Getting There

Today was better. And so, due to yesterday's post being such a downer, we are going to focus on the positives of today.

-I discovered that during the summer, students with "Y" parking passes can also park in "G" lots. That was super exciting for me.
- I didn't fall asleep in Biology and I did pretty well on the iClicker questions that we had today.
- I e-mailed and got an e-mail back from my sister. I really like and miss that girl.
- I finally went grocery shopping. I definitely spent too much money, but at least I should be good on food for a while now
- I bought some M&Ms
- I talked to a cute black kid (not a BYU student) in the parking lot today who, after accepting the fact that I wasn't going to buy a magazine subscription from him, settled for my phone number and the possibility of a date in the near future. Who knows what will happen there?
- I watched last night's Bachelorette (my guilty pleasure)
- I read my chapter for Abnormal Psych tomorrow and found it to be not too long, not too boring, not too hard to understand, and a lot of stuff that I already know
- I went to tennis class. I have decided that that class is going to be my silver lining of this summer semester. How much better does it get than getting to play tennis for two hours every Monday and Wednesday and getting credit for it? Plus I'm going to learn how to get better! I decided  it's probably a good thing that I am taking beginner because Coach Whipple never really helped me too much. I pretty much taught myself how to play so my technique isn't awesome. It will be good for me to start from scratch and make sure I have the basics down. Also, the people in my class are super nice and I had a good time with them today (plus one of those nice kids also happens to be super attractive!).
- I had a picnic of a Zupa's Ultimate Grilled Cheese sandwich, a Diet Coke, and a chocolate covered strawberry under a tree on the grassy park area right in front of the temple for dinner. I have decided that I am definitely okay with having a temple in the same city as me. I should probably actually go inside it sometime, but for now I go out of my way to drive by it as often as possible (or picnic in front of it).
- The Sox won tonight

Okay, that's it for tonight. Now I am going to go watch some Modern Family and go to bed. Hopefully today was the turn-around and things keep getting better from here. I'll keep you posted.

(P.S. One negative of today: my room is a sauna and my M&Ms are melting!!)

We Are....BYU??

Well, after a two week long break, I have now started my next adventure.  BYU.  I got here on Sunday night and went to my first two classes yesterday: Microbiology and Tennis.  Then today I had my first Abnormal Psychology class.  They weren't too terrible.

Microbiology is Monday through Friday from 9:00-10:30 am.  That kind of feels like a lot of Biology for me, but it means by Biology requirement for SVU will be filled in 6 weeks so I can't complain.  My teacher is a PhD student so he's super young and super chill.  That's kind of nice.  I was worried he would be old and intense and scary.  So far I haven't understood hardly anything that we have read or learned about, (I'm an FCD major not a Science major) but the way the class is set up I don't think it will be too hard to do well in. Plus, as much as I like to get A's, it's not super important for me this summer because when I transfer my credits back to SVU they won't affect my GPA at all; I will just get the credit for taking them.  So that's fun to just need to pass and not necessarily get the best grade possible (thought I promise I will still do my best, Mom...don't stress).

I have my Beginning Tennis class on Mondays and Wednesdays from 5:00-6:50 pm.  Two hours is a long time for a class, but because it's a tennis class I don't think that will be bad at all.  It will just feel like tennis practice in high school.  Anything less than that would probably feel really short.  My tennis class is taught by a girl who is working on her Masters I believe.  So she is also really young and chill.  The majority of the class has played tennis once or twice, so it's going to be very beginning.  When she was telling us how the class would go, I was tempted to switch to Intermediate Tennis instead because I really am looking to get better and not just get an easy PE credit.  However, Beginning is a pass/fail class and Intermediate is graded.  I really don't want to be graded on how well I play tennis. So I will just stay in Beginning and hope that it is still beneficial to me (I kind of decided that I want to play for SVU next year depending on how this class goes....I have a lot of work to do before then).

Abnormal Psychology is Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:00-6:30 pm.  Yes, you read that right.  Two and a half hours of psychology folks!  I have a thirty minute attention span.  This one is going to be a struggle for sure.  My teacher is, once again, a PhD student (Is that a common thing? It seems weird to me.) So, young and chill. Today we did an introduction activity thing and then talked about the syllabus for an hour and fifteen minutes. Then he said, "Okay, let's take a ten minute break and then we will come back and start class."  Start??? I was done 45 minutes ago! That was super discouraging for me.  We ended up getting out at 6:00 because he forgot what time we were supposed to get done.  Then he sent us all an email telling us his mistake and assuring us it wouldn't happen again. Great.  I think it will be an interesting class, but he is going to have to be suuuuper entertaining if he wants me to listen to him talk about Abnormal Psychology for 2 1/2 hours every other day. Ugh. Also, for this class we are required to do 11 hours of service at the Utah State Hospital (apparently "state hospital" equals "mental hospital" who knew?) When he first sent us the email telling us this, I kind of freaked out a little bit. But now I am thinking that it actually might be pretty cool. I really need some hands-on experience in this stuff, and it will be cool to be volunteering with people who have the mental disorders that we are learning about. We will see how that goes.

In other news, BYU is really big and really different than SVU. It's definitely a new experience, but I think it's a good one.  For some reason I was afraid that I would get into my classes here and be totally freaked out because the professor and everyone in the class would be so intellectually above me.  I kind of thought I was going to have a Legally Blonde experience and that my first class would go a lot like Elle Woods' first class at law school went. I'm not really sure why I thought that. I guess because SVU is so little and different from most other universities, that I assumed our classes were easier or less scary than a place like BYU.  At SVU they are always telling us how rigorous our classes are, and how prepared we will be for grad school by the time we leave, and how much smarter SVU kids are then everyone else.  I may have kind of rolled my eyes at that. I believe it a little more now. Not that any of these things are true about me by any means, but I have realized that I have not been getting a baby education from the baby school that I go to. I feel just as comfortable and competent in my BYU classes as I would in my SVU classes.  It's also nice that it's Summer semester and I'm taking kind of random classes because my class sizes aren't too much bigger than they would be at SVU. And that's my analysis of my universities.

It's only been two days, but I think that being here has already started to help me realize that SVU was probably the right choice for me. Maybe just because that's where I feel comfortable now, but even with all the stores and restaurants and people and equipment and facilities that are a hundred times nicer and more abundant here than at SVU, I still feel like I could never pick this place over my baby SVU.  The other thing is that two years ago when I was finally left alone in my dorm room on the other side of the country for the first time, I was totally fine. I was sad to be away from my family and nervous about classes and making friends and stuff, but I never cried and I just transitioned really smoothly and easily.  I haven't had quite the same experience here the last two days.  It's weird to me that I can feel so much more homesick and alone when I am 3 hours from home than I did when I was 36 hours from home.  I don't know what it is but I feel sooo lonely (probably because I am alone) and it's kind of killing me. I really don't have anyone here.  There's a few people in town that I kind of know from high school or through Sam, but no one that I am really close to. I have one roommate, but I'm pretty sure that relationship isn't ever going to evolve into anything more than being roommates.  She just graduated so she has lots of friends here already, and she has her mom. Living in our apartment.  Which I'm 99% sure the landlord doesn't know about and also 99% sure that it's definitely not allowed. They mostly just stay in her room with the door closed except when they come out to cook. They are Chinese (ironic right?) and her mom doesn't speak any English. The whole thing is pretty awkward. They are both really nice, but it's just a weird situation. Also, I'm not sure what she's doing now that she's graduated, and I don't know what her mom is doing, but they definitely don't have a lot going on because they never leave the apartment. It's weird. I should probably ask the landlord about it, but I don't really want to.

