USA USA USA USA USA

I suck at updating. But, here is a video of the whole five months in China. I had the most amazing experience this year and I am so blessed to have been able to go on this adventure. I loved every second, even the squatters and the chicken feet..okay not the chicken feet. Abort chicken feet. But really...China is real rad.

Well here it is! For now I am going back to the motherland...aka I am moving to Provo. Woot Go Provo. 

And who doesn't love some good airport pictures? Love these people who bring me Dirty Diet Coke and desserts to the airport. Even when they make fun of me for crying when I walk into our pantry or when I cry at anything American.. I still love em. 

-And just in case anyone was wondering I have had more Diet Coke in the last week than I think any 1 person should ever have. 

What I will miss most

What will I miss most? Maybe the rockin ice cream?..like how is Chinese ice cream so dang good? The noodles for breakfast? You know at first I really hated the whole noodle and rice thing for breakfast but I don't know if I will like just having toast or cereal..noodles are just so good. Or, is it the warm weather? Well ya I will miss that too. I love how its "cold" and all the kids have to wear sweaters and big coats when it's 70 degrees outside. The fact that I can say whatever I want whenever I want because no one can understand me? Yes, I will miss all of these things sooo much like I can't even imagine. But, the thing I will miss most is the kids. I have come to love these kids with all my heart. Even when Kirk sends snot rockets flying or when Dora comes up and slaps my butt. I will miss all of it. I can't imagine not seeing them everyday. They are the cutest and easily the best part of this whole adventure. You guys are way too cool.

Sanya

Sanya aka the Hawaii of China. Me and Shay had a later flight then the other 4 so we just decided to sleep in the airport and take the bus to our hostel the next morning because it was like an hour away. Why? Because, we are psycho. SO that happened. We got up the next morning got on a bus and somehow ended up on a different island where our hostel was. The hostel didn't give us an address so we just kind of walked around. It was a tiny island and we knew it was on the beach so we just walked along the beach. Then we realized we were probably on the wrong side so we crossed through a bunch of super sketch alley ways, saw a sign that said beach with an arrow and followed it. I swear that is how every scary movie starts. How are we not chopped up in a million little pieces? Anyway, we went through the alleys saw sand and walked out of the sketchy alley onto the prettiest private beach heard yelling looked over the water and saw the other girls running towards us. What are the odds. The rest of the weekend was spent livin the life layin out on the beach. One day 4 of us went to a more popular beach and found some jet skis to ride. We had to pay a whole lot and we only got to ride for 15 minutes but it was like the best 15 minutes ever. And, I had a random Chinese man holding on to me for dear life. Oh the things that happen in China. The last day we decided to take some Christmas pictures on the beach. Grabbed our ukes and our santa hats and brought a whole lot of attention to ourselves.

Going home again, me and Shay were on a different flight so we had a little while before our plane left. After everyone else went to the airport we just hung out on the beach and played our uke as the sun went down. Annnnd I decided my new goal in life is to be a beach bum. 

Beijing//Xi'an

We love Beijing. Beijing is da bomb. Xi'an is also pretty cool. Why did I not bring my camera to these amazing places? I am an idiot that's why. But, I did have my iphone soooo that crappy quality will have to do!

These guys were so stoned;)

Bike ride on the Xi'an City Wall

Tiananmen Square

Flannel Four tearin it up in the Forbidden City 

The BEST churros 

Not the best scorpion. 

Here we have a wall, I hear it is pretty great. 

Halloween+ A Safari

Fun facts

1. Halloween is a not really a thing in China.
2. Halloween is a realllllly big deal at our school..in China.
3. Halloween is crazy.
4. Koalas are cute.

HEY HEY VACAY

This is a long post. It was a long week.

So remember my rage about National Holiday? Well, I have another rage. Bus tickets went on sale the last Saturday before we left so me and Maegan journeyed to the station to get the tickets for the 8 of us going to Yuanshuo. We went to the counter and gave them the note our coordinators had wrote for us. One lady looked at it and laughed. Then she went and showed all of her coworkers around the note and they all laughed. OK. COOL. Than after she laughed at us she told us no and pointed around the corner. Me and Maegan looked pretty confused and walked to the other ticket counter. At this point the lady looked at our note and said "No. Wo." Wo is 5 in Chinese. We needed ba tickets.(eight) So we only could get 5 tickets which meant 3 would have to stay home and lose a day of vacation. Sadly I was one of those three. Which was okay because I have already been to Yangshuo but still a bummer.

On Tuesday the 5 girls left and Taylor, Maegan and I decided to go to W-oggies a good pizza place and watch movies. It ended being a pretty prime night. We got an early start the next morning and caught our bus. Which turned out the bus had wifi. The National Holiday was redeeming itself. FINALLY after like 9 hours on a bus we got there. Chilled that night, got some henna, had some fun.

On Wednesday we went drifting. Which is pretty much just white water rafting. At first I was kinda terrified I mean us and China do not have the same safety standards...at all. BUT it ended up being like the highlight. It was so fun! Every once in a while we would get to like a checkpoint where we would have to wait in a huge line to go down a huge drop and it was full on battle to see who could get down first. It was us vs the Asians. Me and Kenzie were in war. I do not think we won. But, we did make some friends so it's ok. That night again we went to West Street where we got some airbrush tattoos, braids in our hairs and became Asian hippies.

