Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Zhongshan
Hello family!
It appears we are all settled in to our lovely apartment, almost. Things are going great! Our apartment looks over our Kindergarten, Happy ABC's Kindgergarten. Our apartment is very nice! I love it oh so much! We have two apartments, one that sleeps 5 girls and one that sleeps two. I'm in the two person apartment with our head teacher Amanda. We share a tiny room with lovely bunk beds! I have the top! The mattresses are rather flimsy and consist of a mat. That is all. Although, unknowingly, I picked the bed with an egg crate! Go me! Surprisingly the bed is comfy. Somewhat. Our bathroom is AMAZING! No wester toilet, just a squatter. I'm mastering the squatter and haven't had any accidents with it at all today! Yesterday, our first day, didn't go so well! I flushed our flusher down the toilet. Now we have to use a hose, which also serves as our shower, to flush the squatter. The squatter actually isn't that bad once you get the hang of it. I find it rather fun actually! Our shower is insane. It literally is a hose, with duct tape on the end of it. I love it. The true China experience!
The city is great! It doesn't seem to smell as much as Hong Kong, but it is still HOT! The school pays for us to, essentially, have a friend. Her name is Alice. We would not survive without her. She's so cute and funny. She told me "her duty was to assist me in everything". She's teaching me Chinese! We're working on a dialogue! I can say "bless you" "thank you" and "you're welcome". It's pretty sweet actually! I've also learned to say "I love you" and "you're a handsome boy". I practice those two with every boy I see. Ha ha. I'm working up to say it to the boy who works at the bank. Oh la la. Hopefully he'll be coming back to the states with me. Ha ha ha.
There's a car that keeps honking outside, I always think it's mom with groceries. It sounds identical. It just went off right now. hahaha. Random.
The people here are so awesome. They all stare at us and love to talk to us. I talk to everyone! Either saying hello or telling them they're handsome. We have a guard at our front gate, we had a young one tonight and I tried to give him a high five and he was so scared. He backed away from me not knowing what I was going to do. Finally he gave in and I was happy.
The food here is great! We eat a lot of noodles. I'm in heaven. Our first night here we went to the main school and they fed us spaghetti. I was happy. We went to lunch today, a fancy place, it cost about 2 dollars. I ordered apple juice, but it was a fake out. Carrot juice. I was disappointed. We also had fancy ice cream! I think it was cantelope flavored. Maybe.
Thats another thing! Everything in China is maybe! You ask a question and the answer is ALWAYS maybe. Can we do this today? Maybe yes. Maybe I think. Maybe I don't know. They just always want to please us and never let us down. So the answer is always maybe.
The super market is insane! It's so hard to know what you're getting! The packages all look the same and I don't know whats going on. There's fruit there I've never seen in my life! We had an adventure last night and bought all the fruit we'd never seen before. It was very interesting. It was so beautiful, but none of it was very good. We're sticking to bananas and apples. One fruit was covered in spikes and looked like a porcupine. We cut it up, and it stunk horribly. We ate it, and it tasted worse than it smelt. It had a meat texture and smelt like bad meat. I don't even know what was going on with that. It was terrible.
The streets are so crowded! So many cars! Even more scooters and motorcycles! Even little babies ride motorcycles! Tiny little babies! They can't be older than 2! And there they are, riding on the back of a motorcycle! It's so scary to cross the street. It's real life leap frog. You cross the street until you can't go anymore, and wait patiently in the middle until it's safe to cross one more lane. It's kinda scary, but I feel like I'm getting the hang of it.
Tonight we danced in the park. Apparently every night they gather together and dance. There are two women who lead on a stage and we follow. There were about a 100 women and we just jumped in with them, front and center. We were awful. But it was so much fun. There are tons of people in the park at night.
The kids here are so cute. I've decided I'm bringing a baby home. They are so adorable! Everyone I see is cuter than the last. I love them all. I really want one. Another girl here, Julia, and I have decided we're bringing one home. We'll see how that works out!
We haven't started teaching yet. We really don't do anything. We're going on vacation on Thursday. We're going to Xi'an to see the terracota soldiers. I'm so excited. We start teaching the day after we get back. It should be interesting.
