Monday Opening Ceremony

8/29/2011

Today was our opening ceremony. Me and a few others were under the impression that the Chinese spoken one would be at 9am, and the English one would be at 9:40. So a few of us showed up at 9:40 and were surprised that they had already started. It continued on until about 11. Afterwards, some people from our group asked why we were so late. Apparently the whole thing started at 9. But we didn’t learn anything from the hour and twenty minutes we were there, and they said we didn’t miss anything in the first 40 minutes either.

We had a break until 1:30, so I just chilled out in my room. Then we went to our classrooms to meet our teachers and classmates and go over the class structure. I’m going to have class from 8am until 3:20pm on Monday through Thursday, and then 8am until 9:50am on Friday. I’ll definitely be learning a lot.

After, we went to the bookstore to buy our books. I barely had enough to buy mine. I tried to use the ATM, but it said my bank hadn’t authorized it or something. So I’m stuck with about 20 RMB (about $3) until something gets figured out…

After, I had a few more hours to myself. And then a bunch of us went out with Brother Galer to dinner. We went to the same place we went to on the first day, but got different food. MMMMMmmmm, I found my new favorite food. Yuxiang Rousi, fish flavored shredded pork. It’s soooo good.

Then we walked back to our school, and I’m here for the rest of the night.

It was a pretty relaxed day, after the stress of orientation and books and stuff.

Sunday

8/28/11

Today was our first day of church in Beijing. We met in the lobby at 9am. Half of us walked to the subway while the other half took taxis. I wasn’t aware that the other half was taking taxis, I just left with the group who was walking to the subway. Bad idea. It’s about two or so miles from our college to the closest subway station. We’ve walked it before, but that was in tennis shoes. Making the walk in heels or flats is much slower and much more uncomfortable. It was really awesome to walk through the park, though. Last time we walked through it, there wasn’t really much going on. But I guess Sunday mornings are the times where everything happens. There were big groups dancing or doing taichi, there was even a big choir practicing. It was all so cool, and everything so Chinese.

We got on the subway and rode it a few stops, then had to get off and transfer, and then ride that one another few stops, and then get off and transfer and ride that one another stop. Oh my goodness.

It was funny though, at the last station, waiting for our last subway, a lady came up and asked if we were from BYU-Idaho. We were like “Yeah!! What? Wow, how did you know?!” She said we looked like BYU-I students. We were like “whaaaaat?”

She was the branch president’s wife. That explained everything, haha.

They rode with us the final way. The entire trip took an hour and a half.

By the time we got to our destination, my feet were basically torn to shreds ._.

It was so weird to get into the church building. At first it was just a normal building, except much nicer than any of the other buildings I’ve been in here. But then we rode the elevator up, and we were greeted by a bunch of smiling white people. It was like WOAAHH AMERICA. The rest of church went exactly like it would have gone anywhere else in the world. I guess the church is exactly the same no matter where you are. It was the most organized thing I’ve been to since I got here.

After church, we all met back up as a group. Everyone was deciding they were going to take that whole subway system back again. I was thinking there was absolutely no way I was doing that again, and thankfully one of the other girls spoke up and asked if anyone wanted to take a taxi with her. So Kirsten, me, Kurt, and Theo all took a taxi back. And then I got to chill out in the dorm for an hour before Abby got back.

Then we just kind of sat around for a few more hours. Aside from the long walk this morning, it’s definitely been the most relaxing day so far. But I guess that’s the way Sundays are supposed to be.

At 5:30 we met in the school’s cafeteria area for our opening banquet. Brother Galer ordered us a bunch of really great food. Again, I forced myself to try everything. Not everything was amazing, but nothing was really terrible. I sat by the group I’ve been hanging out with for most of this trip, and they were all surprised when I brought up that I’m usually a really picky eater. Adam was like “Whaaat? But you were downing everything left and right at that night market!”

I’m hoping that living here for four months will cure me of my food phobias. Adam was saying that he was also a really picky eater until he went on his mission, and now he’ll eat anything.

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Great Wall of China

8/27/11

Today we went to the Great Wall of China! Abby and I almost didn’t wake up on time, though. We were supposed to meet at 8am, and we woke up at 7:40. Still no alarm clock, so we’ve been trying to depend on our instincts. We’ll see how far that’ll get us…

Since we got up so late, I didn’t have time to grab any breakfast. We just got right onto the bus and we left for our two hour drive to the wall. Brother Paul and the other staff went with us too.

