Nat, Lex, Brit

Sanya Beach Bay

2008-11-05T01:13:00.000-08:00

Happy Halloween! We had our Halloween bash before we all left for our different vacations so in our English classes we all were given a game to play with the kids for fun. Nat had musical chairs, Brit had bobbing for apples and Lex had face painting. We didn't have much sources for our costumes so we ended up being CATS! After class we all gathered in the dance studio for games and celebrating. We played Mafia! Ya know the one with Angels and Murderers. It was a fun night to kick off the time off. Our last vacation was a decision settled on Sanya Bay, some decision we know! It was just four of us instead of all 11 though, Brit, Nat, Lex and Chels. We arrived in Haiku Island by plane and then had a three hour taxi ride to our hostel, it was a nice taxi too, an actual car in which the driver blasted techno music the whole time haha our hostel ended up being about 30 yards away from the beach but we werent at the touristy part of the bay so we were entangled up in China's coulture. We had two rooms with two twins so we had to split up, Nat and Chels in one and Brit and Lex in the other and guess what in Brits/lexxy's room they were welcomed with a surprise of hundreds of little bugs crawling underneth the sheets! So they switched to another room where they had to share a queen sized bed. Once settled in we called the hotel manager, Perry, to bring us some more toilet paper and instead he brought us white computer paper haha what a guy. The next morning Nat and Lex went on a morning beach walk and found a dock so we sat down to watch the old people fish and work thier butts off, all of a sudden we were being summoned by a couple from thier boat/home. We told them we didnt have any money so we couldnt pay them to take us anywhere but they just beckoned us to get on the 5 by 10 boat and so we got on and they started to feed us breakfast. It was so cool! These people had nothing and yet they were willing to share thier breakfast with us! The breakfast was watered down rice in what looked like squid goop but we were grateful, they laughed when we laughed and smiled when we talked and just sat there in silence for quite some time because we dont know each others language. While we were out and about Brit and Chels stayed behind to watch the stuff and get a tan. While they were laying there a guy started to talk to Brit about who knows what in Chinese but what she didnt know is that he was just distracting her so that his friend could steal her purse! Luckily Chels' arm was on the purse so when she felt it gone she yelled to Brit her purse had been stolen Brit automatically took action and demanded her purse back. I dont know how she does it, making people submit to her and all, this guy just handed back her purse and ran off! The nerve right!

The beach we were next to didnt have much foreign people so we were pretty obvious people sitting there on the beach that we had so many observers that would come to talk to us and some just even sat down next to us and didnt say a word or they would watch us from a distance which can be creepy. One guy with out fail would be at our beach spot and would wait for us and then climb a tree for us to get us coconuts and then fall asleep next to us. Some protector. Half way through the vacation we finally found the tourist beach with all the water sports and naked Russians. It was so beautiful and so much fun! Nat and Brit found themselves playing water basketball with the Chinese men, boy were they immature! They would cover themselves with sand and then thier friends (keep in mind they are like late 20's) would put both parts of a human on them and laugh and laugh! We also ate the freshest pineapple on the beach! On the way home from the tourist beach Natty had a run in with her bladder and just couldn't hold it, fortunatly we were sitting in the very back of a half filled bus and there just happened to be a half filled medium Pepsi cup so what did she do? yes of course she did, She filled it the rest of the way. Ask anyone, thats pure talent! Didn't even spill on the ground of the moving bus! Speaking of which, Since we peed on the Great Wall we thought we might as well leave our scar in Sanya so one night after the sun went down at about seven or eight we walked to the beach by our hostel and took a dip :) In order to be covered waist up you have to go atleast 20 feet in the water and the busy road was about 3o feet the other way so this was a tricky thing to do and who better to test the water then Lexxy right? Before any of us saw it comin all you could see was what looked like a girl in a white swimsuit running towards the water. That was it and we all ran in to have a skinny dip session in the China bay water. For Halloween we all decided upon going out for dinner instead of the usuall corn and mango off the streets, so we ate dumplings and friend rice and then bought sweets for us all to share :) Nat and Lex found themselves deeply enjoying the coconut candy Sanya had to offer so they decided to share the joy of Halloween and the candy by going around on the streets and offering candy to the little Chinese boys and girls, they followed us around for a while after, They were so cute! It felt good to give. It was definantly a fun and memorable trip :) If anyone wants to see paradise then we suggest Sanya Island, China!