So yes, I am kind of struggling with the loneliness thing. I saw this quote on pinterest today that said, "I think it's very healthy to spend time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person." I think this is definitely true. I am a pretty big advocate for alone time. I have always enjoyed having a little time to myself once in a while and I'm not one who needs to be surrounded by a huge group of friends before I can do anything. I'm pretty independent. Everything is more fun with people you love, but I have always thought that I was pretty good at the alone thing too. I may have been wrong.  Maybe I am defined by other people. Or maybe it just depends on the quantity of the time alone. I can do a few hours or even a whole day completely on my own, but to have only opened my mouth a few times in the last 48+ hours because I literally have no one around to talk to; that's tough. And the hard thing is that tomorrow probably won't be much different. I know that's a terrible attitude, but most people aren't going to walk up to a stranger on campus and say, "Hey! I have no friends down here. Do you want to help me out with that?" And I especially am not one to do that. I hate how shy I get when I am around people that I don't know, especially when I don't have anyone that I do know with me. But I just don't really know how I could ever change that. I'm not saying that I am going to spend the entire summer all alone. I will meet some people and hopefully make some new friends. I am just saying that the whole thing is turning out to be harder than I was expecting.

Wow sorry. That was kind of a less-than-uplifting post. That's just where I'm at right now. It feels good to get it out there. Now I am going to go to bed so that I can do a better job of staying awake in Biology than I did today. Hopefully I start getting to know some people down here but, until then, I will just keep holding out for the weekend when I get to see some friends again.

CHINA: Day 1

May 16/17 2012

Good news…..I’m in CHINA!! I’m still trying to wrap my mind around that whole thing. So crazy. It was an intense process getting here yesterday which makes being here even more exciting. All of our travelling went really well and we didn’t run into any problems; it was just a loooong day (or two days).

                At 2:30 in the morning we all squished into the SVU vans and headed up to DC. Then we hung around the DC airport until it was time to get on our 6 hour flight to San Francisco.  6 hours is a long time to sit on a plane friends.  When we got on the plane, I was thrilled to see that while a lot of my group was sitting together, I got a middle seat in between two people that I didn’t know. I don’t love middle seats too much. Especially when I don’t know either of the people I am sitting next to. I was less than excited. Luckily, Casey, a guy in our group, was in the middle seat a couple of rows back in between Kenzy and Melissa.  He was more than willing to switch seats with me. That was suuuper nice. We were super cramped and cozy the whole flight, but it wasn’t too terrible.

                Once we landed in San Fran, we walked straight to our gate and boarded our next plane…..the one taking us to CHINA!!! Once again I was in the middle seat in the middle of people I didn’t know.  And, once again, Casey switched with me so I could be in the middle of my friends rather than random people.  The plane was a pretty big one, but we were still really cramped.  Ever since signing up for this China trip, I had been dreading the plane ride.  I really hate sitting still for long periods of time….especially on planes.  But, between Kenzy letting me have her aisle seat, my iPhone, going to the bathroom a bunch of times (because I needed to stand up more than because I needed to go to the bathroom) and some Benadryl that knocked me out, I survived to hear those words over the intercom, “We are now beginning our initial descent into Beijing…..” 

                If we are being perfectly honest, I had a hard time being super excited and enthusiastic about being in China the moment we stepped off the plane.  Obviously I was soo excited and so happy to be off that plane, but I was a little tired and grumpy. It took us a while, but we finally made it through the airport and got on the little subway thing that took us from the airport to the real subway system.  The subway thing was pretty stressful for me.  I had two suitcases, a giant backpack, and my purse that I had to carry.  I was in flip flops and sweats and it was 90 degrees outside.  There were tons of people and to get up and down from the street to the subways you had to go up and down stairs (not escalators….don’t forget the luggage part).  Once we finally got to our subway stop, and dragged our suitcases up the stairs, we had a pretty good walk along the crowded, narrow sidewalk before we made it to our hostel.  Joe (the guy in charge) was walking super fast and I definitely struggled keeping up while my suitcases kept getting stuck and tipping over.  Let’s just say, by the time we made it to our hostel, it was probably best for no one to talk to me.  I was grumpy. 

                So that wasn’t the ideal way to start out this little adventure, but it gets better from there I promise.  Once I got a cold bottle of water, a shower, and some clean clothes, I felt much better.  Then I started being able to enjoy China.  Our hostel is in the middle of this long, super narrow street….kind of more like an alley if we are being honest.  The street is lined with little shops and restaurants, people’s houses, cars, bikes, fruit stands, and lots and lots of people.  It’s hard to describe and my pictures will do a better job, but at first glance this street is a really scary place.  Our first encounter with it was last night on our way to dinner.  It was dark and super dirty with all kinds of people sitting around cooking or smoking or just staring you down.  Also, people ride bikes and mopeds and sometimes squeeze their cars down this street and, when they do, it’s a really good idea to stay out of the way.  I hadn’t been outside for 5 minutes when I was almost run over by a moped.  They don’t look and they don’t stop, they just honk and hope you get out of the way.  Our little street really is the epitome of sketchy.  But somehow, it doesn’t scare me or make me nervous.  But we will talk more about that later.

                For our first Chinese meal, Joe took us to a more upscale (it’s all relative) restaurant down the street.  They seated us in a private banquet room around a huge round table with a big lazy susan in the middle.  Since none of us knew what we were doing, Joe mostly ordered for us. Usually Chinese meals are done as a group and you just order a bunch of food that everyone shares.  That was a relief to me last night since I didn’t have a clue what was on that menu (even with lots of pictures).  There was definitely a lot of weird stuff though.  We got tons of food brought out and I took a couple of bites of  everything (minus the raw seafood stuff that the boys ordered).  It wasn’t too bad.  Some was pretty good, some was pretty weird.  Joe tried to go pretty normal for the first night, so it will probably get a lot weirder in the next two weeks.

                After dinner we went back to the hostel and sat in the lobby and used the wifi for a while before heading up to our lovely little rooms.  Our beds are hard as rocks, we can’t even think about drinking the water, and the shower drains right onto the bathroom floor and makes a nice big puddle.  It’s a lovely place, but it definitely could be worse.  Luckily, we were completely exhausted so the hard bed thing didn’t phase us at all. 

