. There was a clown. There were black guys playing bongo drums. Then we went inside, and there was a girl playing the harp, a magician, some girls in crazy dresses, and a dessert bar. So naturally we all headed straight for the free cake.

Then we went outside, where there was a tent set up for the performances. We were told we weren't performing until after lunch, so we sat back at relaxed. There was another magician, some underwear models in wings, some Latin dancers... it was the weirdest show ever. Then we were informed that we were performing "The Cha-Cha Slide"... um, okay? So like 8 of us got up on the stage and did the dance for the audience. Finally, all my years of going to stake dances have paid off!

Then we went to lunch at a random cafe. They brought us fried rice, beef soup, and fried eggplant and green beans. It was delicious. Then we went back to the party to perform!

When we went back, it had started raining pretty hard, so the majority of the audience had left. I'm really bad at estimating numbers of people, but there were only maybe 50 people there. Which is good, because our performances were really not the best. First, 6 of us girls sang "LOVE" by Nat King Cole. The music was turned up really loud, so no one could hear us, and we had to hold the microphones, which got awkward. Then we performed a dance to "We Got the Beat", which we had already performed at the banquet before our Sanya trip, and that was a little rusty, but whatever. Then we did a dance to "Weight of Living", which went pretty well considering the fact that we choreographed the whole thing last week. The Kaiyin group also did some performances. I think we were all pretty excited when that was over.

That night after a nap and dinner, we went shopping! We finally got to see some of the sights in Changsha, and I really loved it! We went to a shopping street with a bunch of traditional shops where you can get scarves, dresses, jewelry, fans... pretty much anything your heart could desire. It was a very Chinese place. I loved it.

The next day we visited Hunan University. We hiked up a mountain there to the Buddhist College, where I guess monks go to study? It was a beautiful temple with amazing statues and shrines, and the 2 oldest trees in Hunan, which, according to the plaque next to them, survived a bombing in the 30's. So that's cool.

Then we hiked back down, rode the bus to McDonald's for lunch, and headed back to the train station. When we got back to Zhongshan, Sparky was waiting for us with the party bus, and I was actually glad to see my apartment again, even though I will always miss my hotel room!

Alright. That was a little rambly. Sorry. But I'm going to Beijing tomorrow! Woohoo! Wish me luck!

Zhangjiajie

Last weekend 9 of us went on an adventure to Zhangjiajie! It was absolutely gorgeous, and finally getting out of the city showed me a whole new side of China. There were a few mini-tragedies, but we made it home alive, and that's all that matters.

After teaching on Thursday, we went back to our apartment to quickly pack up our bags and then headed to the train station. We took a bus from our apartment, and somehow we ended up with the only slow bus driver in all of China. We realized we were going to be late, so instead of switching to another bus like we normally would have, we decided to take a taxi. We got 3 different taxis to take us to the train station, and showed them the time on our tickets so they knew how much of a hurry we were in. Our driver looked at us like we were crazy, but he drove as fast as he could! We got to the train station, ran inside, went through security as fast as we could, and ran up the stairs to the platform. The train was about 5 minutes late, and we made it with time to spare! Except... not all of us made it. Christina and Shawna were in the last taxi, and apparently they pulled up right as the train left the station. Fortunately it was only a short train ride to Guangzhou, and we met up with them at the train station there.

Then we took the metro to the other train station to catch the 13-hour train to Zhangjiajie. 13 hours is a long time... but we played a few games of Mini Uno, chatted, and slept a lot, so it went by fast.

We got to our hostel without too much trouble, changed our clothes, and headed to Zhangjiajie National Park! The mountains there are SO beautiful. They call them the Avatar mountains, because James Cameron modeled the landscape for his movie after them.

See the resemblance?

We spent the rest of the day in the upper part of the park, looking at the views and such. Then we decided to hike down the mountain. 

Here's the thing. The Chinese do not understand the concept of a hike. A hike in China just means going up and down a ridiculous amount of stairs. So we hiked down the mountain, and I've never gone down so many stairs in my life. Occasionally we would hit a set of stairs going up, and I've never been so excited to go up stairs before, just to get some variation. I may have gone a little crazy up there on that mountain. 

We finally got down and caught a bus back. I crawled into my top bunk to relax for a bit... and woke up an hour later. So I found some food, took a shower, and went back to sleep.

The next morning we went to Tianmen Mountain. We rode a gondola up to the mountain... and the views were amazing! I took some beautiful photos of the landscape. When we got to the top we walked on a glass walkway along the edge of the mountain, which was so awesome, and only a little bit terrifying. Then we walked around the mountain on a ledge for a while.