Well guys, I know this is a long email, but there's so much to say! I can't even begin to describe half of everything that goes on! I miss you guys. I love you all. I'm having the hardest time without my kids. Hopefully my new ones help me move on from my old. I'm already in love with every Chinese kid I see on the street! Everyone have a great day! Love you all!
Cam
It appears we are all settled in to our lovely apartment, almost. Things are going great! Our apartment looks over our Kindergarten, Happy ABC's Kindgergarten. Our apartment is very nice! I love it oh so much! We have two apartments, one that sleeps 5 girls and one that sleeps two. I'm in the two person apartment with our head teacher Amanda. We share a tiny room with lovely bunk beds! I have the top! The mattresses are rather flimsy and consist of a mat. That is all. Although, unknowingly, I picked the bed with an egg crate! Go me! Surprisingly the bed is comfy. Somewhat. Our bathroom is AMAZING! No wester toilet, just a squatter. I'm mastering the squatter and haven't had any accidents with it at all today! Yesterday, our first day, didn't go so well! I flushed our flusher down the toilet. Now we have to use a hose, which also serves as our shower, to flush the squatter. The squatter actually isn't that bad once you get the hang of it. I find it rather fun actually! Our shower is insane. It literally is a hose, with duct tape on the end of it. I love it. The true China experience!
The city is great! It doesn't seem to smell as much as Hong Kong, but it is still HOT! The school pays for us to, essentially, have a friend. Her name is Alice. We would not survive without her. She's so cute and funny. She told me "her duty was to assist me in everything". She's teaching me Chinese! We're working on a dialogue! I can say "bless you" "thank you" and "you're welcome". It's pretty sweet actually! I've also learned to say "I love you" and "you're a handsome boy". I practice those two with every boy I see. Ha ha. I'm working up to say it to the boy who works at the bank. Oh la la. Hopefully he'll be coming back to the states with me. Ha ha ha.
There's a car that keeps honking outside, I always think it's mom with groceries. It sounds identical. It just went off right now. hahaha. Random.
The people here are so awesome. They all stare at us and love to talk to us. I talk to everyone! Either saying hello or telling them they're handsome. We have a guard at our front gate, we had a young one tonight and I tried to give him a high five and he was so scared. He backed away from me not knowing what I was going to do. Finally he gave in and I was happy.
The food here is great! We eat a lot of noodles. I'm in heaven. Our first night here we went to the main school and they fed us spaghetti. I was happy. We went to lunch today, a fancy place, it cost about 2 dollars. I ordered apple juice, but it was a fake out. Carrot juice. I was disappointed. We also had fancy ice cream! I think it was cantelope flavored. Maybe.
Thats another thing! Everything in China is maybe! You ask a question and the answer is ALWAYS maybe. Can we do this today? Maybe yes. Maybe I think. Maybe I don't know. They just always want to please us and never let us down. So the answer is always maybe.
The super market is insane! It's so hard to know what you're getting! The packages all look the same and I don't know whats going on. There's fruit there I've never seen in my life! We had an adventure last night and bought all the fruit we'd never seen before. It was very interesting. It was so beautiful, but none of it was very good. We're sticking to bananas and apples. One fruit was covered in spikes and looked like a porcupine. We cut it up, and it stunk horribly. We ate it, and it tasted worse than it smelt. It had a meat texture and smelt like bad meat. I don't even know what was going on with that. It was terrible.
The streets are so crowded! So many cars! Even more scooters and motorcycles! Even little babies ride motorcycles! Tiny little babies! They can't be older than 2! And there they are, riding on the back of a motorcycle! It's so scary to cross the street. It's real life leap frog. You cross the street until you can't go anymore, and wait patiently in the middle until it's safe to cross one more lane. It's kinda scary, but I feel like I'm getting the hang of it.
Tonight we danced in the park. Apparently every night they gather together and dance. There are two women who lead on a stage and we follow. There were about a 100 women and we just jumped in with them, front and center. We were awful. But it was so much fun. There are tons of people in the park at night.
The kids here are so cute. I've decided I'm bringing a baby home. They are so adorable! Everyone I see is cuter than the last. I love them all. I really want one. Another girl here, Julia, and I have decided we're bringing one home. We'll see how that works out!