CHINA: Day 2

May 18, 2012

Wow. What a crazy, amazing, exhausting, wonderful day! We met in the lobby at 9:30 this morning to head to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.  On our way, we stopped at a little street vendor and got some sort of dumplings for breakfast (an interesting thing to have for breakfast, but they were really good).  We also stopped at a cute little fruit stand and the Chinese lady running it made bank off of all the fruit we bought. Then we had a walk and a couple subway rides until we made it to Tiananmen Square.

We LOVED this kid!

Tiananmen Square is literally just a square.  It’s a big open place with a pretty flower garden on one end and then a few monuments on the other side (pictures obviously to come later).  There’s not much to do there, but it’s a major part of Beijing’s history so it was cool to go see.  I can’t tell you all the details about what happened there, but there was some kind of major youth protest that happened there that ended in a brutal massacre.  I need to do more research on it; we just got a quick summary.  Seeing the square and monuments was cool, but the really cool part was the people.  Joe had told us before we got here that we would feel like celebrities in China.  He was right.  When we got to the square we all got together to take a group picture.  As soon as we were all standing there together smiling, there were suddenly cameras taking pictures of us from every direction.  Then there were people asking to get in our picture with us.  We quickly pulled them into our group and put our arms around them, and they were SO excited! The rest of the time we were there, we had people creeping pictures of us or asking to take pictures with us.  It was so funny and so much fun.  The girls decided hanging around Tiananmen Square everyday would be a wonderful way to boost our self esteem.  They just treated us like we were something sooo special. Loved it!

After Tiananmen Square, we walked across the street to the Forbidden City.  The Forbidden City is this HUGE palace that the emperor built in lived in in the 13^th Century BC.  That place is RIDICULOUS!  It’s more of a city than a palace.  It just goes on forever in every direction.  It’s gorgeous too.  Everything is so detailed and…..royal.  It really was incredible and even more so when you think about how long ago it was built.  And it only took them 15 years which seems really short when you look at the size of that thing.  Also, it mostly reminded me of Mulan the whole time we were there.  You know at the end of the movie when the whole country is at the Emperor’s palace celebrating and then Mulan comes in a saves China?  Yeah, the Forbidden City is where that happened.  It looks just like it.  So cool!

After the Forbidden City, we just walked for a really long time.  We kept being promised food right around the corner, but it just didn’t happen for a while.  As we were walking down the sidewalk, we passed lots of people begging.  That was an interesting thing to see.  Lots of them were missing limbs or looked like they had been badly burned or something which was really sad (It also made me think of Slumdog Millionaire when the guy blinds the kids so they will make more money begging. That made me really sad too).  It’s hard walking past people like that, but it just makes me that much more grateful for what a blessed life I have.

We eventually made it to a little restaurant to have some lunch/dinner.  We ordered some kung pao chicken, rice, and salad which ended up being really good.  The best part of that meal was our waitress.  She was this really cute, smiley little girl who spoke no English and was just totally amused by us.  She would just stand off to the side and look at us with this huge grin.  Then she would just crack up when we tried to talk to her with the minimal amounts of Chinese that we know.  She was adorable.

The place that we found dinner was this long street/shopping district.  On one side is a bunch of outlet stores, and on the other are tons of orange tents with people selling all kinds of things….mostly food.  It’s the coolest place.  After dinner we spent a long time wandering around that area.  I am so intrigued by all of the food booths.  I love to walk past them just so I can see what everyone is cooking.  Most of it looks super scary, but it just fascinates me. 

We ended our day with a Chinese acrobat show.  That was so cool! Those people were crazy strong and flexible.  Unfortunately, I realized how ridiculously tired I was when I sat down at that show, and ended up sleeping through most of it.  The parts that I saw were really good though.

When we got back from that, a few of us wandered down our alley a little bit and Kenzy and I found our first Diet Coke.  That was super exciting.  Once again, the alley at night seems like it should be a terrifying place, but I really feel pretty safe.  For the most part, Chinese are just good people plain and simple.

Some sidenotes that I have learned about this culture thus far:

-There are no such things as lines in China: just masses.  People don’t line up to get on the subways or to get into an acrobat show, or anything.  They just push through in a giant mass.

-Because there is no such thing as lines, there is also no rule about people who get there first having priority.  I was waiting for my turn to scan my subway card, and I thought I was next in line to go.  No.  Another guy pushed his way right in front of me without a thought.  It was kind of a weird thing to experience.  The people who are the best at pushing their way through are the ones who get priority, not the ones who got there first.  We experienced that at the acrobat show too.  We were all standing outside a row that we were going to sit in, and waiting our turn to get into the row and sit down.  Then this couple just pushed right past us and sat in the middle of the row we were sitting in.  It’s not really a big deal, but just different than what we are used to in the states.

-Apparently, when the Chinese are getting ready to kill a dog to eat it, the shave the whole thing except the head.  We have a dog that is shaved like that in our alley.  It makes us super sad every time we see him.

-Branden saw a little boy and a little girl just doing their business right in public when we were at Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City today.  Apparently that’s acceptable.  We have seen lots of little kids with pants that are open in the back with their little bums hanging out so they can just go whenever and wherever they need to.

It’s a totally different world over here, but I am loving it! 

CHINA: Day 3

May 19, 2012

Well I started off today by blowing the power in our room.  I attempted to straighten my hair and apparently our outlet didn’t love that too much.  Oops.  I was afraid that that was going to be a bad sign of how the rest of the day would be (like breaking a shoelace), but it definitely wasn’t.  Today was incredible.

We met in the lobby of the hostel at 7 am for our trip to the Migrant School.  We first took the subway to the part of the city where the US Embassy is.  That is definitely a different part of town than where we have been.  It felt really Americanized over there (because that’s where all the Americans who work in the embassy hang out).  We stopped at a building there that became our new favorite place.  The bottom floor was a little grocery store/bakery/deli with all kinds of American foods.  That was so exciting! Kenz and I bought a warm ciabatta bread and some juice.  Best breakfast ever!  The rest of the building had lots of other American restaurants like Papa John’s, Fatburger, and Starbucks.  We loved that.  After only a couple of days, some of us we already pretty done with Chinese food.  So that was fun. 

After our little snack we met with a guy who works at the embassy who was going to take us to the school.  He told us that we would be dividing up into pairs and taking over a classroom of 8-16 year-olds and teaching them English.  None of us were prepared for this so he suggested just playing games and singing songs that would help them practice the little English that they already knew.  The school is one of several started by a Chinese man trying to help the kids outside of town who, without schooling, really have no chance to improve their very poor quality of life.  The schools are technically illegal because the government doesn’t love anything that will give the people of China the chance to better themselves and get out of here or put themselves in a better place than they are right now.  Nice huh? But that doesn’t stop people.  Which I love.  The kids that we were teaching were super dedicated too because it’s all volunteer and to go on a Saturday is something that only the kids who really want to learn do.  It’s easy to forget how blessed we are in America with our school systems.  I would so much rather be forced to go to school than have it be illegal.  This trip is so full of eye-opening experiences.

