First 2 1/2 Weeks in China

Hello from the mainland in CHINA!! 

I've been here for 19 days. Sorry that this is my first blog post. But I have some good excuses. 

#1 We didn't have internet for almost the whole first week

#2 we went on our first vacation to Beijing. 

Basically, I've been pretty busy. 

I've started writing a huge email home every week to my parents and Preston. I decided that since there's so much I need to catch up on, I'm just going to post that email in here. I added some pictures, but they probably didn't show up. Sorry :/ I'm still trying to figure out how to make that work. 

So lets get this thing started:

Week #1

Ok, so this week was sooo busy. Teaching is still way hard, but it's getting easier. It's just so hard with the little kids because they just don't want to pay attention to anything. I'm in charge of games. I have to teach english by playing games with them. You'd think that'd be easy right? Yeah, it's not. If I play twister with them, all they do is roll around on the mat. If I play a bean bag toss game, all they wanna do is throw the bean bags at each other. If I want to play a matching card game, all they want to do is steal cards from each other. It's just hard. But I'm learning what works and what doesn't work :)

In other news, I tried chicken feet this week.

 You'll eventually see the video of it. I gagged. It was really really gross. The skin is just disgusting. I'm stil having some issues with the food, but it's getting a lot better. Breakfast is the best meal now.

Something that I love about China is that everyone is so nice to Americans. Everyone ALWAYS waves and says hi to us in English. The other day, we were at this place called Walking Street. It's like a really pretty outdoor mall that is supposed to look like it's in Italy. So we were there and one of the ILP girls was getting her picture drawn by a good artist here. So we were watching him draw her, and suddenly people started to come up and watch. By the end, there were 49 people watching (yes, we counted) and this one girl asked to get a picture with me because she said I was beautiful. She spoke English and she was adorable :) and I saw people taking pictures of me on their phones. It was funny. And today I was walking to the cafeteria and these little boys pointed at me and yelled, "Lady Gaga!! Lady Gaga!!!!!" It was kinda funny. Some of my kids also call me "Teacher Grandma" because of my hair. Yeah, that's not so funny. But one of my kids told me I have beautiful hair so it's all good :) But people aren't asking to touch my hair like I expected. Actually, no one has touched it yet. Except for a couple kids. But that's it.

New topic: Chinese ice cream is the best ice cream in the entire world.

 It's the best thing I've had since I've been here. Me and Kaydee always go to this one ice cream place whenever we're in that part of town. They only have 2 flavors and they change them everyday. They make the waffel cone right in front of you and it costs about .30 cents in America. It's soooo good. I'm going to miss it soooo much when I leave.

Also, we started our first Chinese language class last week and we're about to have class again right now. We are learning some awesome stuff :) I know how to say hello , how are you, my name is Desiree, I am a teacher, I am not a student, I am American, very good, not good, cute, the food was good, and more. Now I'll say something in Chinese :)

Ni hao, wo jiao Desiree. Wo shi mei guo ren. Wo bu shi xue sheng. Wo shi lao shi.

I'm sure you can tell that "Wo" means me or I. "Bu" means not. and "Ni" means you.

Basically. I'm learning a lot :) 

WEEK #2/Beijing Vacation

Hello!

There's so much to talk about. I don't even know where to begin. Sorry - this is gonna be novel. But I'll start with Beijing :) We left on a Thursday afternoon right after we finished teaching. Get this. We took a bus, which dropped us off where we had to catch a different bus. Which took us to a bullet train. Which took us to our actual train. I've been in sooooo many airports, train stations, and bus stations in the past 3 weeks. It's crazy. But anyway. We had to run to catch our train. Yes, it looked like something out of a movie. When we finally got on the train, tons of people were all sitting in our seats. we felt bad kicking them out, but there was no way we were going to stand for 21 hours. The ride to Beijing is like driving from New Mexico to Canada. Actually.. it's probably longer than that. But anyway, we finally got our seats. This was the first time that I really experienced culture shock. There were people who bought tickets to STAND the whole way there. 21 hours. I couldn't really believe it. By the time it was midnight, they'd lay out newspaper and sit in the isles. Some of these people had babies. It was very different from anything you'd ever see in America. But even though the train ride was very interesting.. I liked it :) it was a good experience. We made some awesome asian friends and taught lots of them how to play Uno. By the end of the ride, this one Asian was hitting on me a lot. He was on his way to college. It was kinda funny cuz he couldn't speak much English at all so all he'd do it pat me on the head and play with my hair. 

So after we got to Beijing, we took a taxi to our AMAZING hotel :) my head teacher had hook-up's because her dad works for Marriott hotels. So we got to stay on the "executive floor" can I just say... It was freakin' nice :) And k, let me tell you about Beijing. It's like California. Seriously. I could live there and be totally fine. 