We haven't started teaching yet. We really don't do anything. We're going on vacation on Thursday. We're going to Xi'an to see the terracota soldiers. I'm so excited. We start teaching the day after we get back. It should be interesting.
Well guys, I know this is a long email, but there's so much to say! I can't even begin to describe half of everything that goes on! I miss you guys. I love you all. I'm having the hardest time without my kids. Hopefully my new ones help me move on from my old. I'm already in love with every Chinese kid I see on the street! Everyone have a great day! Love you all!
Cam
Greetings from China!
Well, Hong Kong, not China.
Supposedly the two are very different. I leave for China today though! A 3 hour ferry ride and I shall be home, hopefully.
Hong Kong is amazing. I've never seen anything like this before. 7 million people on this tiny island. The buildings are huge, the largest one 118 stories. The buildings look old, yet still amazing. Everything is a skyscraper. For being such a large city, it's very green. The city is craddled between the jungles of the mountains. We drove to the top and I swore I was in the jungle. We drove past Jackie Chans house and office, very cool. We rode and saw the worlds largest Buddha. He was amazing. We took a trip down to Stanley Market. It was like shopping at Mexico, but better! We didn't buy anything as we were told it would be cheaper in Zhongshan. At Stanley Market I really wanted to play in the water. I asked an old man if I could go in, he laughed at me. I'm not sure if it was a stupid question or if he didn't understand, regardless, I went in. It was AMAZING! Dirty, yet really cool. I found a seashell and kept that as my souvenior from Hong Kong. Food is interesting. Hawaiian bread has become my favorite. I could eat a whole loaf in one sitting. Other food is questionable. I tried a pork dumpling, that was not very good. Maybe because I hate pork. Who knows. I did fall in love with Korean Style pan fried dumplings. Perhaps I shall live off of those for four months?
The city here is so great. There is so much to see. The people are so friendly and love to talk to you. We rode the metro, it was the most crowded thing ever. I've never seen so many people. I was told China would smell, but I had a hard time believing a whole country could smell. Now I know. Everything smells in China. It's so humid, you sweat a ton. Your clothes feel like they weigh 20 pounds. It's ridiculous. Some of the restaurants smell horrid, I can't fathom eating in them. One soup shop we've passed a million times and everytime I think I'm going to die when we walk past. Other parts smell like top ramen, and burger king always wreaks of ketchup. These are the smells of Hong Kong.
Last night we went on a great adventure. We each had a 100 hong kong dollars to spend, about 15 American dollars. The money can't be converted back to anything else, so we had to spend it or lose it. We walked the streets and bought all the food we could find and share it. Sometimes we'd take a bite and throw it away, other times it was amazing! The ice cream was interesting, more peculiar was the jello ice ball. I'm not even sure what it was, but it was disgusting, We quickly threw him away.
The people here truly are great. You fall in love with them so fast. They just want to talk to you and tell you everything! One man we met yesterday at Stanley told us not to teach the children freedom, only success. They all impart their wisdom onto you and it's really cool how quickly you become friends with them. The old men are adorable, they talk the most. The women seem to keep more to themselves.
Yesterday we were able to go to the Hong Kong temple. I think that was my favorite part of all of Hong Kong. The city is so loud and the temple i just nestled in between the buildings of the city. You enter and the temple and immediately it's quiet. I instantly felt at home there. I felt welcomed and loved and am very grateful I had that opportunity. The temple is so small compared to the Utah ones. Only one shower and about 20 lockers in the baptisimal font. Whereas the Draper temple has about a million lockers and the girls changing room was probably 3 times the whole Hong Kong baptistry. There were 4 Chinese girls there doing baptisms as well, it was really cool to see them reading their church manuals in Chinese. It was awesome to think I had something in common with these girls I was so drastically different from. We had an awkward moment in the bathroom when I told one of the girls her dress was cute, she didn't seem to quite understand what I was saying to her, but her friend quickly explained. Ha ha. All in all, the temple was amazing and a testimony builder!
I'm really excited to move today and get settled in our apartment. Although we will have to move again, and rumor has it our first apartment will only have squatters, no flushing toliets. Wish me luck! I love you guys and miss you all already!
Cam
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)