Beijing pt 2 Great Wall and Bird Nest

2008-10-23T17:31:00.000-07:00

To start off the week we had a good Church meeting at the Beijing International Branch, It was really weird because it was in an office building with Dairy Queen attached to it and people were still working haha. It was really cool to see lots of people that werent of Chinese descent coming together for this one day. After church we were invited to the Relief Society Presidents home for dinner! Told there was going to be home made American food! We had been fasting all day so we were famished. When we arrived we found out that we werent the only ones going to be attending the dinner party and had time to get to know one another. We had a 2nd counsler and his wife, a couple and two funny british guys going to college in China. The dinner bell rang and we grabbed our plates for a dinner set up like a buffet. She had prepared bbq pork, home made rolls, fruit jello, chips, salad and so on, haha we had never eaten so much! Then they brought our dessert which we couldnt eat for like an hour while we digested, we were planning on staying there all day, she had carpet.. We had a little devontional from the 2nd counsler and were scooted on our way. We had to get a good nights rest anyway for tomorrow which was a big day. The Great Wall of China!! We woke up around six so we could walk to where our tour was going to take off of. Other then our group we were also with about seven others, some from Jeruselum, some from England and one really small Chinese guy. We were dropped off in the middle of no where and were waiting for our tour guide, our tour was the secret Great Wall so it wasnt the fancy version and we had no idea where to go. Then from behind the crowd of us we heard the little Chinese man beckon us to follow him... Lexxy started to call him Hank and it caught on pretty quickly, turns out that Hank was 72 years old... im sorry let me retype that.. Hank was 72 years old about to take us on a two hour hike up hill. Holy Calolo!! He was a champ. When we got up to the wall it was incredible! You could see all around you and the wall was growing plants and crumbling and went on forever!! We walked the wall for a while and found a guard tower, I think you could imagine what popped into our heads at this point. Since we couldn't sleep on the wall we were going to leave our mark another way. So we waited until everyone had moved on the the next scene and ever so slyly Natty exclaimed, "Ladies, this is our duty. It much be fulfilled and if not by us then who?" Thats all the pep talk we needed, Brittany handed out the white squares and had to snap a quick pose of victory. WC!!! WC aka: ladies summer room. After each taking a guard look out we couldn't help but throw high fives and race to where our group was. Hank had them resting in a larger guard tower for some drinks and pictures. Omri, the jewish guy, had us all flustered with his accent but thought us a crazy group because we had a dance party on the Wall of greatness. The wall took up most of our day and didn't have much time for anything else so we just explored and found a park with karaoke and ribbon dancing and occupied ourselves for the night. Our last day in Beijing was pretty busy with sight seeing, first thing in the morning we went to the Temple of Heaven, its where they did sacrafices and stuff. We walked the grounds and saw huge gates and the most amazing art work you have ever seen! The last thing we were suppose to see in Beijing was the Bird nest from the Olympics. We took a million buses a few bridges and lots of walking to get there and guess what.. it was closed!!! It was the saddest thing! But you could get a little closer then the very outside gate so some went and some didn't. Nat and Brit wanted to go back to the silk market and Lexxy was determined to sneak in it thats what it took. Nat and Brit finally got everything they need from the silk shop done, dancing and the whole shabang really sped things up. Two girls and Lex walked the closest to the Nest to savor the moment, but there were like five other gates closing it off, Lex says she wanted nothing more then to run that glorious track. So disapointing! Sarah, Abby and Lex started walking home and the fastest way was to cross the freeway.. Don't worry they didnt do it but did climb the bridge above the freeway and Jason Bourned it across holding for dear life and shuffling on their tip toes, I guess a twenty foot drop to speeding cars really does put your life into perspective. Once all home safe and sound we had our last night of packing to get ready to leave in the morning on our flight back. When we got back home we had all day to unpack and relax before getting back to teaching. Good to be home! We missed our Kids!!