We got there and walked up a little bit, and bought our tickets for the ski lift up to the wall, and also for the toboggan ride down from it. About half of us took the ski lift while the other half hiked up the mountain side.

The wall was different than I expected. I thought it’d be a smooth surface to walk on, just hills. But it’s steps. Everything is steps. Even the straight-ish parts are steps. And the really steep parts have super tall steps that are killer. We all kind of split up, and I ended up walking with Amber, Jack, Gidianny, and Dana. We walked a lot farther than I would have gone on my own, which I guess is a good thing (though my muscles are now extremely sore). It was really beautiful, though. You could mostly see the sky, at least much better than you could in the city (which is not at all). There were mountains all around and trees, and it was just pretty J

After walking around for about two hours, we headed back to get in line for the toboggan. It was a bit of a wait, but totally worth it. There’s a metal track laid out that stretches all the way down from the wall to the market below. You get on a little plastic car thing and ride the slide down. It was really really fun!

When we were in the market again, I saw a shirt I wanted, and thought I’d have a go at haggling. He was asking for 50 kuai up front, and I was like no way! 是太贵！Even though 50 kuai is really not a horrendous amount for a T-Shirt. I told him I wanted it for 20, and he said 30. I said no, 20. He said 25. I said 20 again, haha. And he agreed. So I got a T-Shirt for about $3!

We all took the bus home, another 2 hour drive. It was 4pm by the time we got back. We were all starving, especially those of us who hadn’t eaten anything all day. Most of the people went off right away to grab food, and I wanted to go with them, but at the same time I wanted to drop my stuff off in my room, and so did Abby. So me, Abby, Gidianny, Emily, Tina, Adam, Bret, and Josh all went to lunch/dinner together. It’s the third restaurant we’ve been to on the trip. So far they’ve all tasted pretty much the same, and they all have basically the same food. But they’re all good, so it’s okay!

After we were done eating, we decided to go to the night market. So we hopped onto a bus and then onto the subway and then walked to the night market. Oh my goodness, the street it was on was so amazing. I felt like I was in New York. The whole wide street was open to walk on, and there were tall buildings and billboards everywhere. And then we got to the place we were looking for… :3

Vendors were lined up for probably half a mile, all selling all sorts of interesting foods. There were squid, crawfish, silk worms, cow testicles, sheep penises, sharks, etc. We tried sea snake, scorpion, stinky tofu, starfish, centipede, and shark.

After, we wandered around the area a little bit longer, and then took the subway and bus back home.

It’s funny, whenever we ride the subway, we always try to do or talk about something random. Yesterday it was about popsicles, today it was about super man. Adam would talk to the people on the subway and ask if they liked superman, and then told them he was superman’s little brother, and just have a conversation along with that.

Also, some of us learned what we now call zhongguo paishou, “the Chinese clap”. Josh taught it to us, and we named it that. Now we do it everywhere as we walk around, and it attracts a lot of attention.

We got home and I got on my computer to update my word-blog and to see if someone was on msn, and he was J. So I got to end my day good.

Placement test and Tiananmen Square

Today (Friday), we woke up around 7am. Me and Abby went outside to get breakfast at another vendor. I bought my own this time because I was really hungry. It was like…a bread fried with an egg, and then they put sauce and lettuce and meat inside. It was super delicious. I’ve found that most Chinese food is good no matter what meal you’re eating. Like, there isn’t really a differentiation between breakfast and other meals.

After breakfast, we had to go head off to take our placement tests. We took the written first. I felt pretty good about it. I didn’t understand a lot of questions, but I answered most of them and think I got them right. But after we were all done with it, the people in the group I met up with were all like “what the heck was that? I didn’t understand any of it!” and everyone agreed and complained about how hard. I just kept my mouth shut…J

After that, me and Abby just hung out in the dorm for a while. I got to talk on msn with some friends, which always brightens my day.

Then we decided to go to Wumart again. Neither of us have an alarm clock, so we tried to look for one, but to no avail. But we did get to stock up on our supply of bottled water.

After that, we chilled for a while in the lobby, waiting to meet the group to go to Tiananmen Square at 2.

Brother Galer and a few of us set out to try and get taxis, but like the other day, no one wanted to stop for us. Brother Galer got really frustrated. He said that’s never happened to him before, they’re always happy to pick him up. Well, eventually we got some taxis, and we set out for Tiananmen.

