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. 

CHINA: Day 10

Saturday May 26, 2012

This morning we all loaded up our stuff and hopped into the vans to head to the train station.  We were all extremely glad that Joe had reserved some vans to get us to the train station rather than making us do that whole luggage on the subway adventure that we had done the day we got here.  I probably would have gotten a taxi for myself if my other option was to do that again.  But, I obviously wasn’t the only one who felt that way. So we took vans.

I was a little nervous for the train station when we got there.  Joe and Sharlet had told us that it was sooo important that we all stay together once we got in here because if we got separated we would never find each other again.  And, of course, we were expecting it to be very crowded (it’s China, it’s always crowded).  So, I was a little stressed that I would get separated in the throngs of people and then I would be stuck in Beijing forever.  It ended up not actually being that bad.  There were a lot of people, but nothing too crazy, and the train station was pretty much one huge, long room so that wasn’t too complicated.  We got there pretty early so we had time to grab a chocolate muffin.  We also had time to learn that the restrooms were squatters and, coincidentally, discovered that we didn’t have to go that bad as soon as we discovered that.  It’s been over a week now and I still haven’t used a squatter. 

The train ride was pretty uneventful.  We slept, watched movies, played Fruit Ninja, and laughed at Dallas’s extremely loud snoring.  It was fun to see the countryside part of China that we really hadn’t gotten a lot of yet.  The farmland and landscape is a lot different than what you would see in the states, but so pretty.  I was also surprised to see that the smog was just as bad out in the middle of nowhere as it was in the city.  There is just so much of it!

When we got to the train station, we offloaded and were met by some nice men from our hotel holding a sign for us.  They took some of our luggage off our hands and led us out into the parking lot where the hotel vans were waiting (again, so much nicer than hauling all of my luggage through the subways and streets of Beijing).  The ride to our hotel was long, but it was fun listening to our hotel man tell us about Shanghai, and to look out the window and see what an incredible city it is.  It’s much different than Beijing, but I can already tell that I like it.  The city is HUGE and modern and has a much cleaner feel to it than Beijing does.  It’s less about the traditional, Chinese culture stuff and more about Chinese business.  I have decided that I like Beijing better to vacation to because you can learn a lot more about the country’s culture there, but if I were to live in China, I would rather live in Shanghai because it feels more Western and upscale.

Our hotel is the Holiday Inn Express which, compared to what we have been staying in, feels like something ten times better than a Holiday Inn.  We are pretty excited about these new accommodations.  We also aren’t in a sketchy alley anymore and the subway station is now about a 3 minute walk from us rather than 20.  I’m okay with that. 

We had about 15 minutes in the hotel to put our stuff down and get excited about how soft the beds are, before we met downstairs to head to the tailor shop.  The subway system in Shanghai is a lot crazier and hard to maneuver than the one in Beijing.  We almost lost Kenz and Avery at our first transfer.  It’s just a crazy system and the millions of people all moving in different directions makes the whole thing really tricky.

The tailor shop looks a lot like the Pearl Market, only all the booths are different little tailor shops rather than the large variety of things at the Pearl Market.  Roger and Paige Bird, Americans with SVU ties who now live and work in Shanghai, met us at the tailor shop to help direct us to the shops that they use and trust.  We got there not long before closing time so we were kind of in a rush.  Between that and the fact that I was being picky and indecisive, I ended up not getting any dresses made.  It just didn’t work out.  Oh well.  Lots of the girls got dresses and the boys all got suits and dress shirts made.  And, of course, it was all super cheap.  Gotta love China.

By the time we got done at the tailor shop, the group was verging on ravenous with how hungry we all were.  We literally hadn’t eaten all day.  Some had grabbed food on the train or on the street around the tailor shop, but some of us had had a muffin at 9 in the morning and literally nothing since then.  It was now about 8 at night.  We have already learned that the boys get hangry (hunger induced anger) very easily.  So of course they had been at that point for a while and it was only getting worse.  I never thought I had that problem, but between being starving and being frustrated about not getting a dress, I was starting to fear for the lives of anyone who said the wrong thing to me at that moment.  We were not a happy group.  We were trying to decide where the best place would be to go eat when the Birds stepped in and offered to feed us at their house.  They are angels.  While we were taking the subway to their house, they took their car and went and got take-out from a pretty decent fast food Chinese restaurant.

We loooove the Birds!!

Their apartment was beautiful and the food was great (and there was tons of it).  The place was pretty quiet there for a little bit while we all just shoved food into our mouths, and our moods slowly improved.  I can’t even tell you how much we love the Birds after tonight.  They are awesome.  I have also decided that I could probably have Paige’s life.  Her husband owns the company Abbott in Shanghai.  They have a gorgeous apartment, a nice car complete with a driver, great benefits through the company that allow them paid for trips to the states, and she spends her time shopping and exploring Shanghai.  If you are going to live outside the country, that is the way to do it.  I’m starting to be more and more open to the idea of living in China (or any other country).  But probably only when I’m married and can have a life like the Birds.

After dinner we chatted for a little while, took some pictures, and then headed back to the hotel.  We were so exhausted by the time we got there.  Thank goodness for our incredibly comfortable beds!