Beijing Pt. 1 Forbidden city, Silk market

2008-10-20T23:16:00.000-07:00

The adventure continues when we train into Beijing. A 32 hour Ride. We had to take three separate taxis to get to our hostel because there were so many of us, so we had the leader and two others in one, four other girls in another and us three and Dan in the third one. Since we don’t speak much Chinese at all we just show the taxi driver where we are going and then he will nod yes or no if he knows where he is going. But since they were just going to follow each other they didn’t really look at the directions just followed the car in front. Well the car with the leader and the directions was in the front.. very far in front, so when a light turned green that’s when you were on your own. The car with the four girls turned someone on the way and they weren’t following us either, all three cars were separated and two of the drivers had no idea where they were going. We were the only car out of the two lost with a phone number, funny that we didn’t have a cell phone, the four girl car didn’t have anything. Luckily Dan could speak a good amount of Chinese and started yelling to the driver that he lost our friends and that he was lost, the driver started getting angry back and kept driving stating the car was still in front of us and we weren’t lost. When we were stopped Dan got out and looked around and they were no where to be found! The driver gave up pulled over and started calling for directions, we tried the hostel phone number but it was a dud and didn’t work. Haha. So we went to Tiananmen Square because we were planning on going there later in the day. When we got there we decided that there was no way we were going to pay the driver the full amount because he got us lost. Lost in the city of Beijing, we hardly spoke any Chinese, we didn’t know the name of our hostel, we knew nothing! We hoped out of the car, threw the driver 15 Yuan (3 USD) and started walking off he grabbed Brit’s bag and wouldn’t let it go and Dan shoved the guy and threw up his hands and started yelling at him in Chinese!! Haha! It was the funniest thing we had ever seen! So here’s a shout out to Dan! We decided to wait in a hotel while Brit and Dan went to look for help, after about an hour we went to go find a knife to dig into our breakfast, and apple. We went to KFC, keep in mind that its about 7 o clock in the morning and people are having KFC for breakfast! Fries and chicken sandwiches. We brushed our teeth in the sinks and found a knife and waited some more for Dan, finally he found some people that magically the phone number worked and it happened to be that our hostel was about three minutes walking distance from where we were. They went to go check it out and Nat and Lexxy stayed behind to hold the fort. We were sitting by the window and no joke in the midst of the huge crowd of Chinese people passing every which way we saw two Americas walking probably a football field away and we stood up and just started and then the Americans saw us and started running to us! It was our leader and Dan’s sister! We ran out with a great hug to greet them. It was so weird how we saw each other through glass and yards away. You really do stick out in China. Once settled in our hostel we went to the Forbidden City Kingdom, its where back in the day you couldn’t enter or leave it once you were in and its where the Emperors lived. There is so much symbolism there, for example, most buildings are square at the bottom which represents earth and then Circular on top to represent heaven. Even the trees they grow are special and how many doors there are and where the doors are and bridges and such. Some rooms you couldn’t even go into because it was so sacred. Oh must we not forget to mention that General Mao’s body is frozen there. So you can see him all frozen and weird but it was closed that day because of the big holiday. Now the excitement really begins for us on this vacation simply because we had been waiting for this day since we found out we really were going to go through with this whole China buis. Shopping for the incredibly priced brands Beijing has to offer! We expected the Silk and pearl shop to be not much then very old people selling you cheap silk and fake pearls, boy we were wrong! We walked in and were greeted with real leather and fur and diamonds and we could go on forever!! The down side of it was we only had but a wee wad of spending cash. You can bargain like crazy and if they won’t go any lower then you can go to their neighbor and get it much cheaper. We ended splitting up most the time because we had different interests in mind, the only page we were on the same was the first floor (there were six floors in all) and that was the purse floor. We wish we could only describe this to you! It was like a mile long and half a mile wide, a bit of exaggeration but seriously! This place was HUGE! In order to bargain and get what you want is to make friends with them first, Lexxy and Brit found the perfect way to do such. (Nat was usually running around like a chicken with her head cut off.) Lexxy and Brit are known for the singing couple, you will see that they love to take couple pictures and sing duets. So that’s how they made friends is to sing and dance for the Chinese people when they wanted a price, it’s called the 80 Yuan dance. It worked every time! First you will hear the starting song note from Lexxy, “Do I hear an eighty Yuan?” (In tune to one of the Phantom of the Opera songs) Then Brit Chimes in, “I thought I just heard you say eighty Yuan, dear friend be kind for we are poor.” Something like that. We continue to sing and start to dance, way cool dance by the way. They usually laugh, ask for a picture and give us what we want sometimes cheaper. This one time though Brit and Lexxy were singing and dancing for a Juicy purse and it was around closing time so everyone was closing up and when we started to dance all the Chinese people stopped what they were doing and soon enough we had a crowd the size of the Olympics watching and surrounding us, taking pictures and recording videos. Nat happened to walk up right at that moment and was caught up in everyone cheering and yelling for the three Americans to keep dancing and singing. When it was time to leave we danced our way out of the circle and they just kept saying, “You guys are so cool, can we be friends, you should be professional dancers, (haha which is hysterical because we really are terrible) will you come back, America is so awesome.” We will be honest, we were exhausted! We loved the silk shop so much we went back three times! Every time we went back, after that dance episode, we couldn’t buy something without them saying you’re the dancing Americans! Dance and take picture with me and you can have it for your price. Didn’t even matter what floor you were on. It started to get old after a while but hey, we all had our families Christmas! All in all we had like 10 pea coats and jackets, pants, shoes, jewels, make up, and about 18 purses between us three. It was really fun! That’s only the first part of Beijing! Next up, the Great wall, Temple of Heaven, and Bird Nest….