We had about an hour bus ride to the school out in the countryside.  This was the first time that we had actually been on the roads, since we have just been taking the subway.  Holy scary!  Chinese people are TERRIBLE drivers! We were mostly terrified for our lives the whole ride.  Luckily our bus driver was just as crazy as the rest of them so he could handle it. 

When we made it to the school, the kids were all lined up in perfect lines outside.  The school and grounds outside of it were soooo ghetto and sad looking.  We got into our pairs and our kids led us into our classrooms.  Kenz and I had 8 kids in our little class who started off kind of quiet but warmed up to us pretty quickly.  We didn’t really know what we were doing or how much English the kids knew so we decided to start with introductions.  I couldn’t repeat a single one of those kids’ names or hometowns.  Which I felt bad about.  But they just called me teacher so I guess they couldn’t remember/pronounce my name either.  Our kids were all about 16 and absolutely adorable.  Chinese kids look a lot younger than they are.  We decided to start with playing hangman.  They loved that.  We tried to start easy with just doing colors and words that we thought they would know.  Pretty soon they were doing whole sentences and guessing the answer before even a single letter was guessed.  They were super smart, and I felt super dumb.  It was fun though.   At one point, Kenzy left the room for a second and the little boy on the front row looked at me and said, “Dance!”  It took me a couple tries to figure out what he was saying, but when I did I just cracked up.  I tried to get him to come up and dance with me and then he just cracked up and shook his head.  Pretty soon the whole class was stomping their feet and clapping their hands “We Will Rock You” style….and I was dancing.  Too funny.  After we played a zillion rounds of hangman (they seemed to be enjoying it so we just kept playing), Zach and Avery asked if we wanted to combine our two classes and go outside and play a game.  First we attempted to play Red Rover, but we couldn’t pronounce any of the kids’ names so that made that pretty impossible.  Then we attempted to play baseball but the kids had no idea how to play and with the minimal English that they spoke, it was pretty tricky to teach them.  So, instead, we played run around and do whatever you want.  All the other classes ended up coming out with us and we played ping pong, badminton, hacky sack, basketball, and little sit in a circle hand games.  It was kind of cool how much fun everyone had even though we couldn’t really communicate with each other.  Kenzy and I ended up falling in love with three little girls from our class (mostly because they fell in love with us).  At one point we were all getting together to take a picture and one of the girls threw her arms around my neck and kissed me on the cheek.  It was totally out of nowhere but I just loved it (and it made for a super cute picture)!  After we took the pictures another girl grabbed the camera and held it up to Kenzy and me and said “Beautiful!”  It was so cute! After a couple hours we gave our kids lots of gifts (which weren’t much, but the kids were so grateful for them) and got back on the bus.  It was so much fun and I was pretty sad to leave.

From the school, we took the bus back to Embassy area and got Papa John’s there from our favorite American building.   We were definitley excited about our pizza. Also, there wasn’t actually anywhere that we could eat our pizza inside the building, so we ended up sitting on the curb across the street.  The big group of Americans sitting on the sidewalk eating pizza definitely got some crazy looks from the people walking by.  We get those a lot actually. 

After lunch we went back to the hostel and a group of us did some shopping in the area down the street.  We stopped at one store so that Kenzy and Zach could look at purses (Zach needed one for his wife).  Part of the bargaining process includes walking away when you aren’t getting the price that you want.  The people in this store would have none of that.  They literally grabbed onto Zach’s arms and dragged him back, and they even chased us down the street a little ways.  It was super intense.  But Kenzy got a really cute purse for a pretty good price so I guess it worked.

The best bargaining happened at a bigger store down the road.  Zach and Branden had bought some Nike shoes there yesterday for a really good price so they brought us all back there so we could do the same.  There ended up being nine of us all wanting Nikes for super cheap.  The poor lady helping us was running around like a crazy person trying to get us all the right shoes and colors.  Once we all had the shoes we wanted, the bargaining process began.  Zach and Branden have this down to a science.  They absolutely love bargaining and they are soooo good at it.  So, the rest of us stood back and enjoyed the show.  And it was quite a show.  The lady would tell us a price for all of our shoes and Zach would yell “WHAT??”  Then Branden would suggest a different (much lower) price and the lady would throw her hands in the air and yell “NOOOOO!!!”  It went back and forth like this for a looooong time and, finally, after lots of yelling, laughing, getting down on one knee and fanning the lady, flirting, a moment of real anger, and a whole lot of drama, we all walked away with a pair of $15 Nikes.  I am super happy about that little purchase.  Plus they are super cute! (P.S. they aren’t real Nikes, but nothing here is the real thing.  They make some great fakes though)

After our successful shopping trip, we hopped in the vans and headed to the Kung Fu show.  The show was cool but, once again, as soon as I sat down I realized how tired I was.  I was passed out for the majority of the show.  The best part of the evening was really the van rides to and from the show.  Mostly I just love the kids that are on this trip with me and we were a little crazy tonight.  We cranked the radio and jammed all the way to and from the show.  The van driver didn’t speak any English and he just didn’t know what to do with us.  We had a good time with him.  It was one of those things where you had to be there, but it was so much fun.

To wrap this up, here is your Chinese culture moment of the day: Today we saw a little boy hanging around butt naked in the alley, and no one but the Americans thought a single thing of it.  He was cute though.  We took pictures.

P.S. We have discovered that Fruit Ninja and Ninja Jump are so much more fun in China! I’m so excited to see a real ninja.

I love my girls!

CHINA: Day 4

Sunday May 20, 2012

Today was a pretty chill day (relative to what we have been doing).  Church started at 8:30 and we had a pretty long subway ride to get there so we left the hostel really early.  Taking the subway through the crowded, dirty, and loud city of Beijing is definitely a different start to my Sunday than I am used to.  The Beijing branches meet on the fourth floor of a big office building.  That is also a different Sunday experience.  It was good though.  Like they always say, the church is the same anywhere you go….even in an office building in Beijing, China.  Most of the people in the branch are Americans who are in China for one reason or another.  Lots of them are only there for a couple years and then they move back to the states.  It was a pretty good sized branch, but there is definitely a lot of transition going on there all the time.

After church we met with Joe’s really good friend, Edison.  Joe met Edison when he and his family lived in China.  Edison had just joined the church and Joe was asked to take him under his wing.  It was really fun for us to get to talk to him because he has had such a huge role in the church’s growth in China.  He was the first man in China to be ordained to the priesthood, and has done everything he can to bring his friends and family to the gospel without breaking any of China’s rules against that.  I can’t remember the numbers, but it was amazing to hear how much the church has grown in China in the few years that he has been a member.  He told us that people ask him all the time how long he thinks it will be until the church is in China.  He responds with “It’s already here.”  The faith of the few Chinese members here just amazes me.  Being a member of this church in America is so easy.  Once again, I am pretty blessed.

