CHINA: Day 14

Wednesday May 30, 2012

Today was our last day in China.  That thought kept hitting me throughout the day and I definitely didn’t love it.  I can’t believe we have already been here for two weeks.  Time has really flown and at the same time it feels like forever ago since we were in America.  I definitely have mixed emotions about leaving.

This morning it was pouring rain for the first time since we got here.  Rain in China means that there are a lot less people on the sidewalks and a TON more people in the subways.  I thought the subways were crowded before, but that was nothing compared to today.  When our subway pulled up, I thought, “there’s no way we are getting on there!”  It was sooo crowded!  Somehow we all squeezed on, but we were so squished!  Not too pleasant.  I had barely made it on so I was pressed up right against the door, and at the next stop this became a problem.  All of the people squished up behind me wanted to get off, and there were tons of people at the station wanting to get on.  And I was right in the middle of them trying not to get pushed off with the flood of people, and at the same time being pushed on with all of the other people getting on.  At one point I was literally hanging onto one of the bars so that I wouldn’t get pulled out, and my purse got caught on the shirt of a girl walking off.  I was being pulled in two separate directions from hanging onto the subway and being pulled by my purse.  In all honesty, I was a little terrified.  Eventually the doors closed, and I was lucky enough to still be on the subway when they did.  The rest of the ride was absolutely ridiculous with the amounts of people that continued to pour on when there was literally not a centimeter of space anywhere.  By the time we finally got off (which was super tricky in itself) we all felt extremely violated and I vowed to never get on a subway again.  It was so awful!

After our subway ride from Hell, we had a meeting at Martin Hu and Partners Law Firm.  Martin Hu stayed with Rod Smith (SVU’s President until about a year ago) and became very close friends with their family.  He is now a very successful lawyer in Shanghai.  Our meeting with him was pretty informal, but we had a lot of fun talking to him and all of the people that work with him.  We didn’t learn a lot about being a lawyer in China, but I still learned a lot.

After our meeting, we had lunch at a fancy little dumpling restaurant that was pretty good, and then headed back to our shopping place that we went to yesterday.  Our goal there was to return or replace some of the DVDs that we had bought that weren’t the best quality.  That ended up being pretty tricky and frustrating, but somewhat successful.  I was definitely more successful with some of my other shopping. 

From the shopping place, we wandered over to the urban planning museum.  I wasn’t really in a museum mood, but it was a super cool museum.  It was just floor after floor of models and designs and layouts and blueprints of the city of Shanghai and how it was built.  There was one floor with a scaled model of the entire city.  The model was HUGE and took up that entire level.  Shanghai is such a big, modern city.  That was really cool to see.  Then we took taxis back to the clothing district so that the girls who had ordered dresses could get them fitted.  Since I didn’t have a dress, I just wandered around and waited for a while until we were ready to head back to the hotel.

We went to a really nice Chinese restaurant for our last meal here.  We were separated into two separate tables and left to order for ourselves.  Our table (the one without Joe and Sharlet) chose to start our dinner off with these huge cups full of the most delicious ice cream and a couple of plates of fruit salad over shaved frozen coconut milk and drizzled with sweetened condensed milk.  Soooo delicious!! The rest of the meal was really good too and we couldn’t believe how fast we ate all of it.  After we were completely stuffed, we ran across the street to another DVD store that the boys found.  The DVDs were a little more expensive, but they were also much better quality so that was nice.

Once we got back to the hotel, we all had to undertake the task of getting all of our stuff (new and old) back into our suitcases.  Pretty tricky, but we made it work.  Then, at around midnight, a group of us decided that our last night in China couldn’t be spent in the hotel room.  So, we grabbed a couple of taxis and headed out on the town.  We took the taxis back to The Bund and had fun wandering down it with the boys and their lasers and masks that they had bought.  Because it was so late, it wasn’t lit up like it had been when we went before, and it was also really deserted.  It’s always weird to go somewhere in China where there isn’t tons of people.  It was kind of fun though.  We had one group of kids come up and ask to take pictures with us, and one prostitute who tried to get the boys to go have a massage, but other than that it was pretty quiet.  It was definitely the perfect way to end our trip.