Chengdu

2008-10-12T21:08:00.000-07:00

A twelve day vacation! Its about time! We left on a friday after teaching our last class and could not have been more ready for a break. We first flew to Chengdu within hours and had a van ready to take us to our hostel, our hostel was glorious... All 11 of us shared one big dorm room with 5 bunk beds and then the whole top floor shared a community bathroom and shower. The beds where way hard, we thought the other beds where hard but atleast they had an inch of padding, these were strictly wood and a piece of cloth but by the end of the day you where so tired it felt like a slice of heaven. The first night we only had a couple of hours to sleep before we had to wake up and....... VISIT THE PANDA BEARS!!! Its one of the biggest panda reservations, or as Brittany says, "Panda reservoir" haha It was raining but it wasnt to bad, It was so awesome to see these cute little pandas eating away on the bamboo, they seriously just sit and eat. Thats the life if you ask us. We also were able to see new born pandas, the more new ones were so ugly but the month old ones were so small and crazy. We were there most the day but once we got back we went exploring around the city trying to find a bank and yup you guessed it we definantly got lost again! It took us a good two hours in the pouring rain to find it and once we did it took twenty minutes to get back.. laugh it up... We even stopped at a fruit stand to get tomorrows breakfast. Were going to miss the millions of fruit stands when we leave, every where you turn there is fresh fruit! The following day was a day of relaxation so we walked down the road of Tibet, we were that close! After walking for what seemed hours we stopped in a really nice clothing store, they had a couch so of course we grabbed some magazines and read and took a nap for probably an hour or so, funny thing is that we were the only people in the shop and the lady couldnt speak English so she couldnt quite tell us to go, the couch was the most comfortable thing since the plane. Somehow Natty convinced the store lady to let her take a magazine she really liked. On the walk home we happened to run across a starbucks.. haha ironic eh? It follows us everywhere! We walked in the have some dessert and while sitting there having cup cake talk the most amazing thing happened, Lexxy looked at us and said, "Its time." she flipped a 180 within days, you may not think its the same Lex when you see her. Its cool to say you changed in Chengdu, China while eating in starbucks. This same day we had some people from our group leave for a two day hike so we had some strangers as roomates, worse then that they were drunk and being on the top bunk we were able to watch them make out all night.. it was disturbing! Too bad we didnt have any popcorn. In the morning we slept in only to wake up to fresh fruit on the open deck for breakfast, it was a bit brisk but felt refreshing, while sitting there at the table someone had a great idea to get a massage. We had heard about this place that will give 60 minute massages for 3 dollars! It took us a couple buses and a few miles but the journey was well worth it. Six of us went and all at the same time, Britt had a blind girl workin on her, apparently she was compensating for her loss of sight, you know.. strong hands and all haha Lexxy had some old lady, very rough old lady, she would pull so hard on her arms and legs that her whole body was tingling after and not the good kind either. Natty claims her man was gentle.. probably for fear he may break her in half! We had also heard about this mexican resturant called Tex Mex that we really wanted to try so we decided to go for dinner. It took about another 2 hours walking and luckily we found 2 chinese girls that knew where it was so we made friends and followed them there. Not only was Tex Mex cheap but it had salt and pepper, real ice cream, french toast, tacos Etc. We all shared some chips and salsa and then had our own entree and then some dessert, the oreo flurry was the best thing that had happened to us all week! In fact were ashamed to say we went back two more times.. Man thats embarassing! Later Wednesday we finally left for Beijing by train which would take us 32 hours, it wasnt so bad, two nights and day.... Tune in for more lost adventures in Beijing...