On our first whole day there, we did so much. We got on the subway and went to Tiananmen Square and The Forbidden City (they are right across from each other)

The Forbidden City was the best. It really was a huge city, but it's all fenced in. You know in Mulan at the end when she saves everyone? Yeah, that's the Forbidden City :) it takes you right back to 100's of years ago. I was in love with it :) And lots of people asked me to take pictures with them. I lost track of how many after it hit 6. So then we went to The Summer Palace. You'll see the pictures on facebook (Preston, you'll see them some other way... eventually) But this was my favorite place in all of Beijing (besides the Great Wall) it was just gorgeous. Words can't even describe. It's like a whole mountain with temples all over it. There's this one place where people have written stuff all over it. I decided to write "Desiree <3's Preston" so it was officially written in China that Desiree loves Preston :) 

So the whole time in Beijing, we mainly ate American food. Because we miss it SO much. McDonalds was mainly all we ate :) we loved it so much. 

The next day was the Great Wall!!!!!! I was so excited. More excited than I've been about anything for a while :) We took a bus to get there. Once I saw it from a distance, I started freaking out. Wouldn't you be freaking out if you were about to walk on the Great Wall of CHINA?? :) So we got there and started our hike :) if you didn't know... The Great Wall is alllll stairs. We hiked to the highest point of the entire wall :) it took 1,618 stairs to get to the highest point :)

And everyone kept stopping me to get pictures with their babies or kids... It was kinda weird. But ever since this kid at our school said I was Lady Gaga, my head teacher ALWAYS calls me that. So on the great wall, she points at me and shouts, "IT'S LADY GAGA!!!!!!!!!" And i knew what would happen... so I was just like "noo!!!!" and then I tried to get away but people were like "Oh my gosh!!!!! picture! picture!!!!!!!" and they wouldn't let me go! I will put the link to the video right here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihUurQJMWvY&NR=1
It doesn't show most of it, it only shows the end of the madness. But you can kinda imagine :) but anyway. The Great Wall was better than I thought it would be. It was something I'll never ever forget. And hopefully I'll get to see it again when I (hopefully) come back to head teach :) with (hopefully) my future husband (hopefully) Preston :) 

After the great wall we just went to a Tea place where they taught us how to make Chinese tea :) we also taste tested it. Most of it was just herbal tea.. But I think one of them had some black tea in it. But I figured that it was part of the culture... so I tried it. Hopefully God will forgive me. We then drove past the Birds Nest and Water Cube. They were so awesome :) 

That night, me and one other girl decided we wanted to go back to the birds nest to get some pictures. So we get on the subway (we are never supposed to travel in groups of less than 3... so we were kinda breaking a rule. But no one else would go with us.. so we had to) but when we got to our transfer place, a woman told us the subways stop running at 10:00. So were stuck in a random subway station... It was kinda scary. Not gonna lie. We ran outside and decided we needed to get a taxi to take us back to our hotel. It was kinda excited cuz we'd never flagged down a taxi before. We tried for 15 minutes. No luck. It was dark and there were all these guys walking around. It was just kinda sketchy. But this is China and everyone is nice so we weren't too scared. I finally flagged one down :) we tried to tell him where to go but it just so happens that he didn't speak ANY english at all. So we pulled out the hotel card that was in Chinese and pointed at it. He finally figured it out :)  we decided to trust him because he had Mickey Mouse on his steering wheel. We finally got back safely :) lesson learned.

 #1 never ride the subway late at night.

 #2 don't travel in groups of only 2 people.

Beijing was just awesome cuz we got to wear jackets :) it was like fall weather! It made me and Kaydee really miss Utah. In Zhongshan it's still 95 degrees with 90% humidity. But anyway, the next day we woke up early and went to the Pearl Market where they had amazing prices on everything! I got a lot of Christmas Presents :) I got something for Paris, Halle, Mom, Dad and Preston. Sorry Cherie.. I'll find you something eventually :) But yeah, it was just awesome. The dvd's were all about 3 american dollars. I got Toms for 11 american dollars (they cost 50 in america), an awesome silk robe for 15 american dollars, and then christmas presents :) 

After that, we got on the train to come home :( another 21 hours... But the seats were bigger :) and we knew what to expect. What we didn't expect was to see little kids just peeing and pooping on the floor next to us... once again, culture shock. I also didn't expect to go to the bathroom and see pee and poop on the floor and on the wall. I'm not even exaggerating. But hey, it's China. 

So we're finally home now :) Zhongshan really does feel like home now. I love it :) I'll be sure to do an apartment tour soon so you can see everything :) like our awesome Justin Bieber wall :) 

Ok, sorry this is so long. Normally they won't be this long. But I just had to include the whole vacation. I just want to quickly let you know that candy does not really exist here in China.. So I'm kinda going through withdraws. But I found this awesome chewy starburst like candy that I am going to bring home to everyone :) (I'm gonna send some to you Preston) :) and mainly all I eat is rice and some weird grass like stuff... along with corn once in a while. But I eat it. So you all should be proud of me :) Another thing. Our hot water doesn't work... so we've been taking cold showers. But it totally works cuz we're always covered in sweat (literally) so we actually love it :) but I've been washing my face with ice cold water. I'm gonna come back to America and I'll be used to all this cold water. It'll be great :) I've also gotten in the habit of taking a water bottle with me whenever I brush my teeth because the water in the sink will make us sick if it gets in our mouths. 

But I'm finally used to everything :) And I love it. We go on vacation again on October 1st! Ah it's so soon! And it's a 9 day vacation :) woohoo!!! 

I'll be sure to post again soon :) 

p.s. I love CHINA!!