Soooo sad to leave this amazing place

After watching a movie (well, some of us slept through a lot of it) we decided that we had to let our last day in China come to an end and finally went to sleep at about 3 am.  

CHINA: The End

Thursday May 31, 2012

Well, it’s over.  You never realize how much you love a place until you have to leave it.  I have gotten so comfortable in China that it really feels weird to leave.  I will spare you the details of all of today’s traveling and just say it was a very long day (or two days?) and I couldn’t have been happier to finally see my mom.  I definitely had mixed emotions about leaving, but here are the things that I was excited to get back to the states for:

1.       Not having to worry about whether the place that we are going will have Western toilets

2.       Being able to breathe in the clean air and see the sky rather than the smog

3.       Good air conditioning

4.       Being able to blow dry, straighten, and curl my hair without being afraid of getting blown up

5.       Being able to walk out of my house and get in a car rather than walking, taking the subway, taking a bus, or taking a taxi

6.       Driving in a place where people obey traffic laws and watch out for other cars

7.       Cheeseburgers, spaghetti, PB&J, bread, cheese, French fries, and pretty much any food besides rice and chicken

8.       Being able to drink water wherever I find it, and not just from bottles

9.       The existence of trash cans, clocks, and drinking fountains in public places

10.   Not feeling like I have to use hand sanitizer every 5 minutes on not only my hands, but everything around me

11.   Being able to understand what everyone is saying and have them understand me

12.   Having access to my full wardrobe (and collection of shoes) again

13.   Getting to sleep in and take naps

14.   Being able to use my cell phone

15. Finally getting to see my family again

So, as true as this list may be, it makes it look like my trip to China was miserable.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I honestly loved every second of it.  I have realized that the American culture is definitely the one that I am most comfortable with, but I loved being able to participate in the Chinese culture for a little while.  More than the culture, I love the people themselves.  When we were at the airport this morning, we were all feeling pretty sad about leaving and Sharlet said, “I just need a Chinese person to come be really rude to me.”  If the people weren’t so sweet, it would have been so much easier to leave them.  Most of the Chinese people live very simple lives, but they are so kind and so enthusiastic and so full of joy.  They are such good people and I am so glad that I took this trip and gained this love for the Chinese people that I honestly have never had before.  I feel terrible about the way many Americans view groups of Chinese tourists because when the tables are turned, we are treated like royalty.  The lesson of not judging people before I know them has been pounded into my head so many times over the last year, and I think these last two weeks were the grand finale of that lesson that I so desperately need to learn.  People are amazing. 

I cannot even tell you how much I have learned over the last two weeks.  The trip was for an International Business class and, while I did learn a lot about that, I learned soooo much more than things related to business.  I learned about a completely different culture than anything I have ever known.  I learned to try new things.  I learned to appreciate the idea, and reality, of the “American Dream.”  I learned to give people the benefit of the doubt and to hear their story before making judgments.  I learned that I am in love with Asian babies and I want one so so bad.  I learned how strong the gospel is and what a huge impact it can have on a life – especially my own.  I learned to be grateful for rather than complain about the government system in America.  I learned to be grateful that I am not an only child and that my kids won’t have to be either.  I learned how to haggle.  I learned how to communicate without using words.  I learned how to be less concerned about having personal space.  I learned to appreciate the little things.  And, most of all, I learned to be grateful for the incredible life that I have and the incredible people that I have in it.

The last two weeks have been amazing and life-changing.  This was definitely a trip that I will never forget.  I absolutely love my China family and how much fun they made this trip. We honestly had the best time together.   I love the country and the people of China, and I would go back in a heartbeat…..and I plan on doing just that!  

So Close!

Man I am a slacker! I wish I could use the excuse of being really busy, but that's not actually true anymore. The last two weeks have been really chill. Two weeks ago we went up to DC to take a break and hang out with Emily. We didn't end up doing a whole lot (hence the "taking a break" part). We mostly ate and watched movies and slept. We wandered around Georgetown on Saturday and I decided that I would be perfectly happy getting a little apartment right in the middle of Georgetown and going  to grad school or working for a little while. It's such a cute town!

Also we went to Georgetown Cupcakes. Totally worth the long wait and $3.00. Delicious!