Livin' the dream at school

2008-09-21T02:27:00.000-07:00

We rarely get bored here even though we have so much time on our hands because we can't leave the schools grounds really, only on saturdays mainly, we find ourselves being really active. The school has kindergarten to high school aged kids here andso we hang out with the high school kids alot. The kids here are always playing basketball, volleyball, soccer, anything you can think of. They are always moving and playing, no wonder they are all twigs! If were not teaching then were on the court, or racing them down the track or playing volleyball, no joke when I say these boys got some game! It's not often that you will see a Chinese girl playing with the guys but they will sit and watch. They don't ever really interact either which is very interesting to watch. The first basketball game we played it was the Americans versus the Chinese and to be honest if it wasn't for Natty we probably would have been slaughtered! She schooled every one of those boys! One time we were playing defense and Natty was guarding the boy with the ball and tickled him! Since the guys and girls never touch i'm pretty sure she almost put the guy through a heart attack. Volleyball is also one of the main sports we like to play, if you're looking for a professional serve then pay attention to Brit, she has mad serving skills! She literally is all over the place! Lexxy can be more a distraction and let me explain why.. One time when she was serving the ball ( all eyes of her, keep in mind, even a couple dozen spectators) she had her fake hair in (the kind you just clip into your pony tail, convenient) and well she hit the ball so hard that upon inpact her hair flew about 5 feet away from her. Lexxy froze, face bright red. No one moved, no one did anything but stare at the lump of beautiful hair on the cement. Pretty sure even the boys on the basketball courts were staring at it. Brit and Natty finally busted up laughing and eased the tension from all the Chinese people watching. So much for long lucious hair for Lex. Other then sports we find ourselves running everyday for exercise and a girl in our group is a kickboxing teacher back home and she teaches us moves and combinations and also has us do exercise rotations of different body muscles every night. We also have fun activities such as 80's dance night where our whole group dressed up in 80's clothes and put on a dance in the dance room. We found costumes in the supply room that we used and some of our own too. We looked pretty good with the bright make up and fluffy bangs. Don't let our thugish clothes throw you off, were still teachers for life! The first two weeks of school we had government soldiers here, some of the students would train with them. They were given army suits and everyday all day long for two weeks they were out on the field doing marches and karate moves. Not all the kids were involved but most age ranged from 14 - 18. At the end of the training they put on a show for the whole school, it was also the Moon festival that day so there were moon cakes galor! After our little church session we went to watch them out of the field, it was cool because they were just kids and they had the march down perfect and the karate all together and they were all yellin cool Chinese things. Also a little weird because the kids were so young and yet being so disciplined! Every night they had these loud fireworks go off, first time they went off we thought it was thunder and went out side to check it out but when it wasn't raining all three of us booked it to where th noise was. Kinda stupid of us simply because it could have been our school under attack! Sounded like guns! For all we know they could have planned this whole teaching thing just so they can have us under thier control and hold us as hostage! anyways, after the marcing and karate they had kids line up and race to these blankets where they took forever folding them! Of course it was cool and perfect folding but still, what's the point of have a perfectly folded blanket? Just imagine it.. Hey mom, I'm going to go fight and kill.. No no Ling, not until you make your bed! Every saturday we go into the city to get whatever we need such as snacks or bathroom needs, water or just to get out of the school grounds. We take the school bus into town and then usually part with the rest of the group and explore by our selves. We often go to Dong fong square where all the food and action is, they have wedding dress modeling shows or water shows and clothes and purses of sale so we like walking around there, we do a whole lot of walking. Last week we got a little lost looking for the square and ended up in the middle of no where! Were told to never look lost because people might try to mug us or kidnap us so we just kept walkin, we found a lot of cool things. Since it was a little out of the busy city we saw real chinese markets and shacks. We also found this delicious pizza place called, "Jack's." We like to eat the dumplings here but today we were so hungry we thought why not. We walked in and were greeted by the most pleasent chinese face, they sat us down at this huge booth, it looked like a lounge! We sat on a couch more comfy then our own bed filled with big fluffy mickey mouse pillows. First we were brought out these gigantic menus and warm wash towls to wash our hands with and also a tissue box.. ? (who knows) They also brought out cold lime water and sprite in a can in budwiser glasses with a bendy straw :) We ordered garlic bread and a big meat pineapple pizza! No crumbs were left. For dessert we ate sherbert ice cream with watermelon on bottom. We relaxed for probably another hour because it was so comfey. Once again we felt like Queens. On the way home we folled a guy holding two real chickens like it was suppose to be normal.. haha probably not the last time we will see a guy in nice slacks and a coat jacket takin home the days catch.