This is when disaster struck. Christina decided it would be a good idea to take a picture with our feet dangling over the ledge. We were in a hurry, so I stuck my camera in my pocket and joined them. Mckenna was taking the picture, but she wanted to be in it too, so I quickly stood up to go trade places with her. As I was standing, I felt my camera slip out of my pocket. I thought it be a short drop to the ledge where I was sitting, but I was wrong. We all watched as my camera tumbled in slow motion over the side of the ledge. We were really high up, so I had a lot of time to stand and watch it. We all stared in silence as it fell. Then it hit a rock and shattered. And now I'm camera-less. 

Which is why this blog has no pictures that aren't from Google Images. Sorry!

So we mourned the camera for a minute, then we kept walking. I had some kettle corn for lunch (there weren't a lot of options...) Then we went to a really cool Buddhist temple. There were huge statues and paintings and even a couple of real Buddhist monks! We weren't there for very long, but it was very cool to experience a religion so different from mine.

Then we headed to the Stairway to Heaven! 

999 steps up to the top. The view from the top wasn't spectacular, but sometimes you do things just so you can say you did them. And I did it! And it felt awesome. 

The next day we went back to Zhangjiajie to explore the bottom part of the park. It was pretty cold and rainy that day, but we still got to do awesome things, like feeding wild monkeys! 

Then we had to get back on the train and go back home. This time we took a sleeper train, which is definitely my new favorite way to travel. We sat on the beds and talked for a while, and made friends with one of the Spanish guys that we were near. Then we went to sleep and didn't wake up until we were in 

Guangzhou again! It was great. A short speed train and a couple of buses later, I was back in the tiny bedroom I call home!

Sanya

Wow. I'm really bad at this blogging thing. Like, really bad. So I'm going to make a resolution, right here, right now: one blog post a week. If I write it on here that means I really have to do it, right? So if I don't stick to my resolution, it's up to you, my many faithful readers, to call me out on it. Deal? Deal.

So, like 3 weeks ago I went on vacation to Sanya! And it was awesome. But getting there was not so awesome...

We took a sleeper bus from Zhongshan to Haikou, which took about 11 hours. Sleeper buses are just like normal buses, except there are no seats, only cramped little bunk beds. And they make you take off your shoes and put them in a bag before you can get on the bus. And sometimes there's a really cranky man working on the bus who not only expects you to be able to speak Chinese, but also doesn't understand that you can't read Chinese. On second thought, sleeper buses are nothing like normal buses.

This isn't a very good picture, but it gives you an idea!

Anyway, we got on the bus straight from a banquet put on by the school, at which I drank approximately half of a 2 liter bottle of Coke, which resulted in a very full bladder for the entire bus ride. I was about to explode when we finally got to Haikou at about 6 a.m. When we arrived, we had to find the other bus station to catch the bus from Haikou to Sanya. There were some very friendly men who were more than willing to take us in their vans, but we decided a city bus was a better method of transportation. So we got to the other bus station, got on another bus, and eventually (finally) made it to Sanya.

Once we got there, we found our hostel, changed into swimming suits, and headed straight to the beach!

I brought a volleyball to the beach with me, so Mckenna and I started passing it back and forth. Some random guy decided he wanted to join in, so the three of us had some fun for a while. Then he left, and we thought that was the end of that. But about 5 minutes later, he came back! He started pointing down the beach at a volleyball net, so we followed him and his friends. And that's how my all-time favorite game of volleyball began. At first there were just a few of us... 

But then we started to draw a crowd.

 There are some interesting folks here in China. Anyway, more and more strangers came to join our game, we played until we were exhausted, and it was amazing. Turns out, volleyball transcends language and cultural barriers. And that's pretty cool.

We spent the rest of the day chilling on the beach, swimming in the ocean, and enjoying life. That night we were pretty hungry, so we went to this place called the Dolphin Bar & Grill... and it was the best decision I've ever made. I ate legit Mexican food. There was guacamole involved. March Madness was on in the background. There was American music playing. I felt so at home! 

The next day, we woke up and decided to go out on the town for some breakfast (another wonderful decision). We found a stand just across the street selling street food. I have no idea what it was, but it was delicious!

After breakfast we went back to the beach to get a very interesting pedicure...

It was the strangest sensation ever. Tiny fish taking tiny bites of your foot skin is not relaxing! It was 15 minutes of the most uncomfortably ticklish experience of my life. I was freaking out a little at first... 

But I think by the end I got my emotions under control.

After that I hung out on the beach for a while, read my book, took a nap... Sanya. What a dream. At one point someone bought a coconut, so naturally we had a photo shoot. 

The next day we explored the pier, bought some souvenirs, and packed up. We said goodbye to Chris, who ran the hostel and became sort of a substitute dad for us while we were there. 