The rest of the last two weeks have been spent going to class and getting ready for CHINA!! Class has been really relaxed and I have even almost enjoyed it. Dr. Kellogg is super crazy and absolutely hilarious. She mostly doesn't care about this class too much. She really just wants to go to China. We all feel the same way. So far, getting ready for China has included packing, cleaning, learning some Chinese, learning about etiquette in China (Chinese people are so easily offended!), practicing squatting to prepare for the lack of western toilets, getting pedicures (and getting hit on/asked on a date by the 45 year old Vietnamese man giving me a pedicure), sharing music, making friends with the other kids going with us (and determining the ones that are going to drive us absolutely crazy), watching Mulan, freaking out about crazy/nasty Chinese food, figuring out the money situation, shopping, updating my blog, breathing in the clean Virginia air, buying lots of hand sanitizer, and eating all the American food we can get! This is going to be a whole new experience in both good and bad ways. I don't know what to expect. I'm nervous about the masses of people, the smog, the lack of sanitation, not being able to call Mom whenever I need to, the ridiculously long plane ride and, of course, the food. But, for how nervous I am, I am ten times more excited. I can't believe in less than 48 hours I will be getting on a plane to China. I still can't believe I am actually going. It's so surreal, and probably still will be even when I am standing there on the other side of the world. I. Cannot. Wait! I better keep working on my packing. I don't know if I will have access to my blog when we get to China, (Communism messes with stuff like this. I know we can't use Facebook or Google) but if I do I will keep you updated. We have lots of crazy fun things planned for when we get there.

P.S. I got my iPhone today. I am in love! It's beautiful. The end.

Paintings that a certified master Chinese brush painter came into class and painted for us. She was AMAZING!

Asain buns and Mulan night. We are so ready!
P.S. please note the unintentional Asian eyes on my part. I am going to fit right it!

Made It!

I'M DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Whew! I didn't know if I was going to make it there for a little bit. It got pretty rough toward the end. But after the longest finals week ever, (6 finals spread across the entire week) I am finally done with this semester. That is such a relief. Besides the stress and the homework, I really have had an awesome semester. An awesome year even. We have had a lot of fun. I have also realized how much I really adore this school. And this ridiculous little town. Even though I will be back in the fall, leaving a place makes you realize how much you love it. SVU is little and old and poor and ghetto, but it has my heart. As does the state of Virginia. After graduation, I definitely won't be running back to the west and never looking back. Even if I only spend a total of 3 years here, I will forever consider Virginia to be a second home to me. It's an incredible place and I am totally hooked. And there's my sentiment about how convinced I am that I made the right choice in schools. I'm a great decision maker! In other news.......
-I now have two weeks to hang around (and go to class) before I leave for CHINA!! I hate that everyone is going home right now. It makes me super jealous. But these next two weeks are going to be fun and then I will be in China. So probably I can handle that.
-I am mostly terrified and a teeny bit excited to go to China. I am going to die.
-Imari, Kenzy, and I are headed to DC tomorrow morning to take a break and celebrate our making it through the semester! I'm so excited! Plus I get to see Em, which is also fairly exciting. And we are eating at Cafe Rio. Finally!
-It's firefly time! I am excited to be here for two weeks because the fireflies are starting to come out and I will hopefully be able to see (and catch) some before I leave this time. Whooo!
-Baseball season started!! I can't tell you how much I love that. I get a little more invested in it every year and I am just so excited for this season. We got off to a rough start, but they know how to make comebacks. Kenzy and I somehow always end up coordinating when we are going to rep our respective teams. It's an interesting thing being mortal enemies with your best friend. But kind of fun (in an annoying, never let you forget about your teams struggles, sort of way). The better news is that Imari decided she was a full-fledged Red Sox fan in a matter of seconds. Once we got past teaching her how many outs are in an inning, how many innings are in a game, and what it means when someone runs to first base without hitting the ball, she became a really great member of Red Sox Nation. Hahahaha!
-I have a lot of stuff. It's amazing the amount of things your accumulate over the course of a year without even realizing it. It's causing me some stress now.
-Speaking of stressed, I can't get over feeling like I have a billion things to do. I really have nothing to do right now, but I keep thinking that I need to hurry and get off my computer and get some stuff done. I decided that after the chronic stress that I have been feeling non-stop for so long, not having anything to do is going to take some getting used to. It's definitely a good thing to adjust to though.
-Buena Vista is now home to the only Young Single Adults stake outside of Utah and Idaho! Last week (or 2 weeks ago?) they took our 5 University Wards out of the Lexington stake and made us into our own stake.  They also added a new SVU ward and a ward from Roanoke. This is a big deal. I don't know....that's what they told us. It was cool though. Now my econ teacher is also my Stake President. Welcome to SVU.
Okay, I'm bored of blogging now. It's been fun. Peace.