Life as a teacher

2008-09-21T01:12:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought that cute little Chinese kids with their terrible English, Chocolate brown eyes and cuddly ways could be such.. trouble makers. We were so excited to start teaching these little kids under the impression that they had the same discipline as the older children we teach. Little did we know that these kids run around crazy and don't understand a word you're saying, the language barrier is so hard to get around. We find ourselves using alot of hand motions and using chinese when we really shouldn't. wuh oh. The first week was so hectic because we were also so new at this, calming down kids and finding ways to get them to understand English. We also thought they would know atleast the basics of English but most couldn't even say hello or their own name. Some kids didn't even have a name and so we were able to name them ourselves which was fun! We all have our assignments for each class and do a five person rotation with things like arts and crafts, kitchen, shop, reading and basic English. Brittany got lucky with arts and crafts, it's one of the most toughest subjects because you have to find things to create that they have never done before, and explain every little detail to them such as scissors, cut the paper, glitter Etc. It may not sound hard but once the kids have glue in their hands they go biserk! Splashing glue of the walls, glitter on their clothes and hair, they are always so hyper. Brits room is definantly decorated with the kids projects. Good thing Brit got the privlage with this, she seems to have the most patience! Were also not allowed to discipline, were not even suppose to hug them let alone tell them to sit in the corner haha. Natty has basic English which is teaching the alphabet and constants, she gets to use games and flip cards, the kids seem to pay alot of attention to the games and racing each other to spit out the letter first. We have never seen a girl with so much energy as Natty has with the kids. Lexxy gets to read to the little munchkins, books like, "The three bears," "Hansel and Gretel," etc. and she gets to dress them up into character. She loves being animated with the kids while reading and if you happen to walk into her classroom you might find her just as dressed up as they are. The Second week was much more of a breeze because were finally starting to get a hang of it and getting to know the kids better is such an amazing thing. At the end of each class they get to have shop time, (through out the day we hand out tokens rewarding them for the English they learn in class) the usually end up getting the candy but the big talk of the school is Natty's sports balls she has on sale. Quite frankly she makes us look bad. Triton (Natty's Child) aka (Lexxy's boyfriend) makes sure that she gets a candy if he gets one in shop, such a stud. The joy of having your kids run up to you and hugging you is such a blessing.

Kunming Nationalities Park

2008-09-20T04:32:00.000-07:00

About three weeks ago we decided to travel into the city to the Yunnan province nationalites park for one last free day before we started teaching, We heard there were elephants so we couldn't say no! When we walked into the park we were amazed how huge it was! Rows and rows of people trying to sell you things like fans and statues carved from elephant trunks and what not, it almost felt like lagoon to us with out the rollar coasters.. We had something better.. Real, huge, hairy Elephants! We saw woman in cool dresses next to the elephants and wanted to take pictures with them until we found out we could wear the dresses they were wearing and then take pictures with the elephants. There is a rope you hold onto around their neck that you hold and then you lift up your leg and lean into them and their trunk lifts you up with ease. Although we must say that once your up there their trunks get a little curious and start sniffing you leaving a trail of who knows what on your clothes! Then while your still dressed they take pictures of you in your outfit and make you do these ridiculous poses. Once into normal clothes we found a zip line that went across this really pretty lake, we have never seen someone so glorious then Brit strapped in from every angle, flying down that line with every limb soaring out. It was getting closer to lunch time so we all went to a resturant, it was beautiful! They had dumplings and pineapple rice, sprite and noodles! It was like a three dollar meal! We all split up until it was time for the elephant show later that day so we went exploring, we saw cool chinese statues and buildings and a million different kinds of chinese cultures! They live there in the park, so in reality if feels like your just barging in on them during dinner time, they pretend to not notice you. Apparently they get paid to live in there and show you their culture. There are about 56 different cultures in China and 27 are just in Kunming. Two o'clock came around and we hustled to the Elephant show. We were told not to sit front row because they blow things that.. well.. shouldn't. There were 4 elephants, 3 females and 1 male. What was cool was that you could touch them and take pictures with them and feed them and there was no threat, in America it seems like you can't even get within 10 feet of them! The first audience participation Lexxy was called up and she was able to ride in between two elephants as they held trunks and walked, She, of course, waved and blew kisses and we swear it that just because you're American they will laugh and clap at everything you do. They made the elephants shoot hoops and sit down cross legged, walk a little board and even dance! The next audience participation they called up Natty, they made her lay face up and put a blanket on top of everything but her head. The elephant starting to "massage" her with his ginormous foot, gently patting her front side. The elephant was getting a little fiesty in our opinion. By this time Lexxy and Brittany were in tears they were laughing so hard. Just watching Natty's face and body move so helplessly was hysterical! It got even better when the elephant starting to.. we wanna say slam.. her body with his trunk on her chest! hahaha! Good Lan it was funny. Apparently they were seeing if the elephant could tell if it was a boy or a girl. Shows how smart an elephant is! After the show we were able to actually ride the elephants, (is it cool if we said for a couple miles? Sounds better) Once you ride an elephant it's no going back to horses and rollar coasters. It was on of the best ways to kick of the school year!