After talking with Edison, we stopped at the Dairy Queen/Fast Food Chinese Restaurant on the first floor of the office building for lunch.  We had to order by pointing at the pictures on the wall without actually knowing what we were asking for because it was all in Chinese.  That was an adventure, and I’m sure the girl working at the cash register just hated us!  My lunch was pretty gross, but I got a milkshake from DQ and that was delicious.  After lunch we took the subway back to the hostel and hung around there for a couple of hours.

Later, we took a reeeaaaally long subway ride out to a more Americanized area on the outskirts of the city to have dinner at the Jones’ house.  Brit Jones and his wife (I can’t remember her name) are SVU alums who now live in Beijing where he works at the embassy.  They helped us plan out and coordinate a lot of our time in Beijing which has been super nice.  For dinner, Brit’s wife taught us how to make joutsa (I don’t know how to spell that).  They are like little dumplings/pot stickers.  That was pretty fun and pretty delicious.  Then a couple of us ended up sitting in the living room listening to Sharlet (Joe’s wife) tell us stories about when they lived in China and how crazy the Chinese government is.  That was super interesting to learn more about.  It reminds me a lot of 1984.  Scary. 

After the loooooong subway ride back, we crashed for the night.  After Kenzy blew our power.  That’s the second time we have done that.  Oops.

Besides all of the government stuff, here is another Chinese culture fact that I learned today: cars with blinking colored lights hanging from the rearview mirror are the ones with murderers/rapists/psychos driving them.  They like to pretend that they are taxis and then they take you out to the middle of nowhere and kill you.  Super scary, but super nice that they mark themselves as creepers so we can know what we are getting ourselves into.  I will be sure to stay away from those ones. 

CHINA: Day 5

Monday May 21, 2012

Today was the day…..GREAT WALL DAY!! We met at 8:00 this morning to take our long bus ride out to the countryside.  On the way we saw lots of small, poor villages and farming areas which were really different than the big city we have been seeing.  It was beautiful though.

When we got to the town where we were going to see the Great Wall, we stopped at a place called “The Schoolhouse.”  Which was not actually a schoolhouse.  It was mostly a restaurant where the majority of the food was grown and produced right there.  They also had glassblowing demonstrations, and a little glass shop where you could buy the hand-blown glass.  Kind of random, but a really nice place.  When we got to The Schoolhouse, a cute Chinese girl took us down the road to the Barefoot Doctor’s house.  The Barefoot Doctor is kind of like the village’s medicine man (or woman).  She was this tiny old lady who didn’t speak any English, but was very sweet.  She took us into her living room and told us stories about her life and the lives of the people in the village, while the girl from the schoolhouse translated.  I’m not positive, but I think she is kind of in retirement now.   I don’t think they use Barefoot Doctors like they used to, but she still does a little bit.  One really interesting part of our talk with her was that at the very end, Joe asked her about a calendar that she had on her wall.  He asked her about it because it had a picture of Christ on it and China and Christianity just don’t go together.  She told us that she believed in Jesus and that she had for about 3 years.  We didn’t get a lot more details than that.  Afterwards, Sharlet told us that while she was telling us her story, she heard her use the Chinese word for God a couple of times.  The girl translating for us must have decided to leave that part out.  He’s just not someone that is talked about in China.  Really interesting.

After our little chat, we walked back to The Schoolhouse to have lunch.  That was definitely the best food we have had here yet.  It wasn’t really Chinese food which was a nice change.  We had salad, soup, bread, beef, chicken, pork, rice, vegetables, brownies, and cheesecake.  Okay, most of that sounds Chinese, but it wasn’t really cooked that way.  I don’t know how to explain it, but it was delicious.  Plus we got to eat with real silverware for the first time.  That was pretty fun even though my chopstick skills are definitely improving. 

After lunch we took our bus up to the Great Wall area.  The Great Wall runs along the top of a mountain, so you have to hike or take a ski lift thing up to the actual wall.  The place where we parked the bus was crazy crowded with tons and tons of vendors selling just about anything you can think of.  Sharlet told us that they tend to be pretty overpriced there, and are pretty aggressive and hard to get away from once you show interest.  So we were sure not to make eye contact with any of them as we passed. 

A few in the group chose to hike up the mountain to the wall, but most of us took the ski lift.  That was definitely the better plan because we saved our energy to hike on the actual wall, and the view from the lift was incredible!  Stepping onto the Great Wall of China was seriously the most amazing thing.  How many people can say that they have actually walked along something that incredible?  It was so surreal.  As we walked, I kept stopping and staring in awe and thinking to myself “Am I really on the Great Wall of China?”  It was the coolest thing.  It also made it a lot easier to understand what an amazing feat it was for the ancient Chinese to build the wall when I was actually standing on it.  It’s HUGE!  The whole thing is millions of stairs leading up and down from one guard tower to the next, running up and down the tops of the mountain ridges.  Each step is a little, hand-laid stone, put there long before any sort of technology was developed.  The people who built it honestly blow my mind.  It’s amazing. 

We had tons of fun being on the wall.  Climbing up and down those steps was exhausting! There were so many and some were really little and almost flat while others were huge and so steep we almost had to crawl up them.  When we made it to the end of the touristy area, we walked off the beaten path a little ways (aka we walked past the sign that said “don’t walk past here”).  Then the girls waited while the boys walked down a little farther to pee off the Great Wall (that was one of the major goals of the trip).  On our way back, we made a music video of us dancing to “Let’s Get Down to Business” from Mulan and “Call Me Maybe” (another major goal of the trip).  We choreographed the first ten seconds of Mulan and that turned out pretty cool, the rest of the time we looked ridiculous.  We also grabbed some random tourist to video tape it for us and him and all of the other people watching definitely thought we were crazy.  They were right.  Our last goal for the Great Wall was to get kissed on it.  Melissa gave Kenzy and I chocolate kisses that we ate right before we went back down.  Not quite as good as the real thing, but there weren’t too many hot tourists to pick from so we had to take what we could get.

To get down from the wall, we all took the little toboggan/slide thing, which was super fun.  Then we got back on our bus and drove back to the hostel.  When we got there, Kenzy and I weren’t very hungry so we went and got Starbucks strawberries and cream frappuccinos and McDonald’s French fries, while the rest of the group went to a Muslim restaurant down the street.  On our way back from McDonald’s, I bought a super cute purse for $7.  I am really excited about that little guy.  I love shopping in China!

The rest of the night we spent wandering in and out of shops with the boys, and playing cards in the hostel.  We even made a new friend, Jerry, who, with less than perfect English, picked up how to play Scum super quickly.