I'm Back!!

So, it's kind of been a while. I didn't realize how long until I just got on here and saw that I hadn't posted since Spring Break. Oops. But here's the thing: life is crazy. I don't know what happened to this semester, but it disappeared super quick. Now, usually it's a happy thing when you feel like you blinked and suddenly you only have a few weeks left until summer. Unfortunately, I am having a hard time being super excited about that right now. With the end of this semester comes the due dates for things I should have been working on all semester, but didn't because I felt like I had all the time in the world. That time is gone now. And I am stressing. While I realize this isn't an unusual situation for your average college student to be in, I am usually better at staying on top of things. And even if everyone else feels the same way, it still doesn't help me to stop freaking out. Besides freaking out about school, the week after Spring Break was campaign week. That was ridiculous. I hate campaigning. I'm not a politician. But I love being in Student Government. I don't really want to give all the details because it's possible that I am a little bitter about how the elections ended up and the many problems and inconsistencies going on in SVU's Student Government program. It's not the ideal system. So, to summarize, I did not get elected VP of Campus Programming and I may be done with Student Government at this University completely.

The last few weeks have been kind of weird and filled with ups and downs. I kind of feel like I am just skipping along and then I trip and fall but, as I am falling, someone puts a pillow on the ground to break my fall, but as I land on the pillow, someone else comes along and kicks me in the shin, and then someone gives me an ice cream cone, and then someone spits in it, and then someone helps me up and it starts all over again. Okay, weird analogy I know. It's fine.  Mostly this has all summed together to create a whole lot more emotions than I really need on top of school right now. On the bright side, all of this plus the weather being summer-like has done great things for my running. That is going quite well.

This weekend was really good. I chose to ignore the fact that I have research paper due on Wednesday, (which I will regret very soon) and just enjoy my weekend. Friday night was game night with Elder and Sister Crowther. Love love love that! Last night we went out to dinner, played mattress sliding down the stairs, watched A Cinderella Story, and had a cute little spend-the-night. The rest of the last two days have been spent lazing about and watching General Conference with Imari, Kenzy, and Trichell. Conference was sooo good and I really love those girls (and sitting around in my pajamas all day). It was nice to have a super lazy and spiritual weekend to get me prepped for these next few weeks. They will be pretty intense.

So, I realize that this is probably not a really great way to make up for my serious slacking that I have done on this blog thing, but three weeks is a little overwhelming to recap in one blog post. So we are just doing a really vague/brief one. Hopefully I don't get in too much trouble for that. I will try to be better from now on. Note that I said "try." It might not get too much better until after finals week.

I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane

So as I am sitting here killing time on my four hour layover in San Francisco, I have been Facebook stalking everyone's Spring Break pictures. People do crazy fun stuff for spring break.....and take LOTS of pictures. For my spring break I didn't go to a foreign country, or a big city, or to crazy spring break parties in Florida. I went home. To Burley, Idaho; where it often smells like cows, driving 15 mph on the highway isn't uncommon due to tractors moseying down the road, and the icy winter wind is enough to make a person never want to step outside again. It's also where my family lives and where I will always call home. I knew from the start that when I got home it wasn't going to be a crazy week full of excitement, but that wasn't what I needed. I can't think of a better way to spend a week than in my favorite town with my favorite people. I was mostly my mom's shadow all week. I loved being her tag-along while she ran her errands and did her thing all week. I actually enjoy grocery shopping when I get to go with her. Going home kind of makes me feel like I have stepped back into my childhood. I absolutely love getting to take a break from being a responsible adult for a little while and let someone else handle that. I really am just a kid pretending to be an adult most of the time. When I'm home I get to stop pretending for a minute. My week wasn't anything new and thrilling, but it was absolutely perfect. It mostly consisted of: sleeping in, running every morning, errands with Mom, dinner with Dad, a dentist appointment, getting one last immunization (complete with bugs bunny band aid), baking delicious 7-layer bars, making homemade pizza for dinner, registering to vote, being jealous of Lexi's fun extracurricular activities that I miss doing so much (BPA, Tennis, Clogging, etc), frozen yogurt with Mom and Mitch, visiting with my grandparents, taco salad burritos with Dad, trying to make my puppy my running buddy (he's not so good at it yet), enduring a lot of country music, movie watching, hot tub with Dad, un poco shopping, and a whole lot of just hanging out doing nothing. I'm a pretty happy kid. I'm not excited to get back to real life, but luckily I kind of love my SVU life right now. I'm excited for the lovely Virginia weather and to see my wonderful friends again. It's going to be a long day getting home, but it was so worth it to spend this week in the funny little town of Burley, Idaho. 