Home Sweet Home

2008-09-07T21:38:00.000-07:00

After a 26 hour beautiful train ride and a one hour bus ride, we arrived at Kunming Guanghaua school. Before we go into this a little more i want to tell you what we were expecting when we got our rooms of living. They told us that we would have our own computers, a washer and dryer, a nice track and stadium, a full bathroom, and so on. We half expected a clean college dorm! instead of rooms we were assigned to a little house but they are all really really close together. All three of us were able to get a hut (or shack as we like to call it) together. It looks oh so decent from the outside but when we took our first step into the shack we were all welcomed by a gust of dust and dirt. We found the light switch to turn on the lights, You know in scary shows how the lights flicker and make creepy sounds before they actually turn on? thats what it was like. We took a look around each room and it was so dirty, no one has been living in these huts for about 7 years, so first things first, we grab the broom and dust pan and get to work. We couldn't help but notice that there was no washer or dryer, no computer, no full bathroom, In fact the bathroom was pulled together with duct tape! There was no shower curtain either, hence no privacy! The walls have shoe tracks everywhere and holes in the ground, walls, and ceilings. We'll be honest with you, this is probably the coolest place we have ever lived! at first we were like this is a joke but you seriously can't help but laugh! after a while we gave up cleaning and started to move the beds together into one room. We moved one bed away from the wall and low and behold a spider the size of your palm! We thought Brit was gonna grab her bags and catch the next flight! So While Brit was chillin on a table, Nat grabbed the camera, gave Lexxy the broom and said, "Let's do this!" We took some mad prep time for mind and body evalutaion before proceding to kill this Spider which in the U.S. not even Arnold Schwarzenegger would dare cross. Since Lexxy is so strong and tough she ended up breaking the broom against the wall and leaving guts bigger then the size of your head splattered all over. After that life changing event we pushed two beds together to form one so we could all snuggle up, the bed of course is in the middle of the room not touching any walls and layered with tons of blankets for that soft cushion feel. So now we have a Spare room for Guests.. (Dont ask why) An exercise room, and a study room. We share one closet and we ended up finding peices of a computer in a storage room that we managed to put together. Getting ready for bed was such a relief! We Unpacked our bathroom needs and got to work cleanin up ourselves, at first we hated the spiders that dwelled there but then we meet a jumping spider and deceided to embrace him and call him petey, He's actually now in our family photo, We feed him Crumbs, Did i mention that we eat with rats? But were always so hungry that the rats don't bother us any. Beside the point, were ready for bed and we hop in our triple king sized bed and start crackin jokes and slowly drift off to sleep only to be awakened by Natty jumpin out of bed, Natty has a tendency of talkin in her sleep so we first ignored it, as if things couldn't get much funnier our ceiling was dripping water!! And on to Nattys Face!! haha We taped it up next to the silly string left from years ago and left it at that. This was all a first for us but i think we are thirsty enough for it :)

Stuck in Gwuanzhou

2008-09-01T23:18:00.000-07:00

So get this, we were stranded in a city. Apparently our train didn't leave until the next day in the afternoon so we were stuck in the city of Gwuanzhou (guan-joe). We were all clueless of what to do since we werent suppose to be there but then a guy from our school showed up to take us around, his name is Collin. Must i remind you that our bags were already being sent to Kunming so none of us had a change of clothes, It was our second day in the same clothes.. After and hour of walking and waiting we settled in to our first hostle. All three of us shared a room, the beds were as stiff as a board! The best was the bathroom simply because it was the sink, toilet ( squater) and shower all in one haha terrible! After getting some chinese money from the ATM we all decided we were hungry for a hamburger and what better then McDonalds.. We have never eaten so much Micky Dee's in our life haha. It was in this huge mall, once done eating us three went exploring. We found this cute little hair place and once the Chinese girls caught sight of us they beckoned us in, sat us down and got to work. They asked where we were from and we said, "America." they just smiled and giggled to each other. We felt so bad watching them stroke our hair and comb through it, like it was part of King Tritons robe, since our hair was so gross and unwashed. They did these cool twists and poofs and then stuck these hair jewels in expecting us to buy them.. nay.. they were like 20 american bucks for a little pin! But we took advantage by taking pictures and making them feel special. We took out the pins and offered them a tip but they are not allowed to be tipped. It's strange. But with our convincing words they finally took the tip we offered. They were so cute!! We left the mall to explore some more and found a park filled with people and dancing so of course we couldn't help but to jump right in! At first we just watched and tried to catch on but there was this lady with a whistle who dragged us in and tried to teach us. It was funny though cause it was like american rap music they were doing like line dancing and fan dancing to haha not more then minutes later of us 3 dancing did we have a huge group of chinese watching us, they would clap for us and wha who when we wha whoed and point and smile. Whenever we stopped dancing and leave the little circle we accidently formed they would follow us saying things like, "Your very good dancers," "What's your names," and such things like that, they would light up like the fourth of July. Then we would jump back in and our crowd would come back, we felt famous!! haha. We danced for proabably an hour. We ran back to the hostle to tell everyone about our great find and as soon as we walked in the door one girl said, "Wow, its really raining hard our there." How embarassing.. Nope, Its pure sweat! haha we were sweating so bad from the humid and dancing we looked like we rolled around in puddles! And to think, two more days in these clothes. We magically feel asleep on the wooden boxes claimed as our beds and woke up to journey back to the train station.