Then we went to the train station and embarked on a 14-hour train ride, on which I didn't sleep AT ALL, but I did meet a lovely Muslim couple who taught me some Chinese words and who I accidentally taught the word "armadillo". I also read a book, invented a rap, and contemplated life. It could have been worse.

Then we finally made it back to Zhongshan and I took a 5-hour nap. The end. 

Guangzhou

Happy Chinese New Year!

This post is a little late coming... sorry! Things have been pretty busy this week with school and things. (I don't have any excuse for the weeks before. Sorry Mom!) Anyway, for our Chinese New Year vacation we went to Guangzhou. It was definitely an adventure! We took a train from Zhongshan to Guangzhou, which took about an hour. When we got off the train we followed the directions to get to the hostel... and ended up wandering around for a while. We were trying to communicate with people who lived in the area, but no one seemed to recognize the name of the hostel we were trying to find!

This street couch was starting to look pretty appealing...

We finally found a way to contact the people in charge, and they came and found us. We were only one building over from where we were supposed to be, so that was a relief. Once we got there there was some more confusion with which room we were supposed to be in, and how much we were supposed to pay, and which floor we were supposed to be staying on, but our fearless leader Christina got it all figured out and we finally got to go in our room!

At this point, we were all pretty hangry. All we had between the seven of us were Shawna's chicken flavored Pringles. So we went out on the town to find something to eat! (This part of the story is kind of lame. We ended up at a McDonald's in a mall. Some of us went to KFC. I was going to go to Subway, but it was closed. Clearly I'm having a very authentic Chinese experience here!)

We left the mall and found ourselves in a really beautiful area of town, near the Pearl River.

There were a few things going on in the area for New Year's, including:

A giant orange tree

Money trees

The Canton Tower turning into its own awesome light show

 & general happiness

We hung out there for a while, but we heard that there weren't going to be any fireworks, so we headed back to our hostel at about 10:30. We were exhausted! Once we got back to our room, we wondered if we had made a mistake. What if there were fireworks and we missed them? So we left our room and walked all the way back to where we had been before to see if anything would happen at midnight. After all, you only live in China once (YOLICO)! 

Nothing happened at midnight. There were no fireworks. But it was a lovely nighttime walk.

It has never felt better to take off my shoes and climb into my sketchy top bunk!

The next day we decided to head to Yuexiu park to see what was going down. On our way there, we heard drums and went to investigate. And there was an awesome lion dance happening! What a lovely surprise.

The coolest.

Me with a lion!

Then we headed to the park to see what we could find to entertain ourselves. The first thing we saw when we got there were the huge lanterns everywhere. It would have been really cool to be there at night when they were all lit up, but in the daytime it was still pretty impressive. 

This was the big one... impressive, right?

Our group with a more average-sized lantern

There were other fun things happening in the park, including singing and dancing performances. This is one thing that I truly love about Chinese culture. Everyone thinks they are a superstar, whether they are or not. Can't sing? Sure you can! This is China! It's great. 

This guy is fabulous. And he knows it.

There was also a part of the park called "The World of Idioms and Fables" where there were a bunch of statues depicting - you guessed it - idioms and fables. They also had statues of each animal in the Chinese Zodiac, so of course I had to take a picture with my pal the rooster. 

Day 3 started out slowly. We were super tired, so Christina and Shawna went to the train station to buy tickets while the rest of us slept in. Then we got ready, got some lunch, and headed back to the Pearl River area. All I really wanted to do was see the library (because I'm a nerd), so we went there first.

Guangzhou Library

When we got there, there were a ton of people leaving the building, and guards making sure no one went in. Turns out, it was closing early that day because of the holiday. Lame. So... maybe next time?

We saw a crowd gathering across the way, so we headed over to see what was happening, and this is what we saw:

Tiny Chinese acrobats! Their show was pretty amazing. We couldn't see all of it very well because we were in the back, but what we could see definitely made me feel pretty lame. Like, I can't even touch my toes, and these kids can do a handstand and balance two people on their feet. 

We walked around that area for a little while longer, checking out the vendors and street performers. Then we decided to try and hit up another park. We hopped on the metro and rode... and rode... and rode. We changed trains about 4 times. We were feeling pretty exhausted... and some of us may have gone a little crazy.

Emily talking to a wall. 

By the time we finally arrived at our stop, it was dark. We found the park we were looking for... and it was closed. 

Christina is not happy.

So we got back on the metro.

We finally got back to the hostel and went straight to sleep. The next morning we woke up, packed up our belongings, and headed out. All in all, it wasn't the most well-planned weekend, but I got to spend a lot of quality time in a beautiful city with some of my favorite people, and we made some memories that I will cherish for a lifetime!