Sidenote: Chinese apparently love pulpy juice.  Every juice that I have had here so far has had pulp in it.  I don’t mind it, but it’s pretty weird when you get pulpy grape juice.  And that’s my story. 

So Exhausting!

Off the beaten path....we weren't actually supposed to walk on this part of the wall. Oops.

CHINA: Day 6

Tuesday May 22, 2012

We started this morning with the Pearl Market.  The Pearl Market is a giant building with zillions of little stands with vendors selling zillions of things.  The first three floors have things like clothes, scarves, sunglasses, phone covers, headphones, watches, jewelry, bags, shoes, perfume, table cloths, ipads, cameras, and really anything else you can think of.  It’s called the Pearl Market because on the top floor there are lots of jewelry stores who specialize in real pearls. 

When Joe and Sharlet lived here, they made friends with one of the ladies who owned one of these stores name Ru Pei Pei.  In China you can get everything for cheaper, including real pearls.  So, of course, Joe took us up to meet Pei Pei.  Her little store was incredible.  It’s just like a Zales back home only it’s full of pearls rather than diamonds.  I am kind of a sucker for pearls.  They had tons of jewelry ready to buy, or you could pick your own color, shape, and size of pearls and have them custom make jewelry for you.  The girls definitely had a good time in there.  My pearls are hands-down my favorite thing that I have bought.  They are gorgeous!

After Ru Pei Pei, we went downstairs to explore the rest of the Pearl Market.  That place is nuts.  The vendors are super aggressive and everyone is yelling and grabbing at you trying to get you to come buy their stuff.  It was a little scary, a little fun, and a little annoying.  At one point, Kenz and I went down a place with tons of purse stands just to look around, and she ended up being held back with a lady on each arm who wouldn’t let her leave until she bought a purse!  It was a little terrifying, but kind of funny.  I got some super cute fake sparkly Toms for 50 qui, which is about 8 US dollars.  Not too bad.  We all came out of there with some pretty great purchases for very little money so that was pretty exciting.  Most of us have plans to go back again.

After we had all spent way more money than we should have, we met back at the hostel to go to dinner.  Walking to dinner was pretty eventful as we had to cross a huge intersection with traffic coming from all directions.  And no one stops or looks for pedestrians.  We were all fearing for our lives, and Taylor was about an inch away from losing hers.  Pretty scary.  Dinner was less eventful.  More rice, chicken, pork, chicken, and rice.  Also we learned that “No Smoking” signs mean absolutely nothing to the Chinese people.  That was lovely.

After dinner, a group of us decided to take the subway to the Olympic Square where Beijing hosted the summer Olympics in 2008.  That was so cool to see.  We went at night so everything was lit up and really looked amazing.  It was cool too because I definitely remember the 2008 Olympics, and how impressed the world was by China and their amazing ceremonies and facilities.  It was really exciting to see all those sites in person.  We couldn’t go inside any of the buildings, so we just wandered around outside.  It was fun to imagine what the place would have been like 4 years ago with the whole world swarming that small area.  There was a pretty good amount of people there tonight, but it was definitely quiet compared to how it would have been during the Olympics. 

Once again, the Chinese people made this experience even more fun.  We kept stopping to take pictures of each other in front of one building or another and, when we did, we would usually get a couple of Chinese people who stopped and asked to take a picture with us too.  At one point, I was taking a picture of Zach and Avery and as soon as I was done, a lady pulled on my arm and motioned for me to be in a picture with her and her baby.  Immediately after that picture, someone else asked me to be in their picture, and before I had even finished smiling for that one, I was being pulled into another one.  It was hilarious! Later, some sort of old men’s club (I don’t know, they all had matching hats) put their hats on our heads and pulled us into their group picture.  They also liked to take pictures of us when we were taking our own pictures.  When we were in front of The Cube (the swimming place) we found this little cement blocks that we decided to all stand on and take pictures of us doing Olympic poses.  Zach grabbed a random guy to take pictures of us with his ipad but, by the time we were done, there was a HUGE group of people gathered around taking pictures of us.  The same thing happened when we climbed into the big concrete Olympic rings to take a picture (which was a process in itself).  I couldn’t believe how many people were standing there taking pictures of us.  I was sure that most of them were just waiting for us to get down so that they could take their own pictures there but, as soon as we got down, the crowd disappeared.  So funny!  I just really love these people.

We made it back to our subway stop just before the subway closed for the night, and I was so excited to see my hard-as-rock bed.  China is exhausting!

CHINA: Day 7

Wednesday May 23, 2012

This morning was supposed to start with a tour of the British School of Beijing (the only international school in China).  However, because we got back so late last night, we missed the part where we were told what time to meet in the lobby to leave.  There probably were ways to figure this out and meet in the lobby on time but, in all honesty, we were exhausted and not super enthused about touring a school.  Bad, I know.  So, Kenz and I slept in (along with all of the other boys who went to the Olympic Stadium with us last night).  Joe did come and knock on our door right before the group left to see what we were doing, and we apologized for sleeping in.  The group that was actually going to the school ended up being pretty small and it was decided that those of us that weren’t going would go with Sharlet later to meet up with the group at the zoo. 

We wandered around our alley for the morning, and then headed to the zoo with the rest of the group.  The zoo was really big and beautifully landscaped, but not much different than any other zoo.  I soon realized that my new, fake Toms were not the ideal shoe to choose for walking around non-stop all day.  Between my aching and quickly blistering feet and the sweltering heat, I soon realized that the zoo was a lot less thrilling to me than it had been in my childhood.  I was done about ten minutes into it.  However, Branden had never been to a zoo before so we did a speedy tour of the whole thing for him.  I mostly just wanted to see the pandas (we are in China after all). When we finally found the pandas, we were a teeny disappointed.  I don’t know what we were expecting, but the few pandas sitting in corners eating bamboo didn’t really thrill us like we hoped they would.  They were still cute though and I really couldn’t come back from China without seeing a panda, so I guess it was worth it.

After we were completely burnt out on the zoo, we had a couple of hours to kill before we were supposed to meet for dinner.  We were headed back to the subway when we discovered an underground mall.  Shopping pretty much takes priority over everything on this trip, so of course our journey to the subway was put on hold.  We discovered that this mall was a little higher class than the places that we had been shopping and definitely not a very touristy spot.  After wandering around for a while, we decided to grab some lunch.  Kenz and I decided to go to KFC and discovered that it was nothing like an American KFC.  They had some chicken but they had a whole bunch of other weird stuff too.  We decided to keep it safe and just order some French fries; which was a lot more complicated than we had anticipated.  The people spoke no English and the pictures on the menu weren’t very good for pointing at, which is how we usually order when we can’t communicate.  Eventually we got it figured out though.  The boys got some sushi from a different restaurant and we had a good time watching them eat real Chinese wasabi (I didn’t try any, but apparently it’s waaaay hotter than wasabi that you get in America).  That was super entertaining. 