The journey to mainland China part one

2008-08-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

Saying goodbye to our family was surely a tough thing but if we would have only known what kind of a crazy adventure would be awaiting us, we probably would have stuffed our pockets full of American treats. We first flew from Salt lake to San francisco, had a 3 hour lay over then we great excitement we boarded the plane for another welcoming 12 hours. What a joke! Right as we got on the plane it was1:00 in the morning, we all took sleeping pills and felt confident that we would be asleep the full 12 hours. As Natty and Brittany awoke to go to the restroom we were confident that we had maybe an hour left. As Brittany asked the flight attendant how much longer we had? She smiled back and said " oh we have only been flying for 4 hours." I think we were in shock for another 2 hours so techinally we only had 6 hours left. The Chinese flight attendant then came around and leaned down and asked brittany if she would like some "noodles" ha Brittany then looked to Natty and said" what are noodos?" with a frantic look on her face. Yes the lady was speaking English, thats when we knew this was going to be a hysterical trip. They then served us squid and some kind of weird vegetable that we were not sure what it was. Lexxy said it best when she said, " ladies i dont think we are not in Utah anymore." We then flew from Tapei, Taiwan to Hong Kong. Right off the plane we were welcomed into Hong Kong by a typhoon. We were told it was the biggest typhoon they had had in 5 years with winds as strong as 160 mph. The first day we were there we were not allowed to go outside due to the typhoon and most places were closed anyways, this did not dampen our spirits even though it was raining really hard the typhoon was not suppose to hit for hours so we went out exploring. We were happy to find there was a mcdonalds and starbucks which we love and a lot of american places and english everywhere, we definitely took advantage of that. We then spent the next 2 days in Hong Kong. There was a couple of interesting things that we noticed right off the bat.. a LOT of people smoke in China, the Humidity was very strong you always felt wet, A good share of people spoke a little bit of English, How much we really did love american food, and how the Chinese love to stare at americans. While we were there we got to see a lot of cool things.. such as jewlry factory, stanely market, jackie Chans house but we found that our favorite was the Hong Kong temple. It was so cool to see that the church is all over the world and that no matter where you go.. the spirit was so strong. We were able to meet the temple President, and one of his counselors. They were so excited that we were there to baptisms for the dead, there also was some natives there that helped with the confirmations.. what a powerful experience it was to be serving the people of Hong Kong, this was our first experience of really falling in love with the Chinese people. While Nat and Brit were doin there thing Lexxy went exploring the streets all by her lonesome, Just standing in the middle of the side walk there were chinese people hitting her from every angle of her body cause it was so crowded, she stood there just soaking it in. While she was sloshing away in her boots a man (not sure if chinese or japanese or what) asked her for a picture, yes he was about 3 feet shorter but thats neither here nor there. she found the ladies market and couldnt wait to show Brittany and Natty! After running home to find them changing, we practically ran to this market or (ahem) womans treasures :) From Juicy purses to beckham pants for less then 20 bucks!! Glasses and Jewels, Dresses and shoes! Funny thing though we didnt buy any of it except Natty who bought an Ed hardy hat. We were starving after so we walked to harbour bay city about 2 to 3 miles away to eat some Hard Rock Cafe baby! Delicious! We then walked home and crashed. The things we have seen and already have experienced is incredible. And thats not even on Mainland China.

Finally in Kunming!

2008-08-28T20:33:00.000-07:00

3 Planes, 3 buses, 2 trains, 1 metro, 1 boat ride and six days later we finally made it to Kunming china!! We spent our first three days in Hong Kong, a day and a half stranded in Gwuanzhou (Guan-joe) city waiting for our train and a day and a half on a train. Were an hour out of Kunming, Our town Xhoa Xhoa ( Shout without the T) (shou shou) is exactly what you think of when you think of china, green marsh everywhere, chinese men wearing those pyramid hats workin the fields, dirt roads, run down brick houses, and it rains almost everyday so everything is always damp, from our clothes to our beds. Wish you were here!