It was really cool! Of course I had only seen pictures. I wasn’t really sure what to expect about the square itself, but I had seen a ton of pictures of the Forbidden City, and it looked exactly like the pictures. So I took more pictures.

And speaking of pictures! I lost track of the amount of pictures I was asked to be in. The first one was a mom who wanted to take a picture of me with her young daughter. And I can’t remember all of the times after that. But there were a lot ._.

“Excuse meee, can I take picture with you?”

We met up with more people from out group. A big group of staff from BYUI was there as well. I was pleasantly surprised to see Brother Paul (my favorite teacher in the entire world, out of all teachers to ever teach!). I didn’t know he was coming, so I was so excited! He introduced me to his colleagues as “his star student”. Hehehehe :3

We all walked to the middle of the square and brother Galer gave us a lecture about the history of Tiananmen Square.

Well, put that many white people together and you’re bound to attract some attention. I noticed a steady stream of Chinese people coming toward us, until we were completely surrounded on every side. They were all listening to us speak English and taking pictures and videos of us. After brother Galer finished talking, some of them shyly inched forward to ask if they could take pictures with us. After some of it died down, brother Galer wanted to take a picture of us as a group, but right as he was about to take the picture, two Chinese girls ran into the picture and posed with us. Hahahaa, white people so celebrity!

Then we all went to the silk market, a big big place full of vendors. You could find just about anything there. It was the place to barter for the best prices. I was so completely overwhelmed at first. They all get into your face and try to sell you their wares. And they can all speak a little bit of a lot of languages. So every time we walked by a vendor, it was “hey girl, you want to buy a ____?” They always greeted us with “hey girl” or “hey pretty girl” or variations of that. And Lauren started talking to one of the vendors who didn’t know much English, and when he found out we were Americans, he said “Oh! …what’s up girl!”. It was pretty much the only English he knew XD

A few people split off from the group to go back to the dorms, but the rest of us went out to dinner. We went to a little place at the back of some alley. They pushed most of their tables together in order to let us all sit together. We had a lot of the same food that we got at the restaurant the other day, but changed out a few things. We had some kind of fish, not sure what kind, but it was really good. And we had some duck, which I forgot to try. Last time, we got tofu, but I was too scared to try it. This time we got it again, so I figured I had to at least try it. The flavor was good, but the texture was weird.

After dinner, we all stopped at a little shop and got popsicles for 1 kuai (about 15 cents). They were super yummy! I asked one of the girls who didn’t buy a popsicle if she could take a picture of all of us who did. So she took one, and then everyone else liked the idea too and got their cameras out and gave them to her. We were standing there for like 5 minutes, posing with our popsicles.

Getting home after that was an adventure. We let Adam lead the way, because he seemed to know where he was going. We got on the subway and rode that for like 8 or so stops. It’s always fun to ride public transportation with Adam because he always talks to the Chinese people and asks them silly questions. Yesterday he asked everyone how old they were and how many girlfriends they had. Today he asked everyone if they liked popsicles. Adam is fluent in Chinese, so he can get away with asking people things and chatting with the locals. The rest of us just laugh when we

understand some of the things he says and realize how ridiculous they are.

We got off the subway and wandered around for a while, trying to figure out where the bus stop was. Adam asked a few people for directions, but we got kind of confused and turned around. We finally found it though! So we rode the bus, which was just as packed as the subway. And then we walked another few miles back to the dorms.

We got a loootttttttt of walking in today. And I am definitely ready for bed.

Registration

The next day, we woke up and went out to get breakfast on the street. There was a vendor selling these crepe-like things, but super Chinesified. My roommate bought one, and I just had a bite because I wasn’t very hungry. It was pretty good though!

Later, brother Galer took us all out on a little walking tour. We went to the Wumart (basically the Chinese equivalent of Walmart) and checked it out. Later, we went to a little restaurant for lunch. Brother Galer ordered a bunch of stuff and we split it up, and it was sooooo good! There was a dish of green onions cut up and fried in something and it was really good. And we also had something that was pork and some other stuff and some other stuff. I didn’t try everything, but I tried most of it. Yummy!

We had to go through registration at about 1:30. It was suuuuuuuuuper disorganized. They crammed everyone into a little room with 8 stations. Every station had a different purpose, but you had to show basically the same things at every station. Everything was done by hand and took a really long time and they kept losing things, so you had to wait in the lines for a long long time. It was such a relief when it was over about 2 hours later.