Thursday was a chill day. Tay, Maegan, Clara and I rented some bikes to ride around while the girls who had not been to the mud caves before went there. We found a cute little field with a love sign so it was time to bring out the selfie poles. But we had to get the ultimate selfie. I saw a bamboo raft in the middle of a little pond so I told Tay to go sit on it so I could get a sweet picture. She ran around the field and as got on the boat. Well, the boat was not as secure as suspected. She made it. Got the sweet selfie. Went to get off the boat annnnnd there she went. I cried. It was so funny. She is a trooper. We took her back to the hostel to shower and get clean while we ate some lunch and went back out on the bikes. When the rest of the girls got back we packed up all of our stuff and headed to Guilin to catch our train to Zhangjiajie.





Unfortunately, because of dang national holiday we only could get standing seats for our 8 hour train ride to Changsha. So when everyone was on the train we found some empty seats. Me and a couple of the other girls found seats next to this lady who spoke a little bit of English so she was talking to us a little. She then also made out noodles for us and sold us some towels. Not just any towels they are like magic towels I swear. Well, I guess she wasn't really selling them but she spoke Chinese to the sales lady for awhile pointed at us paid 20 for two towels then told us all they were 25 for two. SO, thinking it was a great deal and being a little tired..we bought the dang towels. Then, after we all bought the towels the sales lady came over, high fived our "friend" and gave her another towel. Betrayed. We were betrayed. Then, we made a stop and people came and kicked me and Kenzie out of our seats. So for the next 5 hours we walked the train sitting down for short periods of time before someone else claimed their seat.
After finally getting to Changsha we transferred trains and had sleepers the rest of the way.

Somehow we ended up at a travel agency on Friday trying to figure out what to do. Finally we found where ziplining was and our guy set it up. It was supposed to close at 8 and we left around 3. He told us it would take about an hour to get there and then our driver would take us home. We hopped in the sketchy van and drove to the park. Once we got there though after like an hour and a half of driving they wouldn't let us in. CHINA. They just decided to close at 4 that day. Who decided this. Why. So then we had to drive all the way back. Pretty much we paid 50 yuan for a 3 hour car ride. Real big bummer.

The next day we were smarter. We left our hostel at 6 am to go to the Tienanmen Mountains. Like I cannot even express how amazing that place is. SO COOL. It was breathtaking.

Stairway to heaven...turns out there is an escalator..so that's good news. 

Next day was the Avatar Mountains. Or the Tianzi. I have never seen Avatar..but I think I became one. Really though these mountains were amazing. They are the mountains that the movie mountains are based off of. I love those mountains. So much. It was a little bit of a hike to get to the top but it was an amazing view.




I love China. I cannot say that enough. It is so beautiful. I am so blessed to be able to be here. The people are awesome this place is awesome. It is funny, every time we go somewhere we are always like how do we get around. How does it just work? We are 12 girls traveling around China..we don't know Chinese we aren't that experienced but somehow it just works. We always get where we need to be. But let's be honest. The only way we are getting around is because people see us and help. I have met the nicest people who are so genuine and just want to help. So many times we have been lost and someone points us in the right direction or will even take time out of their days to walk us to a bus station. It is amazing. I love this place. I love these people.

TYPHOOOOOOON-week 10

It's been a normal week in China...HA. I don't think that phrase will ever be normal. It's always an adventure here. Sunday we drove 2 hours to a district church conference. It was awesome and they gave us free food so it was a true church event.

Monday was Tays birthday! We usually go out to eat for birthdays so Tay chose a new restaurant on our block called Dr. Tastys pizza. After that we went home had some cake and played some games! 

The rest of the week was a little hectic. I had 2 exams, a discussion, assignments annnd our student evaluations were due on top of the normal lesson plans that are due every Thursday. Thinking to myself Monday when I was going to get my exam done for Geology I was stressing out a little because of course I still had a lot of studying to do. I went to bed with the thought It will work out dont worry about it. Tuesday morning at 6:00 our phone started ringing. The phone in our apartment is right next to my bed so I rolled over very confused who would be calling us at 6 am. Well, it was our coordinator Celina telling me that there was a typhoon and teachers will not come to school because it was dangerous. So, we had a whole day off. I was so thankful for that freak typhoon. I was able to study for my test and I had time to take it. Annnd I aced it. Gotta love those typhoons. Also took some great family pictures. 

The rest of the week was full of cute kids and vacation planning. Do the dates October 1-8 mean anything to you? No? Well to the entire country of China it means National Vacation Days. Pretty much that means everyone in China has the week off. Everyone. Imagine trying to book a flight or hostel in America when EVERYTHING is sold out and the prices and triple what they normally are. Literally we have standing tickets for an 8 hour train ride. How do all the planes and train beds in the country get sold out? National holiday. That's how. Okok I'm done with that raging now. 

After that rage please enjoy these pictures of my adorable kids. 

These actually aren't my kids we do some extra teaching every once in a while on Saturdays to promote new schools in the area so this was one of those days. 

We had quite the Friday night. Celina-Chinese cocoordinator-or-the one who keeps us alive in China-China mom. Ok. Celina when we first got here told us about a guy named Allen(we thought his name was Aaron until Friday) who has been driving teachers to school the last couple of years to practice his English. He is one of the smartest people I have ever met. So Allen lives in our neighborhood and drives us to school. Well this week Allen told us his company was doing karaoke and wanted us to come. He told us the time then said he would like to also take us to dinner before his treat. So we knew Allen was wealthy because he lives in a nice neighborhood and has a nice car. I don't think we realized how wealthy he was. He took us to a very fancy Chinese restaurant, paid for our meal and our taxis. A couple of his co-workers were there and we found out Allen is a big  deal! He works for the government I guess and also has his own business on the side and is very respected not just in Zhongshan but in Guangdong. He even was the main speaker at Southern China University's orientation where he let us know he got a standing ovation.  He's a rad guy. 

Saturday we had to go to walking street and get ice cream. What else.