After lunch (and some napping on the tables) we got back on the subway.  When we got back to our subway stop, we decided to just wait for the group there rather than walking all the way to the hostel and back with the group.  While we were waiting for everyone else to get there, the boys starting humming….and then full-on singing, hymns in the subway station.  They were really good too.  We got some pretty funny looks.  Unfortunately, when Joe and Sharlet got there they told the boys that something like that could get us kicked out of the country.  The government takes the “no proselyting” rule pretty seriously and if someone with authority had found out that there were some Mormons singing hymns in the subway station, we could have been in big trouble.  We stopped before that could happen.

For dinner tonight, we went to a night market.  It was a long, narrow street full of food booths with all kinds of crazy foods.  The first thing that I saw when we got there was a whole bunch of scorpions wiggling around on sticks waiting to be cooked.  Soooo creepy!  After seeing them moving around like that, I couldn’t bring myself to eat one.  Some of the boys did though.  I decided that I had to be a little bit adventurous though so I ate snake, squid, and squid eggs!  Yuck!  It makes my stomach turn just thinking about that.  They really weren’t that bad honestly, but I definitely will stick to beef and chicken as my meats of choice. 

After eating, we wandered around the area for a while and explored the shopping that was there.  Branden and Zach helped Kenz and I get some pretty good prices on a couple of things so that was super exciting.  I love watching those kids bargain. 

As much fun as I had today, I was definitely excited to get back to the hostel.  I literally tore my feet apart with my new Toms today.  By the end of the night I was walking so slow and literally limping down the sidewalk.  I felt ridiculous.  Branden even offered to give me a piggy back ride or grab me one of the little bicycle taxis.  Super sweet, but I assured him I could handle it.  It felt so good to take those shoes off by the time we got back, and I don’t know if I will be putting them on again anytime soon.  I did get lots of compliments though.  Like Mom always says, “Beauty is pain.”

CHINA: Day 8

Thursday May 24, 2012

Today was kind of a different day.  This morning we had our briefing with the Embassy (or something).  It was a pretty long subway ride, so Dr. Kellogg decided that she would take a taxi because she doesn’t do too well with walking long distances.  Shannon and I ended up staying with her to take the taxi too because we both have super blistered feet that were not going to love the walk to and from the subway.  Zach stayed to take the subway too because….well….I don’t actually know why. 

The taxi ride was, of course, super scary.  When we finally made it to the building (which was a huge building that took up an entire block) we wandered around for a while trying to find the entrance.  We couldn’t find it anywhere.  So we decided to wait by the subway exit/entrance for the rest of our group to get there.  We waited for a long time and they never showed up.  After a while we decided to go down into the subway station and try waiting at a different exit/entrance (there were 4 different options) and hope that we would find them at a different one.  We waited outside the subway for a while and Zach went in and out of the subway a few times, but we never saw the rest of our group.  Our meeting was supposed to start at 10:00 and after waiting until about 10:25, Dr. Kellogg finally turned to us and said, “Well, who wants to go to the Pearl Market?”  We all laughed and agreed, but I was a little wary of just taking off.  Once you get separated from people in Beijing (with absolutely no way of contacting each other) you’re not going to ever run into them unless you have already planned a time and place to meet.  Before we left this morning, we had made a rough schedule of how we would spend the day (after the briefing, it was pretty much up to us what we did) but our next solid meeting time was at the hostel at 6:00 for dinner.  I knew that if we left now we wouldn’t see the rest of the group until then.  However, Dr. Kellogg told us that even if we could figure out where our meeting was, it would be rude to walk in late, and none of us were super interested in sitting around and waiting for them to get done.  So, we grabbed a taxi.  (P.S. we ended up being at the building across the street from the building that we were supposed to be at. Oops.)

When we got to the Pearl Market, Dr. Kellogg went up to Rui Pei Pei’s to make some jewelry, and Zach, Shannon and I did some more shopping.  Watching Zach bargain with the people at the Pearl Market is seriously one of the funniest things I have ever seen.  He is so good at it! He flirts and argues and smooth talks his way into whatever price he wants.  He always wins in the end but sometimes they aren’t too happy about it.  One lady disliked him so much that she told him his wife was going to find a new husband!  Hahaha! We also love the salesladies shouts of “You crazy!” “You joking!” “Give me serious price!” “Give me no joking price!” every time we tell them how much we want to pay for something.  “You crazy!” has become kind of our China trip catch phrase.  We all say it all the time now.  I don’t think the vendors love when we throw it back at them though.  Once we had bought the things that we wanted to, we went downstairs and had Subway for lunch and then headed back to the hostel to change our clothes (we were in business clothes that we were supposed to wear for our briefing) and take a 20 minute power nap. 

After our little break, the three of us decided to go to the Military Museum.  None of us had a lot of (or any) interest in that, but that’s where some of the group had talked about going this morning so we thought we might run into them there.  But we didn’t.  The museum was either mostly closed or super lame, but the whole thing was outside and there were just a bunch of American planes and tanks.  We took a couple of pictures to show that we had been there and then left about 2 minutes after getting there.  It wasn’t the most thrilling place.  Plus, we had become a lot more interested in something a couple subway stops away: the amusement park.

We had seen the stop for the amusement park on the subway map all week, and we all thought we should probably go there sometime.  So today Zach and Shannon and I decided that, as long as we had nothing better to do, we might as well go check it out.  Our plan was to just go see if it looked fun and check on hours and prices so that we could tell the rest of the group if it was worth going back tomorrow or something.  However, once we got there and found out that it was only 20 qui to get in (like 3 US dollars) we couldn’t resist going in.  From the outside, the place looked pretty legit, but once we got in we realized it wasn’t actually too impressive.  The whole place was pretty old and ghetto looking…..and completely deserted.  It was so weird but there was honestly hardly anyone there!  It was kind of eerie really and we felt like we were in the perfect situation for a horror movie to start any minute.  We soon realized that the 20 qui that we paid to get in only got us into the park, not onto any of the rides.  We decided that as long as we were there we had to ride at least one roller coaster, so we picked the one that looked the most intense and paid 30 qui for a ride pass.  The roller coaster was one where your feet dangle and the safety restraint comes over your head and locks in between your legs.  Zach was the first one to get on and when the guy pulled the thing down over his head and tried to get it too lock, it wouldn’t go.  He started shaking his head and waving his hands and motioning for Zach to get out (this place was obviously not a tourist spot because no one spoke the teeniest bit of English). We were super confused, but Zach got off.  Then the guy motioned for Shannon and me to come get on.  We did and he pulled down and locked our safety bars.  Then he pointed at us and gave a thumbs up and pointed back to Zach and shook his head.  It took us a while to figure out what was going on, but eventually we realized that Chinese roller coasters are made for tiny Chinese people, and Zach couldn’t fit in it.  He’s not a big guy at all, but he is bigger than the toothpick Chinese people (as we all are).  Shannon (who is a tiny little gymnast) and I definitely felt smashed in that roller coaster, but at least we fit.  We felt terrible that Zach couldn’t go on, but the two of us went anyway.  It was actually a pretty fun roller coaster, but not worth paying 30 qui to go again.  Once we got off, we got the roller coaster man to try again to fit Zach on.  It wasn’t going to happen.  We all cracked up for a while about him being too big and went and found a different roller coaster that he could ride.  Too funny.  Note to anyone going to China: if your self esteem is fragile, the amusement park is probably not the place for you to go.