But at 5 or 6 or so, brother Galer decided to take us all to a place, I forgot what it’s called. It’s like a big outdoor mall kind of. We were going to take taxis to the subway station, but we couldn’t flag one down. So we all walked a few miles to the station, through a big giant park.

We got our tickets and got on the subway. It was soooo crowded! We had to really pack in, every space was filled.

We rode to another station and then switched subways and rode to another station, then got off at the market place. We walked around and looked at what there was. Then we stopped at various places to get food. I got a super yummy cherry smoothie.

We walked around a little more, and then took taxis back to the school.

I got home and got straight onto skype. Talked for a little bit, and then went to bed at like 9pm. I was still a little jet lagged and had been wanting to sleep pretty much all day.

I am in China!

So, blogger is blocked in China :/

A lot of sites are blocked. More than I expected. And those that aren’t blocked are really funky looking, like something is wrong with the script.

I’m writing all my blogs down in a word document for now. Hopefully I can find a proxy or something, a way to get around it so I can let you guys know what’s going on.

So, Tuesday I left around 4:30. I got to the airport and through security and everything and got to my gate. There, I ran into Abby, Emily, Josh, and Brother Galer. Abby is my roommate. She’s super nice, and the absolute epitome of a Mormon girl.

The flight left around 7:15. My seat was next to an 18 year old Australian boy. It was really interesting to talk to him. He’s been travelling all over the world since he was 4 years old, and it blows his mind how so many Americans never really leave the country.

The flight was about 12 hours long, but it really didn’t seem that long. Probably because I listened to my ipod for the first 4 or so hours, and then was in and out of sleep for the last 8. It was funny, though. The guy next to me kept falling onto me when he fell asleep. Like, he’d doze off and slowly and start falling until most of his weight was on my shoulder. I didn’t want to wake him up or anything, so I just let him sleep there ._.

But it was awkward when I turned to look at him, because his face was like 3 inches from mine, so I tried to keep my face turned away and just listen to my ipod o.o

It was a weird feeling during the flight, because it took forever to get dark. We were basically chasing the sunset, so even though we left when it should’ve been getting dark, it was still bright for several hours.

We touched down in China and went through customs and everything. It was weird to see all the billboards and advertisements in Chinese.

I converted $200 into RMB, which ended up being over 1,000. I still haven’t gotten the conversion down in my head, so every time I pay for something, I think of how expensive it is, but then I remember it’s RMB and not USD, so it’s actually really cheap. Like I bought a bottled water and it was 3rmb and I was like wow so expensive! But then I did the math later and it’s only like 50 cents.

We took a bus from the airport to the school, which brother Galer had lined up for us. I kept falling asleep on it and having dreams that I was at home, so I was really confused every time I woke up and realized I was on a bus in China.

We got to the school and it looked exactly like it did in the pictures. We all went in and checked in and got our rooms. Brother Galer bought us all bottles of water and warned us again to never drink water from the tap, not even after brushing your teeth.

So we split into our rooms. They also look exactly like the pictures I saw before. I took me forever to figure out how to turn the lights on though. You have to put your key card into a slot before you can turn the switches on.

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Leaving Today

Sooo I'm leaving in about an hour to head over to the airport.

I've felt sick for about a month, making me unable to eat just about anything. I figured it was just nerves, because whenever I get really nervous about something, I feel really sick.
Mom insisted that I go to the doctor, so I went and saw him today.
The first thing he asked me when I told him what was going on was "are you pregnant?" I told him no.
When I told him I was feeling really anxious and nervous, he found it hard to believe because I "looked so chill", haha. And after talking more about my nausea and everything, a few minutes later he asked "...you're sure you're not pregnant?" Hahaha. I was like "no, I am absolutely sure I am not pregnant!" XD
After further discussion, he decided that I most likely had something called Gastrointestinal Disease. At least that's what I think he said. It means that when I get stressed out, my stomach starts to overproduce stomach acid. It makes me much more prone to stomach ulcers. No fun :/
So he gave me a prescription for an antacid and an anti-anxiety medication.
Boooo, no more piiiilllsss please.

I was really hoping to say goodbye to some of my friends today. We were planning on meeting for a bit, but I couldn't go because I felt too crappy and also because my doctor appointment was during that time.
I got to say goodbye to Ashley and Jason yesterday, but the people I really wanted to see and say bye to I didn't get to see. :(

And now I'm leaving for the airport soon. I'll try to update as soon as anything happens to me in China :)