Practice What You Preach

Oh hey friends. So, remember that video and post about being happy because everything's amazing? Yeah. Apparently someone decided it was time for me to put my money where my mouth is. That not complaining about stuff....airlines especially....is much easier said than done. But I have been doing my best. I have time to kill so I am going to tell you my "horror story," but from my attempted optimistic point of view.

Yesterday, I was supposed to fly out of Roanoke at 5:30 to head home for Spring Break. Dallin offered to drive me the hour to the airport, and brought his new girlfriend so that they could go on a date in Roanoke after they dropped me off (that's a whole other story). They dropped me off at about 4:15 and when I got up to the counter to check in, I saw the dreaded big, red "CANCELLED" next to my flight. Only my flight. I didn't love that, but I actually stayed really calm and composed. I waited in line to talk to the man at the counter and decided I should probably be friendly to him since everyone else was yelling at him. (Wouldn't that just be the worst job?) He apologized and got me on the next possible flight to Boise which would be leaving at 11:15 the next morning. My itinerary changed from one layover in Chicago and getting to Boise at midnight, to a layover in Philadelphia, a layover in Phoenix, and getting to Boise at 11:00 the next day. Ugh. I managed to smile and tell him thank you. Then I had to figure out what to do until 11 the next morning. As awful as getting a flight cancelled was, I actually got really lucky when it came to dealing with it. Kenzy's parents just happened to be flying into Roanoke about the same time that I was supposed to be leaving. Rather than calling Dallin and crashing his date, I ended up just riding with Kenzy's parents back to BV. When we got there Kenzy's dad took us out for pizza and we ended up having a lot of fun. This morning Kenz drove me back to Roanoke which also worked well because her parents were staying in a hotel there and her softball game was cancelled, so she was going to spend the day in Roanoke with them anyway. She's the best. Once I got checked in to my flight, I started stressing because it was delayed half an hour. I only had an hour for my layover in Philadelphia to begin with, so being delayed 30 minutes was definitely no bueno. But it's nice how things work out sometimes. My flight out of Philly ended up getting delayed an hour and a half, which means I not only had time to get to my gate, but also to sit here and write this long blog post. I'm feeling pretty good now. My layover in Phoenix was originally 4 hours, so it's nice that it will be shorter now but not too short that I will have to stress about missing my next flight. In the meantime, I am sitting in the Philadelphia airport eating a free (yes, you read that right...free!!) pretzel from Auntie Anne's. Apparently it's free pretzel day there. That was the best news. Also, I had time to buy a Phillies shirt. I have decided that since my boy Papelbon is playing for the Phillies, I am now a Phillies fan.....after the Sox of course. Now I think it's time to break into the Mini Cadbury Eggs. Yum! If I can survive this next 5 hour flight (aghhhhhhh!!!) things will be looking up. Mostly this little 24 hour setback has made me grateful rather than bitter. Grateful to my mom and Robb (our travel agent) who are always helping me every step of the way when I fly (and getting me window seats). Grateful to all my family waiting at home for me and praying that I get there safely. Grateful to my awesome friends and their family who were ridiculously sympathetic and more than willing to do anything they could to get me home. And grateful to God for those convenient little coincidences that are really more like miracles.

It seems a little silly to tell a story when I'm still in the middle of it, but I'm optimistic that the end of the story will be just what we want it to be. See you soon Idaho!