After that adventure, we headed back to the hostel to meet up with everyone for dinner.  While I had had a lot of fun with our random group of 3 today, I definitely felt lost without Kenzy and was excited to meet up with the rest of the group again. We ate dinner at the same restaurant we went to the first night, which was good but nothing too exciting.  When we got back to the hostel, Shannon, Taylor, and I decided to do some laundry before we went to bed.  That was an adventure in itself as the machines aren’t too high quality, but we got it done.

All in all it was a pretty fun day (for my little group anyway) but I think I will be sticking with the majority and not breaking off to take a taxi from now on.

P.S. my blisters felt much better today once I put some bandaids on and got them in my Nikes rather than my new Toms or my dressy business shoes.

CHINA: Day 9

Friday May 25, 2012

This morning started off with us hopping on a bus and heading out to the countryside.  We had about a two hour drive out to this small, poor, village outside of the city.  We were going to a place called “The Special Commune.”  We didn’t actually know what it was until we got there.  When we arrived, we were a little early so we wandered around outside until someone showed up.

We were pretty fascinated by what we saw while we were wandering around.  There was a big, rundown, hotel-like building surrounded by an orchard, a farm, some smaller buildings, and an old playground.  It was all pretty ghetto looking, but kind of cool at the same time.  They also had some dogs there that we were pretty excited about.  One dog looked like some sort of husky-mix and I absolutely fell in love with him.  He was sooooo dirty and tied up and eating disgusting looking food and his fur was patchy and matted and gross.  He didn’t look like he got too much love and attention.  So I gave him some.  He seemed to enjoy that quite a lot.  I really wanted to just take him home with me and take care of him.    He was such a beautiful dog, but by the time I was done petting him, my hands were black.  I was very grateful for my wet wipes right about then.

After about 15 minutes a man named Brian and his wife and baby showed up.  They were the creators/owners of the Special Commune, so they toured us around and told us about what they were doing.  The Special Commune is a home/retreat/activity place for adults with special needs.  In their hotel building they have rooms for people with special needs (and their families if they have them) to stay in.  Besides housing and caring for these people, they also give them responsibilities and keep them busy.  They have a couple of theaters where they put on shows, a café where they have mostly food that they grow themselves, a gift shop where they can work and sell their own creations, and an art gallery where they can display their talents.  I wish I could remember all of the details, but it really was a cool program that they had set up.  The people that come to/work at the special commune don’t have to be residents there, but they have that option if they want it.  The idea is that then people from the community will come and hang out at the special commune and enjoy their shows in the theaters or eat in the café.  The whole thing was still in its beginning stages, but we were quite impressed by the idea that he had going and I think it could really take off.  After our tour, we helped them set up their gift shop/art studio and some of us bought crafts from some of the residents there.  Brian is desperately looking for people to come and help them out with this huge undertaking that they have put on themselves.  It could still use a lot of work and definitely some more people to do that work.  They assured us that if any of us needed a break from school or the states, they would be more than happy to house and feed us if we came and worked for them.  Kind of tempting in all honesty.  Brian gave us the address to their website, but it doesn’t really work.  But here is a blog that I found that explains a little more clearly what I have been trying to say….if you are interested http://vivianesview.wordpress.com/2012/01/18/volunteering-with-intellectually-challenged-youth-in-china/ and here is a link to a site that I found with a bunch of pictures of the Special Commune in full swing http://www.flickr.com/photos/specialcommune/page10/.  I know as a group we became very interested in this program, and I am sure we will be talking about and raising money and awareness for it at SVU this upcoming year.  Such an awesome place!

Special Commune (Sorry it's blurry)

After the Special Commune, we went back to the Pearl Market. (Again?? Yes, again. We love to shop).  It was our last day in Beijing and people had some last minute shopping that they wanted to get done here.  We had some more fun with the crazy Chinese salesladies (Especially watching Branden buying jeans. Probably you had to be there. Too funny.) and all got some great deals on a bunch more stuff we probably didn’t need. 

After shopping, we went back to the hostel, took a little break, and then met back in the lobby.  Joe and Sharlet were going to take us to the tree that David O. Mackay dedicated to sharing the gospel in China.  We rode a couple subway stops to a beautiful park next to the Forbidden City.  The park was huge and full of beautiful landscaping and little Chinese gazebos.  And TONS of trees.  Obviously, this wasn’t Utah, and finding a tree that had been dedicated by a Latter-Day Saint prophet (though he wasn’t a prophet at the time) was not going to be very easy in a country like China.  Sharlet told us that when it happened, it was a very quiet thing with just President Mackay and a couple other elders.  As such, we couldn’t ask anyone where it was because no one would know anything about it.  It also wasn’t going to be marked with a plaque that would have said something pretty close to “This tree was dedicated to the fact that there is a God and he is more powerful than the Chinese government, and someday that will be made apparent to them.”  Okay, it wouldn’t have used those words, but that’s kind of what we are saying here.  So, the only way we could find the tree was from a picture on Sharlet’s phone that she had found on some LDS website.  We found the area of the park that it looked like the picture had been taken in, but there was really no way for us to know the exact tree that had been dedicated.  After we had looked for a while, Sharlet gathered us together and told us that it wasn’t about finding the exact tree.  That wasn’t really the most important thing.  What was important was that we were standing there very close to where that spiritual experience had happened and, even more so, that it had happened at all.  We didn’t have to touch the exact tree that had been dedicated to know that a prophet of God had been there and had said a dedicatory prayer that that country would one day receive the gospel just like the rest of the world.  And while it’s slow and quiet and small right now, it is happening.  Even with all of the restrictions placed on the church in China, it is still growing little by little.  We still have a long ways to go in China, but we are not completely shut out of this country.  Sorry Chinese government, but God is in fact more powerful and will get His way in His time.  (Don’t tell them I said that or I could probably be thrown in jail!!)

For dinner, we got some take-out from Pizza Hut and all gathered into Joe and Sharlet’s room and ate pizza and talked about the amazing week that we had had in Beijing.  Then we packed all of our new purchases and dirty clothes into our suitcases to get ready to head to Shanghai in the morning. 

Beijing was smoggy and smelly and crowded and pretty ghetto in some places, but absolutely amazing.  I have already learned so much about this culture that is so different than ours and I am completely fascinated by it.  I’m excited to move to a different city, but I am going to miss our dirty, but friendly, little alley with its food, shops, and naked little kids running up and down it.